text:
Lord Monckton describes being knocked out by a Danish cop in Copenhagen. But that really isn't the centerpiece of his blogpost. It was when he woke up and realized it was to a world he presumed would never live in that the really interesting part of his narrative begins. All around him a carnival was in full swing amid which cops, like black beetles, prowled. The imagery of it smote him. The "show" events sponsored by the EU and the UN; the casual brutality by the cops, the emphasis being on the 'casual', the whole pointless insanity of it shook him to the core. He wrote:
Europe is no longer a free society. It is, in effect, a tyranny ruled by the unelected Kommissars of the European Union. That is perhaps one reason why police forces throughout Europe, including that in the UK, have become far more brutal than was once acceptable in their treatment of the citizens they are sworn to serve.
It is exactly this species of tyranny that the UN would like to impose upon the entire planet, in the name of saving us from ourselves – or, as Ugo Chavez would put it, saving us from Western capitalist democracy.
A few weeks ago, at a major conference in New York, I spoke about this tendency towards tyranny with Dr. Vaclav Klaus, the distinguished economist and doughty fighter for freedom and democracy who is President of the Czech Republic.
While we still have one or two statesmen of his caliber, there is hope for Europe and the world. Unfortunately, he refused to come to Copenhagen, telling me that there was no point, now that the lunatics were firmly in control of the asylum.
Maybe this was Monckton feeling the effects of the lump on his head. But it may be a feeling that people are going to be increasingly familiar with. People have always believed that 'they can't do that; can't foist this fraud on me; can't take over 15% of the US economy just like that; can't give my tax money to Hugo Chavez; can't borrow money from China in my name and give to China.' But if you realize one day that the answer to those questions is "Yes we can" — and there's no point arguing, then you will have discovered the Day After Feeling. Our grandfathers knew it. We thought to be spared. Monckton felt it briefly and had put the question to Vaclav Klaus:
However, I asked him whether the draft Copenhagen Treaty's proposal for what amounted to a communistic world government reminded him of the Communism under which he and his country had suffered for so long.
He thought for a moment – as statesmen always do before answering an unusual question – and said, "Maybe it is not brutal. But in all other respects, what it proposes is far too close to Communism for comfort."
Today, as I lay in the snow with a cut knee, a bruised back, a banged head, a ruined suit, and a written-off coat, I wondered whether the brutality of the New World Order was moving closer than President Klaus – or any of us – had realized.
Moncktons' premonition is by no means yet a fact. Nor is it inevitable. But were we to grant its possibility then what would the future look like? Here is how dystopia might appear.
- It would come upon the West relatively quickly with no sharp dividing line between the status quo ante and the Brave New World. People would simply wake up with the Day After Feeling at a increasing rate. At some point there would be a consensus that things were no longer the same as they were, but it would be accompanied by a feeling that resistance was futile. It would just happen and 95% of the population will tighten their belts, lower their eyes to the ground and trudge on. That's what most do on the Day After.
- The center of resistance to any global world order — assuming it came to pass — would probably be the relatively primitive Third World, led in places by India and China. But it would not be a fight pitting freedom against tyranny. China would be uninterested in that, nor would the Islamic world care less. Rather, it will be a conflict like Eastasia against Eurasia; a fight over power. For individuals who wish nothing to do with states, some will choose to adapt themselves to the stews of Lahore or deal their way through corrupt Jakarta and Manila, or even raise their own gangs in Africa rather than live under the Lords of the Wheelie Bins. There will be a Rick's Cafe again, possibly under a rickety bridge in Peru.
- A "progressive" world order would soon demonstrate itself to be the most controlling, intolerant and brutal regime this generation will ever have experienced. Perhaps a few centenarian survivors from World War 2 will remember worse, but only they will have that comfort. Sooner or later the Progressives will try to tame the Third World through biological weaponry and genocide. They may succeed, but they will not last out the Solar System.
