When Socialism Creeps In . . .
America against the world (in ways we never imagined?)
Survey the world’s statist systems of every stripe, from soft to hard. One sees either failure and misery or stasis and lethargy. At the most extreme, a North Korea is turning into a Neanderthal society where subjects eat grass. Castro’s Cuba is imploding, and the Great Leader in his dotage is now renouncing his communist catastrophe. Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela proves that an even an oil-rich exporter can destroy itself with self-imposed socialism.
India progressed only when it adopted free markets. People do not outsource 1-800 numbers to socialist paradises. No need to review the Soviet collapse or the change in China from a peasant to a wealth-building capitalist society. Europe for a while longer works despite (rather than because of) democratic socialism. From Germany to Greece, Europe is moving away from the encroaching public sector that has nearly destroyed the European Union.
So the trend of the world — even after the meltdown of September 2008 — is away from statism, except in the United States. I don’t say that lightly or as a slur, but empirically. The Obama administration has absorbed large sectors of the auto industry and some segments of banking and insurance. The student loan program is federalized.
I never understood cash for clunkers; it seemed flawed in every facet. If this administration has its way, it will hike income taxes and take off the caps on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes (potentially the largest tax increase in history) — part of an effort to redistribute income from the top to bottom brackets (40% of these income filers pay no income tax now at all). Inheritance, health care, and capital gains taxes are all slated to rise.
The failed British medical system is now our model. Yet even the pretense that it will save money is now abandoned. To get reelected, many of its Democratic adherents now run from their earlier votes. For some reason the chaos of the emergency room, the mess of the social services office, or the bureaucracy of the county building permit agency is our ideal for the brave, new doctor’s office.
The percentage of GDP that is government-run will markedly increase; the trillion-plus annual deficits, in gorge the beast fashion, will force higher taxation to pay for redistributive payouts and entitlements — or inflate the currency to erode saved capital. The UN is worshiped and reported to. Allies are now neutrals, and enemies are courted. We seek to prove that we are not “exceptional,” but simply one among many — a sort of socialist approach to foreign policy where all nations are the same.
Symbolically the president, before and during his tenure, has called for “redistributive change,” “to spread the wealth,” and openly suggested that, at some arbitrary point (known to him alone, but apparently sufficiently high enough to allow Costa del Sol and Martha Vineyard vacations) one need not make (as in, keep one’s earnings) additional income. I could go on, but you get the picture: Obama would like to take us down a path that leads inevitably to a Greece, even as the world is racing away from it.
So what’s wrong with socialism? Here are five dangers.
1) Policing the police. There is no check on an omnipotent government. We see that already with the hundreds of tax cheats in Congress and the White House, and the embarrassments of a Tim Geithner or Tom Daschle. Who oversees industry when industry is run by government?
Another agency? Do you sue in federal court to stop state industry pollution, when the payout will hamper the ability to pay the federal court staff itself? When I take brush to the dump, I am careful to tarp the pickup bed (I know the dangers of, and fine for, flying debris). When I am behind a municipal garbage truck, I both expect to be splattered by flying garbage and know there is no punishment for the driver; he is tenured and his agency part of the same system as the sheriff’s.
When I see a Greyhound bus driver drive erratically, I expect he can be sued or cited by government. When a municipal bus driver recently almost hit me at a crosswalk — its driver smoking and text messaging all at once — I knew there was little redress. What is the transportation agency worried about — losing market share when it is a monopoly? Government is necessary, but the least is better than the most.
There are approximately four (4) kinds of socialists:
1) The Naive / ignorant idealists. This soft headed type think with their emotions (fear, generalized altrusim etc.) but are not driven by ill will. They really believe socialism is for the better.
2) The Resentful. Those who believe they were dealt a losing hand in life and want others to pay for it.
3) The Idelogues. People who cling to socialist dogma even when it is starkly contradicted by objective reality (such as the fact that it doesn’t work etc.) This is a form of mental illness that often evolves within resentful socialists; and eventually gives rise to fanatical fervor.
4) The power hungry. Often these are not ideological, just cynical. They come to see that many can be led by their resentments to surrender their liberty to an over-arching state. They are drawn to dense concentrations of power by their megalomaniacal egos alone, rather than the desire to protect and enhance freedom and prosperity. This too is a form of mental illness.
The best remedies for 1 and 2 are good, non-biased education, a truly free press and a free, meritocratic economy. For 3 and 4, exposure and ridicule. Like children in a nuclear reactor control-room, all of these four types can be very destructive when they gain power.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Both you and Dr. Hanson forgot the most dangerous subcategory;
5. The nihilists. These are the ones who seek power so they can use it to kill and destroy. Some do it out of a belief that only they are fit to live. others do it because they subconsciously wish for their own destruction, but don’t have the intestinal fortitude to actually face oblivion. So, instead, they seek to obliterate others.
The deep-ecology movement is chock full of this sort. As is extreme leftist theology in general. The reason they become socialists instead of arch-conservatives is twofold. First, conservatives in general seek to preserve, not to destroy. And second, they want the “image” of being forward-thinking and “enlightened”, because for them it isn’t enough to have the power to destroy; they demand to be worshipped as superior while they are using it.
Examples of this sort range from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to the German Red Army Faction (aka the Baader-Meinhof gang), Renko Sekigun, the Italian Brigade Rosse, and similar terrorist groups. Not to mention the SDS, the Black Panthers, Earth First!, etc.
And let’s not forget the number of modern-day “progressives” who sympathized with any or all of the above. (Or, in the cases of SDS and the Weathermen, are former members of same.)
As Alfred told Bruce Wayne in “The Dark Knight” , re
the Joker, “Some men cannot be talked to, or reasoned with. They just want to watch the world burn”.
clear ether
eon
True. The anarchists have often made common cause with the socialists: to destroy.
Gentlemen -
An interesting taxonomy, partciularly with respect top the addition of nihilism to the list. Here’s how I see it:
Killers Without Conscience and Their Enablers
So how do the worst get on top? How do these killers, these monsters, acquire what they should never in a million years get their hands on – the apparatus of the state? They’ve got help, and lots of it. Gramsci’s heirs and disciples. The Left’s “useful idiots”. Here’s a little bit of their background:
1. Wishful thinkers – don’t these people just wish that the world was a nicer place? If only everyone were just as smart, just as clever, just as enlightened as they think they are, it surely would be, wouldn’t it? Wishful thinkers and those like them aren’t really up to doing the heavy lifting to achieve their utopia, but they surely do vote and applaud into power those whom they belive will. The trouble is, those they empower typically have an agenda that doesn’t quite match that of our dreamers. And no one is more surprised than they are when it all goes bad and the body count mounts up. As witness the buyers’ remorse that appears to be settling in now.
2. Coercive utopians – they have a lot in common with our wishful thinkers, but they know that no one is going to do what it takes to usher in the new millennium, the New Man or that immanent eschaton that’s just around the corner. But there’s a problem: put socialism / communism and its imperatives and consequences right out on the table in front of everyone, and sane people in their right minds wouldn’t buy it. Who would actively and openly cheer for the impoverishment and enslavement of humankind and mass murder of those who won’t go along with it? The hard Left, that’s who, but that’s beside the point for now.
Hence, Antonio Gramsci’s doctrine of the ‘long march through the intuitions.’ The hallmark of coercive types is that they tend to be fairly bloody-minded. For example, Billy Ayers and his wrecking crew thought that once they achieved power would have to slaughter over 25 million Americans too stubborn to toe their utopian socialist line – that was back in the 1970’s so we’re actually giving him a bit of a discount on that 25 million figure. But what’s a few million here and there? Eric Hobsbawm, Marxist historian (now there’s an oxymoron) has also said as much in a BBC interview where he allowed as to how the ’sacrifice’ of millions would have been worth it in order to achieve socialism. So – is a little slaughter and a ‘re-education camp’ or two not too much a price to pay for heaven on Earth?
3. Lord of the flies– now we’re at the top of the pyramid of power, and those driven by that insatiable will to power. These are the ones who, once they achieve absolute power, really make things happen. And we’ve got over 260 million dead in this century and the last to prove it. Let’s say that again: that’s 260 million unarmed civilian non-combatants killed by their own governments. They were murdered by those exercising the power of the state. They were starved, gassed, tortured, shot, impaled, burned alive, drowned, frozen to death, hacked apart with hoes, axes and machetes – a litany of brutality and atrocity beyond human imagination. Hundreds of millions more lived their lives enslaved, impoverished and in despair. Communism, socialism, the immanent eschaton – who cares? Ideology is only the particular horse they ride in pursuit of dominance over every sphere of human thought and endeavor.
Those who are driven by the will to power typically disguise their intentions under the guise of ‘achieving the greatest good for the greatest number’ or under the rubrics of social or economic justice. They may claim that they are ‘doing the business of the people’ or that they are acting according to ‘the will of the people’. The statement, ‘It’s for the children,’ should inspire instant disbelief and skepticism. When it has come to creating the ‘New Socialist Man,’ or immanentizing that eschaton, those who advance such arguments remain untroubled by the oceans of blood they would have to spill and the mountains of corpses they would have to pile up in order to realize their dreams. They are all animated by the unrestrained and unappeasable ‘will to power’. The Will to Power plays itself out at all levels. From the malice or indifference of the petty bureaucrat to the most savage and demonic mass murderers of recent times. As we have seen, power and the exercise of that power is more addictive than any drug.
The need is insatiable. The result is horror.
