There Are No Socialists
Are There Really Socialists?
Two unconnected developments were announced this past week. President Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, despite the absence of a global embargo or horrific natural disaster — and despite a litany of assertions from 2008 that drilling and increased supply might only have a marginal effect on prices.
Like the sudden Afghan withdrawal announcement, the tapping is largely explained by political worries about reelection, as in increasing oil supplies to lower gas prices by election time — and thus avoiding campaign ads equating Obama’s opposition to drilling with high prices at the 2012 pump.
In a second piece of news, the Europeans seem to be winning far more plane orders than Boeing. One wonders whether that fact is remotely connected with airlines’ collective worries about obtaining orders on time and as specified — as in uncertainty whether Obama’s NLRB ruling that attempted to shut down a nearly $1 billion new aircraft line in South Carolina translates into something like “who knows what those Americans are doing next?”
All this raises some questions. The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted.
Greece is the locus classicus. Why are the Greeks protesting? Against whom? They obtained long ago the promised bloated sector and high taxes that all schemed to avoid. Their alma mater EU is hardly a demonic capitalist-run plutocracy, but a kindred socialist state. Is Greece an oil producer, industrial powerhouse, high-tech innovator — anything that might explain the sort of upscale life, modern infrastructure, legions of Mercedeses, and plush second homes that one began to see in Greece after 1985?
In truth, socialist Greeks are furious that they have impoverished themselves and demand that private money and far harder-working Germans bail them out — but why so, when socialism should not need outside capitalist-generated dollars? Could not the Greeks, Soviet style, set up a Cuban collective, and adjust their lifestyles (there goes Kolonaki culture) to their means, living in an opportunity of result utopia with a huge public sector, more siestas, high but ignored taxes — with a collective good riddance to those awful intrusive German bankers?
Here at home, Obama got his ObamaCare. Why, then, did he grant hundreds of exemptions — many to northern California liberals? Should they instead not have lined up to volunteer to implement such a wonderful, long-needed entitlement?
He said energy would rightly sky-rocket, given his determination to curb fossil fuel production (cf. “bankrupt” coal companies). Why then is Obama concerned that gas hit $4; is not such a high price a welcomed retardant to burning hot fuels? The higher the gas prices, the more that subsidized wind and solar power, and electric cars are attractive, and thus the more we enjoy “sustainable” power. Right? Am I missing something about this desire within our grasp of “living within our means”?
Obama enjoyed big majorities in both houses of Congress; and on the campaign trail he had promised a de facto amnesty under the euphemism of “comprehensive immigration reform.” So why did he not grant such exemptions, and absorb 11, 15, or 20 million new “citizens” from Oaxaca? Is not that the point of amnesty, to welcome in new constituencies who will remember a benefactor at the polls?
We have heard that taxes, more taxes, and more taxes are the cure for the massive deficits, run up by out of control spending. OK, fine. But why then does multimillionaire John Kerry go to great lengths to avoid taxes on his yacht (why a luxury yacht when so many have so little?); why are redistributive overseers like Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, Tom Daschle, Charles Rangel, and Hilda Solis either late or delinquent in paying the federal, state, or local governments what they owe? Were not high taxes on the upper incomes like themselves the point of it all? Should not they pay all they can to ensure that their brethren receive needed entitlements? I thought Bono would lead an international effort of multimillionaire rock stars to relocate to socialist states like Ireland or Greece, so that they might gladly pay 75% of their incomes (which at “some point” they had enough of) to help others closer to home. Why instead is he fleeing to low-tax nations? Did not such socialists have enough money by now without undermining the socialist state?
So Dr. Hanson, are you saying that’s it’s over for our great experiment with constitutional democracy?
Sara Palin and Mitt Romney don’t believe that is the case.
We could be nearing the end. It’s probably not possible for someone living in a society on the verge of collapse to accurately tell whether such a collapse is coming, but when looking back it becomes obvious. I doubt whether many Frenchmen in 1786 had much of an inkling that in a few short years France would undergo a societal collapse, revolution, and 25 years of almost uninterrupted warfare and military dictatorship on a scale not seen since the 30 years war.
Yes I think these sorts of things come in a flash. Greece is a good example. The main difference I see between France in the 18th century and the U.S. today is that the French citizenry had pitchforks and the U.S. citizens have 35% of all the small arms in the world including standing armies. I would guess that most of these small arms are in the hands of people not on entitlement welfare, etc. Should be interesting. In the meantime keep your ammo dry.
Let’s hope we come to our senses and keep the bankruptcy from occurring.
Were it not for the second amendment, the US would have become a formal dictatorship in 2010, or at least, the attempt would have been made. Perhaps the military would have stopped it.
The founders knew what they were about.
The 2nd Amendment was gutted ages ago. “ARMS” mean armaments not hunting rifles. Jefferson’s front yard was full of canons to protect himself from any tyranny the federal government might try to impose, or invading foreign armies. As written, the amendment guarantees you private posession and ownership of armaments like Stealth bombers and 50 megaton ICBMs. The feds only have to worry about taking out a herd of yokels with shotguns because its a PR disaster. One unmanned drone would annihilate the lot of you. But to uphold their paternal image they’ll try come in with tear gas, tasers and bean bag guns instead.
The 2nd amendment was never intended for the worker bees, but for landholding gentlemen of estate. (And pretending that a bank loan makes you a landowner doesn’t count.)
If you think your going to stand up to uncle sam, you better start digging tunnels in the badlands. You are going to have be able to hide like the taliban if you hope to last more than a day.
I disagree with you and Joe – this country will not go quietly into the night, or even in a flash – because so much of the world’s economy, technology, defense, arts, entertainment, culture, etc., are centered around America. With all due respect to Greece, it could fail and crash overnight, and no one would give it the same attention than if the US were truly on the brink. While I agree we have big problems – the two biggest right now being led by a socialist President, and having too many other leaders in many fields taking up the socialist banner – our exceptionalism and unique spirit will carry us through. I believe this. It’s rough, right now, that’s true – but this country has been through a Revolution, a Civil War, A Depression, several Recessions, and TWO world wars … along with many other conflicts and problems. And we’re still here.
Our revival will come once Obama is gone, and a strong Republican President who models their leadership on Ronald Reagan returns to the White House.
Plenty of welfare recepients are armed as well. Just look at the arms and shootings in the drug infested Ghettos. The ones that are generally not armed are the rich lefties in places like SF and NYC, and they will be the first to go if a revolution comes. One big dofference though. While armed, the welfare types have no disclipline, and will spend most of their time looting, raping, and killing each other as much as they would spend killing their enomies. Armed middle class citizens have the disclipline to organize themselves into a good fighting force.
I think the armed inner city blacks are more outlaws then lefties. They are much closer in personality to the conservatives than they are to the Totalitarians of the left, they just aren’t that smart and have been pretty much marginalized for their entire lives.
If the wackjobs on the left think a bunch of ex-cons and drug dealers are going to fight for them they are crazier than even I thought. The inner city is a mess but the people living in it aren’t so stupid they think the collectivist clowns are in anyway on their side. They just like the goodies the “man” keeps handing out. Who wouldn’t?
None of the members of our neighborhood ‘un-welcoming committee’ have forgotten the excellent training we received from Uncle Sam so long ago. You can accomplish a lot with a three man squad.
Yes I think these sorts of things come in a flash. Greece is a good example. The main difference I see between France in the 18th century and the U.S. today is that the French citizenry had pitchforks and the U.S. citizen has 35% of all the small arms in the world including standing armies. I would guess that most of these small arms are in the hands of people not on entitlement welfare, etc. Should be interesting. In the meantime keep your ammo dry.
Let’s hope we come to our senses and keep the bankruptcy from occurring.
That’s why the parasites in Washington will figure out how to avoid a financial crash.
Because, the parasites in Washington don’t want people in the nation to wake up one morning, and find out, nothing for them has changed. That we can live without Washington.
The financial markets would eventually settle down, the banking system would recover, but the voters would never approve of Washington going back to spending the way they did.
Ergo, the politicans don’t want America to realize we could get by just fine without them, or with them as part time, no perks, no benefits, no pensions or limos, no swanky apartments or offices. No private planes or private lunches on our dimes.
Those that live a posh lifestyle on our backs don’t want you to find out that you can live without them. They don’t want you to find out that your state government should be more important than the federal government.
Rest assured, those that benefit from living on your back will not allow you to find out how worthless they are. Will they try making it painful for you to get rid of them? Of course, but we work through that pain, and wake up and find out we can go forward without them.
The parasite will never let you realize you’re just fine without it.
They’ll find a way avoid the problem, because their existence depends on Americans not finding out how “free” they can be without a parasitical Washington.
Sorry, but are too many people now who approve of the current (and Greater yet)
spending levels.
Oh, I don’t know. This country has been through some pretty tough times: the revolution, the civil war, WWI/WWII, the great depression, viet nam and the social revolution of the 60s, the cold war. In all instances we’ve come through pretty well. For all our systems’ fault, it is designed to be flexible and to bend at the right times. I won’t predict our demise until I actually see it happen.
I agree with your opinion. In addition, the author’s article is pointing to the collapse of the socialist ‘utopia’ not the demise of a Republic like the United States. He is saying that socialist style government cannot sustain itself over time, and that as we see such systems fail in Europe and elsewhere, we should be extra careful not to institute ANY MORE ‘reforms’ here that will lead us further down the entitlement road. My parents made use of welfare and food stamps…ONCE. One year, food stamps and public clinics for vaccinations and basic health tests. After that, their finances stabilized, dad graduated from a master’s program (all paid for by family and a church loan) and we were better off. They did not WANT to take ‘charity’ or government help, they did so because with two small children their money just wouldn’t stretch that far. But they got off welfare as fast as possible and have never needed it again. Those are the values and situations of people who were intended to receive help, TEMPORARY help, to get back on their feet, so they could once again be productive citizens. Modern ‘welfare culture’ is nothing like what was originally intended. Ironically, my brother, 3 years younger than I, doesn’t even remember this one little year of our family life. He enjoys a style of life after working for only 10 years that my dad earned for the family after working his tail off for 30 years. Hmm…wonder which one of them has the more ‘democratic’ mindset?
The problem is there was once a stigma to being on govt assistance. Now, there is no stigma at all. The govt even advertises the food stamp program on radio, telling people they might qualify even if they have a job (sure – that is who is on the program). They have cards that look like credit cards so they aren’t embarrassed by the few judgmental people out there.
It isn’t that safety nets aren’t a good idea. It is that safety nets are now ways of life. That is the problem.
The first step we need to take in order to save our country is to get rid of all the socialists/communists in the federal government, then term limits for congress (less time for corruption and less lying to get reelected), then politely ask the UN to leave our country and tell them no thank you to their one world government and religion (paganism) agenda. That would be a good start. It wouldn’t be so bad to see quite a few in Washington go to jail for their crimes against the citizens of our great country.
Term limits are a disaster. All you have to do is look at California to see that they just made it worse. Legislators pass laws then term out in a few years. They don’t stick around to be accountable for the damage they’ve done.
I’ve said it before in this forum, these communists and socialists you want to get rid of, or some other guy wanted to have a civil war with, those people are your friends and neighbors. They’re your kids’ teacher and the guy at the grocery store. They aren’t going away. The only way to win this fight is to prove our ideas are better than theirs. Really. What’re you going to do? Round up everyone that voted Dem and send them to re-education camps? This is America. We settle these things at the ballot box.
DAVE S – apparently you might have missed that whole Civil War thing we had…. we don’t always settle things at the ballot box… somethings can only be settled by violence.
The populace during the times you are referring to was very different from the populace today. People didn’t expect the government to take care of them, they believed in self reliance. The education system was such that a high school diploma was the equivalent of a bachelor degree today. There were far less illegals in the country vs. today when millions of them demand rights and privileges be given to them, while they mostly refuse to assimilate. Most of all it is a minority of the population today that values and respects freedom, and I fear there are too few able to bring about the changes we need. So I am pessimistic about the future.
“This country has been through some pretty tough times…. In all instances we’ve come through pretty well.”
Not in my opinion. We fight the British in a revolution about taxation without representation and form a new nation. Less than 15 years later the federal government imposes a tax solely on whiskey (and not on any other beverages, alcoholic or not, in violation of the equal taxation clause in our Constitution). Those who opposed the tax were met with federal force.
Our nation supposedly was formed as a federation of sovreign states. Sovreignty includes the right to make or break alliances. However, Lincoln and others decided that not only was secession bad, but that it called for war to force those states back into the USA. During that war, we violated the Constitution some more by suspending habeas corpus and initiating a federal military draft, which is not one of the federal government’s enumerated powers.
We had no business getting involved in the Great War, but we hadn’t had any action since the Spanish-American War (that we caused), and so we drafted some more men to get killed in trenches in Europe.
We experienced the Great Depression that Hoover and Roosevelt made worse with their multiple rounds of stimulus spending. Roosevelt repeatedly violated the Constitution, tried to pack the Supreme Court, and began the welfare state that plagues us today and that may sink us soon.
Roosevelt desperately wished to help the British in WWII, but he couldn’t get Congress or the people behind that idea. Instead, he provoked Japan at every opportunity, knowing that if Japan and the US went to war, Japan’s treaty with Germany would result in Germany declaring war on the US. Once that happened, the vast majority of our war effort went towards Europe despite the fact that the Japanese were the ones who had attacked us and who were capturing American territories, protectorates, and allies in the Pacific. We violated the Constitution again and took the homes of Japanese-American citizens and forced them to live in camps. We did not do the same to German-Americans or Italian-Americans.
The Vietnam conflict showed that we don’t have to declare war to draft men and send them halfway around the world to fight and die. More than fifty thousand died to delay the fall of South Vietnam to the communist North. The only good to come from this war was the realization that a smaller volunteer military works better than a military comprised mostly of conscripts. (Note that we still haven’t given up on the draft. It is only suspended.)
Johnson decided to distract us from racial conflict and anti-war sentiment by creating Great Society Ponzi schemes. The full effects of that will be felt within the next twenty years as we follow the course taken by Greece.