- Eventually, the "progressives" will cut their own throats. They will be torn apart by their stupidity, arrogance and unbridled ambition. Anyone who survives long enough will live to tell a bitter, but action-packed tale of mankind's latest tragedy, made all the more pathetic by the fact it was waged for incomprehensible and insane reasons.
But what of Oceania? Where does America fit in this dystopian speculative future? It could become the Capital of this Brave New World or tear itself apart resisting absorption. Or it could reject Vaclav Klaus's nightmare entirely. Who knows? For now however, we live in the present where the untorn pages of the calendar obscure the future. As the Christmas approaches, though the tree may not be as well stocked as it was last year, it's important to count our real blessings: the gift of ourselves and our volition; the joy of family and the heritage of all that we take for granted. There may be magic still; and that last star on the tree might represent what shall be: not what Vaclav Klaus's fears but what will happen if we nudge fate ever so little in our favor. Ronald Reagan once dreamed of another future, one that began in the past.
Well, as I say, whether story or legend, the signing of the document that day in Independence Hall was miracle enough. Fifty-six men, a little band so unique — we have never seen their like since — pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Sixteen gave their lives, most gave their fortunes and all of them preserved their sacred honor. What manner of men were they? Certainly they were not an unwashed, revolutionary rebel, nor were then adventurers in a heroic mood. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, nine were farmers. They were men who would achieve security but valued freedom more.
And what price did they pay? John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. After more than a year of living almost as an animal in the forest and in caves, he returned to find his wife had died and his children had vanished. He never saw them again, his property was destroyed and he died of a broken heart — but with no regret, only pride in the part he had played that day in Independence Hall. Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships — they were sold to pay his debts. He died in rags. So it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston, and Middleton. Nelson, learning that Cornwallis was using his home for a headquarters, personally begged Washington to fire on him and destroy his home–he died bankrupt. It has never been reported that any of these men ever expressed bitterness or renounced their action as not worth the price. Fifty-six rank-and-file, ordinary citizens had founded a nation that grew from sea to shining sea, five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep — all done without an area re-development plan, urban renewal or a rural legal assistance program….
Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, "We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world." Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom. …
We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.
Others have given us the Christmases past and present. But Christmases future are up to us. That's true not only of America, but of every place, of everyone who lives in this crucial time. Whether you are in Africa, Asia, Europe or in America. We are the last best hope of man on earth.
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186 Comments, 186 Threads
Another thought provoking post. Almost could have been titled "millennial end thoughts", though I haven't seen as much optimism to end the post here as usual which is scary.
December 19, 2009 - 2:59 pm Link to this Comment -
2. Talnik
The Europe we knew went away Dec 1st. American politicians are forcing hated programs on the populace. The Treasury is being looted and the currency debased. Bills have been passed with the intention of destroying the remaining manufacturing base; now they're going after agriculture. Wherever resource deposits are found the area is immediately declared a national park and no mining is allowed (are they saving it all for the Chinese?).
Our politicians are playing for a different team, they are at war with us. This will not end well.December 19, 2009 - 3:17 pm Link to this Comment -
3. Josh
wretchard, you surprised me.
I thought you were writing about how Obambus has drawn us into EU's nightmare. Health care bill? Stimulus pork? War against … Yemen?
Is it the mere brutality of police tenderizing a crowd that inspires such fear? Not for me – for me, it's what went on inside the castle, not outside.
December 19, 2009 - 3:32 pm Link to this Comment -
4. Yes We Did
You racist oppressors can whine forever about times gone by. President Obama rules this country now and the Progressives control the government. They are leading us all forward into a new world of peace and justice.
The time of the racist white male oppressor has gone, never to return. Just shut up and pay your reparations.
December 19, 2009 - 3:58 pm Link to this Comment -
"Saving it for the Chinese?"
Same with all the oil reserves we have sunk wells into but not pumped.
"This will not end well."
Sure won't, at least not for the politicians who have betrayed us. Or their families. They should think about that one!
December 19, 2009 - 4:05 pm Link to this Comment -
6. Marie Claude
I'm so sorry for lord Monkton that the danish policemen were not bred in Oxford.