So – where are our modern so-called ‘progressives’ in all of this? Here’s my question for a proud ‘progressive’: If you’re a follower or apologist for today’s political and social multiculturalism, an adherent of liberal democracy, or believe that our culture can continue without a basis in moral absolutes, which camp do you suppose you belong in? Are you a cynical but clever elitist intoxicated by the will to power? Are you on to the deception but support it out of pathological spite? Or are you simply ignorant of your role in the intentional destruction of your culture, even if you think you stand in the relative right?
‘Progressive’s want to re-think their premises, because they are not likely to survive the consequences of the ones they’ve shown us. History is my witness.
@1 Gylippus said:
There are approximately four (4) kinds of socialists:
1) The Naive / ignorant idealists. This soft headed type think with their emotions (fear, generalized altrusim etc.) but are not driven by ill will. They really believe socialism is for the better.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a hard time believing in the existence of that kind of socialist. Naivete and ignorance are not incompatible with “ill will.”
I actually think they are the most common type.
With very little understanding of economics or history, they only see what’s right before their eyes. They see the homeless person and think “when we all have so much, how can we not take care of him” – preferring to see only the good that their decision makes (food and shelter for free), and none of the bad (removing incentives to work).
By extension, they see ObamaCare, and indeed all social programs as good things that any civilized society is obliged to do. And being ignorant of history, they do not, they cannot, put these things into any kind of historical context. They are your ‘every body wins at tee-ball’ types who feel warm and fuzzy when there’s no old school discipline going down.
I agree. Talk to any tween or teen about this type of subject, you will find 95% of them are liberals by default. They don’t understand human nature, don’t have the experience of life, or understand societal ethics.
It doesn’t help that media outlets such the Disney Channel are filling their heads with Utopian flotsam every day.
I WISH it was just the teens and tweens – I can excuse them due to their short lives. My 81 year old mother is a bleeding heart liberal – a good, well meaning lady. Some of it is just old fashioned optimism, but mostly it’s an inability to feel and think at the same time. For most folks, there’s not much knowledge to go on (as I said above) and so they really can’t do much thinking, and for others there is an ideology that blocks putting 2 and 2 together. My Mom just prefers happy thoughts.
I’ve got to agree. Every Type 4 needs thousands of Type 1s to beguile with talk of the coming “Workers’ Paradise”, if only the Type 1s will give the Type 4 the power he craves. If there were no Type 1s there’d be no need for promises of coming paradise.
I agree, too. I call them cocktail party Marxists. Unlike the ideologues, they would never call themselves Marxists or think of themselves that way. They have simply ignorantly absorbed the language and the sloppy assumptions handed down to them by the movement socialists who have commandeerd the schools, universities, media and pop culture. They parrot terms like “fairness,” “social justice” and “equality” with little or no thought or knowledge about what these things really imply. Theyw ear their politics like jewelry, using terms like “sustainability” to substitute for thought and analysis. These truly are the “useful idiots.”
The world rejects socialism, as the U.S. thunders towards it. And ironically, the people who still vainly and absurdly refer to themselves as “progressives,” are in fact Regressives.
I’ve known many over the years. Really great, seemingly bright, positive, giving people. But at some point they just stop thinking things through. It’s not too surprising, but it does make them vulnerable to a charmer like Obama.
The problem is exacerbated at the mass / group level where immersion in the group emotional experience tends to over-ride the individual intellect.
After talking to any number of naive lefties, I have decided that they are afraid of bad thoughts. Instead, they only have “good” ones. Since all of us have bad thoughts, their lack of awareness means that those bad thoughts are just projected on anybody who disagrees with them. For ages, I was puzzled by the amount of projection from the left – “the vast right wing conspiracy”, “racism” and so on. You only had to monitor the reaction of the right to see that the accusations weren’t true. People don’t labour earnestly to disabuse others when the accusations are correct. Instead, they get mad or just deny. Yet, no amount of factual rebuttal ever made any difference. It was that lack of genuine exchange that settled the issue for me. It is one thing to start out with a belief but quite another to maintain it in the teeth of contrary evidence. To do the latter indicates something other than rational processes at work.
…. naive lefties …. actions …. indicate something other than rational processes at work ….
Bingo.
And while you’re on topic – has anyone noticed how morbidly irrational such self-important show ponies as Carl Rove, say and Dana Perino, for further example, become when challenged on any of their tireder banalities and/or irrationalities?
With over-rated court jester-like morons including that pair at his ear, is it any wonder that, national security aside, former president George Walker Bush’s second term degenerated into such an un-American charade?!
Please, Dear Lord, that We, The Sovereign American People, do not flinch from this, the Second American War of Independence, in which we are engaged! Let us never forget that we are not “taking back” our beloved fraternal republic – we are that! Only its management, operation and control. From every bloody Mike Castle and Susan Collins.
And from their every public-trough-feeding apparatchik.
In common parlance, they are referred to as ‘Useful Idiots’. Honestly? They’re the majority – people who don’t think beyond the ‘happy words’ and groupthink the issue is wrapped within.
“How can we allow poverty to exist when we are so wealthy?”
“Why can’t the rich pay their fair share?”
“It’s just not fair!”
They are also known as trendy. They see popular people believing in something and they trail along without bothering to do the research. The trend mongers supply them with simple talking points to get them by – as needed. If you visit one of the Soros websites, you’ll see a large volume of socialist dogma explained for the simple minded. Its real team player stuff where you can feel far superior to anyone who disagrees with you. By the time you start wearing the Che T-shirt, you’ll own both the moral and intellectual the high ground.
This is a spot-on brilliant analysis with which I whole-heartedly agree. A whole article should be written on this.
There is a book on the topic by Mona Charen: Do Gooders.
I think in all cases sunlight is the best disinfectant. But good luck in getting the Malfeasant Media zombies onboard; they are the worst offenders.
Category #1 in your list is the target audience of the MSM – especially TV news. We are fearful; we are all constantly at risk of, er, something and we are all dependent on some nanny authority to protect us because we are too weak to protect ourselves. The news programs all have this underlying theme and they all try to reinforce these feelings of inadequacy in their audience.
Your other categories are well described too.
Love the basketball analogy at the end Doc!
A total disregard for the rules as written. The game I grew up with is not the same, the slight extra step was called traveling, they now run down the court with an occasional dribble. Double dribble was whistled with even the hint of a slight hesitation in the dribble, now carry the rock or whatever you want. The slightest touching of an opponent was a foul and you stayed a reasonable distance from the player with the ball, now its tag team wrestling. I don’t watch what passes for basketball now. Sort of like the Constitution, no rules do what’s expedient, the socialist way.
In basketball like politics, where have all the rules gone? Do what feels good and get by with it
A little background on cash for clunkers: It was a copycat of a German program initiated right after the financial crisis hit in order to keep auto companies (and suppliers of auto parts) from laying off workers and to keeper workers spending. It was meant to avert panic while people were figuring out what would happen to subsidiaries of US auto companies. It was tied to improving auto emissions in Germany. Cars were junked to avoid disrupting Eastern markets with a glut of German used cars. The most important thing is that the German program had expired while US bureaucrats were still designing the forms for the US programs.
I don’t know whether the German program was worth the cost, but it was an timely response to a perceived emergency situation and it ended rather quickly. In fact a lot of the cars bought through the program were not German My own take on the American program was that no serious comparison of the German and US situations was made. It was just an attempt at seeming to be taking action, like closing the barndoor after the cows escaped.
IMHO, cash for clunkers was a temporary measure to artifically stimulate demand in an auto-saturated market and society. Cars last longer, people are holding on to them longer and fixing them, etc etc. The only way to temporarily juice the system is to provide people incentives to remove the cars from the road, so that they have to buy new ones. Cheers.
Anyone spending more than half an hour in the retail business (which is nobody in this administration) would know from experience that all rebate programs only do one thing: pull existing business forward by 60 – 90 days without any change in overall sales volumes. Because this program required old cars be destroyed the value of used cars rose as did their price. So on balance, cash for clunkers had no upside, cost a lot of money and raised the price of transport for those who could least afford it.
Brilliant
VDH
What you just described, was Chicago’s political patronage system. Don’t know if you ever read Mike Royko, but if you can get some of his essays, it will bring your essay above full circle.
In the political patronage system, you attracted the lazy, the stupid, the corrupt and the insane. Then, you protected them in their jobs…in return, you obtained absolute fealty. A Republican had no chance for City or County high office or a share in the largess.
Socialism is basically a home for the mentally deficient, the spiritually vacant, the ethically challenged and the morally bankrupt.
In Chicago, it wears a blue collar. In Cambridge it wears tweed, in Berkeley it wears torn jeans…but, it all wears the smarmy grin of the sold soul on permanent break from working for a living.
The DMV and the Post Office were the high water marks. God help us all. Chicago patronage politics on a national level…Dante’ needs another ring.
~~ cfbleachers: you nailed it! “What you just described, was Chicago’s political patronage system. Don’t know if you ever read Mike Royko, but if you can get some of his essays, it will bring your essay above full circle.”
Your entire post was excellent… I’m copying it and forwarding it —I’m doing my best to get more people reading pjm..
Mike Royko was one of the finest journalists around.. he didn’t pull his punches.. Another writer you might enjoy is, Judge Maurice Milligan.. who wrote Missouri Waltz.. Chicago Gang politics spilling over into Kansas City; I was a young girl living there at the time. And if you’d like a little frosting on that cake, listen to Kate Smith singing God Bless America while you reminisce the good old days.. Click here: Galganov.com
I read pjm first every morning… great way to start a day!! h
Remember too that it was one of those sold souls who hung the Blagojevich jury not that long ago, and prevented what should have been a conviction.
“Do you sue in federal court to . . .”
