Thoughts from the Later Republic
Meanwhile, in that general media silence, the lunatic leftwing blogosphere trafficked in rumors that Palin faked her pregnancy; and today it has turned huckster and Playgirl pin-up Levi Johnson into some sort of unimpeachable Nostradamus, dispensing inside truth about the intimacies of the Palin family. How odd that the National Enquirer got the story right on Edwards, while the left turned into a poor imitation of the Enquirer on Palin’s pregnancy.
Silence about crudity?
This week both President Obama (according to sources from his pep talks to congressional leaders) and Bill Clinton (publicly) invoked the slur “tea-bagger” to deprecate the Town-haller/tea-party protestors. But given that the smear started on liberal cable television to conflate a graphic sex practice with a legitimate protest, why would a President and ex-President keep playing along with the crude pun. (I know—the same reason a President would make fun of the Special Olympics, or do a ‘yell out’ (confusing the Medal of Honor with the Medal of Freedom) as a prelude to “serious” initial statement on Fort Hood.) My question is this—does Obama inadvertently conflate tea-party and tea-bagger, or is this slur a reminder of his past sort of stealthy middle finger rub on his nose, to the cheers of the crowd?
Cato vs. Nero
I visited the Reagan ranch yesterday—for the first time. In my 20s and 30s I remember the media mantra about the ex-governor’s getaway: Reagan’s wealthy cronies had supposedly secretly bought him in a sweet-heart-deal a Hearst Castle-like estate where he looked down at hoi polloi below and did photo-ops chopping wood. I half expected “the ranch” to be comparable to Oprah’s nearby estate.
But I was struck by the array of simple farm tools in the garage, the do-it-yourself trails and fences, the unadorned home of about 1700 sq. ft of rustic simplicity and ad-ons with basic old GE appliances, no insulation, wiring conduited onto the whitewashed walls, low ceilings, basic, unevenly settled tile floors. In terms of comfort or frills, the Western White House “ranch” was probably not comparable to “John’s room” inside the Edwards’ “Two Americas” estate, or the garage at one of John Kerry’s mansions, or Al Gore’s boathouse.
How odd that the supposed plutocratic Reagan lived like the proverbial Philemon and Baucis, while today’s populists—Gore, Kerry, Kennedy, Edwards, Rev. Wright, etc., fill in the blanks—seek to emulate Nero’s Golden House.
The Great Disconnect
One of the oddest things is President Obama’s continuing surprise at the rising unemployment rate. Indeed, we now have a new Orwellianism of “jobs saved”: as jobs are lost, we are told that some of those who do have them were “saved” by President Obama (note the logic: you ignore the stats that quantify reality, but hype fantasy).
If you were a contractor, a car dealer, a dentist, or an accountant, and if you heard that we may/will/sorta raise federal income taxes, lift the tax caps off FICA, think about a VAT tax, impose a health care surcharge on the “wealthy,” have new mandatory fees for forced medical plans and green energy, and had you just got hit with new raised sales and state income taxes, why would you feel secure about the future and gamble on it by hiring more employees?
And if you were to read daily that gold is rising, the dollar crashing, the debt and deficit exploding, the trade imbalance surging, and if you collated all that depression with cheap slurs about doctors, the Chamber of Commerce, the insurance industry, etc. as grasping and greedy, and if you were caricatured as a Nazi, astro-turfer, tea-bagger, or racist if you protested, and if you saw the federal government taking over banks and car companies, and shutting down some dealerships, but mysteriously not others, and if you heard of vast new entitlements and programs to come, from a take-over of the student loan program to cap and trade, would you then conclude—“Wow, we have a serious sober President who supports the business climate, and will lead us out of recession, so by golly, I am going to go out and hire 2-3 more people to ride the coming wave of increased business!”?
Or would you instead conclude, “Hmm, our commander in chief likes neither me nor what I represent. He will take much of my profits and divert them to his own favored constituencies. So I better slow down, retrench, cut back, squirrel away some money to pay for new fees on power and health insurance, and find a smart accountant to advise on curbing my income so I don’t end up giving 70% to the state and federal governments”?
At some point, Obama may conclude that the vast presidential jet, the opulence of the Presidency, the power and influence at his fingertips, all that national wealth and more were not created by Acorn, community organizing, Michelle’s legal brilliance, Axelrod’s savvy advice, or Emanuel’s crassness, or by claiming that doctors needlessly take out tonsils and amputate limbs, or in general by sonorous tones promising to give someone vast amounts of someone else’s money, but rather through preserving a climate of freedom, respect for continuity and tradition, and government non-intrusion into the market place that encourage people to try to go into business and retain some of their profits—as recompense for getting up on Saturday morning at 6AM to get down to open the dry cleaning store, or borrowing one’s net worth to open a new stationary outlet, or staying late till 7PM to do a crown, or gambling that the new $500,000 crane will pay for itself in 5 years, or going under someone’s house on a Sunday to unclog the toilet when the employee doesn’t show up.
I expect him soon either to continue as is and face a historic rebuke in 2010, or to begin scrambling to talk about the debt, fiscal sobriety, and American exceptionalism—his Carter or Clinton call.
These are the most interesting of times: we are witnessing nothing less than an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was, led by someone who, the more soothing, comforting, and melodic his speech-making, the more bruising, cut-throat, and ruthless the act that follows.
So it’s like we’re living in the late Roman Republic…
“Obama may conclude….” I assume that was, in the main, rhetorical because it is more than clear that Obama will never conclude that work and free enterprise should be liberated from the general drift of his current policy. He won’t because he does not care if his present policies and techniques of governance ruin the country. He does not care because the ruin of the American method of happiness and prosperity is his present, once, and certain goal.
Never attribute to historical ignorance that which can be explained by simple malice.
“Hmm, our commander in chief likes neither me nor what I represent. He will take much of my profits and divert them to his own favored constituencies. So I better slow down, retrench, cut back, squirrel away some money to pay for new fees on power and health insurance, and find a smart accountant to advise on curbing my income so I don’t end up giving 70% to the state and federal governments”?
The small businessmen I know are saying just that. They cannot plan ahead for a recovery as they see an anti-business administration who has no clue how to stimulate job growth. Until we can get some conservatives elected to Congress, there will be no recovery. Just less economic activity accompanied by more Obama/Reid/Pelosi progressive redistribution schemes. November 2010 cannnot come soon enough
I only hope we can use the 2010 mid-terms to delay things and then toss this anti-American crowd of pompous liars, cheats and scoundrels onto history’s trash heap of liberal losers.
Doc, I’d hate to have Sister Vibiana make me diagram your sentence that begins with “At some point…”
Dr. Hanson, you’re absolutely correct in that a rational American politician would certainly move toward the center as a means of preserving his political viability. However, a rational American politician wouldn’t do 90%+ of what Barack Obama has already done, nor virtually any of what he’s planning to do. From bowing to foreign leaders, to insulting our allies and kowtowing to our enemies, to turning terrorists into run of the mill criminals by sending them to civilian criminal court, to bankrupting the nation for generations in any one of several ways, Obama has made plain that he is anything but an American, to say nothing of an American politician. He’s above it all. He is The One; He who is I, who is I, I, I, I and I; the I above all I’s.
Galbraith, Gore, Edwards, Rangel, Dodd, etc. are held to a different standard. Because they make a great show of “caring” about the fate of lesser beings (to their way of thinking, anyone who doesn’t run in their social circles), they are entitled to–no, they have the right to–certain perks not available to the great unwashed. They care so deeply for the little people that they must have their 100 foot houseboats, mansions, dalliances and crooked deals as their just reward for such stress inducing caring. So while it is beyond argument that conservatives give far, far more to charity than liberals, liberals do their part by taking the assets of disfavored groups and giving those assets to groups favored by themselves. They see absolutely no contradiction in any of this.
While Obama dithers over Afghanistan, he might do well to remember Ronald Reagan’s Cold War “exit strategy”: “We win; they lose.” The mere idea that a nation should not commit troops to a war, particularly a war of choice, a good and necessary war, as Obama was once so fond of reiterating, absent a pre-decided exit strategy is a second definition of insanity (Einstein’s being the first). Exit strategy? We win; then we exit. If that is not the ultimate goal of any war, why do we fight? Failing to understand this, failing to understand that one doesn’t push “reset” on our values and international commitments every four years leads to, well, to dithering.
Those who have read Reagan’s writings, who have studied him, will not be surprised by your description of his ranch. He was a man who never forgot his average beginnings, and the many struggles of his life did not teach him entitlement, narcissism, the skills of the con man, a cruel disdain for those less fortunate, or a belief in his superiority over all men. While others like Gore, Edwards, Dodd, Rangel and Obama covet more and more trappings of wealth and power, Reagan remained grounded in that way that all rational men seek grounding: In faith, and in those values that have always made America and Americans exceptional. The flaunting of wealth has never been among them, despite liberal attempts to tar conservatives with that brush as they ruthlessly seek and exploit that which they decry.
Yes, a rational person would do all that you have suggested and would realize that only the exact opposite of the philosophy Obama and his minions so ardently espouse will preserve and maintain America. But they are socialists, communists, fascists, true, Mao-loving (who even thinks that, let alone says it? To school children?) believers. A rational man would never think of forcing Americans to buy a given product–just for the heck of it, let’s say a specific medical insurance policy–even if they didn’t need and want it. And he surely wouldn’t think of jailing Americans for refusing to buy that which they did not want or need at exorbitant prices set by the government. And any rational man would realize that if he jailed that helpless American, that American would no longer be providing the exorbitant taxes that a fictional, insane health care scam would require, thus ensuring another track in an endless downward spiral to national bankruptcy and dissolution. But Obama would.
If Chicago is the current analog for the late Roman Republic, we’re surely there.
Penetrating insight as usual, but I must quibble with the comparison to the late Roman republic, as Caesar and Pompey were at least proven leaders instead of mere windbags. I could accept a competent tyrant much more than an inept autocrat.
Nicely put, Professor Hanson! The contrasts you note, and the hypocrisies you imply, are damning.