The 1960s featured free love and mind-altering drugs. We decided to address the latter by starting a War on Drugs in the 1970s that has not ended. It has given us the largest prison population (in both raw numbers and percentage of adults imprisoned) of any nation. The War on Drugs also featured further degradation of the Bill of Rights, with the 4th Amendment now almost worthless as your property can be seized without a warrant or without you being charged with a crime.
We follow all that with the massive overresponse to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, the loss of more liberties, the further trashing of the Bill of Rights, the massive expansion of government, and the deliberate infliction of public indignities and sexual molestations that provide no security benefits but show the public that our massive federal government can do almost it wants.
Yep, we’ve weathered our troubles so well that I’m emigrating as soon as possible.
Yeah, America is SOOO bad youre immigrating to somewhere else.
Where, exactly?
Yeah, thought so
A great post Dr. T.
So good, it is my latest linked post at the CtC blog.
Please hurry.
@ Dr.T: Well , you got most of it correct. We went into “big Mistake 2″ to prop up “Uncle Joe”, given that most of FDRs’ cabinet was red. Most of the aid to Russia was via the Bering strait (airwise), such as the pieces we gave them for their nukes. See “Captan Johnsons War’ for further.
You conviently forgot about Korea, (a non-declaired war)that still has no peace treaty.
As to Vietnam; under our responsibilities in SEATO and the Indo-China peace agreement we brokered for France, we were obligated to come to the defense of the South when it was attacked by the North. We weren’t defeated on the battlefeild. South Vietnam and the U.S. were sold out by the Democrat congress and their Communist allies after they hounded Nixon out of office for his involvment with HUAC in the ’50s’.
All that was accomplished by the “Great Society” was that the decendants of slaves traded one ‘master’ for another.
As for your professed desire to emigrate to somewhere else; the sooner the better, and bon voyage! The fewer weak kneed here the better. This is the land of my birth and no one will take it from me and mine as long as I breathe.
If any society is capable of overcoming the self-inflicted disease, it is ours. The pendulum is poised to swing. It isn’t certain that it will, but the situation is not hopeless either.
CGW I was going to refer to you as a dolt, but that would be presumptive and unkind. You are, however, historically ignorant. Joe Lammers added a more modern example of the point Dr. Hanson was making. A sharper point may be needed. What Dr. Hanson provided was prophecy. People often think that prophecy is foretelling the future. It is not really. Prophecy, in this case in particular, the identifying past trends and where those, unaltered, trends culminated. Economists are often wrong. The reason being a sufficient number of individuals saw the wisdom in the warning and changed the trajectory.
History does not repeat itself. Fools repeat the mistakes in history. What will you do?
Robert:
Thanks I guess for refraining from calling me a dolt. Sorry I can’t return the nicety. I have no clue what your response has to do with my comment. Perhaps you should try reading them in reverse order. What does my comment have to do with a knowledge of history or lack thereof? Could it be that you are another of the religious bigots working overtime to do a hatchet job on Romney and that’s really what you’re all about?
Run Sarah, go Mitt.
Thanks – I was afraid I was the only one who had no idea what point Robert was trying to make.
I was a lefty for 26 years. VDH is right, as always, and socialists/lefties do exist but they don’t apply any of their rules to themselves. In that respect, they actually don’t exist per se but are the ultimate hypocrites. Then again, they have no standards (as we understand standards) to be measured against and to be found wanting and thus hypocrites. We reformed lefties know this instinctively.
Socialists and lefties are parasites or vampires. We are hosts or corpses. Take your pick. It’s a question of who revolts first – the parasite/vampire or the host/corpse. And does it make a difference? Who is John Galt?
To Professor Hanson – this is one of your best in a long time. Thank you!
As another former lefty (15-20 years?), I recall finding it difficult to explain why the communist party leaders in the Soviet Union got to shop in special stores. I wonder now if many of that persuasion find it hard to explain the extravagant use of private jets for pleasure trips by those who preach global warming.
Yes it is all but over with the great constitutional democracy experiment (this version). Once global bankruptcy hits, we will go back to autocracy (strongman rule), which will remove the “entitlement” mindset at gun point; then after a while aristocracy, which will steady the ship of state; and then after a couple of generations, somewhere, an experiment in constitutional republic will emerge. That will morph into “constitutional democracy” in the name of “fairness”, and then just democracy offering “entitlements” in the name of “fairness”, before the whole thing goes bankrupt; and then…well, you know.
Sorry to break any hearts, but Romney is just another corporate raider.
Straight out of Harvard School of Business into ‘investment banking’.
Use a leveraged buyout to takeover a well-run company, load it down with more debt, use the money to leverage your way into buying two more.
Raiding via financial trojan horses.
Raiding is what communist professors teach in the Ivy League mafia.
As a former citizen of Utah, I am shocked at how Blue Democrat most BYU grads have become.
As a life long resident of Romney’s “claim to fame” Massachusetts he like all the liberal progressive scum that are “made” here, he has no…NO use for the constitution unless it is to protect himself or a “dear friend”. Make no mistakes about it. Romney is a Progressive Socialist in a RINO’s suit. Don’t believe me ? Look at Romney care and his voting record on guns, if those two things don’t make you puke nothing will.
There ARE true Socialists and Communists. Stalin called them useful idiots. They do not long outlive their usefulness.
And no, Dr. Hansen, it is not about money. It is about power and status. It is possible that these predators might make more outside of politics and government, but gold is mere trash when compared to raw power. To have people bow and scrape and beg for your favor… ah, there is no headier wine! Truly, ’tis the ambrosia of the gods. Why, one is like unto a god oneself.
Thus are even good men seduced by this seeming fount of godhood in government.
I would not call the target of Dr. Hanson’s critique “socialists”, but rather the moderate men or conservative reformers of the middle. I wrote about their ideology here: http://clarespark.com/2009/09/19/populism-progressivism-and-corporatist-liberalism-in-the-nation-1919/. That they are statists, is of course accurate. Or call them corporatist liberals or right-wing social democrats or populists. Soak the rich was ever their war-cry, and it found resonance in the immigrant masses, but surely not among, say, black radicals like Ralph Bunche and his colleagues at Howard U. in the 1930s.
Here is another blog on the corporatist liberals, or those that VDH terms “socialists.” http://clarespark.com/2009/08/09/what-is-a-corporatist-liberal-and-why-should-they-frighten-us/.
I doubt that power or wealth are the goals of Leftists. You have to go back to the French Revo to get the clearest picture. In “Treason of the Heart”, Jones says of Thomas Paine: “For him, liberty was not a desirable end in itself but simply the tool most fitted for pulling down the existing order.” That’s the ultimate goal of every Leftist — to destroy the existing order. That’s it — no utopia, no social justice, no empire of reason. Those are just the distractions and the promises. The goal is destruction of existing society.
Jacobite thinks he can see into the hearts and minds of every liberal who ever existed. That is hubris of a degree that I find unimaginable. I recommend for his delectation Frank E. Manuel’s great book on utopian thought in the West.
Jacobite thinks he can see into the hearts and minds of every liberal who ever existed.
Maybe, but both Jacobite’s, VDH’s, yours, and other renditions and insights are obviously useful as explanatory mechanisms by which to know our enemy and to act and adjust accordingly.
Me, I use especially the infantile component of Narcissism – which works so well that it must be wrong – and the idea that a large per cent of Liberals or “Progressives” act as though they hate and fear life more than death and therefore even become flat-out Deathworshipers.
For me, the cash value of all of these descriptive or explanatory concepts includes the fact that I can throw their contained insights obliquely or directly into the face of my enemy, as well as seed others with their understandings, because I happen to be around a lot of them where I live, even very closely, although their numbers are far less than that of the evil rednecks extant!
We can possibly defeat these various defectives, dead ends, and throwbacks by means of ideas and Constitutional mechanisms before having to actually employ the hammer implied by our inherent individual right to exist free as backed up by the Second Amendment.
But, imo, a proper “Diplomatic” operation of this scope requires the implied threat of force, and of course our willingness to use it if necessary. And it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest to do just that, if it came down to that particular eventuality.
So either Arm Up or forget about it! I need more ammo.
Destruction of existing society looks to me like a pretty powerful trip, especially for those who believe that they were powerless.
Marc…["There ARE true Socialists and Communists...."] then there are plenty of what you referenced as useful idiots….those who simply follow along for any variety of [ignorant] reasons. It is these kinds that VDH has identified and are not a true representative of the fundementalist socialists.
On the other hand, the extreme opposite of the socialists are the anarchists. For the past few decades their rise in America and its politics has been and continues to be on the rise, having repackaged themselves as the Libertarian Party.
One may ask why. The answer is rather simple! When the document and social principals…the adhesive fabric…. of a nation becomes ignored and or destroyed, that nation is ripe for warfare. Wafare between who? The two remaining global adversaries….socialists and anarchists.
That is whats happening systematically in America today. The common American has proven they’re unwilling to use the constitution and fortify it with amaendments to save their nation so, the battle between the socialists and anarchists will prevail to eventually establish some new kind of America.
Do you actually read your own comments? You are a nicely packaged troll in sheep’s clothing
To T.T. Thomas.
I once thought as you did, that anarchists are extremist libertarians, but you are completely wrong. What most people think of as anarchists, the ones who riot, burn down storefronts, throw bombs at officials and businessmen, and want to completely tear down the gov, are in no way connected to the libertarians, but are in fact tools of the left, another brand of what others here call useful idiots. Libertarians do NOT want anarchy, that is a lying accusation of the left, to direct attention away from their own tolerance and encouragement of the real anarchists. Libertarians want ordered gov, but limited gov. Gov should protect our lives, liberty, and property, from criminals, anarchists, socialists, fascists, or foreign invaders who would take it, but otherwise leave us alone to live our lives.
There is an extreme offshoot of libertarianism, called anarcho capitalists, that says they want anarchy, but really want a privatised form of gov, where every person hires their own private police forces, which end up acting as governments. I disagree with them, but even in their case they dont want disorder, and every man for himself, but just a different form of gov.
The real opposite, of socialists and fascists, who both want unlimited gov, and the violent anarchists who pave the way for them, are libertarians, who want ordered, limited, republican gov. Libertarians are currently the closest philosophy to that of our founding fathers, who wanted an ordered effective gov, but also a small one, that would not intrude on the citizens liberties.
richard…thanks for a mature response!
At the core are Libertarian Marxists and Libertarian Anarchists. Just as several factions of socialists have evolved, there are several factions of anarchists that have evolved. It would take some time in discussion to cover all the factions ideological platforms as ‘they’ present them. However, among all the factions be they among the socalled Libertarian Marxist or among the Libertarian Anarchists, there are core common demnominators.
I am of the belief that their evolutions are solely for strategic political convenience of the times and circumstances and that they never technically abandon their core beliefs and objectives. Likewise, the strategic decision to attach themselves into Americas two fundamental parties is openly discussed among some factions and readily available to the general public. So, I maintain my concerns and scrutiny of the socialist in the Dem Party and the ‘Libertarians’ in the GOP, ‘Teaparty’ and Independent Parties.
VDH: We like to bitch about things as they are and wish they were as they were back then. Except, you’re right about malaria and DDT and perhaps other such maladies. However, it isn’t that we don’t understand Obama or that he’s being misunderstood, it’s that he’s progressing along the path that will allow him to reach his goals of control over all.
Your next to the last paragraph before your “Out West Update” almost perfectly encapsulates what Obama and his assistants are trying to achieve, if destroying our culture can be termed an achievement.
So, can we reach that magic date for our November, 2012, elections or is that too late for our America? I know that if the elections are held and Obama is re-elected, our country is a goner.
P.J. O’Rourke memorably observed “Giving money and power to the government is like giving car keys and whisky to teenage boys.” Ain’t that the truth! I love the way the Democrats and the MSM have been whining about Cantor and Co. walking out on the budget talks this week and “The Republican’s refusal to address the income side of the ledger.” Doesn’t every sentient individual within this great republic (such as it is) realize that ginning up income (read taxes) just gives the political class more rope to hang the rest of us? I would gladly support higher taxes if it could be guaranteed that the income so derived would be used to address our massive debt BUT IT WON’T! Any new “stream of income” will wind up in the same place as the stream that is always produced by drinking too much beer.
As Dr. Hanson points out the Kerrys, and Clintons and Obamas and Strauss-Khans (and many Republicans too) are completely insulated from the results of their own decision-making. Usually these decisions involve giving some favored group a large chunk of the public till so that the Kerrys, Clintons etc. can continue to enjoy their insulated lifestyle.
In “Democracy in America” Alexis de Tocquevile wrote “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” He wrote that in 1835. I can only wonder what the farsighted Frenchman would say today.
Great points, Chambers. As the Good Doctor points out, everyone, from Kerry to Bono to Geitner agrees that “I should not be giving my money to the government as long as the government remains in the hands of the enemies of the state.” This is particularly so where said enemies have only have one consistent goal: to use every cent of the money they receive to destroy the money supply. So starving them out is a good rule to live by. The problem is how to do it legally.
He’d say “See, I told you so.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald said “intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
Fitzgerald did not live to see the terminus of his theory. We’ve seen that to hold two opposing ideas at the same time leads to contradiction and indecision.
Relativism leads to anarchy and language becomes Huxley’s hymn book of new-speak.
Kipling understood our present intoxication best in the Gods of the Copybook Headings:
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins..”
Foolish is the man who dares to forget the balance in the scales of Almighty Justice…
oops, Orwell’s new speak. I stand corrected.
Actually that was termed “double think”.
Above and beyond what the good doctor has just outlined, it seems to me that there is a nihilistic, or at least sadistic streak involved as well. People like George Soros don’t seem content to simply grow the entitlement culture and power of the technocracy – they seem hell bent on making vast swaths suffer. It seems like sheer hate drives them to destroy.