I think he's exagerating a bit, but he does whin, that, in such a people event, none had consideration for his high rank in the lordness.
There were myriads of exiteds, and I bet that the danish police had the recommendation to not let any derailment overwhelming them, like it happened in Strasburg for the NATO summit.Apart of that, he wanted to make his own touch,in his blog, he had no chance to be heard in Copenhagen. Also I wonder if any journalist referred to his adventure apart of the British's, and of some Americans, I couldn't find any article in french's ones, so, see if the world is attentive too !
Now, he is right upon this big farce, our scientist, Claude Allegre, is not saying anything else, but he didn't go to Copenhagen, he just goes from time to time on TV to ridicule the green faune
December 19, 2009 - 4:26 pm Link to this Comment -
… for me, it's what went on inside the castle, not outside.Wretchard may have a point. What happened inside the castle is the usual. It happens in almost every Mayor's office, in Legislative Cloak rooms, and in many small time and big city Judge's chambers or Lobbyist's Hospitality suites. That was business as it is done from Chicago to Shanghai. Anyplace that resources are not allocated according to the market you get the Gatherer and Sharers who meet to divide the swag. The surprise is that after several thousand years of practice they are still so bad at it. Not at achieving results in the sense of solving whatever ostensible problem was at hand, we knew those weren't to be expected, but that they are so bad at simply pulling off a meeting in which they simply have to show up and divide the loot.
What went on outside shows that the fearlessness of the totalitarians has, like sunspots do, reached a period of maximum that may coincide with dramatic changes to the human environment. These episodes come in waves, tied to many factors but a cohort of ill raised but well cosseted youths loose at the same time that major powers are competing over resources makes for a lethal combination. Similar conditions may have held in 1848, 1914 and 1968. Chavez was cheered inside the hall but he was there as an emissary of the mobs outside.
The brutality of the Danish police may indicate that they are now the incipient tools of new Gaulieters, willing to serve any authoritarian impulse. Many Americans viewed our own law enforcement community with dread after the excesses of Janet Reno's reign of terror. I understand that but as a former member of the community I view the tool with less fear than I do the hand behind it.
It is possible that in the small countries of Europe, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, a reaction is setting in and the police are finally being told to defend their own people. We should not assume either the best or the worst. The tide may not have turned but we should not heed the advice of our enemies that resistance is futile.
As the Mayor of Chicago said in response to a similar disturbance, "The police are not there to create disorder, they are there to preserve disorder."
December 19, 2009 - 4:29 pm Link to this Comment -
8. what da ya mean, its too hot?
You've changed.
Dba, No Climate like it
Or "Lord Moncton's vent"I've an awfully feelling
That this thought that's been a
stealin thru my brain
Is not to be ignored
But to really tell the truth
Though I'm not a well known sleuth
I honestly believe that you are bored
You've changedThat sparkle in your eyes is gone
Your smile is just a careless yawn
You're breaking my chart
You've changedYou've changed
Your missives
now are so blase'
You're bored with trees in every way
I can't understandYou've changed
You abandoned the curves for a
"hockey stick"
Each memory card we've impaired.
You ignore every outlier about you,
I can't realize you've ever caredYou've changed
You're not the angel I once knew
No need to tell me that we're through
It's all over now
You've changedDecember 19, 2009 - 4:35 pm Link to this Comment -
9. Nomenklatura
It's naive to believe that any of this is new.
I emigrated from the UK to the US thirty years ago because of the contrast between someone trying to sue a state agency in the US versus the UK. In the UK, as an individual, you really have no enforceable rights against a state agency, and never did have. Consequently the expansion of the state's power has come to mean something quite different from what it means in the US (even though that is quite threatening enough).
When state agencies no longer have to defend themselves in court against individuals they can do whatever they want. This is of course precisely what they have in common with the former Communist regimes.
December 19, 2009 - 4:46 pm Link to this Comment -
10. whiskey
No Wretchard, the likely outcome is the "BNP vs. Islamists" war we all knew was coming.