Some observations of my own:
- Obama calling himself the ‘first Pacific President’ while in Japan recently. Does he REALLY think he’s the Messiah? I’m beginning to think so…
- Sarah Palin offering reconciliation with her daughter’s ex, no strings attached…
I know who I’d have preferred in charge…
Caesar was brought down my men in his own faction, many of whom he had elevated far above their normal prospects. Will Democrats rebel in like fashion? Hard to say which man could boast of the biggest ego, but Caesar earned his reputation for greatness and was a whole lot smarter than the con artist from Chicago. “Smart, but not wise,” is what Sitting Bull used to say. Caesar used and abused the powers of Dictator to fundamentally transform Rome with his long list of reforms, maybe counting on his enormous popularity to pull it off. Obama seems to have similar ambitions. But our founders studied the history of failed republics and created the Constitution. Obama will fail, and the USA will emerge bruised, but wiser and stronger in the long run.
Dear Mr. Hanson,
Thank you for this exceptionally clear and stark contrast of media coverage – this is the gigantic canary in the coal mine. Poor little thing is flatlining.
If the media is measured by ratings and media organizations need ratings to be financially viable, perhaps the media is an expression of most people’s attitudes in America – God forbid.
If an attitude shift is the necessary solution to a more sensible direction, it’s either going to take a long time, or a significant and discomforting event. The real concern is the latter, but it seems inevitable given the current course of hypocrisy and shameful contradictions that are – worse than accepted – engrained in the everyday norm and conversation at large.
“Or would you instead conclude, ‘our commander in chief neither likes me nor what I represent.’”
Professor, a good many of us came to that conclusion a long time ago. Suddenly the old rules no longer apply. You realize that your job, mortgage, savings, everything you ever worked for stands at risk to some government whim. So you make contingency plans. If necessary, you cut your losses and beat a strategic retreat.
The leadership of the Democratic Party represents an oligarchy. It’s rather useless to point out their hypocrisy, dual standards, or contrived explanations for this or that policy. Personal power is their raison d’etre. The equation becomes suddenly simple.
So, yes, you make plans and hunker down in the face of a gathering storm. Nothing good can come of this situation. You hope for a restoration of the American Republic through constitutional means, but you plan for the worst. There is nothing to do but wait for the storm to abate, and clean up the wreckage left in its wake.
Classic VDH. The “solely symbolic” Age and its champions definitively skewered.
I don’t know about the Carter redux in 2010. Obama may be inclined to bow and scrape before foreign dignitaries, but he may not be willing to do the same to the American public that he so obviously despises.
Yes, a power grab by a narrow elite is afoot. But it need not necessarily succeed. It has much, but not yet total control of the media, but a majority of Americans are starting to see through them. It’s true that political correctness is constraining and confusing people (they’re uncertain what to do…) leadership is needed to spell it out and point the way… Who will step up and seize the mantle of history?
Actually, I expected the next (or most recent) Islamic terrorist attack to bring unity and common purpose to all. But all it brought was a further disconnect between the media/Administration complex and common sense everyday people.
Now with the trial coming in New York, I’m hoping that more and more people will see through the nonsense. As we hear redundant disdain for Bush I hope more and more people will want all of the Democrats out.
One year. November 2010. So near yet so far.
Excellent recall, impeccable logic. Yet the drones of the Left will soon be here with their litany of false charges against Bush and their attempts to defend the indefensible, the Obama presidency.
One of the most laughable gaffes, though the laugh is on the majority of US voters, is the middle-ages of honorarium, the bow to royal blood, yes, royal blood for God’s sake. “Oh, your majesty. Oh your royal highness, you are looking most splendifferous today. How does thy royal majesty feel this fine November day?”
“…an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States”
Reinvent how, exactly?
Defense experts worry about Obama’s decision to undermine our missile defense as Iran openly tests EMP attacks.
Economists worry about how the stimulus, obamacare, tax and trade, etc. undermine the strength of the dollar and our economy.
Lawyers worry about how trying KSM and the gang in NY undermines the rule of law.
Many of us worry that Obama’s decision to prosecute CIA agents may expose us all to greater risks from Islamic terrorists.
An alarming pattern is beginning to emerge.
Obama says, “I can bow lower than any other leader in the world…watch me now. Hey!
Look, your high royalnesses, I can kiss my own arxx!
http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/president-obama-vs-rest-of-world.html
the solution Prof Hanson is obvious. You know this quite well your self i am sure. What we need… what the solution is… is a miracle.
The problem is that there is not a shared perception of reality /the truth anymore.
Obama in Japan:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/obama-emperor-akihito-japan.html
For the left this is cultural savvyness, for the right Obama has gone beyond embarrassing and is now just a Parody.
The problem is however serious because he is the Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation of the world, Guardian of the Western Civilization
Dr. Hanson,
I too have visited Reagan’s ranch. The ranch house is indeed modest, but I have a picture of the old warrior on a white steed, and the horse is grand! The horse, by the look in its eyes and deep equestrian pride of the moment, seemed to know his rider was truly a great one. To wit:
Colossal Triumphs Overturned
By Robert Winkler Burke
Copyright 11/15/09
We didn’t start out to be giants,
But that’s who we are,
We didn’t despise small beginnings,
Somehow, we went far.
Now we stand shoulder to shoulder,
Carrying too much to bear,
Who do we carry? You!
And you don’t seem to care.
We wrote the songs,
We wrote the books,
The constitutions,
All, if you’d look!
But you’re busy depositing,
What you shouldn’t on our heads,
No, it’s not flowers we smell,
As you besmirch your beds.
You sleep with trollup doxies,
And call evil good,
We gave all not for proxies,
Or to make you lewd.
You have it precisely backwards,
As you stand on our shoulders,
You don’t know we can shake you off,
Your strange fire kindles embers.
Though saintly,
We weren’t always saints!
We forgive,
Change color of your paints!
You have succeeded only in,
Our triumphs overturned,
See, weep, repent and then return!
Not too late, your turn earned.
You can earn your place,
In the hall of giants,
Lose the rotten doctrines,
I AM is, stop it: ain’ts.
The I AM called us in our day,
And we gave our best,
So far you have refused His call,
Your pride beats the rest.
As leviathan of Job’s day,
Your pride reaches heaven,
Brittle, we let God full break us,
We grew by losing leaven.
Our mission now,
Is not to uphold leviathans of pride,
Beware: Misled,
You’ve reached the limit of our ride.
You stand on our shoulders,
Letting dung fall,
One day we must shake you off,
And you will fall.
You can fool yourselves and others,
But you can’t con giants of history,
In our day we saw miscreants,
You don’t think others on earth see?
Your unchecked monster pride,
Makes you stupid blind,
In That Day you will see,
What you now can’t find.
Excuse me.. That’s Dr. Hanson I’ve just realized. And in doing so, how ironic. Dr. Hanson the insightful in an academic world dominated by too few of his expertise, but rather left wing radicals. Is the current majority that support the misguided and hurtful Obama policies the result of decades of socialists dominating academic circles!?
“I expect him soon either to continue as is and face a historic rebuke in 2010, or to begin scrambling to talk about the debt, fiscal sobriety, and American exceptionalism—his Carter or Clinton call.”
You can’t expect Obama to do what he is unable to do. That is to move toward the center vis a vie Clinton and triangulation. Too much damage is done already, and besides, why alienate his hard core left base by moving away from them.
His (not Halder’s)decision to put on trial in New York the Guantanamo quintet is purely a political move to keep the spotlight on the Bush administration policies, and in a sense put Bush, Cheney and everyone connected with Bush’s’ presidency on trial. Less and less people now blame Bush for the malaise. By next summer Obama will be bearing the brunt of Americas ire. What better way to deflect from his failures than to keep the spotlight on Bush. Such a cold calculating guy that Obama is. However, like many before him, Obama does not understand the American people. He thinks he understands them, but only as it relates to his candidacy. He will get a cold dose of reality next November as independents abandon him in droves.
I’m not sure if you know it but any petty officer aboard the carrier Ronald Reagan who is promoted to Chief Petty Officer is given a few days at the ranch as Nancy’s guest…
“One of the oddest things is President Obama’s continuing surprise at the rising unemployment rate.”
I do not believe Obama is surprised. I believe he is acting surprised. He knows his policies and speeches are damaging the economy, and he only wishes the damage were greater and faster. The federal government can only gobble-up those parts of the economy seen as damaged (such as health care). For Obama’s desired socio-fascism to advance, more of the economy must fail or appear the fail. (The media will, of course, help Obama by blaring economic catastrophe stories 24/7.) When the federal government controls more than half the nation’s economy, Obama believes that people will be too dependent and too scared to oust him.
“These are the most interesting of times: we are witnessing nothing less than an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was, led by someone who, the more soothing, comforting, and melodic his speech-making, the more bruising, cut-throat, and ruthless the act that follows.”
Two differences (among many) from the late Roman Republic:
1. The citizenry now has the benefit of a Second Amendment.
and
2. That “someone” to whom you refer cannot automatically count on the support of the armed forces or the police if he attempts to become an “American Augustus.”
Cicero was also a clever guy and he made lots of nice speeches. Unfortunately, Cicero’s charm, glibness, and guile were utterly wasted on Marc Antony, weren’t they? ;)
Why yes, welcome to the late republic. However, we’re not Romans are we?
When Pompey was in Rome and Caesar was in Gaul, the threat to Pompey was not the Gauls. It was not the rump Macedonian successors sitting on thrones to the east. Pompey perceived his true enemy to his power was Caesar.
Now if Pompey gave Caesar some more cohorts or even another legion, then Caesar’s victories in Gaul would be Caesar’s and not Pompey’s. If Pompey recalled Caesar’s cohorts then any collapse in Gaul would be Pompey’s fault. So, Pompey’s alternative is to play for time hoping that circumstance would bring Caesar low and provide an opportunity to remove him as a threat to Pompey’s power. For Caesar was the only one who could truly galvanize and rally the population of Rome to contest Pompey’s rule.
No. We’re not Romans.