Igor Shafarevich and others have written about the profound nihilism that often underlies socialist ideas. The desire to contain and control human activity means the desire to control humans. Why? Because humans are not worthy of autonomy, which implies not worthy of free will. And since free will is the defining attribute of humans, the socialist is ultimatately opposed to human existence. That is really what makes them dangerous. Once they are in a position to freely carry their vision to its conclusions, they start to kill by the thousands, and then the millions.
In George Soros’s case it is kind of a requirement for meglomaniacs to have someone to be stepping on. Afterall what is the fun of being a “god” without those who must obey?
What remains to be seen is if 40 million Scots-Irish Americans are going to get all hostile when the Henry Kissenger,Larrry Summers, George Soros, Bob Rubin, Rick Perry and Bill Clinton crowd from the land of Bilderberg try and pull the ropes taught.
Should be a good news cycle.
Ireland is already feeling the pain. The IMF yelled “bank crash!” and Ireland agreed to a bailout from the IMF, and now the devil has a seat at the table, and Ireland can’t get rid of him.
Ireleand is so small – there’s no reason to have their own banking system. There are enough international banks that could service their area, they could have let the banks fall and would have been out of the woods for the most part.
But they’ve saddled themselves with a monstrous debt, they didn’t need to take, that now gives others the control over their economy.
They let the devil in – and now can’t get rid of him.
…pull the ropes “taut”, not “taught”
Thanks I taut I saw a mistake.
Puddycat
In essence; What fun is a boot without a neck?
That is good. I think the philosophers refer to that as the most “elegant” way of describing it.
I remember waiting and waiting desperately for November 2010 and how far away it seemed and then it came we put saner heads in the house.
Same now. I’m (we’re) impatient, we think November 2012 is far away and hope it will come soon. We should focus on the senators and the president that-we-want-out.
And the senators and president we want in. Imagine a president who says, “Big business? Oil? Let’s roll!”.
Of course, the fellow travelers are legion as well. Look at the eco/green/alternative energy crowd and you see the same things. Look up the salary of a tenured full professor at any major university and you won’t have to ask why you are paying so much to “educate” your children.
We have another potential problem on the horizon: if 0 is reelected in 2012 I wonder if we are not heading for a departure from socialism into fascism? Just a thought.
Fascists control business without actually owning it and they do their share of wealth re-distribution. The Obama crowd may believe in socialism, but in practice they are fascists. To answer your question, we are there already.
I agree with your opinion, we are already there. The fascists are too numerous to mention but GE and Google are good examples. What worries me is that when I mention fascism in the US to friends and neighbors, most of them haven’t a clue what I mean, and these are good and well educated people. They also vote of course.
“Once the individual develops a dependency on food stamps, free medical care, subsidized housing, all sorts of disability or unemployment compensation, education credits, grants, and zero-interest loans .. then expectations for far more always keep rising…”
It is the sense of self-sufficiency that keeps expectations within bounds. When you provide for yourself, you know what is realistic to want. Hence, it is quite rational for the recipients of public largesse to believe that there is always more to be had from those who can be bullied.
Our leaders who flagellate themselves with their private glory – liberal guilt – understand that they are doing enough just drawing attention to our moral failings, past and present. Their lavish lifestyles are needed as restoratives for the exhausting self-recriminations they endure on behalf of the rest of us. Somebody has to fight the devil, after all.
Here’s the dichotomy we face: people (i.e. the voters and their habit of listening selectively) may recognize that the delivery fo the change promised by the candidate isn’t going as well as promised. Some may actually acknowledge that the attitudinal seachange implied in the article may be necessary; however, they do not want to pay for it themselves. And that’s why Obama will get re-elected.
What an awful legacy for him – elected twice by voters who want to ‘punish’ someone else.
Don’t wait for November 2012. Look now at what is going on locally. Is your county government enacting the UN’s Agenda 21 that eviscerates private property rights? Build locally. All politics is local.
Look up Hauser’s Law. When your liberal friends and relatives start talking about taxing the rich, show them that increased taxes do not raise revenue. Since WW2, whatever the marginal tax rate – whether 90% or 30% – federal tax revenue has consistently remained at about 19.5% Check it out.
I think that Dr. Hanson’s thoughts on our devolution are correct, but with one frightening proviso. I think we are headed for a new Great Depression, but with a twist–we cannot mentally, morally or spiritually handle it. Both my parents grew up in the Depression, so I drew its lessons in with my mother’s milk. What stands out is how tough people had it even before the market collapsed. My mother’s family were poor Oklahoma farmers in 1928, so 1929 didn’t make too much difference. They had no shoes to wear except when they went to church, school or when it was too cold to go barefoot. How much worse could the Depression make things?
Today, facing economic ruin, we are a nation without any real understanding of privation. When it comes–and it will–I tremble to think of the results.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
That describes the generation of the Depression and WWII, which my husband’s and my parents lived through, his mother in an ice house on the prairies, which filled up with sand after every dust storm.
They had “true grit”: their faith in God and in what they, themselves, could — and needed — to accomplish in order to survive.
This generation, my baby boomer generation — and the children and grandchildren we’ve had — is impoverished when it comes to faith and self-reliance. The Depression that’s coming is going to be a total shock to the most entitled, spoiled, what’s-in-it-for-me generation the world’s ever seen. We’re headed into a new Dark Ages.
Mankind has never been without its challenges and hardships. Challenges and hardships, however, without the resolve to rely on faith in God and helping each other overcome them, rather than government largesse, which is running out, is an even bigger problem.
In the days immediately after 9/11/2001 many in this nation wondered openly if we as a nation still had the staying power to face, respond to, and fight what seemed certain to be a long difficult war. They wondered if we as a nation could handle the stresses of an ongoing threat directed against our civilian population.
We now know the answer. Whether or not you agree with the wars in afghanistan and iraq, whether or not you agree with the actions of DHS, one thing is clear. When things hit the fan the majority of this nation stood up, and, from the very generation that was perhaps our most coddled and sheltered, men and women rose and volunteered to do the hard things required to defend us all.
Despite the efforts of the educators and politicians to train and bribe it out of us, the majority of us still retain that stubborn streak of individualism and self reliance. I’m not saying it will be pretty to watch, or pleasant to live through, but if we do crash we’ll come out the other side. Probably sadder, wiser, more realistic, and a d*mn sight more careful about who we elect to govern us.
Wiser? O’Reilly? Who got elected after the Crash?
FDR, the ultimate progressive, who seeded the harvest now being reaped. Reagan wasn’t being too pessimistic when he warned, “We may fail” to turn back the darkness. So much was already in place that he couldn’t dig it all out.
I disagree. If we do have a “hiccup” (great depression). . .I believe it will go much differently than the previous. Remember, that was a nation that believed the government knew best. Now – we know, government doesn’t know best. Government makes everything worse.
Information moves at the speed of light now. Not through radio addresses, or once a day newspapers.
We have a “wave” in the nation that wants much smaller government. If the government ends up with downsizing – and cutting all the waste and overbloated payrolls. . .because the debt ceiling has been hit – I don’t think the nation will hit a “great depression.” I think – the nation will do a 180. With the government no longer able to function other than basic bills – payments – and large shutdowns – I think the nation would jump forward. Entrepreneurial endeavors – businesses – states would step in. With a paralyzed federal government, the nation would be “free” to engage in business. Washington would have no money to fund over regulating legislation, the politicans and all their stupidity.
I think it would be a sigh of relief. The stupidity will have been stopped.
The only people “scared” are the people who make their living on our backs. Politicians who gain power from spending our money – those who are “given” our money.
Take a look at the nation. No one is screaming for more government except those who spend. The rest of us want it downsized hard. We want it reformed.
I don’t think a “great depression” is coming. I think a “great awakening” is coming. Americans awakening to the fact that Washington has ceased to function the way it was originally envisioned. Americans will find out, you could shut down 1/3rd of that government, and not a single American would feel it.
The only people “scared” are the people who make their living on our backs. Politicians who gain power from spending our money – those who are “given” our money.
There is one more group of scared people–those on the receiving end of handouts, which is what, tens of millions who vote for the united statists?
There won’t be a Great Depression: I sure hope you’re right, but I have my doubts.
You don’t mention our foresaking of the God of forefathers and mothers. “Without a vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). I think this is what Ronald Reagan was talking about when he said, “We may fail.”
We may and as long as President Zero is in power, it’s not looking good.
There are no socialists. Quite true. They more are accurately known as crony capitalists. Ayn Rand called them looters, but it’s the same crowd: Hillary Clinton and her cattle futures, Al Gore’s carbon credits, and Harry Reid’s real estate deals. The attitude among this group is that they care not at all about the damage they cause as long as they are left to rule the wreckage (see also Detroit).
The problem is, they never understand, this is America. We have freedom bred into our bones from the day we’re born. This isn’t Europe. The fatal conceipt of all liberal elites. They don’t understand Americans, or their determination.
Remember the saying, the most dangerous person a society can create is someone with nothing left to lose.
This nation won’t turn to them to “rule.” This nation will turn ON them for the destruction they have brought.
This isn’t Europe – this is America. We’ve rebuilt before, and we can rebuild again.
We just don’t need them. That’s what they seem unwilling to understand. They cannot conceive of a nation that dismisses them. And the more the nation looks like we’re going to dismiss them, the more they shriek.
Could be; Europeans seem to have scared themselves into submissiveness with their 2 World Wars; they don’t trust their own natures. Americans aren’t traumatized like that. I hope you’re right.
Edit: conceit rhymes with receipt, but never takes a pee.
I agree with you 100% but I think they do see they are losing their grasp. The need for much of the central control and regulation of the Government is fast disappearing. And the elites know this. I think that is why the push for Obama now. Both sides must have known this guy was a clown and yet they pushed him forward with McNice playing the fool. Now we have seen unimagined extensions of their power and the veritable crippling of our businesses and our energy systems. I think they intend to strike now while they still can and then use the debt burden they created to chain us to our hovels. Our vast national reasources are being plundered not for our citizens by by our own self sellected elites. Why not allow in illegal alliens, if nothing else it disproves any idea of sovereignty being in We The People, since heck we just let in 20 million people from central America and Mexico what people you talking about. Once we have lost control then the mines will be reopened, the drill rigs put back in production and the coal mines restarted. You don’t think these crooks really believe their own bs do you?
It is crony capitalism coupled with a more general kleptocracy.
Simply we have been transformed as a society from a Protestant (generally) hard working, taking care of yourselves, and saving, to a gimmie society. Gimmie because I “need” it; not that I earned it. So we have people living in expensive houses getting food stamps and illegal aliens demanding their “rights”. What happens when those demanding stuff are told there is no more money. That is the polical corrundum and no party wants to be the one left holding the empty money bag (so-to-speak).
My guess we will plod along, until that fateful day, the market tells us No MAS.
Then the whole thing crashes and burns.
“Gimmie because I “need” it; not that I earned it”
No Patty, it’s” Gimmie” merely because I want it and I deserve it because I am a victim. Never mind someone else has to pay for it. VDH’s chainsaw, the smartphone, the emergency room treatment, food stamps, how will that thinking change? Unfortunately the Titanic only has so many deck chairs.
Isn’t the entire tax code a good example of redistributive socialism? Social engineering for sure. It’s certainly been a candy store for both parties.
George Orwell nailed it in ‘Animal Farm’.
Some people are simply more equal than others.
I think you’re off on the strategic petroleum reserve issue. In a month’s time, we’ll have burned through the oil he’s released, and prices will rebound. This will not only fail to improve his numbers before next year’s election, but might actually drag him down, since it will become more clear that he’s not willing to do what needs to be done to lower prices on a sustained basis.
The part that scares me is that I can’t see his end game. If this isn’t going to boost his numbers for re-election, then why is he doing it?
He is thinking on a shorter term. Obama knows that if his acceptance numbers continues dropping he coould face a challenger from the left for the democratic nomination and that would be just the end for his re-election bid. This continues filling the pattern of politician that is incapable to lead and who could only act in response to situations.
The release equals one and a half DAYS worth of oil for the US.
Perhaps the objective is only to establish a precedent that it’s entirely OK to tap into the strategic reserves on a whim.
Sigh. Just another deal. Somebody done got paid.
Similar to the USS Cole- somebody made a cut refueling the ship at shore; those ships are supposed to be refueled far offshore in case of shoreline attacks.
What election? You think there is going to be an election? Not the way this guy is going. My bet is they know this is their best opportunity to grab power in a couple generations and make no mistake they are not going to let an opportunity to try and grasp their goals go by.
Watch the levers of military power. For example the new Secretary of Defense, Leon Pannetta. He is not the all American apple pie kind of guy he portrays himself as.
Believe me I am as conservative as they come, but I take exception to your opinion about Leon Panetta. Granted, living in CA but never in his district I harbor a soft spot for him. I regard him as a true liberal of the late Patrick Moynahan (NY) variety.
He has some reeelly iffy long-time far, far, left associations if that’s so. He should never have gotten near the CIA, much less defense. “One may smile, and smile …”
“When the Senate approved Panetta’s nomination as CIA director, Senators were denied important information about his relationship with Communist Party figure Hugh DeLacy and DeLacy’s ties to Soviet and Chinese intelligence operatives. It is not clear if Senate investigators or the FBI, or both, failed to investigate Panetta’s background. However, Diana West writes about this sensitive topic in The Washington Examiner. Regarding the lack of attention to this critical matter, she writes, “Our legislative branch is falling asleep on the job over stories that should be giving them—and us—night sweats.”
DeLacy, one of only two congressmen exposed as a member of the Moscow-funded Communist Party, was under suspicion when he was in the Congress (January 3, 1945 – January 3, 1947), having been elected as a Democrat who gave outspoken pro-communist speeches on the House floor. At the time, in response to his remarks in favor of the Chinese Communists, Republican Rep. Clare Boothe Luce had called him “Communist-fed,” one of the “Moscow-tuned voices,” a darling of the Communist Party publication The Daily Worker, and source of “Communist propaganda.” DeLacy, she said, had “a definite Communist bias,” after citing several cases of him belonging to Communist Party fronts. For his part, DeLacy would sing the praises in the Congressional Record of Harry Bridges, the “west coast labor leader” who was in fact a member of the Communist Party. He also attacked the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which exposed communists.