Liberals/Dems/etc. cannot screw the average person forever, they've been helped by a global wave of prosperity that ameliorated the overt discrimination against Joe Average White Guy.
ObamaCare screws over the average person, sharply, while delaying any benefit other than to Illegal Aliens who are 90% Mexicans. Its purely a racial spoils politics on behalf of the Black-Hispanic-SWPL Elite alliance. It contains in its own seeds a brutal Jacksonian reaction.
The most likely outcome is pure White populism. ObamaCare perhaps permanent but excluding illegals and perhaps even others. The cut always go further if there are fewer people cutting it. The math works out that a man can rise high (Napoleon, Stalin, etc.) by promising the majority the most of the cut by excluding the minority. Suharto rose this way also.
Meanwhile Egypt slips into Islamism, and the whole Copenhagen debacle predictably collapsed because there is no more money.
THAT is the attribute you have not factored for: LACK OF MONEY. What Ed Driscoll calls the Rendezvous with Scarcity. Take a Middle Class people accustomed to 50+ years of rising living standards, make them suddenly poor overnight, and you get a Revolutionary situation.
The "Revolution" will not be according to the tired patterns of Marxism. It will be an angry, unapologetic, White populism. Look at the BNP website. They openly call the British native population the well, native population and quote the UN Declaration of Indigenous rights. There is no guilt or shame among them. The fouresquarely stand for their own ethnicity, and no one else does. Conservatism being a tired wine of me-too liberal elitism, with slightly fewer intrusiveness into ordinary life and "apologies for Whiteness."
The key will be the success of Avatar. IF it makes a profit (covers the $500 million cost and then some) THEN your predictions are likely to be true. But more likely, it will be Dances with Wolves meets Waterworld. The White Majorities of the West are tired of being blamed for everything, and getting the bill for everything. Not even Obama and the rest could sign on to massive destruction of their economies to give money to China and Sudan.
More likely, ObamaCare passes, huge taxes while no benefits for the White Middle Class majority, and is transformed to exclude those not Americans to start with by a White populist counter-reaction, by a desperate and angry people. Who no longer feel GUILT.
December 19, 2009 - 4:47 pm Link to this Comment -
11. Marie Claude
Mon petit whisky, Napoleon gained his popularity on battle fields, not through political associations
December 19, 2009 - 4:56 pm Link to this Comment -
12. Talnik
Lennon: "Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…"Orwell: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever."
December 19, 2009 - 5:00 pm Link to this Comment -
13. Knight1
Bravo, Wretchard/Richard!
I have posted this comment before reading what others have said – usually far better than anything I can contribute, but your post called out for sounding the alarm and for the hope you embraced. Bravo. Thank you. …now, I'll resume reading…
December 19, 2009 - 5:04 pm Link to this Comment -
14. Josh
LOTM @ 7: I understand that but as a former member of the community I view the tool with less fear than I do the hand behind it.
Isn't that in agreement with what I said?
December 19, 2009 - 5:08 pm Link to this Comment -
15. Doug
Well said, LifeOf.
—As the Mayor of Chicago said in response to a similar disturbance,
"The police are not there to create disorder, they are there to preserve disorder.""
The eternal verity of the Golden Oldies!
December 19, 2009 - 5:13 pm Link to this Comment -
16. Thrasymachus
It would help, for a start, if people would pay some attention. I don't see much difference between Tom DeLay and Barney Frank. Mouth whatever platitudes the rubes in your district want to hear and then get to the business of passing out the loot. And Obama is obviously, to anybody who read more than the front page of the paper, well outside the mainstream of America. You can't blame the media for this stuff, it is a free country mostly and people can inform and educate themselves, or not, and they mostly don't.
December 19, 2009 - 5:14 pm Link to this Comment -
Revolution indeed.
Revolution by the working class, who are well armed, and can't wait to stick that bayo in deep and twist it! Twice!