Only if the Statists allow you to sue them. Of course, the federal judges will be tenured Statists themselves, the jury will be composed of Statist employees, and if you lose you can only appeal to the likes of a Justice Breyer, who thinks we should alter the First Amendment to criminalize burning the Koran.
Sign me up to live in that system . . . the day Hell freezes over.
Dr. Hanson:
A fine socialist primer. I’m interested in the public’s response to several issues, beginning in November.
I’ll assume that the Republicans take the House and come much closer in the Senate. This is, of course, the first step away from the destructive effects of the socialism toward which comrade Obama is relentlessly dragging us. But will the Democrats who are now running as far and fast from Mr. Obama as possible continue that bent if reelected, or will they sigh in relief and immediately return to their anti-American ways? Will the public, all to soon, forget that Democrats can never be trusted with America’s financial and national security? And more interesting, will the Republicans, flush with the heady taste of victory, retreat into their old, “screw the public, who are they going to vote for, democrats?” ways? Mr. Boehner’s recent retreat doesn’t seem promising.
If avoiding tax increases and maintaining the Bush tax cuts are truly important for the recovery of our economy–and I believe they are–what in God’s name is Representative Sun Tan doing unilaterally surrendering to our would-be socialist masters before the battle is truly joined? If the Republicans–particularly their leaders–cannot understand that the political climate has irrevocably changed (I fervently hope), he may have relatively little time to savor the position of Speaker of the House. I suspect that enough Americans are tired of politics as usual that throwing the rascals–of both parties–out will take precedence over any other consideration, particularly if the Republicans are suddenly once again barely distinguishable from democrats.
If we are to avoid the fate that Europeans, after decades of socialistic decay are now fleeing, it is a time for conservative principle, not preemptive surrender. One hopes that Republicans learn that they work for us, and keep this in mind. Their failure now could well turn us into Greece, and far more quickly that anyone once thought possible.
If nothing else, we must oppose whatever Mr. Obama wants, if for no reason other than that he wants it. He does not play fair, and he does not, in any way, have America’s interests at heart.
your are correct …obama doesn’t play fair and neither do the democriters.
i would like to think that the republicans could figure out up from down (some have …many haven’t)
very dismayed by Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer. They seem to part of the elitist side of things lately.
p-l-e-a-s-e PLEASE clink on my link by clicking my moniker. this canadian has a very good take on the US policies.
……….the P. stands for pervasive
Dear Professor:
There is no “social” in socialism. The anger and frustration and ultimate futility of “socialism” has been written about by your comrade “Ron Radosh” here on PJM extensively and in many layers of the onion’s peelings.
The futility of socialism always ends up in the “Spoils” system and who “Allots” them via the ‘greater-good’ ELITES. When someone who realizes they have toiled and labored for a chance at ‘success’ to only THEN realize that he is somehow perceived hostile to the poor by making more money than he ‘needs’, then, it is okay to for big GOV to come in and say, “You are too successful!” and, “How dare you make more money and be more proficient than your brethren!”
In fact, I will take your property too, and give that to the poor. You are too smart and successful. Let’s ‘give to the lower i.q. and the impoverished!
I wish I had the heart-breaking youtube video of farmers who had their property confiscated by jealous neighbors because they were doing ‘well’. It was disgusting. If anyone has it and knows what I’m talking about? Please share. It’s heart wrenching.
Jealousy is the root of socialism. It means NOBODY can get ‘ahead’ and ALL must live impoverished accept for the ‘elite’ and ‘well connected’.
Open your eyes, Americans. You’re idiots if THAT is what you want.
Freedom!
Semper Fi
Envy is a deadly sin for a reason.
Government, today, has built itself upon a Ponzi scheme. The public Ponzi schemes in Europe, and now in all of the West, have endured by the advantage of government’s coercive power of the law. Unlike the Madoff’s of the private world, who bring in new money with deceptive promises and fraudulent practices, governments first make deceptive promises then simply subdue the public with new forms of taxation.
Like in the private sector, public Ponzi schemes in the early going are great. Because of the payout to the first ones who get in early and of the rewards to the politicians who administrator it, word spreads that unlimited riches will go on to the end of time. But the last ones in, who try to get out, where we are now, lose everything.
The progress our ruling socialist governments have made in these recent years has been to bring the inevitable cataclysmic financial collapse from the edge of the horizon up to the steps at our front door.
Bouncing back and forth between humorous analyses of our creeping-socialism status quo and tragic chronicles of our government-dominated socio-political trajectory, you remain my favorite pundit and blogger. I prefer your comedic takes on our situation, but admittedly you can only go so far with that.
My concern is that it’s almost getting to the point where we will still pay homage to the constitution, but the liberties it ensures will become moot points. There will soon be so many laws and regulations and the bureaucratic enforcers will all be members of the ruling aristocracy, so that only those with nothing to lose will dare exercise their right of free speech.
This is interesting. IBM, National Treasure, approached the Obama administration with an offer for free to reduce HC cost for the Nation and expand coverage for all and they said no. So instead of leveraging the US strengths (innovation, creativity, enterpreneurship, etc) they ignored them because it didn’t fit their ideological framework. GE and other firms have the same frustations.
http://online.wsj.com/video/viewpoints-working-with-the-obama-whitehouse/5A0ED9CD-CFC8-4898-8ADB-B0B8196D7E5A.html
This video link is a must watch!!
This as the decision making and behaviour of government, is beyond a “serious problem” and better described as the sewing the seeds of civil unrest.
I love you, VDH. The Sage of Selma.
I have been peppering all my friends with your links to you commentary in the six months since stumbling upon your site.
I thank you.
I see…
so we must fight socialism because if we don’t
it’s your ass
okay
as long as that’s clear
I think that under socialism “your ass” becomes “the government’s ass.” Bits of your ass get distributed to people who don’t have enough ass of their own. Eventually, all asses will be equal.
Now me, I got more ass than I need. But I hate to think what’ll happen to Jessica Biel…
I think it is safe to say that the Democratic Party, a Party influenced by Liberal/Progressive thought, is a Party that does seek to replace God with the State as argued above by VDH. I think the Democrats are today’s Totalitarians and ObamaCare is the prime example why. Francis Schaeffer, a Christian thinker in the 20th Century, posited the idea that the Church was facing a watershed event, an event that would lead to two totally opposite destinations. I think the 2010 could be a watershed election for America. If the Republicans do not take back at least the House I think we will be on a point of no return to a Statist form of government.
No, the United States is not the only one moving toward statism. Japan is too. Their current government, now about a year old, has much of the same mindset of the Democrats in the U.S.
They moved sharply in the opposite direction during the Koizumi years of 2001-2006, but the behavior of the Japanese version of RINOs after his departure led to the election of the current government.
Some in the commentariat may find it easy to ignore Japan, but that will become more difficult if its economy tanks.
Socialism is socialism, and Obama is a big-time Socialist. He has spent too many years in Reverand Wright’s Church to think otherwise. Wright’s church is where “Black Liberation Theology” and “Social Justice” are the basis of the socialist state in this country and Obama’s work as a far-left activist with both ACORN and the unions, most notably SEIU, are well documented. Obama has been a far left zealot since his early days in politics and he certainly has not changed, as his obsession with Obamacare clearly shows, even though job creation should have been his first priority over these past few months. But Socialized medicine is a major goal for socialists, NOT job creation. The way socialists deal with loss of jobs is more unemployment benefits, NOT job creation.
So November will give people a chance to make a clear choice. Do Americans want to continue the socialist policiies of the current resident in the White House, or do they want to start going back to basics, back to the Constitution, which says that the free market is the path towards wealth an prosperity. My guess is that the Constitution is the way to go and if last night is any indication in both New York and Delaware on how Americans will vote, I am right.
It’s the classic argument: The individual versus the crowd. Dress it up in all manner of combinations: State versus federal rights, for example.
When it comes to “we know how to take care of you better” we then enter into the world of slavery, where Master promises to feed clothe shelter and educate you…and that’s all you need to know or will ever (should) want!
And Obama-Mao, the muslim community organizer who did a little blow, intends to “get even with whitey” if it’s the last thing he ever does.
The ghost of Daddy tells him this is what is needed to free his soul!
VDH:
“So what’s wrong with socialism? Here are five dangers.”
You forgot a sixth danger…the Wreckers.
See, rather than face the reality that Socialism doesn’t work, the State will excuse the dropping productivity and overall shrinking of the “commonwealth pie” on malicious agents of willful sabotage.
Of course, when you “employ” people yet remove their profit motive while at the same time practically safeguarding them from being fired, you CREATE the very “Wreckers” that you then turn around and blame.
Never underestimate the political value of a good scapegoat.
The UNOFFICIAL (!) slogan of the Soviet Union for most of its existence, known to every man, woman and child, was “They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work.” While very short, it says a great deal about the nature of socialism and how it is perceived by the average person in the socialist country. The absence of positive incentives like getting a better life or achieving things makes it inevitable that no one will actually make any more than the bare minimum effort. Real improvements in your country are very unlikely in that environment.
Stalin also made heavy use of so-called “Wreckers” to explain away the failures of socialism to live up to the expectations that the socialists had raised. The “Wreckers” were also a very important justification for his massive repression of the entire Soviet society.
“The “Wreckers” were also a very important justification for his massive repression of the entire Soviet society.”
And the rest, as they say, is History.
Pass the vodka, comrades, and we’ll all gakk ourselves in our mid-50′s from drinking away our collective drab grey Socialist future.
What is going on? Is it possible that the GOP is, from the grassroots, finally, renewing itself?