To cite just one example of DeLacy’s pro-Communist propaganda, he declared, “The Chinese Communists stand for a simple program which has long ago been achieved in Western nations, a program of simple land and tax reforms and of free elections.”
Years later, in 1974, DeLacy would cite his pro-Communist speeches on the floor of Congress in a successful bid to have Communist China pay for him to visit the country. There, DeLacy would meet with identified communist spy Solomon Adler, a former U.S. Treasury Department official later identified in Chen Hansheng’s memoirs as working for Chinese intelligence. He also met with another identified communist spy, Frank Coe, and accused spy John Stewart Service.
Eventually, DeLacy would move from Washington State, where he was elected to Congress, to California, settling in Rep. Panetta’s district. The DeLacy papers at the University of Washington feature a series of friendly exchanges between them, including requests for sensitive documents and Panetta’s eager desire to provide the information. Panetta paid tribute to DeLacy at a private party and in the Congressional Record, even hailing DeLacy for standing up to anti-communist “McCarthyism.” This was apparently a reference to DeLacy’s desire to keep his communist affiliations secret.”
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism
My Dad went to school with Mr Panetta and described him as a very honest man.
Obama tapping the SPOR is Obama refusing to acknowledge that his policies are causing us pain.
Remember, Obama never admits making a mistake. (Re, the Iraq Surge during the campaign.)
So, instead of admitting that his policies are crushing us, he taps a huge reserve to ease the supply. All he would need to do is dump his policies, but he won’t admit it. His agenda requires that prices need to “necessarily skyrocket”. . .but the problem for Obama is. . . . .that policy works for a dictator, not someone who has to get re-elected.
It’s temporary, at best. It won’t do anything to stabilize the economy, or the pain at the pump that regular americans are feeling. The skyrocketing food prices, the costs to ship things.
He’s making a mess, and he won’t admit it. He’s causing horrendous pain in the nation at a time when we should be focusing on recovering. We can’t. His policies are destroying us, his spending is crippling us. . . .and he’s too arrogant to admit it.
Remember, casual acquaintences describe him as having “unbounded confidence in his own ideas.” Polite speak for “he’s arrogant and always thinks he’s right.”
An attendee of Obama’s unpublicized Obama/Economist meetings said Obama became “very defensive” at one point.
He’s a disaster, but he never admits he makes a mistake, nor does he listen to anyone else. He always thinks he right.
A dangerous combination of arrogance and incompetence.
I think the nation sees it now – and his release of oil was an attempt to try to make himself look “smart” – as if he’s actually trying to “do” something.
Carter – High unemployment, high inflation.
Obama – High unemployment, high inflation.
Carter – there’s nothing I can do. Put on a sweater.
Obama – there’s nothing I can do. Go buy a new car.
He’s as arrogant as Carter, as whiney as Carter, and as incompetent as Carter.
He hiked non defense discretionary spending by 29%. He and the democrats refuse to scale the spending back to even 2008 levels. He wants to sustain the horrendous spending levels. . . . . .
Obama is a horrendous mistake. The nation is realizing it, and Obama is now thrashing trying to look “smart” again, without admitting his policies are a disaster.
There was an immediate post-2008 election bumper sticker:
One
Big
Ass
Mistake
America
It was an easy prophesy.
Call me a cynical conspiracy freak but I think its even more insidious. Obama is consciously trying to weaken America in every way, and as much as possible, before his term is up. He’s hoping that America will never again be able to assert itself on the world stage, as it has in the past. And thus, that the last bastion of democracy and freedom will slowly sink under the waves of emergent global autocracy.
Whether hobbling the economy, growing the debt / state / beauracracy / entitled illegals, stirring race / class tensions, diminishing NASA, weakening the military etc. etc. Everything is aimed at rendering us as vulnerable as possible.
It should be pretty obvious by now.
If it were simply incompetance, indecision or confusion, some of Spike’s actions would benefit the country. Random chance would make it so.
Either there is some fundamental flaw in the mathematics of probability or it’s deliberate. I’m going with deliberate.
it is deliberate.
We’re seeing Cloward and Piven politics play out right before our eyes.
If you haven’t read up on who/what Cloward and Piven are, you should take a quick read on it.
It’s interesting to say the least.
No, ‘they’ are not planning on paying the debt back.
It’s just a temporary tool.
Knock everything down cheap and be able to buy it all.
…ALZAEBO
yes I am aware they do not plan to pay it back. the biggest single problem with governments ..all of them is the incentive structure. the people always let the government folk write the rules.
…who’s favour do you think they will be in? not yours !
The economy was deliberately sabotaged by the Democrats with the trigger being pulled just before the 2008 elections (if the U.S. economy fails the world’s will follow) to get their guy elected. Next time (full deliberate collapse) I fear it will be to necessitate a full government takeover (no elections or submission to the U.N.). Yes, DELIBERATE!
The SPOR release is a repeat of economically illiterate past policies like Cash for Clunkers. The SPOR will have to be refilled to replace the release. That will cause increased demand. Which will push prices up again.
Another masterpiece written for the small screen. I have lived in the midwest all my life (50ish yrs.) We have west nile aroung approx 15 yrs. they are found here in the wood misquitos not flood misquitos, we (my wife kids) have all been exposed and recieved the virus, we had approx. 3-10 days of achy joints as one sometimes one gets with the flu. The only people who have problems are immune comprised, chemo drugs frail health etc. Most people here do not even realize that they had west nile virus. So relax and enjoy
Dr. Hanson;
It isn’t socialism we’re getting. It’s Fascism. (Control through laws and regulation). Also, both Social Security and Medicare are ponzi schemes. Call them what they are. Ponzi schemes are illegal because they are unsustainable without new money constantly coming in. When the money decreases or ceases the scheme collapses. When the scheme collapses people, (investors), are hurt. As frauds they can’t be “fixed”, or “improved”, or “saved”. only killed. Prolonged, even more people will be hurt.
Regarding Obama: I’m beginning to think he’s doing exactly what he wants to do which is to destroy the country. A harsh thought? Maybe, but everything he and his administration has done so far has made the problem worse and weakened the country. No one could be this consistantly wrong about so much.
WTH, It’s time for my 2 fingers of Jack Daniels.
Obama knows that he doesn’t have to convince everyone. He does understand that he only has to convince enough voters to get him 51% of the electoral votes. Clinton won the WH with only 43% of the popular vote. With California, Illinois and New York in his pocket, he only needs a handful of states to put him in for another term.
When Clinton won a second term with less than 50%, the useful idiotic media shouted “LANDSLIDE FOR CLINTON”. When lies like that are perpetrated 24-7, it gives the average voter the idea that EVERYBODY is on board with Obama.
Certainly, the folks who read columnists like VDH understand the dangers of another term for Obama, but the majority of voters just worry about other stuff like the price of weed or a case of beer.
Ken,
If he raises the $1B he claims he needs to get re-elected, along with the slush fund of leftover TARP/stimulus funds, plus rampant voter fraud/intimidation and the full support of the legacy media, then Obama sees the end game very clearly.
He doens’t care that you and I don’t see it.
It was reported but not dwelled upon that Jeffery Immelt, Oblama’s dearest friend, declared a net profit of upward of 5 billion dollars for two consecutive years, but payed not one dime in taxes, from GE, and numerous other companies he owes, manages. There were many photos of Obama and Jeffery with big smiling faces, evidentially happy to be together, all over the internet and Fox news. When questioned about the tax annomily, Obama replied, ” it is perfectly legal and common practice and that is why I am suggesting a bill from congress to close loopholes in the tax laws.” I wonder if it will be retroactive….Also Jeffery has been requesting a 3.5 billion stimulus for more “green” business projects. If you can’t help friend who can you help?
Your recollection of your grandfather’s remarks on horse thievery in the 1890s might be a useful page taken from history if the car thieves were handled as the horse thieves might have been 121 years ago . . . at the wrong end of a shotgun in the hands of the horse’s, or car’s, rightful owner. There are still places in this country where those who would help themselves to another’s property are held at gunpoint by the owner or a neighbor. Regrettably, your family’s farm isn’t located in one of those places. Things won’t turn around until the criminal amongst us are in mortal fear of the citizen minding his own business but who has a passion for defending his property and person.
Hello Dr Hanson, I can’t help you get rid of the socialists or illegal aliens, but if you are having mosquito problems I sell a wonerful mosquito fan bag trap on ebay. Go to ebay and search the title
New Mosquito trap makes Mosquitoes endangered species
Some of my customers live in swampy Florida areas and after the third year of use have almost eliminated mosquitos from their neighborhood and can finally enjoy their properrty. Will not work on illegal aliens or socialists though, gonna need Universal bankruptcy for that.
Robb Moffett
I am relieved to hear you are implementing security measures. You’ll have to let us know how successful they are. If, in fact, you have the information available on how detrimental the systems work.
Your cynicism of the socialist mentality can only be appreciated by other cynics; I for one. Your words brought Jeremiah Wright to mind, and what he would be professing was ‘gospel’ at one of his Sunday sermons. And then there’s Louis Farrakhan.
This article shall fly past the perceptions of most of Obama’s faithful pretty much like the most basic explaination of ‘supply and demand’ economics.
This is just one of the many common sense theories that Liberals/Socialists/Progressives consider voodoo in their small minded diaspora.
Thanks for another thought-provoking essay. It seems to me that for the past 80 years the powers of the presidency have grown with each administration to the point that it is objectively a dictatorship. We went the way of the Romans when we destroyed federalism and substituted direct democracy.
Obama’s backers knew that electing a minority president meant no impeachment, regardless of what he did. The Watts riots would be nothing compared to the violence that would ensue, because most blacks are racists who put their ethnicity above all else; not surprising, since they have been indoctrinated to see white people as evil causes of their own poor choices. It isn’t surprising that this president thumbs his nose at the cowardly populace. The TSA sexual fondling of children is the ultimate degradation, and Americans did not refuse to fly? Assassinate a foreign leader? No problem, since the cowards won’t do anything to stop it. Obama isn’t the problem; the power of the executive branch is. We at this point are not different essentially from any Latin American country; we call our dictator ‘president’, and are happy with the crumbs of the elitists of both parties who dole out such to keep us in line. I don’t see a good end. Argentina comes to mind, and they traded free market capitalism and a prosperous economy for socialism decades ago, spiralling downward until their currency was destroyed.
Chile seems to have turned its back on socialism; it was apparently a painful transition, but they now have a prosperous free market. We have the blueprint, the constitution, for what created the only country in history to be based on individual freedom. Will anyone dig it out of mothballs? Per the Rasmussen Polls over time, and Scott Rasmussen’s books, America is a right-center nation still, and we do not want to be governed from the left or the right; we want to govern ourselves. The TEA movement proves people today can assemble with the help of the internet into a tidal wave of constitutional limits to the central powers.
I define socialists/communists/Marxists/Obamaists as any group of folks who want to make their lives better by stealing money from a small group of citizens (the rich) to buy votes of a much larger group (the poor) this is the classic definition of larceny. The socialists stay in power, and enrich their lives, based on an immoral act.
Basically socialists are criminals who vote in representatives, cops, and judges to legalize their larceny. But larceny is larceny and the reason the country eventually implodes.
Obama sure qualifies as a socialist – he told Joe The Plumber he wanted to “Share the wealth” spread it around, he wants to steal money and buy votes with that money.
Obama is a Chicago thug with a law degree……..
Google Barry Bueno de Mesquita, and listen to his lectures on tyranny, democracy, the Selectorate, etc. Very pertinent. The Inner Cabal seizes control of Public Goods and bribes a “Selectorate” to shield them from the public. The Big Man in the middle plays his syncophants off against each other, and controls the purse strings. When he dies or is mortally ill, his rats flee for their stashed foreign accounts, and the new rats move in.
Even a poor nation like NK can keep a large Inner Cabal in luxury. But when a country gets too wealthy, it no longer pays to try and just live off skimming compared to actual productivity for most of the Cabal, and it falls apart.
So I guess the Obama Cabal is trying to dial back America’s wealth to the point it’s poor enough for them to live like kings!
Airbus outselling Boeing at Le Bourget is almost all the result of orders for the A320 NEO (New Engine Option) vs. the stale 737 offering. With high oil prices, investing in new planes for a lower fuel burn is very compelling. Of course the delays in the 787 program have really hurt Boeing.
From what I have been told from the private contractors working on the 787 Dreamliner is that the union members in Washington State are a large part of the delay, not only in the strikes and work rules but in shear bloodymindness in either refusing to work smart or being as productive as possible. Chalk up another American manufacturing icon for the union lable.
You apparently have no idea of the problems with the 787 production line. Boeing blamed much of the delay of that plane on the last union strike even though it was widely known that production problems with contractors supplying much of the air frame caused most of the delays. That and Boeing’s shortsightedness in ordering the right fasteners for the mostly composite construction. Oops – gotta blame someone – hey lets blame the union strike! You don’t hear that in the news though – do you?
As for the laziness of some of the workers – yeah – thats a problem. One that Boeing management failed to address years ago and now they are reaping the rewards of that failure. The union won that battle and now management just looks the other way when they have incompetents doing nothing. Probably more productive to have them doing nothing.
How do I know all this? I’m retired from many years of working at Boeing – I was a Union Steward and parts Inspector. I’ve seen first-hand managements failure in clearing out the dead wood – union members too damned lazy to do a days worth the work in a weeks amount of time. Boeing and the union are both at fault in that respect – and they deserve each other IMO.
I’ve been there when someone screwed up so bad they were being marched out the door – usually for attendance. It was my job as a union steward to try to save the individual’s job if I could. Sometimes I did help them – throwing them the ‘lifeline’ – namely copping to a drinking or drug habit that may or may not have existed. If they latched onto that out they’d have 30 days off to dry out/detox – then back on the job. Sometimes I figured the company and union would be better off without that screwup – I’d just stand there and tell them goodbye. That happened more than a few times. Management was happy with me on those few occasions.