Revolution by disciplined, intelligent, capable, organized and well equipped/led forces, aka the working class. Completely capable in all areas of specialty required. Focussed on a single outcome, arresting/replacing the corrupt criminal enterprise masquerading as political leadership. Round'em all up, we will figure out what to do with them later. Want to join us? Show me your W2 from the private sector!The most capable will succeed brilliantly, and that ain't the welfare/disability/I'm a victim/drug addict/disenfranchised types.
Compare Florida's hurricane experiences with that of New Orleans after Katrina.
One group efficiently and quietly helped themselves, the other had not only no ability, but far worse, no concept.These working folks can interrupt power, water, mail, communications, distribution on a national scale, overnight!
GUILT? Yep, feelings of guilt because this action was delayed far too long!
AUTHORITY? The Constitution of the United State!
December 19, 2009 - 5:18 pm Link to this Comment -
18. wretchard
Although I disagree with almost everything else, yes, it's the lack of money that's gonna get them. The Left soaked up the peace dividend. They appropriated the fruits of everything they worked so hard not to win. The Clinton years were the key time, when the end of history made is possible to imagine a future where the only things we had to worry about were the Y2K bug and the ozone layer. A huge slug of free energy, like a lottery ticket, made an explosion of fantasy possible.
Winning the lottery often ruins lives. And maybe in this case all the projects which really took off that era — multiculturalism, political correctness, runaway greenism, the proliferation of NGOs and transnational stuctures — and the mood which rose to match — a never ending boom, a future that could be built on credit — this was the lottery that sank the West. It wasn't the end of history. It was the binge at the moment of a victory they never wanted, but were prepared to exploit anyway.
And now, guess what? The money's run out. But it was enough to pay for all the state expansion the left craved so much. Now they're going to have to hang on to this dead weight without the wherewithal to pay for it. In a way they are stuck with their railroad line to Medina. All the leftie programs they can't roll back. All the free health care they've just gotta have, along with the death panels that go with them. The carbon trading industry. The safe schools with perverts in charge of them. The free sex change operations. The sanctuary cities. The handouts for the SEIU. All the junk they bought on credit that they can't pay for. They're going to try to hang on to it all. The monkey trap. And like the railway to Medina, the tribes they can't overawe are going to be galloping up and down the line blowing things up. The Left can't handle limited warfare. That's immoral. So they're going to let things slide until in a panic they get ready to nuke all them flies buzzing around their heads. Islamic extremism isn't going to defeat the West; but it will force an insane elite self-destruct, like the robot shorting out squawking "it does not compute".
So look for them to buy more stuff on credit. Look for them to create more "cliff functions" in defense policy. They're just going to kick things down the road until even they realize they've gone over the edge. And when they do it'll be "help save me!"
But not yet. Until the last hour the party's gonna rollick on. Folly has always been like that. You drink down the champagne and then when it's gone you crack the bottle against the edge of the desk and defend yourself with the shards. How does one avoid the fate of Detroit, or Fannie Mae? Improving things each year with a fix until there's nothing left but ruins? That's the characteristic of all these hare-brained schemes; the signature of the Ponzi racket. Everything is described as improving and getting better until the hour the whole thing collapses.
December 19, 2009 - 5:29 pm Link to this Comment -
"I don't see much difference between Tom DeLay and Barney Frank."
The only difference I see is that one of them pretended to be our friend!
December 19, 2009 - 5:31 pm Link to this Comment -
I would be all over this were I not feeling so poorly. Any who don't already know this is where I should be speaking up need only read the synopsis in the sidebar at my blog.
The worshipers of Sustainability have created a sub rosa religion that has taken over almost all of science much as radical Islamists hold the Muslim world hostage. Worse, it's being foisted on our children in schools whilst all opposing religions are blocked.
Even Canada's Financial Times: Concludes "The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations" after having praised, amongst other draconia, China's strict enforcement of its one child policy.
To those who believe that CO2 rise is the foreshadower of a major catastrophe, the risks to reputations that climategate is consequence, were simply the ends justifying the means. And the apologists won't stop just as the power-hungerers and their media won't stop until — well that remains for us to see.
I will permit myself to be lifted by Wretchard's cheer simply because I am in need of it. Thanks Richard.