First came the grassroots, a movement of the people, all people – Democrat and GOP and independents. Americans. The Tea Party. An astonishing act of freedom by the American people. This moved the GOP to begin a renewal. Sarah Palin, importantly, moved herself out of official government and into being a vital voice for this movement. Importantly, she was outside of government and thus, aligned with the people.
Now, GOP people in government, like Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, McCarthy – are now articulating a non-insider, non-old guard view…the ‘conservative’ GOP, of small non-intrusive govt.
The GOP had gotten away from this basic identity and ahd moved left. The Democrats then moved even further left of the Left-GOP! The Democrats turned into radical socialists.
Then, from the grassroots, the people affirmed the basic nature of the US – small conservative non-intrusive govt, the free market etc. This is moving into the GOP. It’s starting to be expressed by the GOP in these new younger people.
Old guard – and that includes Karl Rove – are being flung aside. This must also include ALL old guard GOP – including Romney, Huckabee…It’s good that it is happening now..and it will grow during the next year and two. How much of a fight will the old guard GOP carry out to try to retain its own power?
Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington – an outstanding success and articulation of the grassroots conservativism – was important. The pendulum is swinging back from the left to the right.
So where does this leave the Democrats? They’ve moved into statism, into elite marxism. Where do they go? Now, the incumbent Democrats are running from it, running from Obama. But the radicals aren’t about to give up without a fight!
The Democrats don’t have their own ‘Tea Party’ grassroots to move them from the marxist socialism back to the centre. At the moment, they have their leaders who are statist socialists – Pelosi, Reid, Obama and the backroom gang and all his ‘czars’. They are asserting rigid control over their members in Congress.
And yet they have Congressmen who are afraid to even mention they are Democrats in their TV election ads!!! Or are advertising that they voted against Obama’s bills!
But they don’t have a grassroots to articulate what they are! Their 2008 campaign was a fraud, wherein they defined themselves as centrist but their 2009-10 actions have been statist. Unarticulated by voice but loud and clear by action. The people are rejecting it and their leadership refuses to release them to move to the centre. They are silenced.
Whereas…the GOP has the Tea Party and then, the people like Ryan, Cantor etc.
The Democrats are, now, fighting to retain their new statist identity – moving into racism as a means to prevent change. That is, if you reject statism, which is becoming identified with Obama, you are a racist.
This is a weak strategy; it’s defensive and refuses to acknowledge reality; the reality that America is, by its founding and constitution, centrist.
Fascinating.
Looks l like we’ll be having that 3 Party System after all.
On the Left will be the Moonbat “Watermelons”,(Green outside, Red inside).
On the Right will be the Christian Conservatives
And in the middle will be the Libertarian small government nationalists.
As to the Dems, they already HAD their own “TEA Party”.
When Howard Dean became chair of the DNC and they booted Joe Lieberman out of the party, the new paradigm was fully indicated.
And when they put Ultra Liberal Nancy Pelosi from Hyper-moonbat San Francisco as Speaker, that sealed the deal.
Look at the Congressional Leadershio in the House…from Pelosi on down, can you point to one who would even remotely qualify as a Blue Dog?
Steny Hoyer? Not from “I-95 Maryland”, where his district lies.
Clyburn? From a gerrymandered “safe” Black majority district?
And…the Congressional Progressive Caucus being the largest DemocRat caucus on the Hill should indicate that the DemocRats have overthrown their conservative side.
And will soon pay the electoral Butcher’s Bill for doing so.
Personally, I think the Democrats will inevitably start leaning back toward the center if they lose substantial numbers of seats in elections.
However important ideology is to leaders of parties, there is one thing that trumps even ideology, at least in “mainstream” parties: the need to win elections. Any mainstream party will, if it finds it is losing elections, shift towards the mainstream if it finds that this is necessary to win, even if that means throwing dominant ideological stances overboard.
We’ve certainly seen that here in Canada over the years. Our Liberal party, which ran the country from 1968 to 1984 (with one 9-month interlude where the Progressive Conservative party was in power) operated as if every problem could only be solved by a new or enhanced government program. It began the process of allowing deficit financing to pay for those programs, something that had been almost unthinkable before. It grew those deficits enormously until they started to be a very serious concern for foreign investors. The Progressive Conservatives who eventually followed them from 1984 to 1993 INCREASED those deficits to the point the large majority of the electorate realized that this nonsense had to stop and stop very soon. Fiscal responsibility was perceived as a necessity and, in 1993, the Liberals were brought back to power, this time on a platform of reducing deficits and paying down the debt. To their credit, this generation of Liberals actually made significant strides and, with the exception of the current financial crisis, we haven’t had a deficit budget in quite a few years. (In more good news, our Progressive Conservatives essentially jetisoned the “progressive” wing of the party and has become, in both name and ideology, a Conservative Party).
If that can happen here, I see no reason to think that the Democrats in the US will not bow to necessity and change their ideology if they start losing elections. And if the reporting/discussion on this website is a reasonable indicator of public sentiment in the US, I think those ideological changes are pretty much inevitable.
Cheer up! Simple pragmatism is likely to push the Democrats towards the center as soon as they start losing significant numbers of seats in the various elections that they contest at the federal, state and local levels. And if they don’t start moving to the center fairly quickly at that point in order to maintain their ideological purity, they will simply lose elections by bigger and bigger margins until even the stupidest among them will realize that they have to change or risk the entire party becoming irrelevant and evaporating.
A certain Ohio senator wants the Feds to take the NFL to task because its blackout policy is preventing poor people from enjoying their Browns or Bengals. You see, because of the worst economy since the stone age, the working poor people can’t afford to go to the NFL games so they must watch them on TV. Well, when the stinky Browns or Bengals home games are blacked out, the working poor are prevented from watching their beloved, albeit stinky teams lose big leads in games at the last minute. This ofcourse is not fair so the terrible, horrible NFL CORPORATION MUST PAY. Such a waste of taxpayer time and money is a way of life for the socialist. How better to prove to the “working poor, little people, middle class” etc.. that they are “identified with” and their needs are being addressed? Socialism has creeped in and the more we hear about the outrageous behavior of the buffoons we have voted in, the better because the message has to get out. People have to realized that, just like in Islam, “Takiyya”, it’s ok for these officials to lie to us if it lulls the people into complacency.
Well with T.O. and Ocho Cinco the Bengals are probably only a few losses away from becoming a circus.
You got it, Doc; EEO to the max.
If the progress to hard socialism picks up speed, I’ll consider Islam. I shall denounce materialism, since there will be no rewards to be expected here on earth, unless I become a martyr.
And what bliss one should feel, to become an instrument for Muhammad, and take a few infidels, and enemies of the State, with you.
And the thought of all those virgins that have such an infatuation with dead meat!
Is this message board some kind of joke???
Here’s the real joke: the President of the United States has written a book for release within the next 30 days.
Doesn’t he have a real busy day job in addition to all his golfing and vacationing?
Maybe Bill Ayers helped out his buddy Barack. Bill is a published author.
It might be to those who have little or no understanding of truth, reason, civility and thoughtful analysis.
Yes, this is where you hear people give sick laughs over what’s being done to our nation.
Yes, but only if you’re reading it from Obamastan.
Expand this to a book. Dr Hanson please write a small book on the history of failed socialism. Socialism should never have lived past the 20th century. My skin crawls when i hear van Jones say “we need a new agricultural system”. History is full of socialist nations that could not feed themselves.
I thought we won in the Reagen era. The tile of a German generals memoir sums my feelings “Lost Victories”.
We need a small book covering the repeated failures of socialism in all it’s forms. Like a 18th century pamphlet that we can had out like candy.
Although I’m very sympathetic to what you want to do – educate people about the disastrous consequences of socialism, particularly the Marxist varieties, I don’t think a “small” book is going to have much effect.
Any small book would almost inevitably be a list of assertions or even statistics about what happened in those countries. It would provide little of the context that you’d need to be able to refute someone who challenged this small book. For instance, if you pulled out this small book and cited a remark like this: “Chairman Mao was responsible for the deaths of 70 million Chinese and at least 30 million of those died during the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s”, the first question someone might ask would be “What was the Great Leap Forward?”. If that wasn’t covered in the small book and the reader of the small book didn’t know the answer from other reading (or life experience), the conversation would grind to a halt pretty quickly. You might even find that the challenger disputed that any such thing as the Great Leap Forward ever happened. How would you refute that?
I’ve come to know quite a lot about socialism, especially the Marxist kinds, by reading books but they weren’t short ones. The most important book I’ve ever read – and I’ve read it several times now – is Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. It is roughly 2000 pages long which is far more than the average person would ever tackle. But it grabbed me in a way that utterly changed my life and my perceptions of what was going on around me. I’d never realized that such an utterly depraved society could exist and go on for year after year, decade after decade. As ghastly as Hitler and Nazism were, that society was relatively short-lived. I also learned that Stalin had killed even more people than Hitler, yet Stalin had died in his own bed without ever being held accountable. And Mao was probably even worse given that he killed even more people that Stalin. And those are only the two most heinous of the Marxist dictators. Pol Pot killed far fewer people than even Hitler, let alone Stalin or Mao, yet killed a larger PERCENTAGE of his country’s population – close to one-third of all Cambodians – than all of the other dicators I’ve mentioned.
I’ve got several shelves full of books on these malevolent SOBs now and I still feel as if I’m just getting started in really understanding what happened in those countries. I just don’t see what a small book can possibly contain that would do the subject of socialism any real justice.