And yes – I am a card carrying conservative (not Republican). Have been for almost 20 years. Clinton helped me see the light! And Rush. But mostly my Dad (RIP).
Thank you for the insights. I only knew of Boeing from outside and from a close family member working inside as part of a consulting team. For privacy reasons that is all I wanted to say, but in no case is my insight anywhere near yours. Most big corporations are functionally disfunctional, and Boeing from my experience is no exception. It is after all a crazy world we are doing business in nowadays. Thanks again for helping me understand a little more of the problems. For all of us I hope that Boeing survives and all of our children get to work in real productive businesses in the future.
There are no socialists. I’ve been boiling down and paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher and saying this for years. Sing along with Bono, “Socialism for thee but not for me.”
What election? You think there is going to be an election?
I fear the only way this nation will learn will be through a “shut down” of the federal government.
We refuse to learn from Chile and their privatization programs. We fail to learn from Greece as that nation is crumbling to its knees.
We have the cultural elites – who believe so fervently in their own wisdom, their devotion to themselves would make a hari karishna leader jealous.
They need to destroy America’s “can do” attitudes – and our entreprenurial spirit. Only after destroying our spirit, can they bring us under some other international government organization. Because Americans bend their knee to no one.
Greece is screaming for more government spending. Ireland is finding out, after they gave the IMF a seat at the table (saved their banks), they can no longer get the devil to leave. . . . ..
And yet – Americans are screaming for the government to get off their backs, and out of the way. They want government shaved – they want entitlement programs reformed. . . . they want the government downsized and off their backs.
Contrast the different way Americans are reacting to the way Europeans are behaving. .. . . .
Those nations are screaming for more government – and Americans are screaming for less governemnt.
Now ask yourself – if this nation goes through a hiccup – how do you think this is really going to go?
Rest assured – we will not have full time politicians any more – nor large cushy pensions and perks anymore for government employees/politicians, nor will Washington ever be the same again. . . .
As VDK said – bankruptcy may be the only way this nation stands back up. No more “grants”. . . nor dept of Energy, nor dept of Education. . . nor dept of Indian affairs. . . .no more shrimps on treadmills. . . no more research grants. . . .no more full time politicians. . .nor committee staffers. . .no more limos, nor government paid for blackberries. . . .no more lunches on our backs or the swanky apartments or offices. . .
And the funny part is – would anyone in America even notice if all those things were shut down? Only those that benefit from living off our backs will feel this “pain.” Regular Americans won’t feel anything, except, a large weight off their shoulders. The “pain” comes when the parasite realizes that it is being ejected from the host. The parasite will make it as painful as possible to try to get rid of it.
But it appears, this is going to be the only way out for our nation. The parasites in Washington will not do it themselves. We will have to force Washington, the parasite, to get off our backs. Vote out every single big spender you can at all levels, right down to your local dog catcher.
Make it clear to congress – do not raise the debt ceiling. Washington needs to be reigned in. We cannot spend our way out of this because spending got us into it. Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is insanity – but only the parasitical Washington thinks this is a good idea.
Tell them to stop it. Stop spending money we don’t have, only to support a parasitical government we don’t want. . . .
There are four main reactionary movements to modernization: Traditionalism, Socialism, Communism, and Post-modernism. California would mostly fall into the category of postmodern reaction against rational modernization.
This is why, as Dr. Hansen accurately describes, California embraces Medieval forms of energy such as windmills, water wheels, solar magnifying glasses, and geyser energy.
This is why California over-regulates perchlorate, a natural substance of four molecules of oxygen and one of chlorine, that is found nearly everywhere. Perchlorate is regulated because it allegedly is a pollutant created by modern industries that harm babies. But in Chile, where perchlorate occurs in drinking water naturally at levels about equal to that in California there are no higher rates of mental retardation or slow learners or physical deformities.
This is why California doesn’t want any new dams and believes that conservation will solve droughts.
California isn’t Socialist as much as it is Post-Modernist. But Post-Modernism can’t grow an economy that isn’t parasitic.
The U.S. government is spending money borrowed from RED CHINA. The Republican controlled House will not even consider tax cuts for small business because Democrats suggested the idea. Republicans can’t cut the “safety net” because they will lose the 2012 election. Until grown-ups start stepping up, “Socialism” will continue under the guise of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Republicans do not have the courage to change anything. Their only agenda is to get rid of Obama. Not job creation, not “entitlement” reform, nothing. Both parties should be called the Do Nothing Socialist Name Calling party.
I agree it will take bankruptsy to make it happen, like the change that is coming.
What a shame since it did not have to happen. And the times they are a changin’.
I personally expect to lose about half my personal wealth during this change time. And this is a lifetime of work, to boot.
All this was forecastable even three years ago. Basically,the idea was human. Sometime people will quit loaning us money (because they will lose money in so doing), and when that happens, all bets are off. Politicians might even have to decide priorities about the funds they have, which will still be considerable.
Imagine the consequences as they affect you. It will probably be worse for those who exploit the government poor.
Obama et al will never read articles like this, given that these people live in a “Truman Show” leftist bubble where life is perfectible and it rains at the same time each day and in just the right amount.
The joke this week has been contrasting the Greek debt per capita with our own which is just as bad. I’m afraid the surprising oil reserve dumping is more an act of desperation than it is a ploy for reelection. What will $3.00 -3.50/ gallon gas do to stimulate job growth? The pol’s don’t get it. If people think the Greeks are angry just hope the stock markets don’t crash again. There seem to be quite a few “on the fringe” financial advisors who think this will happen. What will the Baby Boomers do if their 401k’s take a huge hit again? Socialism or not, a lot of people have made lots of money and are heavily invested in keeping the status quo. Again, tell the Baby Boomer there is no money for the 8 pills he/she needs daily. We may end up regretting not letting the whole thing collapse 3 years ago. But once again the powers that be made a lot of money “fixing” the problem they created. It’s difficult to preach morals and ethics to the guy who walks away from the house down the street because it’s under water.
Just be careful Dr Hanson. Don’t bet the farm on those security tips. Some of them might find you in prison or worse yet with the “victim” owning it. That’s the world we live in. I can see the headline now in the Fresno Bee “Wealthy Land Owner….” :)
Of course we have to bankrupt the USA and lower their standard of living. How else will we get them to accept a Single World Government? So far, they still think they can do better.
Dr. Hanson,
You wrote there are no socialists, “only technocratic overseers who wish to give someone else’s money to others as a means of winning capitalist-style lifestyles and power for themselves . . . . ”
I absolutely agree. For over a decade I have been positing the following challenge to the left-leaning people with whom I dispute:
Leonid Brezhnev had an antique auto collection while the average soviet citizen oftentimes stood in line for their basic needs. If you can truly justify Brezhnev’s antique cars in a government founded on “From each according to his ability—to each according to his needs’ then I will immediately join you in pusing for socialism in the U.S.
Like The Amazing Randi’s offer to psychics, no one has yet converted me.
Apropos of your grandfather—I’d say that the horsethieves are all now living in Washington D.C.
This is a masterwork, even by vdh’s standards. There may never have been a more clear short exposition of what socialism really is and is not. I have often said that “philosophical” socialists are less than 1% of the total. All of the rest are either power-mad psychopaths, or remora fish of one form or another. The Doctor lays it out with clear examples.
The unanswered question and the Doctors biggest fear is whether or not the disease is reversible, and if not, where the boundary of the inevitable disaster lies.
In defense of the “not inevitable” position, consider the natural condition of humanity. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans lived in small hunter gatherer bands that survived because 100% of the individuals worked together in egalitarian cooperation and co-dependence. There were no bureaucracies, no welfare dependents, no real wealth, nothing resembling a government, and hardly even a leadership structure. This is the natural state of mankind. It existed for so long that there must be a genetic selection associated with it.
Probably today the closest thing to the natural state is sports teams, which almost always pull together, and with members who work independently yet accept roles that benefit the team. It may be why sports are so loved. (note that there doesn’t appear to be significant resentment of highly compensated super-stars by their teammates. In addition, even Michael Jordan couldn’t win alone. His genius was dependent on teammates who recognized that their self-interests were mutually dependent.)
The “socialist” construct arose 10,000 years ago when agriculture was invented, humans assembled into cities, governments arose, and political con men seized the opportunity to deceive their neighbors and grab all of the power and wealth for themselves. Marxism was around long before Karl articulated it. Beaurocracies, legalized theft, class resentment, and unmitigated greed has only existed for 10,000 years, much much less than the duration of the human race. It isn’t genetic.
So I argue that abject dependency is unnatural to humans, and that resentment of the strong is actually counter to human nature. Both conditions are TAUGHT. And what has been taught, can be untaught. Refer to: Tea Parties.
Keep the faith. We have Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and many other honorable champions. They have Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, the excretable Barney Franks and the breathtakingly dangerous Barack Obama.
We can defeat the vermin of Oz.
Interesting analysis, proreason.
I’d agree that socialism is not ‘genetic’ but inequality IS genetic. That is, a collective must have some inequalities in it or…we ‘freeze’; we become a bowl of jello, unable to move. Inequality foments dissent, differences…and these are the basis of change, progress, innovation. So, redistribution so that everyone has an ‘equal outcome’ leads to a dead end state.
The other factor to consider is that a society focused only on current consumption needs, which requires redistribution by taking from the wealth producers to give to the non-productive, means..another dead end. That’s because a society living only in the ‘here and now’ time phase ignores the requirement for INVESTMENT.
Investment is future-oriented. It operates, not in current time, but removes wealth from current time..and puts it into future-oriented infrastructures. Banks, which make loans to businesses; research for new technologies; new infrastructures and factories… These are all future-time entities and require that the wealth produced NOW, in current time…not be all consumed and used up. But, set aside to build-the-future.
The socialist lifestyle is focused only on current consumption and an entropic dissipation of wealth so that ‘all have the same’. This is fine for the current meal, but if you don’t put some aside to seed the farm for next year’s growth, you are in trouble. And if you remove a major portion of your population and make them dependent rather than productive..you are in trouble.
Speaking of dependency, has anyone noticed that the era of slavery in the US had the black population dependent on the Slave Owner Farmer; this dependency has moved to dependency on the State as ultimate Owner. This is an equal enslavement, and affirmative action and the many govt policies have all maintained slavery in this nation.
And another comment – notice how Obama is more and more ignoring Congress and governing by Executive Fiat. This began as soon as he became president, with his exhortions to Congress to pass his bills without reading or debate. But now, he’s ignoring the Congressional Laws.
Congress refused Cap and Trade; Obama is putting it through by Executive Fiat, ordering EPA to carry out His Rules anyway.
Congress didn’t pass the Dream Act; Obama is ordering ICE to behave as if it was passed.
Congress wasn’t consulted on the Libyan War; Obama is dealing with this semantically, by renaming it as ‘not a war’ because there are no ‘hostile troops on the ground’ (what does he think a bomb does – strike a star?).
The release of oil from the oil reserve is strictly political, obviously. The trend of oil and gasoline prices is down right now, so by releasing the oil, Obama can take credit for the decline in prices. Of course, this won’t fool anyone but the most ignorant, but that is a sizable portion of the voting public. At the same time, it makes it look like he is being decisive and on top of things when, in reality, he is anything but.
There will be no such thing as a government chastized by voters or economic collapse, as long as the power to extract taxes from your paycheck remains in place. Paycheck witholding is the singular cause of the bloated, out-of-control government that we have. When the states refuse to let federal taxes leave their territory, the fed can be said to be under control. When this happens, no one in the world will lend the feds any more money, since the means of even paying the interest will have evaporated.
VDM is on the right trail again. Socialist ideology of compassion is of course only a cover for those seeking to live off the labor and wealth of others. Two far flung examples: 1. Al Gore’s carbon footprint flattens my neighborhood, but nevermind — he buys carbon credits from his own company. 2. Many of those “harder working Germans” who are to support the Greeks are likely to be Turks working on German production lines. Maybe it’s pay back time for the Greeks.
Gee a socialist that wants to keep the money he earns and NOT give it away to the unwashed masses whose appetite is never ending and more demanding every day.
Margaret Thatcher said “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].”
Personally I will teach someone how to fish several times but when they constantly EXPECT me to “GIVE them ‘MY’ fish or my money via TAXES” that makes me mad and gets my attention RIGHT now.
Most moochers need to get off their rear end and actually do something more than GAME the system for “FREEBIES” from Govts that are handed out like ‘candy’ by politicians that think money grows on trees. I call it the “bribery OPM contract” with the army of moochers that vote the politicians back in office because they want more free money. These moochers care less what others pay in taxes because they pay ZERO so the scam continues under cover of ‘politics”. Anyone who argues against this CONTRACT gets TV ads of granny get pushed off cliff by Reps while EVERYONE knows our systems are on the verge of collapse and WILL if they are not changed. Dem plan is to play politics to the very destruction of America. After all Alinsky provided the plan and Obama is the tool to carry it out.
Over 50% of Americans pay no Federal taxes and many get LOT of free money via EIC (earned income credit).
Soros and his minions need to “spread THEIR wealth around” rather than ours. Soros has HIS money HIDDEN and I read his corporations are ALL OFFSHORE beyond the scope of IRS regulations.
I take heart in the fact that so many now see the light and are standing up to this ongoing criminal charade. We may renew the nation yet.
May I suggest the Jugurthan War and the Cattaline Conspiracy by Sallust for insights into our own situation. The same volume contains a letter from King Mithradates of Pontus, translated by Sallust. In it is a quote I’ve always found insightful and quite frankly brilliant if frightening: “Most men do not seek freedom, but rather a just master”. The second quote I leave you is from the Jugurthan War and simply states that “All things may be bought or sold in Rome”. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
For inspiration on what it means to be an American in this day an age, that same volume has a speech from Gaius Marius addressing his army prior to embarking for North Africa, where the war was being fought that is also moving and brilliant in its simplicity and authenticity. Marius was the Chesty Puller of his day.
It’s Jugurthine War & Conspiracy of Cataline (kindle edition available too).
What you have described, VDH…is “Pusher” Politics.