The coming rejection at the polls in 2010 is so obvious and the Democrats (and Obama) so sanguine, that you have to conclude that Obama either does not care (unlikely), has so way to avoid having the election (difficult), or he has some was of fixing the election (possible). As soon as health care is decided, look for immigration “reform” to be next on his agenda since it will (1) distract everyone from the economy and (2) add maybe 20 million pliable (many non-English speaking) voters to the rolls when illigals are given citizenship. With millions of new voters and the number of votes that ACORN (or whatever it’s called then) can steal, Obama mah believe that the Democrats can “win” the election even if the American electorate has turned against him, especially is he can arrange a quixotic third-party campaign by Lou Dobbs. What does Nancy Pelosi care is some “Blue Dogs” get waxed? The problem is that this country needs a real opposition party and does not have one. The Republicans are fecklesls and will do whatever is necessary (like the nomination of McCain in 2008) to guarantee a loss. I predict that the national Republicans will find some way to sign on to “immigration reform” to ease the way for Obama. Some kind of language “requirement” and “fine” (to be paid, perhaps, out of future tax refuns or even grants) will be negotiated (not enforceable, of course).
I dispute your assertion that Big Dawg said that slur in refernece to we tea party patriots
I called Sen Whitehouse office and they refused to confirm on the record that he used that word and it was NOT in public it was a behind closed doors talk with Dem Senators. This was reported in Politico second hand from Sen Whitehouse and was not a verbatim statement it was Sen Whitehouse’s spin nothing more
Bill Clinton in fact came out and DEFENDED we tea partiers and said we are NOT RACIST after Carter said we were
This very John Lenin streak of conscienceness thing just popped into my very head regarding all of the bowing and wowing to our puissant betters by our nobble precedent, to wit (from “In His Own Write”)
Scruddy: ‘Why don’t yer shut yer gob yer big fat get
or I’ll kick yer face in. Yer all the same you
rich fat Bourgies, workin’ uz poor workers to
death and getting all the gelt and going to
France for yer ‘holidays.’
(Enter a coloured woman singing a coloured
song, On her back is a great bundle.)
Mammy:
‘Pope dat barge, left that bail’
(She unloads her bundle on the right of the desk.)
Fatty:
(Impatiently)
‘What is it Mammy, can’t you see I’m haveing
a prodlem with Taddpill and you come in
here all black and singing? And get that bundle
of ruddish away from my big desk!’
Mammy:
‘O.K. Kimu sahib bwana, massa’
(she lifts the bundle and eats it)
‘Sho’ was naice*
Fatty:
‘Anyway what was it mammy?’
Mammy:
‘Dat was yo’ little daughter, by yo secind
wife KIMU SAHIB’
Fatty: (colouring)
‘But I’m not married, old Mammy’
(Mammy clasps her hands to her head horryfried)
‘Oh Lord, I’ve jes’ eaten a bastard!’
(She runs round the room crossing her self, and singing
another verse. Scruddy stands up replaceing his cap firmly
on his head – walking toward the door he half turns like in
the films and shakes his fist.)
‘Get this black woman out of this factory
before the men find out, or yer’ll ‘ave a strike
on yer fat Bourgie ‘ands. I’m tellin yer that
fer nothin’ yer old bum!’
(Scruddy walks out of the room leaving Fatty – Mammy
and four teen little Jewish children all singing together a
kind of hymn.)
The End
Well done Sir. A chilling analysis.
Doc,
Your diagnosis is correct. Has been for a while. We need guidance as to what comes next. What steps would you tell your own children to take, given where we are? Not just for their own well-being; for their Republic. Which step first? This is a serious entreaty; after the first step, maybe the other steps will become more obvious, to all of us. You would say to them, what?
Thanks,
D
It’s nothing less than a coup, enabled by the very stability and temperate tolerance that 220 years of life under a genius framework has created.
If instead our country had endured the chaos of most others, we would have thrown the criminals out of office in the first month of their arrogant 52%-majority grab for absolute power.
But the fact that the boil hasn’t burst yet only increases the odds that the procedure will be explosive when the lance is finally brought out.
VDH
“I expect him soon either to continue as is and face a historic rebuke in 2010, or to begin scrambling to talk about the debt, fiscal sobriety, and American exceptionalism—his Carter or Clinton call.”
You have a better chance of Obama’s ass (if he was riding one) talking to him then Obama turning from the path he is on.
Like Balaam, Obama is walking down a path of certain destruction and it will take Devine intervention to change course. Only self preservation will motivate any kind of course change from the one.
Balaam’s story is a great one, even the ass he was riding could see that Balaam was riding into distruction. Look for large parts of the jackass party to abandon ship and the captain to go down with it.
Even a jackass can see where Obama’s policies will take us but Obama cannot. This fact does not fill us with hope.
Clinton was a lot less committed to his ideology than Carter or Obama and was easily moved by political expedency. Carter is a perversely stubborn mule. Carter is still trying to prove his failed philosophical vision even after being hit in the head by several 2×4′s without a safety helemt on and Obama appears to be much the same with even higher stakes for America. I expect old Jimmy will be conversing in the fires of hell with Yasar Arafat about what went wrong long after the Obama ship has sunk.
If Obama and his minions sole goal is to reduce the US to third world status. Then he and his have no care at all about Democrats getting re-elected or about being popular with the voters. They’ll spin to buy time. They’ll pause only to loot while the looting is good. They will feel they can depend on their connections with the world wide left and the money that they have stolen to let them live comfortably in the aftermath touted as heroes. If this is the case, then Obama is on his way to successfully reaching his goal.
Of course if this becomes widely perceived as Obama’s goal then he might not make it past 2010 let alone to 2013.
The late Republic indeed. Yet, we are in the earlier stages, without any great men, but with an increasingly dysfunctional Senate, increasing corruption, etc. – the conditions out of which a Marius or a Pompey or Caesar may emerge.
Obama is the colonial avenger, avenging the oppressions that the colonies (like Kenya) “suffered” at the hands of the imperialist nations, of which he counts the U.S. as one. He’s not misstepping at all. A case in point: KSM in NYC:
The points are:
#1 To make our security forces too scared to really go after terrorists in investigations and interrogations lest they be punished for it later
#2 Civil trials’ discovery process will result in massive outing of our covert sources and personnel
#3 Of course there will be endless appeals because of all the places in the world the dirtbags could “get a fair trial” NYC would be the last
#4 All this is a prelude to subverting our sovereignty to International Courts
How stupid do you have to be to not realize that ALL the stuff that’s happening is ABSOLUTELY 100% deliberate???
BHO in his campaign said that historically the only nations ever capable of imperial action were strong financially.
As the self-proclaimed colonial avenger therefore his priority is to destroy the economic strength of the “imperialist” nations like OURS.
Why not make new citizens of millions of foreigners to compete for jobs with currently unemployed citizens?
Making people think he’s just too stupid to know what the results of his actions are (as opposed to knowing EXACTLY what those results are because he desires them) is the most critical part of his scam-
GET IT YET???
He refuses to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem and bows to foreigners as a deliberate finger in the eye to Americans. Can’t you even percieve when you’re being deliberately disrespected?
Obama is using his current position to jockey for a role in a world government which subverts our nation.
I think there are [at least] 2 senses of vulgarity – the cultural rot *and* the rulers’ brutality – proceeded by their outlandish insults, claims and smears. It all seems to be jelling right before my eyes. I recall that in Ominous Parallels, elements of this vulgarity rose in harmony with the Nazis.
The small business owners go Galt.
Federal Income Tax receipts fall.
The Fed can no longer supply the Mob with
Bread and Circuses; Its gets restless.
Private, local, Grass-Roots Activists
offer to take up the load, for those
mobsters who vote Conservative.
The Emperor orders his Legions into action,
and finds that their loyalty is not to him,
but to the Constitution, and they will not
let him use temporary, local crises as an
excuse to impose permanent, national
Martial Law.
The Emperor, having lost all support in
Congress, abdicates, and leaves the building,
escorted by his Praetorian Guard.
Many doctors I know are focusing only on taking care of patients including the poor and disabled. While that is a worthy cause, we as physicians need to step back and look at the big picture. We need to be concerned about the government takeover of more and more of our lives and society, something our founders never intended. There is no such thing as government benevolence! Physicians, be careful what you wish for. There are other solutions for the problems we have with the current medical system.
Dr. Hanson has laid out his perspective on the possible actions of the businessman and entreprenurial class in response to the actions of the current Congress and the President.
I would like to lay out the perspective of someone on the other side. As I know from personal experience, having chronic medical problems has prevented me from becoming an entrepreneur. Without reliable health insurance, I could not be a productive member of society. I’m confined to government and the academic realms because of it.
Do you know how many Americans are prevented from trying to start their own business because they have families and they cannot risk not having health insurance? How is chaining someone to their employer by them receiving their insurance through them to the benefit of free markets? I submit to you that this is a greater labor market distortion than other government interventions. How is it economically desirable or morally correct to keep most people in the country one medical disaster away from bankruptcy?
Jedimom said, “I dispute your assertion that Big Dawg said that slur (‘teabaggers’) in refernece to we tea party patriots.”
If you actually read the Politico piece you gainsay, you’d find an audio link to Clinton’s speech.
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=15&subcatid=51&threadid=3282805
Even Daily Kos says it’s legit.
http://wwww.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/11/803204/-President-Clinton-calls-out-Teabaggers
And sorry, but no legit TEA Partier is going to call Clinton “Big Dawg.” Narcissistic gropers who think laws are for the little people are not objects of affection among the TEA-sipping crowd. You outed yourself.
I think I have the answer to get through the next 12 months.
Words by john turner and geoffrey parsons and music by charlie chaplin
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it’s breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
The remaking of a republic into a centralized authoritarian regime no government will ever refuse.
The difference between communist and socialist parties in Western Europe had been how far each would go in punishing success to settle historical grievances. American socialists had once separated from European socialists at a point more towards in favor of the individual here because of the strength of our traditional middle class and our original experience with freedom.
Our rulers in Washington now have breached the restraining barrier of how far an honest American would go in punishing success as they insatiably gulp down the elixir of power, hastening the swelling of the state-employee leviathan, indulging the inefficiencies of union imposed diminishing returns, and circumventing the Constitution to ensure majority status of the beholden of welfare-state entitlements.