December 19, 2009 - 5:33 pm Link to this Comment -
21. Doug
Global Wealth Can Heal
Copenhagen does have its uses.
For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas.
► JONAH GOLDBERGDecember 19, 2009 - 5:37 pm Link to this Comment -
22. presbypoet
Interesting how the "Lord", feels he is above being manhandled. That is for common folk. He is of course unaware; as in France after the Bastile, the world has turned upside down. Those formerly treated with respect, were soon driven to the blade with hands tied behind.
Perhaps this will become a valuable lesson for lord M. All animals are now equal, except for some who are more equal. Lord M. always thought he was special, because he was a "Lord". He must now quickly learn to be ordinary, or he will join others in the tumbrels, as Napoleon's hounds of hell strike.
As usual, it will be up to free men to fight. Serfs only exchange masters. Past royalty never knows its time has come, until the blade strikes. It is only free men, knowing freedom isn't free, who take up the battle. The future is both dark, and full of possibilities. A Churchill quote seems appropriate:
"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."
WINSTON CHURCHILL, The Gathering Storm, p. 348.Perhaps Lord M. will someday thank the Dane for teaching him painful Truth.
December 19, 2009 - 5:41 pm Link to this Comment -
23. Doug
Barney Frank can't dance.
Tom could, for a little while.
Both quite accomplished at making asses of themselves.December 19, 2009 - 5:48 pm Link to this Comment -
24. Right Wing Realist
#19 AWM – Yes, there are more of us than them. And even though they be in power, the National Guard, or even a Civilian Defense Force, would be spread too thin to really enforce tyranny! There is a reckoning a comin'! Take it to the bank…if there is one.
December 19, 2009 - 5:55 pm Link to this Comment -
25. Utopia Parkway
What you describe is essentially a bubble. Tulips anyone?
I happened to watch a new tv show this week, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. In this episode Jesse claims that there is a conspiracy to create a world govt and that global warming is a fake and the purpose of it is to scare people into a UN-led world govt. He claims that Al Gore is small potatoes in this conspiracy and that the real power behind the throne is one Maurice Strong. Strong is a billionaire and Ventura paints him as a kind of real-world Blofeld who lives in China, also part of the conspiracy, and plots his control of the world from there.
Hard to believe that a billion dollars is enough to take over the world.
December 19, 2009 - 6:05 pm Link to this Comment -
26. Marie Claude
Interesting how the "Lord", feels he is above being manhandled. That is for common folk. He is of course unaware; as in France after the Bastile, the world has turned upside down. Those formerly treated with respect, were soon driven to the blade with hands tied behind.
this situation has nothing to be related with a world that turned upside down. Just in manifestions, which it appears that he isn't in use to attends, mobs have a "foolish" comportment, and policemen are confused, their consciousness must torture them, for most of them, for up to now they were told to not be so harsh on mobs, but it happened, that each time they respected such orders, they were wounded, or worst, hooliganism was the measure.
Otherwise in Africa, China, even Russia, policemen don't have such a moral questionement, they fire at the mobs.
I find Lord Monkton a bit fool if was hoping that in such a tournament, he would be treated as a gentleman, policemen can't just make the difference
December 19, 2009 - 6:08 pm Link to this Comment -
27. Tcobb
Wretchard writesEventually, the "progressives" will cut their own throats. They will be torn apart by their stupidity, arrogance and unbridled ambition. Anyone who survives long enough will live to tell a bitter, but action-packed tale of mankind's latest tragedy, made all the more pathetic by the fact it was waged for incomprehensible and insane reasons.
The curse of the modern world is utopianism. Many people find the idea to be incredibly attractive, and it is, much like the idea of winning the million dollar lottery, and it is just as realistic, at least as history seems to show.
But even most of the Utopians realized that usually people had no real desire to live in such dream lands–it ran counter to their cultures. So–destroy the cultures that resist and you can build your Utopia from the pieces. And usually that means its your own culture you want to destroy. Remember the recent revelations about the British Labour Party and the motives behind their immigration policies?