“Come here little boy, have you ever tried this before? Just a little taste, little girl, it won’t harm you…you will love the experience.”
The habit becomes expensive and the Pushers have to modulate the availability and price. We, as a nation, are strung out on easy credit, entitlements, bloated pensions, and open borders.
The Pusher Politicians and their mendacious Mules in the media, entertainment and academia do not live by these rules. They never intended to live by these rules…only off of them.
Of course they don’t think the crack addiction level taxes are meant for them. Of course they don’t believe in the nonsense of the redistribution hoaxes. They need to break down the conventions of ethics and morality by demonizing those who would prevent or break the resistance to the addiction.
“Your momma and daddy aren’t cool, they don’t know how fun and harmless this trip is, little girl”
There are no socialists because every addict is either in denial or rehab. There are Pushers, Mules, Addicts and recovering addicts.
You can’t talk to a Pusher or Mule, they run the scam. You can’t talk to an addict, they have no capacity to hear, much less listen. And for each and every one of the above, you are the enemy….and they will tell any filthy lie, make up any distortion, create any fabrication they can about you. The addicts will believe it, because to do otherwise….would put them into horrific withdrawals.
Socialism is the art of creating addiction, then living off the misery of it. Communism is the gang affiliation to spread it. Leftism is the art of watching you die from it and telling you it’s utopia.
Tune in, turn on, drop out. This Administration’s slogan for 2012.
Bravo,illustrative language like you used in your comment can maybe break through to those who know something is wrong but can’t quite figure out what is happening.
A two state solution is the only answer. The differences between the Left and Right are irreconcilible. Each side stands in the way of the other’s agenda. We on the right will never be able to reclaim our Constitutional liberty and live as free individuals nor will the Leftists achieve their socialist utopian collective as long as our government is evenly divided between each party. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting to slow the advancevof socialism and indentured servitude when we can just split the country in two and let the Lefties have their own state. I would enjoy watching their descent into totalitarianism.
I’ve known for a long long time that government attracts those that seek power over the rest of us and I loathe them for it. I am no man’s servant and am prepared to fight if necessary to regain our god given liberties.
My God, Eric. You read my mind. Or I yours.
trouble is the lefties would want to be in the conservative state every time.
they are parasites and need living working hosts !
Yes, but the problem today is that, though we would like to kick them out of the US, it would be illegal to do so. But if the nation is split in two, we can make our own rules about who gets kicked out, and we would have a next door neighbor who would be glad to have them. And if not, well, they get them anyway.
I am proud of the intelligence, lucidity, civility of VDH’s article and the commenters. I am proud to be associated with you if only as a reader. I too am beginning to believe that things are going to have to collapse if there is any remote chance for change. I noticed while reading an article in the Daily Beast this morning that another article (which I did not read) discussed some lawyers belief that Obama can raise the debt ceiling on his own. Another step towards a facist dictatorship. I have read and am reading two books about equally unsettling times in Europe during the 20th century. “The Morbid Age” by Richard Overy, a British historian about the people of Britain during the period between WWI and II; and Philipp Blom’s “The Vertigo Years” about the people of the major European states between 1900 and 1914. (Blom is a German historian.) Those were not easy times. And as far as the U.S. is concerned today I am am reminded of W.B. Yeats poem that has the line “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” Just one thing more for you to ponder “the last forced sterilization” (for the purposes of eugenics, a movement that started in the early 1900s) was performed in the U.S in Oregon in 1983. I read this in the Vertigo Years.
There is a great American poet with the same last name as yours, Richard Wilbur. Is there any connection?
If there aren’t any socialists, there aren’t any capitalists either. Have you seen the wealth of benefits and concessions they wring out of our government?
Fact is (as most people instinctively know) neither pure socialism or pure capitalism works. Never has. Likely never will.
Thank you for the extremely lucid article.
I also think bankruptsy is the only cure. We are living in a time of civilizational collapse. It has happened many times before. The canyon floor that you hit when you fall off the cliff is always economic ruin. Thats the way civilizations end.
Where is the hope? God’s promise of personal salvation through Jesus Christ. Humans have endured and are enduring unbelievable hardship. But it can only last at most a few decades. Then this world is gone and the next world begins. The wise ones do what they can for good in this world but keep the next one in mind at all times.
I agree with Steve. The political class lives too far, both literally and philosophically, from the middle class world and meritocratic standards.
In a very real way, they don’t know about business(or foreign relations, or the proper use of the military, or the negative consequences of government action) to correct their actions. Clueless, and they read the writings of clueless people, and they meet with other clueless people, and get their political contributions from people too far up the food-chain to suffer the consequences of the laws and regulations promulgated by the lawmakers.
Politics is,in a deep meaning, avoids the consequences of actions in favor of collective protection. Politics also constructs scenarios that justify such avoidance. The whole political system is built around preventing politicians from suffering the consequences of their decisions.
President Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve….
At some point in the not too distant past, Barack Obama said strategic oil reserves should only be used in an absolute national crisis.
He voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2007 (it would be irresponsible to raise it he said). He is also on record saying the nuclear option should never be used for massive social legislation like healthcare.
He was against the 2nd amendment before he was for it and is now against it again.
How many times did we hear, over and over and over, that Afghanistan was the “good war” ?
What do we call this ? Stick your finger in the air and flip and flop at will, depending on which way the wind is blowing ?
energy would rightly sky-rocket, given his determination to curb fossil fuel production (cf. “bankrupt” coal companies). Why then is Obama concerned that gas hit $4…
Not skyrocketed enough ? His energy sec’y Steven Chu is on record hoping for $10/gallon.
…taxes, more taxes, and more taxes are the cure for the massive deficits, run up by out of control spending. OK, fine. But why then does multimillionaire John Kerry go to great lengths to avoid taxes on his yacht (why a luxury yacht when so many have so little?); why are redistributive overseers like Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, Tom Daschle, Charles Rangel, and Hilda Solis either late or delinquent in paying the federal, state, or local governments what they owe?
’cause they’re lowlifes with double standards ?
Socialists do hate socialism. Just ask all those guys living high off the hog, like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky.
What of the reshuffling of the deck at DOD & CIA? Why is Obama relying so heavily on the same players? There may be a need for continuity but aren’t we asking too much of David Patraeus? I’m a little uneasy with their reaction to Obama’s Afghanistan decision. Just following orders? Curious if VDH has further thoughts on these issues, Libya as well.
…. the Euro-peons seem to be winning far more plane orders than Boeing. One wonders whether that fact is remotely connected with airlines’ collective worries about obtaining orders on time and as specified ….
Or whether it has more to do with Airbus’s obscene Multi-Million-Dollar “extraordinary commissions,” (In America and in the rest of the First World called “bribes”) massive Europeon-taxpayer provided subsidies and extraordinarily-generous “finance” terms?
Leaked attendee list Bilderberg Conference June 9-12, 2011
in Suvretta House Hotel (St. Moritz, Switzerland)
Pass this list around of the American attendees to Bilderberg. It is part of my new program called Know your Overlord.
USA
Alexander, Keith B., Commander, USCYBERCOM; Director, National Security Agency
Altman, Roger C., Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
Bezos, Jeff, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
Collins, Timothy C., CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
Feldstein, Martin S., George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Hoffman, Reid, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn
Hughes, Chris R., Co-founder, Facebook
Jacobs, Kenneth M., Chairman & CEO, Lazard
Johnson, James A., Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
Jordan, Jr., Vernon E., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Keane, John M., Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired
Kissinger, Henry A., Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
Kleinfeld, Klaus, Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
Kravis, Henry R., Co-Chairman and co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis, Roberts & Co.
Kravis, Marie-Josée, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
Li, Cheng, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
Mundie, Craig J., Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
Orszag, Peter R., Vice Chairman, Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Perle, Richard N., Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Rockefeller, David, Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
Rose, Charlie, Executive Editor and Anchor, Charlie Rose
Rubin, Robert E., Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
Schmidt, Eric, Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
Steinberg, James B., Deputy Secretary of State
Thiel, Peter A., President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
Varney, Christine A., Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
Vaupel, James W., Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Warsh, Kevin, Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board
Wolfensohn, James D., Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC
Not on the official list, but also confirmed:
Rasmussen, Anders Fogh, Secretary General of NATO ,DEN
Merkel, Angela Dorothea, German Chancellor ,GER
Zapatero, Jose Luis, Spanish Prim Minister ,SPA
Gates, Bill, Former Microsoft CEO, Head of the Gates Foundation ,USA
Gates, Robert, US Secretary of Defense ,USA
Human institutions all collapse eventually. The collapse occurs because of greed and self indulgence. There is a solution, but it is not imposed. It is found in the Ten Commandments.
Mr. Hanson,
What about socialist mental health care providers and socialist farmers such as Michele Bachmnann’s family?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-0627-michele-bachmann-20110626,0,7255963.story?track=rss
VDH…["All this raises some questions. The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted."]
That represents some major superficial assumptions that are erroneous.
The socialists have long evolved and splintered over strategic planning and implementation. Today, you have to define which faction of the socialists you’re attempting to address on any given issue. The same applies to the GOP and their libertairians.
Putting aside the USA for a moment, there are two [core] factions globally.
1) Marxists and 2) anarchists. Now, you can reinsert the USA in-between those two to more acurately represent their struggle within the USA. Thier objects remain quite static while their [strategies] are fluid to changing circumstances and divisions from within.
Don’t think for a moment that the Marxists [core] objective has wained…it hasn’t! Just like on any battlefield, circumstances change and one has to adapt strategies in hopes of eventually accomplishing your core objective. The interesting components to watch in todays politics and strategies are the Libertarian Marxists and the Libertarian anarchists.
As to parallels, Pat Buchanan’s apocalyptic “Death of The West” comes to mind. But of more immediate interest, Ayn Rand’s classic, “Atlas Shrugged”, is absolutely eerie in its mirroring of current events. Who cannot see in the faces of Cass Sunstein, Ron Bloom, and Aneesh Chopra the power-crazed lineaments of Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, and Cuffy Meigs? It gets even eerier: The lawless “flash mobs” in Philly and Chicago are carbon copies of the roving gangs of outlaws in Section 3, and the recent surge of copper thefts from public utilities match exactly the sequence of events of the novel’s denouement. Let’s just hope the Taggart Bridge isn’t blown up, else those of us here in the East will starve to death!
Seriously Greece. The problem with your economy is that you haven’t stimulated it enough with public infrastructure projects. And if you really want your economy to become a powerhouse, you must invest in green alternative energy projects that will create millions of green jobs that can’t be shipped overseas. I know that your deficit exceeds your GDP. Don’t fret. What you must do is pass a stimulus bill that doubles or even triples your debt. That is the true road to prosperity.
A gloomy prognosis but one to be taken seriously if America is to avoid the “inevitable.”
Before the free lunch crowd came to power, it was necessary for the revolution of the sixties against all moral authority.
Someday the right will acknowledge that the money problems are first and foremost – moral problems. We dump God, make truth relative, sex and depravity the norm, kill off our inconvenient unborn innocents by the million and then wonder why many of us think it’s okay to live off of sopmeone else’s buck.
Today, we are essentially quarreling over thrity pieces of silver – the cause we care not to discuss, or in the words of Halley Barbour:Can’t we set aside social(read as moral) issues for this election? (Why stop there add what you mean – and for every one there after)
Strange folks, we – who eagerly accept our rights coming from nature’s God but eagerly ignore all the other responsibilities that come with those rights. and so we look at a society on the verge of suicide and still have no idea why.
those “revolutionaries” from the sixties are the free lunch crowd.
Is it too extreme to purge our public schools, courts and bureaucracy of the left? I feel like “tail-gunner Joe”.
I don’t think you want to be comparing yourself to Joe McCarthy.
Underlying all this is a far deeper set of issues:
How and why do these “non-socialists,” these poseurs, come to acquire their particular roles in the respective societies; the U.S., with its political/academic “elite,” France with a DFK slated for its Presidency; the “parties” of Ireland, Belgium, etc., etc.?
How, and to what expected end(s), were the selections made by the electorate of the U S in 2008? Therein lies an example of the real nature of the choices of representation (and devolution)rather than participation.
The question is why the republicans, soo called free market capitalists can’t articulate the same argument Dr.Hanson is making?
there is a professional left. they use your tax dollars to promote their world view.
free market conservative types are usually busy with work and obligations and mortgage payments. hence there is no equivilant professional right
Ye gods! What reactions you’ve gotten Mr. Hanson to what basically is your complaint about human nature. Inconsistency, wanting two contradictory things at the same time, inability to think in a straight line. The “socialists” you decry are simply acting human. There ain’t no capitalists either, come to think of it or how come taxpayers had to bail them out in2008? How come they don’t mind having government provide 100% insurance against risk (as in those college loan days for banks) but think they are free market capitalists?? How come free market capitalists inexorably work to buy up or disable the competition and get 100 per cent market share if they can manage it all the while extolling competition? How come corporations let us taxpayers foot the bill for huge research projects until it becomes commercially viable–then they take the research, but do they pay us taxpayers a royalty?? NO – they give themselves big salaries and hand out stock dividends.
Or think of the Tea Party, so noble consistent and true they’re causing a revolution in the Republican Party. But when a smart and intelligent representative (Paul Ryan) takes them at their word and proposes drastic new “unMedicare” for under 55, what do they do?? Disappear and leave him out there virtually alone.
I wish now I’d had the guts to do what I wanted to do back at the height of the Tea Party rallies — show up with a sign saying — “Know what? Freedom is having Medicare!” (I’m 91 and it really is.)
Wouldn’t have done any good and I might have gotten pushed over in the melee. No, what it took to make them get real, is one of their own, like Paul
Ryan, actually PROPOSING what they profess to believe in. Simple human nature.
Difference is, unlike Mr. Hanson, I am comforted by that “human-ness” when having to rely on insurance companies to provide medical insurance for their old age became an actual possibility. They’d be stupid if they didn’t get alarmed.