No honor will hold back our historic first Islamic apostate president as his anger driven pay-back, his obsession for global reparations, and his morbidly psychotic megalomania will not abide his keeping any peace with our American way of life.
Well Ricky, if the problem is insurance availability a law addressing that specific problem would seem to be indicated, not a 2,000 page monstrosity taking over the whole health care system and reducing it to ruin. It will do that, you know it very well. Sensible policies would address specific matters with individual bills that ameliorate problems, not try to revolutionize society with huge, ill-conceived changes.
Becoming a dependent on the government will not help you. As the Federal government takes over more roles it fails to do any of them properly. The recent fiasco with influenza vaccines is a foretaste of how a nationalized health care systme will work, or rather not work. Eventually a government that tries to control everything will collapse from sheer ineptitude and inability to finance its opeations, and people like yourself who are dependent on government’s largesse will find themselves left without anything.
Government’s obligations unexpectedly coming due will lead to financial failure that will make our recent mortgage meltdown look mild by comparison. You’ll be left with nothing, Ricky, all the things you thought the government would do for you will vanish and you’ll be left out in the cold. This is foreseeable. Do not delude yourself any longer, you are as vulnerable as I or your physician or the owner of an innovative medical device firm or the guy running the hardware store down the street.
Your grandchildren will be Muslim.
Allahu akbar!
Speaking of the latter Roman Republic…and points at which comparisons may break down…
I recall from when I learned of this period ages ago in High School (I went to a real one, ergo it taught such things) that there was this or that popular uprising that would lead to the ouster of one thug and his replacement by another – the mob being played like a cheap violin by the late Republic’s Soros’ (who, make no mistake, is Obama’s Master, and I mean all that implies).
The American Mob, however, may not be led by Mobsters but more itnerested in exercising its 2nd Amendment rights not to defend Soros, Pelosi et al, but their own rights and patrimony.
How long wil the long-suffering suffer under the impneding tyranny until the semper is put back into sic tyranus?
The concept of the MSM as being liberal is not just a concept: it is a fact. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to make the world of journalism come to their senses and start seeing things in a more balanced way, but this is a fool’s errand. Either they have no capacity to see the world in a way other than that which they have been taught, or they haven’t the capacity to think objectively.
I suppose one other possibility is that they have effectively come to see western thought and values as inherently evil–those that include the ideas of balanced, objective thought.
Its simply time to look at and refer to the MSM as exactly what it is: propaganda. We don’t need to continually point this out, it has been demonstrated ad nauseum. It is what it is.
They are the unchecked de facto arm of government. Absolute power with no room for objection. The Republican Party, politicians and candidates should stop trying to makes friends with them and from here on out call them left wing.
And fair is fair, they can refer to Fox as conservative. I’m sure the MSM will object and throw fits. And that’s fine by me.
Come now, good doctor, you know too well the Late Roman Republic, its dependence on plunder and tribute, on exogenous mercenary arms for both expansion of resources and defense.
That is not a good comparison for the “remake” of America that is being offered (and rejected it seems).
Look elsewhere.
Dr Hanson, maybe you could apply to be the President’s personal historian because he sure could use you. It’s pretty obvious that he never studied ancient Greece or Rome, nor has he ever taken a course in Western Civ. There are many, many similarities between the late Roman Republic and today. The only major difference is the lack of political violence. Although we did have some violence back in the 1960′s, some of it committed by the President’s friends, we have not experienced anything similar to the multiple civil wars the late Roman Republic suffered from.
If there is not a mass exodus of incumbents being voted out of office in 2010, then I fear the worse for this country come 2012.
The current economic program of this administration is failing and the real unemployment rate of 17% could easily shoot up to 25%. The nonsense about jobs saved will only go so far. Eventually people will realize the Emperor has no clothes.
The stock market is holding up because the Fed printed $2 trillion. But the dollar is crumbling now, so the fed can’t print any more money.
Growth in China and Brazil can only go so far, especially if America does not buy their goods.
What if the next Soldier of Allah shoots up a mall or a school, instead of an army base? What if Khalid Sheik Muhammad doesn’t get the death sentence? What if his trial is postponed, or god forbid, he is released by some liberal judge?
How long will it be before we suffer the political violence of civil war that the late Roman Republic suffered again and again?
While the President dithers on Afghanistan, where has Sen. James Webb been? He was the angry father when Bush dared asked him about his deployed son, but now he has disappeared from any discussion of the war. Where is all the righteous anger now that we have a man whose indecision and incompetence are jeopardizing the lives of American troops?
I respect him for the service he and his family have provided this country, but I thought he would be the one Democrat who would be openly critical of Obama’s dithering.
The problem is a university educated American political class totally ignorant of the lessons of history. They will have to re-learn everything. And i mean everything from “There is no such thing as a free lunch” to “Power abhors a vacuum”.
The significant similarity between Rome and US lay in the our cultural decline and ossification of our institutions.
The significant disparity between Rome and US lay in that its leaders were also generals that had armies loyal to themselves, whilst ours are hardly close to the stature of any of them.
Our army, while ostensibly loyal to the constitution that is fundamental to our republic and not to any man, has declined along with our other institutions due to political inroads like affirmative action, PC, and long-standard CYA, could unseat any of our string of Mariuses (Bush was the lite precursor to the heavy-handed Obama). But there really is no mechanism for them to do so without due process not likely coming from a gaggle of like-minded weak legislators and justices.
And Marius was dethroned as it were by a Sulla, his long-standing fellow patrician-general but mortal enemy. Where oh where do we have anyone akin to Sulla politically let alone militarily?
No. No. NO! This is not the late Roman Republic. We will not get a temporary respite from a Marius/Obama socialist because we lack for a potential dictator/general like Sulla.
Now, you may say, but what if we could elevat a stately man into the more benign Cincinnatus dictator style of the early republic?
Sorry, Cincinnatus reigned to repel external invaders. Sulla had to overcome perfidy from the inside.
In my humble opinion — and very humble it is because I don’t see anyone here even giving me the time of day to respond in kind, let alone Dr. Hanson — the only thing that can save this republic short of a major upheaval is a major restoration of our great cultural heritage by majority agreement. Good luck with that project short of massive prayers that are miraculously answered.
IOW, we are on track for the appearance of our Imperator at a faster rate than it took Rome to get there.
Commentary written because so many commentators here were comparing Obama to Caesar, Pompey, Marius, etc. (For some reason the commentary I originally posted here failed to appear.)
Obama is not Caesar. He’s Pompey. Julius was a very successful General. He was eventually forced to “cross the Rubicon”. He ended the Roman Republic, ushering in the age of tyrants. He died, what, three years later, slain by Brutus? (It’s late, and I’m a bit unwell. My memory may be faulty.)
As to business, there was a point being made towards the end of 2008. They called it Calvinball Economics. As long as the government keeps tinkering, or even saying that they intend to tinker, businesses will hunker down and wait. They can make no plans until they know what the rules are. If the rules may change, with no notice, then you’d be a fool to make plans.
# 44 Baraq Hussein Al-Bama: SAYS
“Your grandchildren will be Muslim.
Allahu akbar!’
I say ‘Your Grandchildren will be dead before that happens Baraq’ God Bless America.
So it’s like we’re living in the late Roman Republic…
So, professor, you do know what to expect, don’t you? Do you expect that the 2010 or 2012 elections will be free or fair? Do you expect that democratic traditions a century old will actually be respected?
If I remember my Roman history, clouded as it is by the filter of Jewish history through which I see it, it was an era of competing generals commanding competing legions, all fighting over how best to advance on – Rome. The traditions of the land of Romulus and Remus convulsed as an ancient republic – born to liberate people from the tyranny of kings – died a violent death and slowly sunk to become an evil empire that fell to the maurauding Goths whom the Romans could not buy off.
Speed things up some – at least by a factor of ten or fifteen (that’s what technology seems to do) – and you see your own future writ large.
“Wars and rumors of war….”
Mazel tov.
With G-d’s help (see Isaiah 60), we in Israel will not share your fate, and experience a different fate this time.
The insidious result of what happens when stupefied people swoon over a presidential nominee who so easily ‘had’ their vote at “hello” and nary a proper vetting performed.
‘o’ can take his hateful ‘fundamental changing of America’ and absquatulate.
WORST attempt at POTUS EVER.
VDH, they lied to get into office. (We will govern from the middle!)
They will lie to stay in office. (The deficit has to be cut!)
Keep pointing out the truth because we need your voice but don’t, for a minute, think that they are just making a mistake. This is all intentional.
#45 Mike
Excellent point. I might add that in the original Latin, the term “tyrant” was defined as an authoritarian leader who was brought to power by public approbation and “populist” fervor.
Roman historians understood that the ability to rouse a crowd to frenzy was the tool of a demagogue. And was no index of that demagogue’s actual ability to rule wisely, well, or even rationally.
clear ether
eon
Terrorists on trial in NYC will go scot free. There’ll be waves of Mumbai-style attacks on military bases, malls, schools, and places of worship by sleeper cells across the country, while Obama, as he did on this Veterans Day 2009 at Arlington National Cemetery, cups his presidential balls saluting the flag at memorial services for the dead.
You guys just aren’t getting it yet. Do the puppetmasters on the Left know Obama is unpopular? Of course they do. Do they realize that if he survives in office until 2012 the battered remnant of the Democrat Party will be rudely kicked out of office for a generation? Of course they do.
Start seeing the truth, and the lie behind the truth. Obama, right now, is worth more to the Left dead than alive. Alive until 2012, he’s a useless, stupid mulatto bastard who proved that what white racists had been saying about blacks forever was actually true.
Dead, on the other hand, he’s a Martyr; JFK redux, except that the fact he was black is an even greater condemnation of racist America. The high point for this Obama bum was his election. It’s been all downhill from there, and it’s going to get much, much worse. If Obama survives, the Left is sunk for a generation. With Obama dead, all their leftist economic stupidity is forgotten, Michelle and the daughters are lionized for the rest of their lives, and half a generation hears nothing but what a great man Obama was when slain by some evil reich-winger.