The only thing that MIGHT be a good basis for a small book on socialism would be anecdotes from those much longer books. I have many vivid memories of particularly moving moments from the various books I’ve read, as well as the documentaries I’ve seen, on the subject of socialism. For example, I once saw a documentary where an East German man was interviewed about a failed attempt to escape East Germany.
This man and his wife, who had grown up in East Germany after World War II and had never known anything but East Germany’s variety of Marxism, discovered that they were expecting their first child. Even though they had reconciled themselves to living in East Germany, they realized that this horribly depraved society was not one where any child should be raised. The realized that they need to think about fleeing East Germany and moving to the West. It was not possible for East Germans to simply emigrate though; they knew they would have to sneak out of East Germany. They also knew that the border was very heavily guarded and that only people with special permission were even allowed to have the pass that would allow them within 5 kilometers (2 and a half miles) of the border. They started looking for a remote and less-guarded area where they might possibly get across the border. One night, while walking in a forest that they knew spanned the border, shots suddenly rung out. Without a single word of warning, East German border guards had started firing at them. The man pushed his wife to the ground and covered her with his own body to protect them and their unborn child from the shooting. Eventually, the border guards stopped shooting and he was allowed to get up. He tried to help his wife up but, to his horror, she and the baby were already dead. The man was arrested and sent to prison for seven years for the crime of trying to leave his own country without permission. Then, to add insult to injury, the East German government sent him a bill. He had to pay for the bullets used to kill his wife and unborn child!!
I personally find this kind of story immensely compelling. As Stalin himself famously said “A single human death is a tragedy; a million deaths is just a statistic.” I think we can become numb from hearing statistics of so many millions of people killed in labour camps, so many people executed for crimes against the state, and so forth. The story of a single human being – or, in this case, a small family – is somehow more moving. I supppose that’s because it’s easier to identify with a person or small group than an immense country or government.
A small book filled with stories like that might be a better way to combat socialism. But since any such book, especially if widely given out and presented as a major symbol of an anti-socialist movement, would obviously be under great scrutiny from the media and the Left. Since the first thing they would surely do is try to ridicule it or undermine it, any such book would need to be thoroughly and even immaculately documented. Every single anedote would need to be thoroughly investigated to make sure that it is unquestionably accurate and beyond reproach. And that could be a very difficult and time-consuming job given that many of these stories involve people that are long since dead in countries where accurate records are not typical of the regimes that were or are in power there now.
Even if a meticulously vetted book of such anecdotes could be produced, who would read it? Book readership has appeared to be declining steadily for decades. I once heard that only 6 million Americans routinely read books and that was 20 years ago! Perhaps it would be more effective to make a series of YouTube videos…..
I read “Gulag” in college and it was quite an education in and of itself. The problem for students now is Stalin, Mao, Hitler et al are jumbled together during an hour long lecture on the Twentieth Century. Most seem to have a superficial understanding of socialist systems or history, and they’re unlikely to ever read a book such as “Gulag” on their own. Perhaps a YouTube series (?Real Lives: Survivors of Socialism) with emigres sharing personal experiences might make an impression on them, but don’t hold your breath.
Today’s students cover Hitler, Stalin, and Mao in a SINGLE LECTURE? That’s just crazy!! Between them, those three men were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people, more than just about any natural or unnatural event in history and teachers only consider them worthy of an HOUR of time? And all jumbled together into that hour to boot? How can ANYONE hope to learn anything but the most trivial of things in a single hour? I’m sure I spent more than an hour teaching my little brother how to tie his shoes when he was little….
I like the idea of video interviews with survivors. At least the SCALE of that kind of interview feels like something the average person will identify with. After all, even if the video doesn’t tell the whole story of Stalin or Mao, it MIGHT be all that is needed to get viewers sufficiently interested to do more reading on their own….
It’s also harder to refute a single individual’s story, especially when it is tragic. Almost everyone, even Leftists, would tend to tread lightly and not just immediately dismiss that kind of video. Of course, they would likely try to write it off as a fluke or aberation, something that just happened to that one person and not something that affected millions of people.
“…SINGLE LECTURE?”
A bit of hyperbole on my part, but when you talk to them that’s the way it seems.
They may actually have had more schooling in the atrocities committed by the Soviets or Mao, but because it’s remote history to them they have little empathy. Most of us have met someone (or their family) who escaped and related the same horrors Solzhenitsyn describes. It’s not remote history to us.
M. Reardon, I was similarly affected by Solzhenitsyn. My thinking was never the same after TGA. Anecdote after anecdote drove his points home and they were, importantly, undergirded by his Christian beliefs.
As with your story of the man and his family, there were individual stories in TGA that spoke volumes and could stand on their own — the Czarist officer imprisoned on the Solovetski Islands comes to mind. He was permitted a final visit with his wife before he was to be executed but chose not to tell her what would happened after she left. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that this amazing man was one of the Czarist scum in the mind of the reds. Another was just the simple recounting of how prisoners with only light clothing in unheated cattle cars were dumped by the side of the railroad track in the Siberian winter where they had to construct their new camp.
These were vivid stories and I think a short book of such stories would be just as compelling as in a larger book. Of course, a great many stories were what made Solzhenitsyn’s work so extraordinary. The problem is not that a short book would be ineffective but that it would languish from inattention. The leftist filter would do its routine job.
There are a zillion movies about the rise of Hitler and WWII but good luck finding movies about the Gulag. There are a few but they are not celebrated or pushed. “The Killing Fields” was excellent but didn’t really connect the dots between the horror and communism, if memory serves me. “S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine” was an excellent documentary (additional link). Oddly, Human Rights Watch chose to endorse the film and to give one of the few (!!) survivors of the Phnom Penh Tuol Sleng prison the Lillian Hellman and Dashiel Hammett Award. I’m still trying to process that calculated insult to that very decent and admirable soul.
There were so many powerful stories in The Gulag Archipelago. I expect that anyone who read that book would be moved by at least a few. The thing about Solzhenitsyn is that you just KNOW he is not making these stories up or spinning them to suit an agenda. I’ve never read anyone who was so utterly straightforward and sincere. I think he knew that people would just know if he lied or exaggerated and he decided to tell the plain, unvarnished truth as accurately as he could.
One of the stories that has always particularly moved me was the story of Georgi Tenno, the acrobat/escape artist who actually managed to break out of his labour camp, against enormous odds, and get a good distance away. Finally, he came to a river and knew that if he could just get across it, he would be as close to “home free” as anyone could get in the Soviet Union. He found a small boat and was all set to try to cross the river in it when some people came along, people who would surely turn him in to the authorities. He knew his only hope was to remain still until they had passed. But he hadn’t reckoned on a cat being on the boat: a curious, noisy cat who meowed at him as if to challenge his presence on the boat. He realized that the cat was very likely going to get him caught and knew that his only way out was to kill that cat: just grab it and give its neck a quick twist and his problem would be solved. But despite all horrors that had been inflicted on him and the grave risk to him of being caught, he still retained his essential humanity and realized that it would be wrong to kill this innocent cat. So he let the cat give him away and he was sent back to the gulag. I still marvel at how he was able to accept recapture rather than do the wrong thing by killing the cat. I love cats but I remember almost screaming at him to kill the cat rather than be recaptured and sent back to the gulag. But he was a better man than I! I was so relieved to find that the Stalinists hadn’t succeeded in beating the basic decency out of some people….
Thanks for the link and information about the Khmer Rouge. I’d like to get that film….
I’d forgotten that one.
A propos residual decency, Solzhenitsyn chilling wrote of how most people oscillate above and below a certain moral norm but some sink so far below that norm that they can never again regain common decency.
If you’re interested in a medium-sized book on the subject, try “Heaven on Earth; The Rise and Fall of Socialism” by Joshua Muravchik.
cheers
eon
there’s at least five more tax cheats come to light on obama’s staff.
Well, is Obama repeatable? I’ve met all sorts of people who voted for the first time in 2008. They had never paid attention to politics or civil culture. One woman was shaking with excitement. Her sister had told her to vote for Obama. She was fifty. Another had been raised Jehovah’s Witness. She was flustered by the responsibility. She said it had been easier to leave it to others. She also told me to my face, after I’d mentioned I’d been to the Republican meeting, that Republicans are mean people who don’t care about poor people. Uh? I’m Republican, we’ve been friends for three years at that point, and her family is far more prosperous than ours.
I’m not sure you can put together a coalition of the stupid again, quite so easily. I hope not. I was a child when Carter was president, and even as a child, we jeered his ineptitude and cursed him for our unemployed parents’ sake. I still cry when I talk about how great Reagan was, and how happy the country became.
ari
Victor,
You forgot the main thing that is wrong with socialism. It is the opposite of freedom. I do not subscribe to any social compact in which my neighbors get a vote on:
(a) how much of my life belongs to me, and conversely how much of it I must spend supporting others;
(b) how much of my life’s work I must surrender to the state rather than give to my family when I die;
(c) how much I must spend to educate my neighbors’ kids;
etc. etc., etc.
That is simply not a free society. It is that simple. And I don’t consent to it. I demand real social jutsice — freedom.
Me too TL. I’ve nearly lived out my life in a “free country” and I’m not about to surrender what’s left of it to a slave powered, communist, one world UN centered dictatorship headed up by Barack Hussein Obama or anyone else. I want my country back.
The Tea Party movement is looking good right now but it’s imperative that a leader from outside of the RNC FOX NEWS owned BOX becomes President in 2012.
The Rove panic over Mike Castle’s defeat in Delaware shows the true colors of all those who are dedicated to preserving, protecting and defending the corrupt two party system controlled by the “Ruling Class” as defined by Angelo Codevilla recently.