Save me from a deadly consistent economic or political philosopher! Think Hitler or Stalin’s early days. I’ll take a rationalizing (some would say hypocritical) socialist or capitalist any day in the week.
auroral…Best durn response I’ve read on here in awhile!
The people rise up with all kinds of wild superficial rhetoric/demands and then along comes some wet behind the ears politician/genie who tries to grant them their wishes. And behold, we find they and their rhetoric was not worth more than a wooden token. Most of these folks haven’t a clue that virtually ALL the big bucks spent by the federal government benefit ALL the nations people including themselves. At this point, I’m all for those folks achieving their demanded small government with NO government subsidies to the States, any industries nor the people. Grant them what they demand! Then they may learn a few things about human nature and survival behaviors…..and why there are millions of redundant regulatory laws and capitalism eventually yeilds to socialism in more recent history.
Over 70% of the nations population haven’t the capcity nor could they survive without federal handouts, regardless of their big tough rhetoric. Most are to ingorant to realize their very jobs may well be the result of government consumption of goods and services from the private sector….or that they and their communities could not survive without government subsidies for the basics of emergency services, health care services, utlitlites and other fundemental public services. Again, grant them their wishes for the small government they seek but make durn certain they repeal ALL government handouts.
most people are more resilient then you give them credit for.
If you consider SS and medicare to be handouts, you are a socialist.
Many of us consider getting back some of the money confiscated from us over decades to be small recompense…and the furthest thing imaginable from a ‘handout’.
A handout is exactly what it is. You are not getting *your* money back. You are getting money taken from someone else. Your money was spent long ago, not invested.
You are suggesting that after you are smacked in the mouth you don’t hit your assailant, you find the next person in line and hit them instead. What happens when there is no-one else to hit?
It isn’t dollar for dollar dummy, unless you would have been stupid enough to put the confiscated money in a mattess.
A dollar confiscated 40 years ago would have grown to at least 10 with any rational investment strategy. The Dow has grown by more than 10x since 1980, and that doesn’t include dividend payouts. Other investment vehicles have grown more.
But you would have to be able to do simple math to know that.
There is no way that people who paid close to maximum fica will ever get it back. The confiscation in raw dollars would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The investment value would amount to a million or more. A million dollars in lifetime annuity would pay 50K or more a year, which is much more than maximum SS pays now nor will pay in 30 years.
But don’t bother to respond. You don’t have the ability to think it through. People like yourself don’t care about the facts anyway. You only care about getting something for nothing.
Proreason…I’m certain if you’ve followed my writings over a very long period of time in many venues, I have cited the original language of the Social Security Act of 1937 along with the constitutional tests before the Supreme Court. Likewise, here on PJM I have more than once posted the interest mechanism of social secuirty.
Now, as to Medicare. If you aren’t yet 65, you might also qualify for coverage if you have a disability or with End-Stage Renal disease – including the optional Part B – A SSDI beneficiary becomes immediately eligible for Medicare -Qualified Medicare Beneficiaries (QMB)requires every state to pay Medicare premiums, deductibles and coinsurance for disabled individuals – Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary program (SLMB) requires states to pay the Medicare Part B premium. Medicare Part A is payed for by Employers and employees taxes. Medicare Part B is withheld from your Social Security check each month. There are many angencies who have funding and disbursing authorities that are impossible to discern SS/Medicare funding sources but have no other self standing legislative grants.
The point is, nobody knows for certain what all SS and Medicare funds.
The bottom line is simple! Beneficiaries of either program have very, very small investment ratio’s to the benefits they receive…so its pretty simple to conclude that if one is drawing more in benefits than they invested, somebody or entity is extending a hand. If understanding this simple fact makes one a “socialist” then sobeit…I’m a socialist who has never applied for, nor drawn a penny of social security or medicare benefits.
Otherwise, I hope all is going well for you and yours!
Every time I read VDH I recommit to the idea Never Compromise.
If we compromise, we lose. Compromise has led to moral degeneracy, which is the foundation for all the other ills–croney capitalism, stealing from others to fund my lifestyle, etc.
We cannot compromise in the upcoming election, nor in the elections to follow.
All IMHO, of course.
We could be far closer to total systemic collapse than any of us know or are willing to admit. We may have passed the tipping point, the point where there are more people dependent on the government for sustenance (and willing to vote for their entitlements) than there are people producing for the nation. Once this happens, it’s only a matter of time before we collapse. Whether it’s a Black Swan event, a war, or some other form of chaos, we will not be able to withstand it. I’m not sure I care to feed them with my labor. I’m not even sure I care to share citizenship with them. I am not their slave. Yet they make me their slave with these statist policies. Why should I spend my life working for another man? I will give my life for my children, but no one else’s. I should not be asked to.
Dr. Hanson, Having been on this Earth a long, long time, and witnessed this seemingly irreversible slide into a dystopian America, I ask the following as a serious question. Is it at all likely the nation may one day splinter? I simply cannot see reversing our present course as realistic but, concomitant, cannot see the outnumbered productive class continuing to accept the confisication of their wealth by an elite oligarchy.
Kenesaw Jack, re: “Can America splinter?” Yes, it can. Recent history provides plenty of examples of nations which fragmented under the pressures of Balkanization, or are in the process of doing so. To paraphrase a certain well-known conservative talk show host, a nation which does not protect its borders, language and culture doesn’t stand much of a chance of surviving intact, not in recognizable form, anyway. No nation in recent history has ever imported so many people from relatively alien cultures and races as we have since 1965, esp. those from Latin America. It’s an untried experiment the political left has foisted on us, thanks largely to Senator Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 Immigrational and Naturalization Act, which tore down preferences for European emigres,in favor of granting Third World immigrants preference. Spanish is the de facto first language in parts of the USA, i.e., Miami and parts of S. California and Arizona. The LA County Schools instruct in over 200 different tongues. Quite a Tower of Babel the leftists have built, isn’t it? Respected defense analyst William Lind, internationally known as the author of the “generations of war” model for describing conflict, believes and has gone on record as saying that third-world immigrant invasions are the gravest threat to our national security, bar none. The people streaming into our country from Mexico aren’t armed, but make no mistake – they should be regarded as every bit as dangerous as an invading army. Left unchecked, they will succeed in transforming our nation permanently and irrevocably. At best, we’ll end up like Canada, with a disaffected province that speaks another language (Spanish in this case, instead of French as in Quebec) and calls frequently for independence, while worst-case, we may splinter into two or more nations. And – I have not even touched upon the fragmentation possible along “red-blue” lines, between the left and those of us who still believe in the founder’s vision of America.
……for all intense it is splintered now. between parasites and producers.
nickel
whole lot of one demographic in that list of your’s
They are largely from the “meglomaniac tribe”
“Hispanics are the fastest-growing population in the United States, and Hispanic students are now the largest minority group in U.S. schools. From 1990 to 2009, the national Hispanic student population increased from 6 percent to 22 percent at grade 4, and from 7 percent to 21 percent at grade 8.”
That’s from a recent article by Molly O’Toole at Reuters.
Thousands more muslims are pouring into the U.S. and we already have race advocates embedded in our universities, justice dept. and other institutions. It would be different if it we’re people devoted to the greater good but they are not.
A recently arrested muslim terrorist in America declared how he hated America. Why did he come, why did he stay? Who knows? Latinos feel put out: why come, why stay? It’s because they know the numbers are on their side and they can live out their fantasy of living in a country with all the things they can’t produce but without the people who produce them.
This is the real problem: an underclass that don’t like the story of America, want handouts and think everyone is a racist but them. Good luck America.
TTT;
You’ve been taken in. The “anarchists” are pawns, used to wreck the existing order. When their job is done, they’re among the first up against the wall, along with the “useful idiots” who provide rationalizations and legitimacy to the statists-in-waiting.
Brian…you’ll be around I supose, to see if you’re right…I won’t! I’ve been around long enough to learn that aside from the great American experiement, the world has only two other fundemental opposing forces…the socialists and the anarchists. I’ve also been around long enough to have observed and conclude that the America of my generation and those before mine has changed and will not be revisited. The global circumstances as they have evolved, will not allow for it. If for no other reason, the U.S. has spent billions…probably many trillions, educating and industrializing much of the world..the two most inportant commodities that made this nation once such a powerhouse economically and militarily. As such, global economic parity continues to advance….as does our nations historical core economic industries continue to move off shore.
So whose political ideology wins the battle for dominance in the U.S, I don’t know but…American will not be the same as known by many generations.
The only difference between the US and Greece right now is that we are still sending out the welfare checks. Stop the checks and all hell will break loose.
Quite a slog getting thru all those comments, and I didn’t find many agreeable. Some were over simplified; others too complicated, but the tone was definitely unhappiness with the evolution of America, and that is healthy.
A couple of things: Socialism evolves into tyranny, in every case. Germany, Italy, Russia, China, Cambodia, and Cuba and Venezuela, etc. Terrible tyrannies, all, with few exceptions, like Sweden, which still may suffer the common fate.
I used to think that Obama had a cruel plan to bankrupt us and change America to Socialism, but the more I see of him, the more I realize the truth of the saying that “Wherever he is, he’s the dumbest person in the room”. All he knows, and has to rely on, is what he learned from the academic elites who passed him on, or in the faculty lounges. He is ignorant of the Law, his so-called “profession”, that he never earned money practicing, and he probably thinks Eric Holder is “smart”.
He is basically a ghetto bull-shitter, a “community organizer” who organizers lazy uneducated mental children, and he operates on instinct, if his handlers give him a chance. He’s in trouble, and he knows it; trying to fool his far-Left base and the working middle class that don’t have time to try to understand what’s happening to them. They are waking up and even they can see thru him, now. There are even breaks in the wall of the MSM, that recognize he has no plan and is incompetent. They may yet overcome their embarrassing support, and turn back to Hillary. Bill Clinton has made the break, I feel.
I believe any decent American can beat him, and it doesn’t matter who, since the Electoral College is pretty well a lock for us in November.
Regards,
0 may lose the election but I fear the game is lost either way. Every time the Dems get power they push thru their progressive agenda. Then the people throw them out in disgust. But the Republicans, when they get power back, don’t do anything, or next to nothing to turn back the socialist slide into destruction of our way of life. So it’s three steps forward for the progressives and a half of a baby step back for us. I don’t see a national call to turn back the NEw Deal and Great Society. Seems like the people would be happy to find a way to keep the programs going, not to eliminate them and go back to the Constitution.
That is exactly why the Republican/Progressives are hell bent on nominating anyone who they can control. If we won’t fall for Mittens Romney, then how about Pawlenty or Gingrich, if not them how about Rick Perry? Sarah Palin is the only person on the national scene who is both not a puppet of the globalists of both “parties” and has the charisma and leadership skills to do the job. That of course is why they are trying to tear her down with every ounce of their very considerable power.
All in all the corporate leaches and the gross security overspending are more of a threat to America’s well being than the people on social security, food stamps for any other handout.
Give money to a bank and it goes into the hands a few rich people, give money to a person however undeserving and it gets spent in the community.
Now certainly one can take the idea that no one gets anything and run with that. Its rational and fair after a fashion however its not without consequences. A situation like that is really “Open your wallet or dig your grave”
What we have seen in such circumstances is that people that have money will save a lot of it (about 1/3 to 1/2 as we have seen elsewhere) thus forcing the economy into a “finding someone else to buy our production” trap as so many countries are already in. This is of course untenable as everyone else is depending on us to buy their stuff or has a shrinking and aging population. Its a bad place to be.
As for the rest, well all those people you just cut off are not going to conveniently vanish and in fact not only are they around and more desperate they no longer have any stake in society to speak of. Why should they? And understand there are a lot more of them than you, they are armed, many have friends and family in the various services or in gangs and unlike aging middle class people, many in the lower class will hurt people. Theft usually as happened to our host but push to shove, violence is on the menu too. Most want to work, will work but if they can’t, they’ll do what it takes even at your expense.
Our host is correct in one way, you really can’t run and as we are seeing in the Libyan mess, you really can’t hide. DIY tech can breach your gated community, secure office or anywhere else.
A hint here while some people are going to repatriate to Mexico or wherever (I’ve seen it a few times) , the bulk of them are US citizens and they aren’t just going to go away. Since the job fairy is not going to auto-magically give them a decent job and I can’t see American companies going on a hiring binge or paying a living wage even if regulation drops and they can afford it , we will have an even bigger problem.
And trust me the now 100 million poor (40 million food stamp recipients + all there other people) will either vote in real socialism which you won’t like or may take advantage of that big arsenal. Guns even here in Anti Gun California are very cheap (about $100 bucks for a rifle or cheap reliable 9mm pistol at the sporting goods store if a bad guy doesn’t just steal one ) and not all in the hands of well off. The US operates in many ways like a 3rd world county but its not one of those disarmed peasantry types ones but something closer to Yemen where everybody has a gun.
Understand that all that theft ,all the flash mobs, all the racially motivated beatings all the copper theft and worse are chicken feed when people are really hungry and desperate.
An unstable economy like that is vulnerable to Junta, Civil War, Demagogic Mad Men , Collapse and a host of unpleasant things and we are no exception.
Now if somehow we can create a crazy amount of private sector jobs or allow prices to drop enough that one wage earner will suffice (and say push women out of the work force) we can use the old methods and recover with as smaller state, alternately we can choose Charles Murray’ Plan (from the excellent In Our Hands) whatever we do, we pay in money or in trouble.
Let’s invert a couple of Dr. Hanson’s assumptions and see how it works out. Let’s postulate:
1. That the masters and flacksters of a socialist state sincerely believe in socialism, for themselves as well as everyone else;
2. That their legislative majorities are substantial enough that, like the 2009-2010 Democrat majorities, they cannot be stopped from implementing their socialist agenda;
3. That they’re not voted out of those majorities at the next election.
What would happen?
First, as socialist schemes and the taxes required to finance them are fastened onto the electorate, private citizens would divert a large part of their energy to evasion: the evasion of both the collectivizations and the exactions. They will seek (and find) black markets; they will contrive to work “off the books.” Ordinary, self-interested, self-motivated men have done that in every instance of a socialist system being fastened onto them.