Ladies and gents, the most important people in America right now are the Secret Service agents who protect this fool we’ve elected as POTUS. I despise him and can’t wait to see January 20, 2012 come so we can see him leave in defeat and rejection. Until that day, I pray for his good health and a hypervigilant Secret Service. Some damned fool striking him down would be the worst thing that could happen to the conservative movement, and the lefties know it.
I don’t for one moment think they would hesitate to take him out if they thought they could blame it on the right and make it stick. Much as it sucks, if you’re a conservative you better be hoping this traitor remains in rude good health until 2012.
REVELATION NOW! To Ashkenazim Hellenogenes Hebrews: About Sino-Tibetan motivated Nazism.
http://hellenandchaos.blogspot.com/2009/11/revelation-now-to-sephardim-rabbi.html
G.H.REES Second most urgent message of planet security
http://hellenandchaos.blogspot.com/2009/11/ghrees-second-most-urgent-message-of.html
The solution is Clausewitzean in it’s difficult simplicity.
Gun up and stockpile ammo now, make liaison with your like-minded friends and neighbors.
Vote conservative for the next three election cycles, and be prepared for the riots that will inevitably be manufactured by the MSM when the Alleged Hawaiian is defeated for re-election.
I’m afraid that it’s very near that point.
But if they wish to have a war, then let them have it.
#39 Ricky-the-honest-man. Finally! Someone who honestly states that he wants my tax dollar to fund his dream. My “donation” at the point of a gun to his entrepreneurship will solve the economic crisis AND make me a moral person. Who could ask for more?!?
Ricky:
“How is it economically desirable or morally correct to keep most people in the country one medical disaster away from bankruptcy?”
How is it economically desirable or morally correct to keep so many people dependent on government welfare programs? I’m not convinced the government, especially under the current Administration, feels compelled to keep anyone economically viable and thus independent of government’s largesse, i.e. control. There are easier ways to decouple health insurance from your employer than nationalization of the whole system.
What’s missing from the ‘Obama grovels’ photo is a sign on his backside reading ‘kick me’.
Dear Barak Alabama, al has theezik.
If I hear olla-who(?) ock-barr, it will be the signal to close to engage.
The Great Disconnect
One of the oddest things is President Obama’s continuing surprise at the rising unemployment rate
VDH ….another great article.
but are you sure it is a disconnect ? I think he is very aware of what is happening. He and the rest of the clowns in his circus are leftists/socialist/marxists so destroying the economy is the plan.
he is a dangerous narcissist because he is the POTUS, otherwise he would just be another loathsome community organizer.
Essential vdh
The MSM has become the enemy of America.
Their ignorance, arrogance, cult like indoctrinated Utopian thinking implanted by (progressives)communists in subverted Ivy league Schools along with knowing full well they are not reporting news or facts but trying to make a name for themselves as individuals makes them hyper hypocritical.
The ignorance and stupidity cultivated by AA and PC make them dangerous to the entire value structure of the US.
The MSM unwavering support for the BHO’s and their shadow government makes them treasonous.
Not only should they not be listened to they should be put out of business in the process. The thought by the BHO’s that they may need to be subsidized is a normal reaction by the un American BHO’s to the truth of the comments made above.
Contrast media coverage of Obama’s supplicant’s bow before the Saudi King and the recent display of obeisance to the Japanese Emperor. Some in the MSM tried to portray the former as a “trip” over the carpet, while in Japan they extol his near identical bend-over-look-at-my-shoes grovel as culturally sophisticated.
Yes, we’re in the “solely symbolic” Age. And, however you cut it, Obama’s symbolism denotes American capitulation.
Dr. Hanson,
a little humor from a real dictator
Gaius Julius Caesar-
Iowahawk…
Come 2010 we get rid of some of these impersonators.
“I don’t quite know to what degree, if at all, yet the federal government is culpable for the vaccine shortage….”
Oh totally,Victor, TOTALLY! Didn’t you hear? This nazi/commie/muslim/freemason administration tried to manufacture the vaccine in the White House basement instead of contracting with private-sector Big Pharm. Pass it on!
“So it’s like we’re living in the late Roman Republic”
Sounds like you finally read one of my comments.
It’s not LIKE, but we ARE in the late Republic — and past the tipping point. Run!
As I visited “home” (Germany), after a 20 year stay in Atlanta, Georgia/USA, I found out that there is nothing to be “fixed” about the way America is looked at in Bavaria. We ARE the “AMI’s” and the fascist’s mind is genetically just that.
In 2004 I’ve gotten sentenced to 30 month prison time for defending myself, at the fourth ambush, against an bavarian thug. As I still fought against the verdict, I was set up to be killed in prison. My tragedy is of the years 2004-now. The public-defenders are corrupt and the press or media won’t touch this scandal-story. What’s there left for me to do? I don’t know. To fly back home seems impossible, because my record it that of an criminal. My
immigration-status was permanent-resident, but that was until up to 2002….
http://www.helmutkarsten.de (english homepage is coming soon – stay tuned) Helmut
I read last week somewhere that the President of the United States used the term ‘tea bagger’. I didn’t believe it at first. I never even knew what this word meant until Anderson Cooper tittered it over and over on one of his broadcasts. Now I know – and am sadder for knowing. First of all, what a crass term to use on national news hours. And now to hear that the President of the United States (!) uttered this phrase so blithely in polite company – it boggles the mind! This man is like a teenager when at ease among his compadres. He has no end to his disdain of American citizens. Oprah has always said, ‘when someone shows you who they are – believe them!’ Over and over this character has showed me who he really is. I always want to disbelieve the reports and chalk it up to simple rumors. But then he comes out so blatantly and simply broadcasts willingly who he truly is. It is vexingly sad.
And everyone complained that Wasilla in the White House would tarnish that grand office.
I am not so sure it hasn’t already been badly besmirched by its own oafish occupant. These are indeed sorrowful times when the President himself is smearing his own people with such oafish verbiage while bowing to emperors and sheiks.
To me, Dr. Hanson seems to be doing a great job of relating President Obama’s words and actions. The words tend to be more general, the actions more specific while also defining the words.
The conclusion for me, Rachel Peepers, is inescapable. Obama uses words to soften the blow of his actions.
His words sound almost American; his actions seem anything but.
Obama says he believes in free enterprise. Obama actions say that what he really believes in is redistribution of wealth. And doesn’t think free enterprise is able to be controlled enough to deliver on a redistribution of wealth philosophy because it was never intended to bring about a socialist/Neo-Com form of government.
To redistribute wealth it helps for government to own the means of production. With that in mind, all of Obama’s takeovers make perfect sense.
At the same time, it’s just like Obama to care about votes. Obama calls us tea baggers because he wants his supporters to be reassured as to whose side he’s on. He knows he won’t get our votes but doesn’t think independents are offended by the tea bagger term. He could be right.
If Dr. Hanson is starting to agree that Obama and his merry men (and I include Pelosi in that group) intend to bring about a decidedly Neo-Com change, then I think he and I are starting to see eye to eye; starting to truly appreciate the dangers Obama represents, at least for those of us who believe in an America that lives by the intent of the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, Dr. Hanson, sir, it seems to me that America has a President uninterested in taking this country in the direction the founding fathers intended. We have their writings. Their letters. We have their death bed statements. We have their last words before the British killed them. We have a good idea what kind of country they tried to create. We have the Constitution.
The founding fathers wanted us as states and individuals to have a bunch of rights. Out of those rights we were to live our lives in a free country. One blessed by liberty. One guided by a series of rights and laws.
To me, it’s not the kind of nation that Barack Obama envisions.
The founding fathers never talked about redistribution of wealth. Marx did. The constitution didn’t talk about Global laws that would trump the constitution. Obama does.
Further, I don’t think the founding fathers believed in any form of what today is called social engineering, especially from the bench. I don’t remember words of our founding fathers or in the Constitution ever containing so much as a hint of social engineering.
Did Ben Frankin ever envision that his magazine business would be taken over by the federal government?
Did the founding fathers foresee the day when the country’s main disseminators of news (the free press) would metamorphecise into a President’s lap dog press? If the press likes a President, are they supposed to become his cheerleader? Is that what the founding father’s intended?
The question, however, must be asked, “What is Barack Obama’s intent? When he constantly reiterates, “I won”, what thought does he want that statement to convey?
Does he mean that this country’s sharp left Neo Com/socialist turn should be applauded with no dissent? Is dissent taken to the streets still the highest form of patriotism like it was pre-Obama. Or, since the rise of Obama, is dissent taken to the streets somehow unAmerican?
You see, Dr. Hanson, I think these questions I’m asking represent the “fundamental change” that Obama was in very general terms talking about in the primaries. It was a change few if anyone expected I think it’s safe to say. And was the kind of refocus of America’s liberty’s and traditions that many independents, if spelled out by Obama, wouldn’t have voted for.
I believe the examples of press inconsistencies that Dr. Hanson lays out are examples of some of the changes Obama spoke of in general terms pre election.
I think Obama is now very comfortable with them. And very uncomfortable when any question is asked like yesterday’s when a female reporter asked Obama specifically what was holding up a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan.
Dr. Hanson, I believe that Barack Obama in a very real sense is the most unAmerican of American Presidents.
I believe he desired to turn this country on its head; into a European type of operation; no stronger, no better, just another one of many. I don’t think he’s interested in leading the space race. Or funding a preeminent military. Or taking the initiative when a war needs fighting. Or having an economy that’s the envy of the world. Or a standard of living that’s the envy of the world. Or an American dream. Or public disagreement with the direction of his administration. Or media disagreement with his administration. I think he’s about taking licenses away from media that doesn’t toe the Obama line. And punishing groups or individuals who don’t toe the Obama line.
The idea that people who don’t buy ObamaCare (socialized medicine) would be fined and thrown in jail is probably constitutionally illegal. But Obama doesn’t seem to care. He appears to me to be not just a man above the law. But a President who sincerely believes he is above the law.
I mean, last time I checked, hiring tax cheats. Hiring NAMBLA supporters. Hiring avowed communists is not the kind of diversity that makes for a better government.