That's much of what "progressives" have been about–unraveling the ties that bond people together into cultures, nations, families, or whatever. What they don't seem to realize is that what follows when the fabric is destroyed is not some gentle social putty, it is Somalia writ large, a rather brutal anarchy in which one's credentials as a Progressive will mean nothing. Dogs that go feral are much more dangerous than wolves. That which you used to kick with impunity may end up biting your feet off and finish with your throat for dessert.
But utopians are like dim and spoiled children playing with an expensive and fragile item–given enough time they will break it, and when questioned about their role in its destruction they will claim the dog did it.
December 19, 2009 - 6:09 pm Link to this Comment -
28. WillDoMathForFood
Yes @ 4: Your thuggery is showing. Merry Christmas to you, too.
December 19, 2009 - 6:32 pm Link to this Comment -
29. wws
"I don't see much difference between Tom DeLay and Barney Frank."
Say what you will about Tom Delay, at least he never had a male prostitution ring run out of the apartment he was living in.
Although since all politics today is glorified prostitution, maybe they do have more in common than I thought.
December 19, 2009 - 6:40 pm Link to this Comment -
30. wws
Avatar = Dances with Smurfs
or maybe Halo meets Ferngully?
I wouldn't put too much stock in how much it makes or doesn't make. Never underestimate the drawing power of a spectacle, even a bad one.
December 19, 2009 - 6:43 pm Link to this Comment -
31. Tcobb
#29 wws
Although since all politics today is glorified prostitution, maybe they do have more in common than I thought.
What you have said here is an insult to all common prostitutes everywhere. I think an apology on your part is in order :-).December 19, 2009 - 6:48 pm Link to this Comment -
32. toad
I'm having trouble trying to care about what happened to Lord Monkton also. He was part of the basic problem, that is a conference on global warming in the first place. The UN screwed him and his when they tossed him out to be just another part of the mob.
The Danes called in police from around the country to beef up security for that conference. They've been out in the cold, working overtime, and dealing with the trustafarians, rent-a-mobers, and other riff-raff. Given all the hotels are packed, where were the extra cops sleeping?
Then If Europe has become like the US see:
Get the part where office Burch also talks about how the proliferation of laws has pretty much made everybody "arrestable" at the whim of a policeman.December 19, 2009 - 6:48 pm Link to this Comment -
33. wretchard
Glenn Reynolds has quotes from all over.
December 19, 2009
PAYOFF: Ben Nelson Gets a Basket of Goodies, Senate Democrats Get 60 Votes For Health Care Reform.
Also paid for: Bernie Sanders. Why not? It's your money they're buying votes with, not theirs.
UPDATE: Thoughts from Prof. William Jacobson.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Megan McArdle: "No bill this large has ever before passed on a straight party-line vote, or even anything close to a straight party-line vote. No bill this unpopular has ever before passed on a straight party-line vote. We're in a new political world. I'm not sure I understand it."
Obama won. But will this cause people to treat the bill as illegitimate, leading to tax revolts or worse? Or will people grumble and go along?
Plus this: "We've just increased substantially the supply of unrepealable, unsustainable entitlements. We've also, in my opinion, put ourselves on a road that leads eventually to less healthcare innovation, less healthcare improvement, and more dead people in the long run." And that's from an Obama voter.
"We're in a new political world. I'm not sure I understand it." Well I think I understand it perfectly. It's a permanent power grab, the equivalent of one man, one vote, one time. And the interesting thing is they're doing it in the face of a near certainty that they'll lose this 60 vote majority in 2010. Unless the rules around that are going to change too.
All in all its a destabilizing event. They're going down a road that the Republican party, poor dense things that they, won't ever know what to do with. But they'll trap themselves down that dark path. The Democrats shouldn't go down this path. There are dragons down there.
December 19, 2009 - 6:54 pm Link to this Comment -
34. whiskey
Why would you disagree Wretchard?
The Left has permanently disabled growth. Economic growth, which papers over lots of problems and can even solve them (such as how multi-racial societies function, answer lots of growth/money to be made), is NO LONGER POSSIBLE.