Second, in chagrin over the success of those widespread evasions, the government would “tighten down:” expand its cadres of enforcers and intensify their efforts to “keep the people in line.” But the enforcers are also self-interested and self-motivated, which makes them bribable. It’s been a feature of every totalitarian state that one can “purchase” exemptions from the law if one has the means and brushes the appropriate palms. Corruption expands in tandem with the State.
These effects would ping-pong off one another until there was no denying the fictive nature of the scheme: “socialism,” so appealing in theory to the envious and the short-sighted, would stand revealed as a cosmetic superstructure built upon a reality of all-pervading evasion and graft. In effect, society would have gone underground to escape from its socialist pieties.
It’s always been that way, and it always will be. There’s no requirement for a State mastered by hypocrites and cynics; all it takes is a society made up of self-interested, self-motivated creatures: that is, a society of ordinary men.
no need to postulate. that is clearly observable in Russia, China, CUBA, VEnevuela etc.
And might I add almost every blue state I have lived in, Rhode Island,Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maryland.
Right; essentially what you are saying is that a socialist state implodes from within…and that’s what is happening in the US now..while the Tea Party people etc are trying to prevent this..
So?
Does anyone think the U.S. will get any help from Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Libya, Syria, Bosnia, Afghanistan or Iraq to help us return our Democracy to the People?
With Obama being thrown out the back door of the White House with the rest of the garbage, he might start to appreciate the predicament Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad were in.
It would be such sweet, poetic, justice.
A very shrewd analysis. Some gems in this essay will be quoted far into the future. “Socialist do not like socialism” – socialism is “…a strategy for gaining power or winning acclaim”… “a modern version of Louis xv’s “Apres moi le deluge”..”.. a Ponzi scheme”
“Who are socialists?
There are none. Only technocratic overseers who wish to give someone else’s money to others as a means of winning capitalist-style lifestyles and power for themselves…”
The historical examples from Ancient Greece and Rome were so relevant and frightening. If it happened to them we are going to have to be very brave and honest to make sure it will not happen to us as well. There is not a lot of time for us to get it right. We cannot waste time.
It’s obvious the “Obama Experiment” has failed. And Obama has failed the “Experiment”. Of course, the Communist Party of the United States (The Democrats) will never admit such a disaster, but, the Obama Movement is getting fired up in Peoria:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lHzJ2PFQcMEJ:peoriachronicle.com/+http://peoriachronicle.com/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
George Bernard Shaw, who became a socialist later in life, once suggested that to be successful in foisting socialism on a resistant country, those who opposed it should be killed.
As to West Nile: The wind turbines kill 8000 Migratory Bats a year at the Altamont, and thousands more through out the country. Unlike the 4,000 Raptors that are killed, just at the Altamont, by flying into the turbines, the bats’ sonar prevents them from going that close. The action of the turbines causes a lung reaction, which suffocates the bats by causing their lungs to collapse.
Migratory Bat population is decreasing in the Untied States. These are the bats that eat the mosquitoes who bring us the viruses. Like the soon-to-be mandatory HazMat light bulb, this is another well-meaning environmental effort, that brings disastrous, chain reacting consequences.
All this for an industry that provides, less than one percent of our energy, when combined with Solar output.
Meanwhile, if the crime in the Central Valley is bad now, just wait til we release, without any supervision, those 43,000 prisoners. Too bad we can’t take the one-third of our prisoners who are illegals, with an average of sever felony convictions each, and send them back to Mexico, and keep them from coming back here. That would solve our prison over-crowding population.
a lot of the progressive policies are just window dressing and make work projects for the useful idiots. …the puppet masters don’t care about renewable energy or the eco system, bats or raptor
the real game plan is a massive die off of people. …all the other stuff is distraction or moving the program towards the massive die-off.
we are dealing with really sick people.
Our capitalistic republic will endure. What the Obama years have gifted to us is the tea party. This phenomenon, which sprang from the very soil of America, announced to the world that there is something exceptional still about this country. The Republicans got a message as well: shape up or ship out. Their response — much derided — to simply become “The Party of No” showed that their still is a backbone deep inside that body politic.
I appreciated Dr. Hanson’s pieces but I think he has gotten cranky in his old age. It is morning again in America and I’ve got one Tea Party to prove it.
Socialism is the morally bankrupt bargain that we each can (and
must) live at the expense of others. Socialism violates the Commandments
that forbid lies, coveting and theft. Even though socialists, often in the
guise of their environmentalist subclass, love to scold the rest of us about
sustainability, socialism itself is not sustainable for a very fundamental
reason: government intrusion into the economy destroys pricing information.
In order to sustain life, humans on balance must create new wealth. But
everyone has finite resources. Knowing the price of things enables people
to figure out what activity will create wealth and which ones cost more than
they are worth. When government intrudes in the market, and sets prices, or
even coerces people to change their prices, pretty soon people cannot really
know how much something costs (in economic terms) just as they become unable
to sell the product of their labors for the price they would find
acceptable. For example, the very battle over Medicare is a battle about
coercing doctors to accept less “reimbursement” for their services, as if
they are serfs. Those who push such an outrage are clueless to find a
shortage of doctors willing to accept new Medicare patients.
A socialist economy cannot calculate economic gains and losses. The instant
it starts to consume more wealth than it creates, that is the instant it
cannot grow, and merely consumes existing capital. When there is no capital
left in a particular sector, that sector collapses. When too many sectors
of the economy collapse, the economy itself collapses, and people starve in
the cold and dark. Just like they do today in North Korea.
This is called the ‘calculation problem’, but you won’t hear anything about
it from people who support socialism. They think that hopeful ideals can
overpower economic facts. They think they can take the 101st jelly bean
from a jar that only contained 100 of them. If necessary, they expect to be
able to print up new jelly beans, or coerce people with a few extra to throw
them back in the jar. Socialism will always descend in lies, coercion,
violence and death. It has no other tools with which to motivate its
victims. In the last century, socialism in various forms cost 160 million
lives. Socialism. Evil.
“Indeed, statism is not a desired outcome, but rather more a strategy for obtaining power or winning acclaim as one of the caring, by offering the narcotic of promising millions something free at the expense of others who must be seen as culpable and obligated to fund it.”
This is the best-phrased description of the leftist mindset since Thomas Sowell’s “Vision of the Anointed” — which, by the way, is the ideal conservative Trojan Horse for your liberal friends who fret over “social justice”.
This is a good analysis as far as it goes, but there is more to it.
The American medical system has managed to develop medicines, treatments, operations, transplants, etc, which along with better diets and life styles, all of which have extended the life span of most Americans well beyond the old limit of 65 or so.
These people now have to work far longer and later in life just to support themselves with or without Social Security, and this means that more and more jobs are unavailable to younger people trying to enter the job market. That is, older baby boomers can’t afford to stop working, and the newer crops of high school and college graduates can’t find jobs.
The entitlement culture is destroying the American working and entrepreneurial spirit and yet anyone who tries to limit or reduce those entitlements is pilloried by the liberal media and liberal Left politicians like Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Reed as cruel and inhuman monsters intent on killing grandma and throwing young people off a cliff.
The ancient Roman leadership found this out by the third century AD, and their fear of violent civil uprisings ultimately convinced them to bankrupt the state with bread and circuses rather than face their fiscal responsibilities.
The hope and faith I have is that Americans, as Irwin Steltzer quoting Churchill,
“do the right thing after trying everything else.”
Great column; I will link to it from my Old Jarhead blog. Unfortunately, I fear that the EU entitlement riots and worse are coming to the US. We are very close to the tipping point, beyond which recovery will not be possible. And few are willing to vote for or bear the very high degree of pain needed now to avoid far worse pain in ten years.
Robert A. Hall
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
(All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans)
True Socialism cannot ever exist because collectivism is at the base of our hierarchy of needs. At the core of our DNA is the instinct for self-preservation and the law of ‘survival of the fittest’. Atruism and charity, a desire to see others succeed, can only come with one’s own economic and physical security. The overseers which you describe want the power and lifestyle that are the benefits of a successful venture into capitalism without the hard work, discipline, and resourcefulness to acquire it. Their efforts and energy are spent manipulating and gaming the system to their advantage and they must create a facade, a pretense, to hide their true motives.
Obama is a product of today’s liberal ideology, an man truly devoid of empathy for anyone outside of his cadre of cronies, all the while espousing to have the best of intentions. The proverbial “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
The sooner Americans can see past the pretense, expose the illusion of a collectvist utopia (yet again!) and rally individuals to actively engage and invest in themselves rather than ANY form of tyranny. Fortunately, this yearning for individual liberty is at the core of the American psyche, in our DNA, so to speak.
“Socialism” is simply feudalism repackaged. Its old wine in new bottles.
All complex political systems devolve into a variant of feudalism or something akin to a Roman client state. Its a product of the brain sometimes expressed as Dunbar’s Number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
We can pretend otherwise but human nature is unchanging and the tendency of people to “tribe up” is so wired into our biology that no rational system will stand up to it for long . We as humans are as much a prisoner of our instincts as any other animal only we are cursed by rationally being able to understand that and still do little about it.
I’ll be darned somebody with a Ph.D. agrees with me: for most politicians it is about getting and keeping political power. People who choose to become career politicians delight in telling other people what to do and spending other peoples’ money.
All mental masturbation aside:
Statism is really Satanism with all the lies and deceit required to pull the wool over gullible eye’s, so Victor we have come so far and we aren’t there yet. Not quite at the pain threshold to wake the rest of those it is possible to wake up.
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.” There is an end to it all, what we are witnessing is just the preparation.
The second sons of fuedal lords had 2 choices, the government(read military) or the church. the sons of serfs had but one choice, serfdom for themselves and their children. Capitalism offered those who were creative, inventive or hardworking the opportunity to better their own lives and the lives of their children. The military and the church became places where common birth was not necessarily a bar to advancement but they were not the only places one could succeed. Socialism returns us to a form of fuedalism. Tax the creative and hardworking to support the government fuedal lords who determine what kind of toilet we sit on and wheat kind light we read by. Oh yes, and what kinds of food is acceptable.The church on the other hand is generally frowned on as an necessary part of society. Thanks for reminding us of the need of b’crats to recreate the lords of the manor. By the way, next time a concervative asks when was the last time a poor man gave you a job, remind him that poor man is the taxpayer giving another b’crat control of his life.
Another wonderfully articulated and illuminating column.
I fear Dr. Hansen is correct when he closes with “That is just the way it has been and will always be.” Reduced to its barest essential, there have always been what Matt Ridley http://www.rationaloptimist.com/ calls “chiefs and priests” to scam those who produce wealth and prosperity so as to further their aims of power, influence, and wealth. But this does not explain why the rest of us never seem to learn from history’s parade of example after example. This question haunted the late French philospher and polemicist Jean-Francois Revel, but he found no convincing answer.
This is both a remarkable article and an illuminating thread of comments.
I’m not sufficiently schooled to critique or argue the opinions here. Instead, I’ll confess to a fairly simple but deep fear which borders on fatalism; one which I’ve hesitated to voice because I think expressions of fatalism can be a form of immorality when good people are gearing up for a fight.
I’m afraid the battle is lost on two separate fronts, both involving simple algebraic curves. The first is a potentially-insurmountable acceleration of our national debt. I wish I could find reasoning which was both sufficiently simple and trustworthy to convince me that there’s even a theoretical chance we can dig ourselves out from beneath it.
The second is the geometric (?) progression of voters who have no stake in the nation’s founding principles. Even if we sealed our Southern border tonight, what happens when 2nd- and 3rd-generation offspring of illegal immigrants mature to the point of political activity?
There’s a classic sci-fi short story by Tom Godwin called “The Cold Equations” that’s one of the most grueling things I ever read as a youngster. The memorable moral of the story is that math can be a silent, implacable and deadly adversary. I worry that two equations (progressions, really) are already operating fatally against us, and that no matter what we do, the outcome is merely a matter of time.
Food for thought. It has been stated that the hardest part of engineering is using the correct formula. Knowing which is correct one is the hard part; after that it’s a matter of manipulating numbers. Any change in the basis will require a different formula. In the case you stated; a change to a nativist belief such as there is no such thing as an ‘anchor baby’( mere location of birth will not confer citizenship) or an organised effort to evict all those not legally here, will alter your computing.
I’m familiar with “The Cold Equations” by Godwin. Chilling story; however he blew the physics. When the pilot ejected the unauthorised passenger, he altered the weight of the ship. That altered the mass and kinetic energy for the worse; his trajectory fell short of his objective.
I am in the process of scanning old photos for my family, 9 brothers and sisters. My father lied to get into to the Army in WWII, cheated by the A bomb and served his time, came home, worked and sacrificed for his children.
10 bachelors degrees, an MD, DDS, 2 JD’s and more Master’s degrees from his children, I wonder if his generation’s sacrifices were worth it. Did Athenians rejoice in their children’s success, as their city-state was destroyed by endless war?
I play the state lottery. If I win, I will take my family from this country, to Singapore, NZ, Australia, away from this place.
America is finished, a slow suicide.
Australia has elected the same kind of socialist thieves as America, ones who are currently killing industry and imposing a carbon tax.
People are panicking and wanting to leave here too, to America!!
Stay where you are and fight for your country. All the democracies are being corroded from the inside, and unless you really feel like an Australin or Singaporean you may as well stay there.
But come for a visit by all means!!
subscribe.
“I thank readers for security tips in the aftermath of an awful month of burglaries and thefts, and plan to implement many of them, since one cannot flee and give in to the tides of lawlessness.”
Hallelujah! I had a feeling you would, professor. Your experience is a metaphor for America during my lifetime. We have spent much of the last 50-odd years thinking it was “normal” to live unguardedly, as if what is good requires only lax and desultory protection from predators. But we were living in an ahistoric hothouse, and the wolf of history is at the door again.
So we arm up. Metaphorically speaking. The unguarded life is an anomaly. The life of a free man is a choice.
“statism is not a desired outcome, but rather more a strategy for obtaining power”
Game. Set. Match to VDH.
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