Permit me, Rachel Peepers, to end with a couple of astute and beautifully written paragraphs penned by a wonderful, thoughtful, highly intelligent man that I would volunteer my time and abilities if he ever agreed to run for public office.
At some point, Obama may conclude that the vast presidential jet, the opulence of the Presidency, the power and influence at his fingertips, all that national wealth and more were not created by Acorn, community organizing, Michelle’s legal brilliance, Axelrod’s savvy advice, or Emanuel’s crassness, or by claiming that doctors needlessly take out tonsils and amputate limbs, or in general by sonorous tones promising to give someone vast amounts of someone else’s money, but rather through preserving a climate of freedom, respect for continuity and tradition, and government non-intrusion into the market place that encourage people to try to go into business and retain some of their profits—as recompense for getting up on Saturday morning at 6AM to get down to open the dry cleaning store, or borrowing one’s net worth to open a new stationary outlet, or staying late till 7PM to do a crown, or gambling that the new $500,000 crane will pay for itself in 5 years, or going under someone’s house on a Sunday to unclog the toilet when the employee doesn’t show up.
I expect him soon either to continue as is and face a historic rebuke in 2010, or to begin scrambling to talk about the debt, fiscal sobriety, and American exceptionalism—his Carter or Clinton call.
These are the most interesting of times: we are witnessing nothing less than an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was, led by someone who, the more soothing, comforting, and melodic his speech-making, the more bruising, cut-throat, and ruthless the act that follows.
PaulU #48 – At least since the what some people used to refer to as the “Late Unpleasantness” during the first half of the 1860s, we have had a strong aversion to political violence in the United States, though there were bouts of it in the more humid, sunnier climes directed at our duskier citizens from time to time.
However, I wonder if, with the Obama administration’s attempts to remake our fundamental governmental balance without a political consensus, or even on many issues a majority of opinion, the national aversion to serious political violence can endure.
Especially, if it appears that the regime cannot protect citizens against foreign threats and the legions loose confidence in the ruling class.
It seems to me, given that we have a population that is armed to the teeth, that the citizens who strongly oppose the current regime are probably armed at a ratio of 3 or 4 to 1 vs. the strong supporters of the regime, and the fact that the regime seems hell bent on enacting unpopular measures before the next election, there is some risk of a situation quite out of control.
The interesting questions, as in the late Republic, concern what the legions will do? What will they do in the face of a regime that will not support them? What will they do in the face of serious armed resistance to that regime? Will the legions be passive? Will the support the regime? Will they remove it?
As a COO in a rapidly-growing small business, we are paid 4 times what we pay for the products we manufacture. We control our inventory so that we sell out and re-manufacture 7 times in a year (7x inventory turns).
Every dollar left in this small business grows to $28 in a year. That does not include the impact of our vendors as they do the same thing. This is wealth creation.
1. Having never run a business, Obama does not understand that the American economy is unique because of wealth creation – not defective because of it. Worse than not understanding, he seems to believe that profit is immoral and evil.
2. Government devours wealth. There are precious few examples where government produces a product where people voluntarily pay a fee that exceeds the production costs. Generally, government produces no value-added product and it is paid for its services only by confiscation.
3. In contrast. the additional tax dollar paid by a small business results in a $28 loss (in the case of my business) to America. That $28 would be spent on increased payroll, research and development, marketing, new equipment, buildings, etc.
4. The loss of that $28 means we have to find savings and all too often, this means a contraction of the workforce.
The American public do not understand these facts and as a result, they are suckers for any snake-oil salesman like Obama.
Hmmm… poor troll moho is likely to have an aneurysm when he reads the bit about Galbraith: he’s still laboring under the illusion that Galbraith’s windfall is due to Bush cronyism. Heh.
Knee-jerk, indeed.
Doc,
Excellent essay on the duplicity of Obama, his Marxist minions and their sock puppet media.
“So it’s like we’re living in the late Roman Republic…”
I love this talk. I can’t think of a better insult to our political class than this. The comments regarding this are also excellent.
I would add the abandonment of the Republic was achieved by the wealth of the conquered nations. North African wheat bought of the Roman Citizen and this entitlement was maintained until the Barbarians took North Africa 400 years later.
Where is Obama going to get the wealth to entitle his base forever? The Red States, China or the Arabs. Empires are expensive and require slaves and conquered people we don’t have.
rp – right on! Hanson for ANY office!
I always thought it was a fast food restaurant promotion you know when they shout ‘allah’s a snackbar’
Rachel what the Obamanation says and what he does are diametrically opposite which is yet one more way he resembles Hitler. For example Breitbart has a video of him on Hot Air saying categorically that the Sheik would have a MILITARY TRAIL ooops!!!!!!! Maybe the Attorney General OUTRANKS him in the REAL control stakes for the USA.
Though my historical perspective is very lacking compared to Dr. Hanson’s, I am pretty sure that what followed the Roman Republic was the Dark Ages.
Make that a TRIAL sorry though I know a lot of the Military who would like to get him on the trail too.
I have heard so many times that ‘Obama does not care about the Country’, and without really thinking I believed it for several months now…However I now believe he does care about the country being changed into his ideal of a Socialist State, it’s just most of the people he doesn’t care about ! To Obama a Country has more to do with idealism than people; Just like the SOVIETS. Look into Obama’s eyes when he speaks and compare that look with Reagan or even Bush, who were people Presidents…This guy,Obama is a cold uncaring fish of a man.
Obama just gave a speech to China, pompously telling them that “the more freely information flows, the stronger the society”.
This is from someone who has insisted that Congress pass His bills without reading or debating them.
From someone who has constantly railed against Limbaugh, Hannity, FOX News, against any and all who criticize him.
Who has sneered at the Tea Parties, calling them ‘teabaggers’. Who has rejected the Town Halls, calling them mobs.
Who has promised to put up proposed bills online for public reading – and failed to keep that promise.
Who calls any comments that don’t support him, as ‘non-information’ and just biased opinion. Who tells us that Fox News is ‘not a news channel’. Who tries to get others to reject FOX News.
Incredible hypocrisy.
Accepting that two-faced scumsuckers currently dominate in both government and media will help with the cognitive dissonance and/or looking for decisions and remarks that are based in principle rather than in momentary perception of what sounds expedient.
The Geithners, Franks, Pelosis, Rangels et al. don’t even seem to care when their own perfidy is exposed, when they violently contradict themselves or when what was heretical under “Bush” is passed off as sainted policy under Obama.
Their “base” doesn’t seem to be aware of the monstrous hypocrisy in evidence, so why should they ?
(The base doesn’t operate from a body of moral precepts. The “morality”, such as it is, is that anything done by their side is ipso facto A-OK.)
I expect him soon either to continue as is and face a historic rebuke in 2010, or to begin scrambling to talk about the debt, fiscal sobriety, and American exceptionalism—
In a highly unusual move, it has been “leaked” that Obama’s 2010 state of the union speech will advocate fiscal sobriety.
A real “…let’s lock the barn door after the horses have escaped” moment.
RP: I appreciate your passion. And that of the other posters sans trolls.
But we are all disparate persons who lack a organization-like an ACORN or NAACP to unify us. We lack any political muscle; really only Sarah and Cong. Bachmann are the two stongest voices we have; all our males in Congress have been emasculated. And we lack the means of getting our message out both to the public at large and colleges where the progressives own all the means of information dispersal. And we lack the financial resources that the left has like a Soros, Lewis and SKG among others; and their union thugs..
So RP while I share, your and that of other posters here, willingness to take on the Messiah and the progressive left, what can we really do?
Thank you, Dr Hanson, for another excellent and pertinent commentary.
The democratic party has raised generation upon generation of dependents in the population centers who know only bread, circuses and crime. They will be the “legions” or rather the braves. In a sort of French & Indian War turned inside out, the suburbs will be the frontier settlements that will bear the brunt.
Wow,
#61 ellhn, I’m trying to get my mind around visualizing who you are. A guy living in a rusty dented Airstream packed with old newspapers, picking up the audio of your neighbor’s “Star Trek” re-runs on your fillings…A 60′s survivor (barely) reading a dog eared copy of the “Berkeley Barb” who took one hit too many of Owsley purple flat acid in about 1967 and talked to some other madman in People’s Park who filled you in on the conspiracy? Don’t worry, bro, your condition will no doubt be covered by the health care mandate of the kindly Doctor Pelosi. No wait, she might be a Sino-Tibetan Askenazi nazi. They’re everywhere you know.
Not to worry.
Winter hasn’t really kicked in yet.
When thousands of the unemployed start turning up frozen to death because they can’t afford to heat their homes, millions march on Washington demanding to be fed, “Obamavilles” spring up across from the White House . . . Maximum Leader will be forced to resign.
Its all clear to me now.
1. We allowed universities to be run by professors and administrators without genuine public oversight. The kind universities want for everyone else. Freed of any check by the taxpayers and real workers, they discarded US history and capitalism: after all, “everyone” knows that capitalists don’t value knowledge, learning and smart people. “Everyone” knows socialists and communists “care” about the common man.
2.
Where are all the trolls? The only blithering idiot we have on board today seems to be Biblio 44… I was really looking forward to kicking Now and Then around today. Oh well.
an attempt to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was.
(Moderator, you may delete the “s” comment, I hit Enter by mistake)
“an attempt to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was.”
An attempt to invent the People’s Republic of America as a fief of the People’s United Nations, under one red flag.
Children in the schools all over America sing in praise of President Obamao.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
We need to remember that there are two points that need to be burned into our consciousness:
1.)Our popular culture and the media that steers it will seek to prop up liberals and the left and undermine conservatives, libertarians, and the right. This is never going to change, ever.
2.)The true mission for us to achieve is the reform of the republican party.
The most important reform, the one that will dictate it’s integrity,is a binding policy, a PLEDGE, that all elected republican officials must take to never engage in deficit spending. Those who will not take the pledge or violate its term will be removed from the party immediately with no second chance.
Are we really that far? Or at we the beginning of the first American plebeian secession?
95. baal.
“Where are all the trolls? The only blithering idiot we have on board today seems to be Biblio 44… I was really looking forward to kicking Now and Then around today. Oh well.”