Victor Davis Hanson for president in 2012. He could lead the charge and win the war to preserve the nation.
This seems like a big waste.. The article is well written grammatically. But flawed in it’s delivery. This article has no proof that socialism is “creeping in”. It is a mere opinion of the writer. This is not fact.
All the comments are just as the article opinions, whether you agree with the writer or not.
The funny thing is this fear of socialism. Socialism is here in America in many forms. Socialism aids the poor and rich as well, but the rich argue when a socialist ideal assist the poor. Then the poor argue when the socialist plan assist the rich, then the middle class continues to argue.
You people are all against something that you will soon embrace and love dearly. You won’t even remember that you hated it, because everyday, you are being brainwashed.
See what you confuse is that you believe Socialism is communism and it is not. If Socialism was Communism it wouldn’t be called Socialism.. Remember ALL SOCIALIST are NOT COMMUNIST, but ALL COMMUNIST are SOCIALIST. There is a difference in the above equation.
People mainly fear SOCIALISM becasue they don’t exactly know what it is. If someone they like is against Socialism, then so are they, and this person is a non-thinking person, easy to be brainwashed and programmed.
The thing about America and America’s major problem is Capitalism. America is a Capitalistic society. It is based on competition, money is power and power = money. So why is there so much unemployment? You guys then say the “president” or the government needs to create more jobs, but it the Capitalistic society we live in, it is not the governments responsibility to create jobs. The owner of these corperations need to hire. Though if a company can hire less and work employees more, they generate more revenue.
Many of you put on a persona to say Socialism is bad, but you want change to be provided by your government. The government has NO realms in a capitalistic society and private business/corperations.
Now, just because the government evokes socialist ideologies doesn’t make it SOCIALISM. I can tell you now that America has been adopting Socialist practices since the term was defined.
Think PUBLIC ASSISTANCE, MEDICARE/MEDICAID, FOOD-STAMPS..etc I can go on and on. Those are socialist practice, but the Capitalist don’t like them because the only way to create the funds is to tax.
Many of you are fighting against something that can be better for you because that’s what “THEY” want you to do. “THEY” have convinced you that if you go in their direction it is for the best. Though you don’t exactly know where that direction will lead you.
There is an Agenda and you are assisting to accomplish the mission wheter you know it or not. This agenda is not a good thing, though some of you who say “Down with Socialism” will so embrace something far from it and love it and won’t even know why you love it. That is the way to program a people and they not know they are being programmed.
You have poor, under-educated people who think capitalism will take care of their sick child, or fix their financial pits. Well capitalism won’t. Because for you to intertwine with the Capitalist you have to have capital. You all think and believe that capitalism is fair.
Many of you say that SOCIALISM will weaken a society. From the market exchange rate, the $ DOLLAR $ is dropping rapidly. How did Europe/Germany leave the Deutch Marc and Europe create the Euro and it is worth more than the mighty $ DOLLAR $ of America? Those countries aren’t capitalist. The dollar is loosing value everyday.
So what must a Capitalist do? A capitalist must rid themselves of the Dollar and create a currency that is relevant with the pound and the euro.. But what about China and Russia with the rubbles.. They will say surely that’s unfair.. So the currency will all become one with one value used everywhere in the world.. Sounds a little socialist to me..
What about these different governments, beliefs and religions.. They will too all become one.. One government, one belief and one religion. How will someone pull this off. Easy, it’s happening now brainwashing and programming to control the “People”.
Make you hate something that you will soon embrace.
COOL!!! The left hemisphere ‘washing’ the right!
Wow. What a rambling, incoherent assemblage of leftist talking points. I just spent 5 minutes of my life reading 700 words or so here and I would like them back. There almost isn’t anything to respond to here – and I am sure that “The One” is already asleep in the couch in his mom’s basement from what ever narcotics that allows one to spend 30 minutes pressing keys on the computer without saying anything. Even BK is more coherent than this.
@GDT First off.. my home is far from my mother’s. Secondly, I am drug free.. Drugs are designed to brainwash, and you know I am against being programmed..The problem is you cannot see clearly.. It’s not about Democrat or Republican, Left or Right, White or Black, Liberal or Conservative, Muslim or Jew.. It’s about control and domination of a “people” a people as a whole on a Global Scale. “THEY” want you to argue political rants while “they” are unfolding their AGENDA. The key is common sense, though when that fails, you are at their will. I assure you, you will love the new world. Although, those who cannot be programmed and brainwashed will live underground and will be hunted. The fact is soon there will be only 2 classes or 3.. That is the elite, the normal citizens (the programmed) and last those who live underground who are not considered citizens because they are not programmed to accept a evil AGENDA..
God Bless you @GDT…
Drug free? You mean your body doesn’t produce heroin analogs or cannabis analogs? How do you stay alive?
And your reply is self-contradictory. I will leave it to the more articulate bloggers to systematically pull apart this well-worded but only pseudo-intellectual post in the way it deserves, but one thing stands out to me. Saying “we are already very socialistic” (with many examples) and then following it up with “so capitalism isn’t working very well, is it?” is silly. I guess I would reply that capitalism works great, *when it is tried*. (Have you not noticed China?)
I will soon embrace socialism? Please. Go on with your fantasy world if you want, but please don’t hold your breath. One thing that is so annoying about liberals is how often they tell me what I want. I’ll figure that out for myself. Thanks for the thought, tho. ;->
The problem with Socialists of all stripes is that they delight in taking everyone else down with them.
@Steve M, I am not telling you what you want. I am telling you what they are going to do to you, and you will love it..Print this post, keep it and refer back to in in the future.. It has nothing to do with politics..
The One,
That was the biggest pile of mealy mouthed, pusedo-intellectual, pony poop I have ever wasted time reading. Socialism, communism, facism (as Orwell said “Whats the difference!”) are just facets in the dark heart of human slavery. The freedom we enjoy in this country has been the exception not the rule of human history. The people who expound socialist philosophies are individuals who basically have a warped sense of human nature (see “A Conflict of Visions” if you can actually read). They have no concept of history or economics and firmly believe that they are different and this time it will work, because they are SOOO much smarter than all the intellectual jerk-offs who came before them.
Your arguments are just stupid: “Oh, well we have food stamps, thats socialist, so given that, the HHS should make all your medical care decisions.”
As far as the poor and uneducated. You think they believe in captalism. Aside from your obvious entitlement issues (love little over-educated pussies like you, fold like lawn chairs when actually chalenged), you have obviously never been in a major urban city. Really think all the poor in DC, Baltimore, NY, LA, and Chicago believe in captalism, please. If they did progressive dumbasses wouldn’t have any jobs and the poor’s children might actually get a shot at a decent education.
And please don’t even think for a second your are even remotely capable of making any arguments concerning monetary policy or the trade-offs associated with the relative exchange rates of currencies. Your “a capitalist must rid themselves of the dollar and create a currency relevant with the pound” is so stupid it really defies description. You obviously have no idea what your talking about.
In fact your entire post has about the same relative value in the market place of ideas as a bucket full of warm hampster vomit.
@Mr. Murphy Bush
Well to start, I have been all over the world.. just about everywhere.. I have been to every urban area you can name.. Chicago, Brooklyn, Bronx, L.A., Detroit, Idianapolis, etc.. So don’t tell me what I don’t know.. It’s simple common sense when you think about it..
Without money, you cannot live. That’s fact. The dollar has no power, since the 9/11 attacks, I was in Germany at that time.. The dollar was great compared to the Deutch Marc, If I told someone in Germany I was payin in Dollars, they broke their neck to assist me.. After the 9/11 attacks, a neighbor informed me that new currency will be coming in a month and no more Deutch Marc.. So I said okay, whatever.. I went to the bank to exchage currency this was I think Nov 2001 and the Dollar Dropped.. That Euro had more power than a DOLLAR.. I still have EUROS today.. and I get a exhange rate on them here in America that is unbelievable..
So how are these capitalist going to stay rich? The Dollar is soon becoming useless and to stay current, they will rid the DOLLAR, it will be gone, so good-bye to the DEAD PRESIDENTS. This will give a equal playing field around the world (atleast that’s what they want you to think), but it is only for control.. The DOLLAR is leaving.. SO ARE THE COINS.. everything will be in wholes no cents..
I challenge you to keep this post and refer back to it in some years.. I won’t say I told you so, I PROMISE..
What makes mankind unique is not so much our instinct to function as a group (family, gang, team, tribe, state etc.), but what we do, and are capable of doing as individuals. Inspiration, imagination, creativity, acts of kindness… are not group phenomenon. They occur within, reside within, are refined and developed within, and are expressed by the individual, often for the edification of the group. It’s true that individual creativity usually takes place within a group context and within the perceptual framework that is operative in that group, though sometimes it pushes the boundaries too, and opens the doors to new realities.
What’s nice about capitalism is that it generally allows groups of creative individuals to come together (through mutual interest rather than tribal affiliation) to express their creativity. Often in ways that are beneficial to the group as well.
Do we have absolute knowledge? No we are humans, and so by definition we are imperfect. Can we be manipulated? Of course. Is this the best way to influence a group? I don’t think so. I think persuasion, and the judgment (rooted in self-interest, yes) of the focused intellect is usually superior, though of course we resonate our experiences at an emotional level too; and the group tends to react to change emotionally rather than ‘rationally’.
The problem with socialism is that it is based on the idea that a relatively small group of enlightened individuals can predict the future with great accuracy. That is to say that they can structure society in such a way that it will respond to rapid change (which is always just ahead, especially in this age of high-tech) with perfect timing. In other words, it assumes the ability to steer an incredibly complex, highly integrated mass of cooperating / conflicting humans perpetually, and account for change, and account for the often irrational / creative behaviors of both groups and individuals.
The solutions these small groups come up with invariably involve ‘control’. They see the chaos of human life and think “if only we could rein it in, tamp it down, equalize and homogenize… things would work better”. But of course this is wrong. All that happens is that these ‘oligarchies’ grow rigid, become obsessed with protecting their power and status, and sooner or later fail to respond to a changing environment and collapse. Usually they create a lot of misery and large scale death in the process.
What’s unique about the US is that it built upon the best intellectual traditions of the European experience (from Classical antiquity and the Judeo-Christian tradition, through to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the various revolutions of the 18th & 19th centuries) to create a large scale (and stable!) society which is actually driven by the creativity of the empowered individual. In a way, it is what the socialists have always dreamed about. Unfortunately many of them are so caught up in their dogmatic fervor that they cannot actually perceive what they are seeing.
We are not so naïve as to believe that one side is perfectly ‘right’ and the other perfectly ‘wrong’. Again, we are humans, so perfection is off the table. That too is one of the great lessons of the ages: We feel our way forward based on the moral principles that experience tells us are true. The rest is just dogma. I can’t really respond more precisely to your article since I don’t discern a central argument. Just wanted to respond to your general mis-perceptions.
“The problem with socialism is that it is based on the idea that a relatively small group of enlightened individuals can … structure society in such a way that it will respond to rapid change… with perfect timing.”
Precisely. The enlightened ones, lacking what the Greeks called techne, see successful solutions and believe they can generalize what are now smoothly working processes to any number of other problems. Trial and error with due respect for motivation and the vagaries of real life is just too messy, too real, too uncertain. What is valued is the appearance of expertise not the ability to think one’s way forward.
@Anglo-Saxon
and these ‘enlightened individuals’ will have you begging for socialism, maybe communism anything, but what will come to pass; once they get their AGENDA accomplished.
Holy crap. This waterfall of obtuse verboseness from The One is drowning me. Where to begin?
The One: “The article is well written grammatically. But flawed in it’s delivery.
But, The One, your comment is not very grammatically correct and it is severely flawed in its “delivery”.
“The funny thing is this fear of socialism.”
Nobody here has a fear of socialism. They have an intense dislike of it because it has ruined or degraded many countries that could now be more prosperous and free.
“You people are all against something that you will soon embrace and love dearly.”
Wrong. We will never embrace socialism and love it dearly. We take its so-called benefits, if at all, only in self-defense.
“…you are being brainwashed.”
No we aren’t, you have been brainwashed.
“The thing about America and America’s major problem is Capitalism.”
One of America’s glories is Capitalism. It is also one of the main reasons for America’s successes. The present PROBLEM here is that it is now being diminished by our current government.
I could go on, but I’m afraid I’d be wasting my time. Anyone who could write a comment like yours must be immune to reason.
@FRED BELOIT
Well sir, not immune to reason.. I just know something you don’t and am trying to share it with you, “my friend”. This is not a issue of displaying my intelligence. I am sure that my post was grammatically flawed. I complimented the writer of this article on their writing. Though the delivery was flawed. I see no flaw in my delivery.
The flaw is that you may already, be brainwashed, you may already be programmed. I will advise you to turn off your tv from time to time. That is a tool that is able to reach the world and program a people.
If you are saying that capitalism gives everyone a fair shot, then your sir are mis-guided. There are no fair shots in this world. 0 fair shots and 1 million unfair shots…
The AGENDA doesn’t care what you believe in, the AGENDA only wants to be accomplished. You will embrace the AGENDA, and the practice of this AGENDA is more socialist than anytime in history, but you won’t see it that way then, you will see it as someone saved a world and brought a civilization into the light and freed a “people”, but it’s all the oposite.
That’s why I challenge you to keep these post, refer to them in a few years, I PROMISE I won’t say I told you so.
God Bless You…
Thank you, Mr. Soros.
You should feel comfortable using your own name, since you are, by your own reckoning, all-powerfull, and have nothing to fear from us little people.
Hey, man! I’d be more careful about where you get your weed. There’s some pot laced with loco weed going around; Looks like you got some.
Do not wste your time in response. He has posted this exact same response here at PJM before. He just copies and pastes. I tried dialogue, but he is not interested in true debate. He is merely proselytizing. Save your breath and keystrokes. Do not allow him to hijack the convo.
@MR. Malone,
I see you are a fan. I tell you that I have not posted this before and I have no reason to cut and paste..
The fact is I know something you don’t and I am kind enough to share. You have no idea of the things to come, you have no idea who or what I am. This is a part of the programming, television, internet, etc.
You have no dialogue, because you basic arguments are designed and in favor for party politics, this means that you represent a political party, democrat or republican, etc. The political party has nothing to do with what goes on in the world.
The thing is you cannot create rational thinking based on a perception of society as a whole. Not just speaking of AMERICA, but the world.
I laugh when I hear people say the democrats are destroying America, then I laugh harder when I hear people say republicans are destroying America.. It’s hilarious that a person can actually be programmed and brainwashed.. MK-Ultra at it’s best..
The real thing is that the truth is not what people want to hear at times, people want to hear something they can live with and agree with, regardless if it’s a lie..If you can live with a lie you embrace it like a newborn baby.
Don’t allow yourself to be programmed. I challenge you to keep these post, refer back to them in a few year and I assure you I won’t say, I TOLD you SO..
One of the problems with the defenders of socialism is that they confuse and conflate an economic system with a social system – trying to solve all problems in one swell foop :). The principle tenet behind the U.S. system is that (at least until recently) it separated the two. Our founding fathers (and the TEA Party members) recognized that the best way to assure the maximum (and maximum quality) employment for citizens is to set a minimum number of ground rules for industry, and then get out of the way. The government’s primary job is to provide order (the police and the judiciary) and physical security (the military and the diplomatic corps) for its citizens. Private industry can create jobs much more efficiently than the government can; and, by and large, employers these days recognize that if they screw with their employees they end up loosing in the long run. What’s also interesting is that if the government stays out of the realm of charity, the poor are also better taken care of. The Church has been taking care of the poor for over 2000 years, and many people are quite willing to help those who are beset by circumstances – see, for instance – the Shriner’s hospitals or Goodwill Industries.
Reverse Psychology, to make you hate something that you will soon embrace….
You don’t make any sense and you’ve wasted our time.
No, I think it is you that lacks, sense. Your eyes are wide shut and you are plugged in, for programming..
BTW T.O., reverse psychology and sarcasm are not the same thing.
In any event, excellent rebuttals to The One’s BS, regardless of what game he’s playing.
@TLM
It’s not eye that plays the game, a game is either won or loss. In this game if you win you loose and if you loose you loose..
:0
TO @ 10:11
Man, you just managed to say almost nothing in, what, 13 or so paragraphs. Well nothing intelligent anyway. Perhaps if you made use of more caps?
@Chuck near Houston
I said nothing or is it blocker not allowing you to figure out what I’m saying.. Intelligience isn’t knowing everything, the main part of intelligience is common sense.
From what I said you responded with that? Atleast tell me why my comments lack intelligience?
Back up what you are saying..
I used to think it was about socialism, but I don’t anymore.
The top socialists are too motivated to impose it to be socialists themselves. As VDH points out, they get exemptions. They don’t actually BELIEVE the crap sandwich. My goodness, they can see the evidence as well as we can. It’s just that the evidence they find compelling is the part with the commissars firmly in control and living like kings.
The exemptions are what it’s all about. The re-implementation of the devine right of kings. Oh how Soros, Kerry and Gore miss those wonderful times.
The real plan is to create an unimpeachable Ruling Class, using socialism as (1), the con to trick the rubes and flatten society, and (2), the club to keep the flattened society under control.
To imagine the Ruling Class as true socialists is really kind of silly. They aren’t that stupid. That’s why they found somebody as stupid as Obama to run this stage. They need a true believer who is completely brainwashed and who literally hates those pesky free marketers. They must be thrilled with their choice.
Agreed. ‘Social Justice’ is the smokescreen. The real motive is power.
Welcome to the New World Order.
@trureeason
Exactly.. !! Nail in the Coffin!!
An unimpeachable ruling class. Exactly.. Then have everyone fighting, he’s a socialist, I hate socialism. Then the explosion in your face.
Though, if the entire ‘People’ are programmed and brainwashed they will love it and embrace it..
They (the citizens of the world) will look at it as equality. One currency, One government, etc. and they will say we have been saved.
Nobody will go against it except those who are not programmed. Those who are not programmed will be jailed, hunted, killed. They will live as worse as the homeless do today.
VDH says the right things, but is missing the most crucial piece :
US socialism is due to feminism, and conservatives have done just as much to create the problem as leftists have.
This article blew my roof off when I read it. It discusses how as soon as women start voting, within a few decades, they organize around the singular goal of extracting resources from men. Republican women are just as driven to do this, which is why voting for Republicans does not lead to a reduction in socialism.
Aren’t you supposed to be running the country, The One? Why are you messing around here?
And who wrote this comment for you, the usual ghost Bill Ayres?
@Banjo
No sir, I will rule nothing except my destiny, and they only reason, I have control over my destiny is that I excepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior.
Bill Ayer, that’s funny, but it’s just that I know something you may not and have no fear in sharing it..
The time will come. There are others who connected the dots as I read other post, though there are some that are being programmed as I respond to you.
The way to control a people is to control their mind, the way to control their mind is brainwashing or programming, even hypnosis. And I don’t mean somebody swinging a watch saying ‘you are getting sleepy’, it’s far more advanced.