Maybe Dr. Hanson got through.
Come on now, let’s be charitable, as the “Holiday” season is approaching us. Calling Now and Then a “troll” is a bit cruel, when he is really a Handsome Mixed European-American Turkey With a Touch of Black. Word has it that he is lying low until after Paleo European Dominance Day (Thanksgiving). In the interim, he is Hoping to become the White House Turkey thereby being granted a pardon and a pension for life. Change.
Don’t tell him that Gibbs already got there first, it would break his gizzard.
I’m sure he will be back gobbling at PJM at an appropriate time, like when the stars are aligned in Oneness again.
Biblio44? Who’s that?
95. baal.
“Where are all the trolls? The only blithering idiot we have on board today seems to be Biblio 44… I was really looking forward to kicking Now and Then around today. Oh well.”
Maybe Dr. Hanson got through.
Come on now, let’s be charitable, as the “Holiday” season is approaching us. Calling Now and Then a “troll” is a bit cruel, when he is really a Handsome Mixed European-American Turkey With a Touch of Black. Word has it that he is lying low until after Paleo European Dominance Day (Thanksgiving). In the interim, he is Hoping to become the White House Turkey thereby being granted a pardon and a pension for life. Change.
Don’t tell him that Gibbs already got there first, it would break his gizzard.
I’m sure he will be back gobbling at PJM at an appropriate time, like when the stars are aligned in Oneness again.
Biblio44? Who’s that?
To compound the insult, I should point out that Japan is an OCCUPIED PROTECTORATE OF THE US! If anyone should be bowing, it should be the Japanese Emperor bowing to Obama! This in recognition of the fact that Japan surrendered its entire military to the US, and to this day it is illegal for the Japanese government to muster anything more extensive than a National Guard- a regular military would violate their Constitution.
77. goy
95. baal
shhhh Maybe we got lucky and somebody was blocked and now there’s less contention and a better atmosphere in which to think, add and share.
America does not need to be reinvented since it is the best place to live in the world; however, the Statists want to turn the United States of America into some kind of weird Communist nightmare. Think of the worst aspects of North Korea, Cuba, China, Venezuela, & the former Soviet Union along with Nazi Germany you will have the Socialists’ wet dream. However, Obama is trying to change too much too fast. This cannot be done. Obama is falling off a cliff, yet he is unaware of the rock that was once his parachute. The landing is going to be messy–for Obama, the Democrats, & RINO Republicans.
Obama is neither Caesar nor Pompey (who was also an accomplished general, in fact his political career was based on it). The nearest parallel is Octavian/Augustus, the slimy little bastard who maintained the facade of Republican institutions while using guile, propaganda, double-crosses, corruption and murder to secure autocratic power.
Your reference to the Left playing up Reagan’s retreat as being some palace reminds me:
When Clinton was elected, the Hollywood Power Couple known as the Bloodworth-Thomases, got a group of their wealthy friends together. They purchased some mansion that DID overlook the Pacific. It was to become the Western White House for Clinton vacations.
After the ’92 election, however, the estate was deemed way to opulent and elitist for Clinton to visit – so much as even once.
The Clintons were savvy enough to know that this mansion would cut into their populist image – especially since it had only been four years since Reagan’s humble ranch had constituted the Western White House.
The Bloodworth-Thomas’s and their friends were ‘left holding the bag,’ so to speak.
The purchase of the house was covered in the media at the time. I’m not relying on some internet rumor in reciting this story. I even recall photographs of the estate on a cliff overlooking the Pacific at sunset, which were unashamedly published at the time in the regular press.
There was even a nationally publicized story at the time of the decision by the Clinton crowd NEVER to use it.
I have never heard of a follow-up on what happened to it. Does anyone on this thread know the answer?
Jim Anderson
anderson.james@att.net
Jamie Galbraith is a fool. He managed to get hired by the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin because his late father spent some time at UT. No decent university would hire him. The first thing that he tells someone he meets is that he is the son of his father. What a creep! He defines the sleeze at UT Austin.
The Roman Republic had two choices: Consolidate its power, stab ilize its political system and assert its core values, or 2) succumb to hostile foreign powers, see its alliances unravel and face decline followed by total dissolution.
The US is at a similar cusp today. We can (should) not choose the path of conquering empire as the Romans did. But we do need to assert our individualism as well as moral and market freedom with verve and confidence. Above all this means confronting, discrediting and invalidating the leftist narrative that permeates academia and the media culture, and the various instruments of “multiculturalism” at home, and obliterating our enemies abroad.
Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele are speaking of a “contract with America” pt. 2. This approach has many merits.
VDH
This economic collapse was brought about by G Bush and the conservative, republican ..tax and spend.. congress and you know it.
This president, and this congress are trying to deal with the other guys..failure. That is just a bit of fact and reality for your next article.
However, other than alot of conjecture, your article does bring up one important point. When the heck is this president going to really stand up and so something?
President O.Bama is acting more like a Nixonian Democrat than a McGovern Democrat, which is scary….
Stop Thinkin OBama and start Doing !!
A word to the wise Dr Hansen. Obamao is a COMMUNIST. Those around him like David the Axelrod and Bonehead Emanuel are also COMMUNISTS. If theres one thing the last 150 years should have taught us is that communists cede power reluctantly. Look right now-Putin wants the old USSR back. Ortega is trying to redo 1980s Nicarauga. Chavez is doing his best to be another chairman Mao. Obamao would likely try to impose martial law rather than cede power. While I beleive it will be his doom if he tries,I certainly find him arrogant enough to try it anyway. Keep up the pressure on him. Communists do not understand freedom. Obamao might just end up have to learn the hard way.
Lucky – I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but under the Bush administration it was found that despite the presidential pardon, certain turkeys were in fact sentenced to death.
I’m not accusing Dick Cheney of dispatching them directly, I’m just saying that no one can disprove this either and he has killed fowl in the past.
So, when December 2010 rolls around, the media has destroyed the character of enough -’r's AND ACORN has defrauded enough votes to keep control of the government so as to finish us off with International treaties and the sham laws being passed (with more to come) and we are all jobless, in debt for more than our grnadchildren will ever make and facing being tossed out of our homes into the snow – sorry I mean having properly redistributed our ill gotten gains to those who’ve been oppressed – where do we go from there?
109. Poor Citizen:
Subprime mortgages as we know them were a product of the 90′s…. and none of this would have been possible without fannie and freddie…please explain how you square that circle if you can.
Yes, Bush was terrible, but Sweet Little Barry is Worse–and you know it.
Perhaps the real enemy within is not Obama but rather the MSM itself. Obama, with only partial term to the US Senate and a single term from the Illinois State senate, is hardly a political powerhouse. It’s pretty clear from what we’ve all seen that he’s underwhelmed once actually in the job. I think it’s obvious at this point that the Obama phenomenom is completely a creation of (and perhaps even the puppet of) the MSM.
Therefore the real target of real political reform in America needs to be the MSM itself. Or what we’d call the Media-Academia Complex.
The truth of the matter is that the conservatives and libertarians who currently make up the opposition, and who in working together would be this country’s saving grace, cannot get real progress made in this country unless we can undo the current iron-clad control of of the history and culture of this country by both the Mainstream Media and the Ivory Tower Academics. If both groups are not chopped down substantially our message, no matter how good it is, simply won’t get out to enough people out there to make a difference and we’ll keep losing the political battles we need to win.
Perhaps the discussions need to turn to exactly HOW to do that, and still preserve 1st Amendment liberties that are so essential to the American character. Enough of us have a grasp of what the actual problems are, but we do need to work out a way to actually solve it and not just carp.
“…read last week somewhere that the President of the United States used the term ‘tea bagger’. I didn’t believe it at first. I never even knew what this word meant until Anderson Cooper tittered it over and over on one of his broadcasts. Now I know – and am sadder for knowing. First of all, what a crass term to use on national news hours. And now to hear that the President of the United States (!) uttered this phrase so blithely in polite company…”
He wasn’t in polite company. He was talking to a bunch of Democrats.
And I propose the name of the new Republic be Tejas, consisting of several contiguous states largely embracing the south-central area of the former United States and bordering the Gulf of Mexico.
# 86 ETAB you forgot to mention this self claiming lover of free flowing information O-BOW-ma is also the guy who is HIDING and fighting tooth and nail to HIDE all the historical information about HIMSELF starting with his birth but including EVERYTHING else.
With the Obamanation its a case of ‘Do as I SAY not as I DO’
#109 Poor Citizen: I cant help but laugh when I see you criticise George Bush’s spending when the Obamanation has spending or commitment to spend has ALREADY more than QUADRUPLED in just 10 months the deficit Bush left and wil spiral ever upwards as his Policies are designed to do juts that. What cloud cuckoo land do you live in if you dont see that. Here is a link to the debt clock read it and weep for your country and its destruction under the Mohammedan SOCIALIST BOGUS POTUS.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
The price of gold is through the roof.
Just sayin’….
I enjoy the intelligent discussion of the comparisions between the Roman Republic and Obama’s America. The critical thinking of the commenters is heartening.
Yet, I cannot believe that the great heart of this nation is not filling with rage and preparing for action.
Everywhere I go, the talk is of Obama and the quiet hate of his purposeful destruction of America. There will come a time when the people will rise up again for liberty. It will not be pretty but it will be real. And it will be in the liberal strongholds that are weakend by greed and sloth. It may be after another terrorist attack, or it may be after government confisdaction of someone’s liberty … a step too far. But it will come.
I agree with #49. Where the hell is Senator James Webb now? Where is his anger and questioning of Obama now that his man is in the White House and cannot make a decision about Afghanistan? Another hypocrite who trashed Bush but does not have the gonads to go against Obama. Freaking war hero indeed!!!
I agree with Dave at 6:52
The people in charge now are Thugs. Like our NYC landlord, they openly sneer at the law: our landlord just ripped the “Stop Work Order” off the front door of the apartment building this morning (it had been on the door just 48 hours) and his crew — of illegal aliens, getting chump change — continued gutting the apartment on the top floor, preparatory to violating ANOTHER law and jacking it instantly to market rates. Which is an increase of 400%.