The fact is that when you turn on your television your brain/ sub-conscious is processing things without you even knowing it.. It’s processing symbols and images and the speed of light.. Why do you think the youth get more outragious as generations go on? Television is programming them.. I tell you this is true and everything I have said here will happen.
God Bless you..
Well said as usual Dr. Hanson. One quibble only, that if Kathleen Sebelius is any indication socialism is no longer creeping in, it’s stomping about in shiny jackboots threatening to crush anyone who gets in its way. Fortunately, it appears they’ve turned up the heat too fast and the frogs are beginning to jump out of the pot.
Interesting times we live in.
Let me add a sixth:
Public care makes your health and lifestyle a public problem. After all, if the government is paying for your healthcare, then suddenly your diet, exercise regimen and lifestyle all become a Matter of Public Import.
Michelle Obama now uses her public persona to push for healthy eating. And good for her; it’s a good cause. But now imagine a few years into ObamaCare. Should there be a fat tax? Or a ban on unhealthy foods? In the world of Michael Bloomberg, this is quite plausible, especially once some economist calculates the public cost of private behavior.
Let’s move a step further. Romania banned abortion, China makes some abortions mandatory, and most communist countries were abusive towards homosexuals. There are many social issues in the liberal program that might fall by the wayside once they face the realities and diminishing resources of their system. Once traditional faiths are attrited down, much of the social freedoms liberals currently dangle to the young could be safely withdrawn in the name of the “public good”.
At least, denied to the masses. The elites, as in the communist bloc, are likely to be above the law.
Disease and infection is a world/society or public problem, if it wasn’t we wouldn’t have infection control.. Without infection control, everyone gets sick..
Did you think of that?
Well, is Obama repeatable?
Only if female.
The race card is maxed out, but the ‘misogynist’ card is just getting ramped up. Compound this with the fact that conservatives will rush to support any and all socialism as long as it is packaged as ‘chivalry’. A conservative will do anything, and I mean anything, to avoid being called a ‘misogynist’, even if the slur.
The Right needs to acknowledge and shield this Achilles Heel.
Hilary Clinton would appear to be the ideal “female Obama” if Obama decides not to run again in 2012. She’s certainly given the impression that she is driven enough to still want to be President and there appears to be plenty of evidence to suggest that her views are not very different from Obama’s in many key ways. Both were Alinksy disciples, after all…..
Just to get some context here, is it safe to say that the whole world is socialist?
Next question: is there a country less socialist than we are and how are they doing? Would you rather live in India, China, or Israel? C’mon.
Aren’t we the least socialist country in the world (at least the only one without a huge underclass of people living in cardboard boxes? If so, the fact that some of the more socialist ones are backing up some of their socialism, may or may not be helpful as a guide to us, since they are not nearly back to where we are now.
Sure, I’d rather live in Israel, partly since I’m Jewish and partly because the overall quality of life is better than in the US. On the topic of socialism, while Israel in the past was rather socialistic, it is probably less so now than the US: opposite flight patterns. All sorts of studies show that Americans are about 40th in contentment, Israel much higher, in the top 10. I think this is also why Americans harp so much on the superiority (alleged) of the political system – at least the urban lifestyle in the US has become heavily skewed towards career, materialism and some other things that promote discontent. So, yeah. I’ve been here for family/home care responsibilities, but look forward to being in, frankly, a better country.
Old Soviet joke: “I pretend to work, and they pretend to pay me.”
You left out the fact that socialism inevitably leads to rationing or surpluses, as there is
no way to set prices in a command economy (i.e., no supply and demand). IIRC, Soviet
economists used to joke that when they conquered the world, they would have to leave one
capitalist state alone in order to have a way of setting prices (by copying them).
Socializzed sports exist in the Little League. I live in the hometown of Little League Baseball, where the LLB world series was recently played.I and my wife were simply amazed at the “leveling-out” of competition: everyone has to bat and play in a game no matter what skill or lack of it the player exhibits; the pitcher may throw only so much and only after prescribed days of non-pitching, though presumably he could catch, which calls for as much throwing; teams have return matches no matter how badly they lost in previous matches; and the “ten-run rule” keeps any team from being embarassed by a blow out. Of course, it is to “protect the kids” from emotional harm of not playing, playing poorly or getting eliminated at first try. It also protects them from a real life-lesson; losing is tough, but not fatal-suck it up.
Before the government took care of everybody, via SS and all the rest, old people, sick people, mentally ill, etc. were taken care of by family, or by religious organizations.
What does the left attack? Family and religion. It never seems to occur to them that there might be more to family and religion, something they can’t replace.
when no child left behind was first passed into law, it basically brought socialism into education. everyone talks about how standards are too low — they have to be in order to get 100% proficiency.
Yea; We’re witnessing that here, and now, with “The One”.
Good one.
@cybergeezer
Laugh now be brainwashed later..
anyone who wanted to see the future of American medicine under Obama care could have easily checked out the hospitals now run by the feds: The Indian Health Service, the VA, and of course the military sytem.
But no one bothered to connect the dots between the bad conditions at Walter Reed and the slowness and paperwork nightmare of working for the Federal system. (been there, done that).
This is a laugh riot and oh so true! President Howdy Doody is attempting to build an nation of wooden puppets in his own image and call it “utopia”, while the wooden heads in the media chortle “he’s a god!” If he succeeds, we can rename the country “DopeyLand”. But the joke is that when his highness finishes hollowing out the core of the country and makes business and hard work something only suckers do, the green paper the government distributes (or re-distributes) to all of its loyal parasites will be worth absolutely nothing. No country with a real functioning economy will take it in exchange for anything they make. DopeyLand will be a third-world banana republic with nuclear missiles (that no one will be capable of operating.) And it will all be due to Barack Obama and the Dope-a-crats!
From my observations, the main problem with socialism is there are no socialists. In the words of Bob Dylan in another PJM article from today …
“Human nature really hasn’t changed in 3,000 years. … It’s not meant to change. It cannot change. It’s not made to change.”
“The world owes us nothing, not one single thing.”
OK, but no one has come up for a nomination of any other country that is LESS socialistic than we are except the creative choice of Israel. Will we have an Exodus? I don’t think so.
Oh for God’s sake. Monaco, Andorra, and Sao Tome Principe. Why can’t we just say America became a dominant nation because of its lack of extreme forms of Socialism. Why should America now forsake its history in favor of a change to more socialism, i.e., a bad change?
I’m not sure we’re on the same page here. I was referring to the phenomenon where those who want socialism want it for thee not they.
CGW @ 12:56 pm
That Codevilla article struck a chord. It explained what millions had already realized intuitively, tied it all together in a neat little package. The Old Guard in both parties is on notice. In NH where I live, even the Palin favorite, Ayotte, had a close call beating someone perceived (rightly) as more an outsider to the D.C. swamp.
Rove is a numbers guy. I don’t think he gets the national mood. The Tea Partiers may only be the tip of the iceberg.
Krauthammer’s denunciations of O’Donnell are harder to explain, as he usually reads these things better. He should understand — with O’Donnell, the die is cast.
The Leftists, the Libtards, the fencesitters, and the RINOs are all looking over their shoulders. They’ve had their chance. It always boils down to three choices:
1. LEAD
2. FOLLOW
3. GET OUT OF THE WAY
We’re at # 3.
I was born in 1944, so certainly have no conscious memory of Pres. Franklin Roosevelt; and being a conservative, I have no truck with his socialistic tendencies and hopes. However….I surely wish I would never again have to see this bastardization of his photo with the fraud’s likeness superimposed as it is. Absolutely disgusting. President Roosevelt, DEAD, is of more positive value to the United States of America than the fraud could ever hope to be. Please stop using President Roosevelt’s iconic photo this way.
OK, Bottom line, given lack of any ral assertions to the contrary, appears to be that the whole world, including us is “socialistic.” One problem here is that many people’s comments imply that we are something else, and are now fighting/losing some big battle that will make us “socialistic.” The whole thing is a matter of degree. Realistically, one might say, “I believe that the pendulum has swung too far toward government involvement in everything and we have to dial it back x%. But what fun is that? Instead we get all sorts of melodramatic blather, because that is how individuals tend to communicate.
Blather on, (I certainly will) but big ships turn slowly. You can sometimes blow them up, but then we are all left thrashing about in the water, yelling what: “I’m free!!” or “Help!!” ??
“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.” -British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
“even after the meltdown of September 2008″
Really? Are you talking about the meltdown that began in 2007? Because I distinctly recall sitting in an airport at christmas of 2007, reading an issue of The Economist that explained in detail exactly what had gone wrong in the US housing market and how it had affected the investment banking sector. 2008, my foot.
It’s a stretch to try to relocate an economic snafu that developed and hit in 2007 until a more politically convenient date (i.e. most of a year after the democrats took control of congress – how about that!). Sorry, but the financial crisis was in full swing by january of 2008, not september. Banks had already started shutting their windows and foreclosures were spiking.
Jeeze. What next. Maybe you can delay the fall of berlin until reagan took office?
O-kay, I think I get the part about mowing down the tall poppies and using them to compost the dud-weeds. That’s just a psychopathic power trip. (Ironically, my dictionary defines psychopathic behavior as “a CONSTITUTIONAL disorder”.)
But what I can’t figure out today — paradox du jour, if you will — is how we are supposed to erase all boundaries between countries and cultures and religions and shoe sizes and all come together as one world people, yet simultaneously stress and celebrate our diversity. Federally mandated schizophrenia too?
P.S. HEY CONGRESS: STOP WASTING MY MONEY!!!
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