Any penalty is a joke — they might at most get nicked for $5000, but they’ll make it up in less than three months when they rent out the apartment.
They have spy cameras on the building. They bully and strong-arm anyone who stands against them. And they’re supremely confident that the Law is Toothless.
That’s what the Thug in the White House is counting on. Just look at his disdain for the citizens of the country — it’s manifest that there’s no fear there. No matter what they’ve done, the lickspittle Fourth Estate has covered for them. Cheered them on. Lied about the patriotic opposition.
They have learned that they can ignore us with impunity. Which is a terrible thing.
For those wondering where the Pub leaders are, fear not. It is not yet time for them to come forward. That would only give the Dems an external enemy… and America a distraction. Let them fight amongst themselves, and have no one upon whom to blame the destruction.
114. Shawn Dudley
As Obama’s antipathy towards America becomes increasingly obvious to all, an opening in the ideas war will emerge. At least three things then have to happen:
1) Grassroots conservatives have to get more active on the streets. It goes against their instincts, but alas at this decisive moment in the history of the Republic, i t’s their duty. Look at the power they showed by merely lifting their little fingers during the tea parties and the march on Washington! (people often forget that statist oligarchies have far less actual power than they seem to, unless they command the absolute loyalty of the military.) Conservatives of all stripes have to hit the streets, organize protests, marches, ad campaigns, open their pocket books (money talks), challenge profs, journalists and politicians with tough questions publicly etc. etc.
2) Prominent and widely respected conservative and libertarian voices need to forge a statement of principle that can unite the majority of conservatives and moderte liberals, and then, banishing all doubts, get behind a leader 100% for a full frontal assault on the lies and distortions of the far Left on the national stage. Someone who above all, is not intimidated by Political Correctness. We have the best value system in the world and need to demonstrate our pride in it. These are extreme days, and we need to be prepared to step beyond our comfort zones a bit.
3. Once we regain the balance of political power, that is when the real work begins. The reforms you cite must be undertaken openly and honestly – without rancor, but with a clear determination to counter the leftist narrative at every step. It won’t be easy, but we have NO CHOICE. The fate of the Republic is at stake and the spirits of our ancestors and our descendents will not forgive us if we shy away from our historic task.
114. Shawn Dudley
As Obama’s antipathy towards America becomes increasingly obvious to all, an opening in the ideas war will emerge. At least three things then have to happen:
1) Grassroots conservatives have to get more active on the streets. It goes against their instincts, but alas at this decisive moment in the history of the Republic, i t’s their duty. Look at the power they showed by merely lifting their little fingers during the tea parties and the march on Washington! (people often forget that statist oligarchies have far less actual power than they seem to, unless they command the absolute loyalty of the military.) Conservatives of all stripes have to hit the streets, organize protests, marches, ad campaigns, open their pocket books (money talks), challenge profs, journalists and politicians with tough questions publicly etc. etc.
2) Prominent and widely respected conservative and libertarian voices need to forge a statement of principle that can unite the majority of conservatives and moderte liberals, and then, banishing all doubts, get behind a leader 100% for a full frontal assault on the lies and distortions of the far Left on the national stage. Someone who above all, is not intimidated by Political Correctness. We have the best value system in the world and need to demonstrate our pride in it. These are extreme days, and we need to be prepared to step beyond our comfort zones a bit.
3) Once we regain the balance of political power, that is when the real work begins. The reforms you cite must be undertaken openly and honestly – without rancor, but with a clear determination to counter the leftist narrative at every step. It won’t be easy, but we have NO CHOICE. The fate of the Republic is at stake and the spirits of our ancestors and our descendents will not forgive us if we shy away from our historic task.
Incoherent, rambling, delusional. Essentially unreadable. You know, the usual VDH.
115 Dave
Does a troll need access to a calendar for its days to be numbered?
Here’s something that’s left out from your screed…the US is one of the most corrupt Western countries, an obvious legacy of Republican governance;
“An international watchdog says Canada is tied for eighth place in a survey that examined levels of corruption in 180 countries.
International watchdog Transparency International says war-ravaged Somalia remains the world’s most corrupt country, followed by Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sudan.
TI says New Zealand is the most principled country, followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden. It says the top rankings are partly due to political stability and long-established conflict of interest regulations.
Canada is tied for eighth place with Australia and Iceland — up one spot from the 2008 survey — while the United States is ranked 19th.
The Transparency International Web site did not include any specific reasons for the Canadian ranking.
The annual ranking from the Berlin-based agency drew on surveys of businesses and experts.”
101. Lady Luck and 95 Layer of Ball and 103 Wrong Kind. . .
You miss me, I know. And despite your calls for censorship and treading on the 1st Amendment, you need my sense of perspective to keep you on the straight and narrow. What fun is it to hang around a bunch of yesfolks? Not much, eh?
Actually, I’ve been out fact-checking Going Smug, the new book by our conservaqueen and favorite exotic dancer, Sarah Polin. Seems she’s mangled a few things, you know, regarding the true scoop on the situation status wise. I guess that’s why you can buy the thing for $4.97. And now, of course, her outrage at Newsweek using a cover photo of her from a photo shoot of her. How very Prejean-esque of Ms. Palin. “This is an outrage, nothing more than an attack on my baby Trig. I never intended for those photos to be seen. What will the brave men and women soldiers who fight for our freedoms think of that?” But she should look on the positive side, who else is looking out for the colored pantyhose industry? Nobody, that’s who. Thank you, Sarah.
Oh, I almost forgot . . . turd! And wait . . . tea bagger! (Geez, you conservatives have some odd predilections.) Oh, what the heck, let’s just combine your fascinations into one handy reference . . . “turd bagger.”
baal – On the subject of Freddie and Fannie, one need not square circles but simply pay attention to the facts.
85% of subprime mortgages were created by guess what… private lenders. Countrywide Financial which in 2008 serviced 98 billion dollars in loans was the number one lender.
Countrywide, New Century Financial and Ameriquest were private companies who wrote the majority of the subprime loans. I assume they have gone Galt since they don’t appear to be around anymore.
The private loans from these institutions were not from some government enforced requirement. The mortgage brokers who were responsible for actually submitting loan applications from the overwhelming majority of subprime loans were not beholden to either the CRA act of 1977 nor were they regulated by government.
In a nutshell, private mortgage lenders, were responsible for over 2/3rds of the problem.
Proreason@31,
About that “lancing” procedure you mention. And, first steps. Absent ropes and lampposts, I guess RICO, coupled with charges of espionage, treason, sedition, aiding/abetting, lying to authorities, misuse of Federal funds, payola, kickbacks, vote-buying, suppressing evidense and obstructing justice and perhaps involvement in several murders; plus active participation in the largest theft in history, must suffice. I know, I’m furgettin some of their vile acts.
Naturally, waterboarding requires immediate re-instating, if we expect to discover who, what, when, where & how. Why do you suppose the Left is so adament about its abolishment, when it so clearly works? Must we abide by laws created by criminals for their self-preservation? Are we gonna get serious, given the opportunity?
I’m not sure whether Obama is more like Caesar or Pompey, but I do know that he is crass.
This week both President Obama (according to sources from his pep talks to congressional leaders) and Bill Clinton (publicly) invoked the slur “tea-bagger” to deprecate the Town-haller/tea-party protestors
In an era where yoru compatriots are sliding through code words like “great white hope” and equating Obama’s health care with being a “witch doctor”, I find your up on the kitchen chair pearl-clutching fainting hilarious on this issue. I think if you knew how humorous it is to everyone but a small minority of idiots, you’d stop doing it post-haste. But I hope you don’t. Seriously. Don’t stop complaining about the fact that people call you teabaggers.
131. Now and Then.
“You miss me, I know. And despite your calls for censorship and treading on the 1st Amendment, you need my sense of perspective to keep you on the straight and narrow.”
Do you have a sense of unrealistic importance? Or realistic impotence?
“Actually, I’ve been out fact-checking …” “How very Prejean-esque of Ms. Palin.”
Have you been spending your days watching Hollywood gossip T.V. shows?
“…colored pantyhose industry?
Isn’t the use of the word “colored” banned by Modern Liberals?
Prejean and Palin criticized, then this. Right up there with Lenny Bruce. Notice what the self proclaimed Most Moral Modern Liberal in the World has been reduced to.
“Oh, I almost forgot . . . turd! And wait . . . tea bagger! (Geez, you conservatives have some odd predilections.) Oh, what the heck, let’s just combine your fascinations into one handy reference . . . ‘turd bagger.’”
Did you mistake the cat box for a box of chocolates? Oh well…
How did the White House Turkey interview go, you Handsome Mixed European-American Turkey With a Touch of Black?
Who is Anvil Johnson anyway?
136. Mr Lucky:
It must be frustrating to have to rely on other people’s thinking to form your opinions. But here’s some good news . . . I hear the majority of booksellers are selling Going Rogue at below their cost. Woo-hoo! I think the fact that the page numbers aren’t in order may have something to do with it.
Off you go, now. Hannity is debating Dana Perino on Dick Cheney “great man or a great savior?”
ATTN: Great article by VDH at nationalreview dot com today TUESDAY NOVEMBER 18.
Tell us, Moho, what kind of tea do you prefer, vanilla or chocolate. I hear this form of getting off is an acquired taste. Is that true in your experience?
I just finished VDH “Thoughts from the Later Republic” which was released Nov 14 in which he refers to BHO in this way:
“I expect him soon either to continue as is and face a historic rebuke in 2010, or to begin scrambling to talk about the debt, fiscal sobriety, and American exceptionalism—his Carter or Clinton call.”
It is curious that one of BHO’s themes today is that we cannot let the deficit (debt) get out of control as it may affect the recovery…
So maybe BHO is reading VDH?
Boy was I right or what up at 51?
Here it is 18 month later. The situation is decaying all the more, and this observation remains dead on “I don’t see anyone here even giving me the time of day to respond in kind, let alone Dr. Hanson.” Not even the commenter who went by the name Sulla and lamented the lack of Americans who know their history. I didn’t even get an attaboy from Sulla who implied he knows history.