ObamaCare is NOT EVER going to be repealed. It can only be changed to exclude illegal aliens, and eventually non-Whites. Witness the rise of the BNP promising a first class NHS by excluding non-natives. That is what you get in a nation where economic growth is not even possible anymore and no one believes that it is possible. Cutting the social welfare pie to advantage the majority ethnic population and screw everyone else ala Indonesia and Malaysia.
Look at Napoleon. He cemented his power base and got horrific sacrifice by making dispossessed peasants into land-owners. Suppose someone made "owners" out of the tax revenue (similar to the tax farming of the Ottoman Empire)?
The Left's model is NOT Soviet Russia. It is the Ottoman Empire, with various privileged and elite groups (Greeks, Jews, Armenians) occupying offices to prevent the native Turkish majority from threatening the Sultan's power. As always, the non-native minority groups used in blocking positions by the power and basically screwing over the majority generates HUGE resentments. The massacres of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews by Turks did not just "happen" out of evil nature, it took centuries of hatred by abusive privilege in the way of the Chinese Diaspora in Malaysia and Indonesia to generate it.
Domestically in the West we will not see Reagan Republicanism overturn Obama-nomics. We will see some variant of BNP "White Socialism" because that is where the majority power votes/people are. In order for the elites to hold power they must have LOTS of money to create a janissary elite who are better armed and supplied than the natives. [It took lots of oil money to maintain the USSR and when it collapsed so did the USSR.] There is an attempt to do this with ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, and Open Borders/Amnesty, but the money is running out. The global economy is fragile and a few shocks from double-dip recession or worse. Mercenaries when not paid tend to loot the palace.
You don't take the vast majority of consumer-oriented Americans into abject "green" poverty while a privileged non-White minority and various elites glom onto the only money around — Government jobs. You certainly don't do that without huge consequences.
Instapundit links to a RedState post that calls ObamaCare and indeed the whole of government illegitimate. We basically have the instability of the Ottoman Empire in decline. The Ottomans only grew conquering weak, divided states as booty. Once that was no longer possible it fell, and the fall this time will be much faster (aided by technological change). Recall in 2004 we heard of the permanent Republican Majority and realignment. Now in 2009 we find that most White Americans find Obama, the government, and indeed the idea of government to be illegitimate.
It is worth noting that what replaced the Ottoman Empire was a Turkish ethno-state hostile to all other ethnicities and identities.
[The Left is manifestly incapable of and does not desire to do anything other than submit and surrender to Islamism, the reaction to 9/11 was blame America and offer groveling apologies for Israel's existence, America's, and show up at Mosques. Rather it will be a Napoleon figure, making "tax farmers" out of the majority and promising huge retribution (and perhaps booty) that will emerge, out of a people who have lost all confidence in their rulers and system.]
December 19, 2009 - 7:14 pm Link to this Comment -
35. hmmm
when is rahm emanuel's census going to completed for the redistricting purposes? somehow I expect that process might be expedited. after so many unprecedented events lately I wouldn't be surprised. China had at least one thing right, the old curse of "may you live in interesting times"
December 19, 2009 - 7:27 pm Link to this Comment -
To continue in this same vein, from my earlier post on earlier events in Copenhagen.
When the RAF finally came to destroy the Gestapo HQ, the Shell House, the Germans had located key prisoners in cells in the attic of the building to discourage air attacks. One of these prisoners was taken down to one of the lower floors for interrogation that morning. They seated him facing the windows, with the Gestapo men facing him. He was not tied up; after all he was in Gestapo HQ and what could he do?
The prisoner suddenly looked out the window past the Gestapo men and saw three RAF Mosquito bombers inbound. He knew exactly what was going to happen next and simply got up and ran out the door and down the stairs. The Gestapo men stayed seated and looked after the departing prisoner in bafflement. Where did he think he was going? The building was full of Gestapo and there was a machine gun nest at the front door. There was no way he could escape.
The prisoner made it down three floors by the time the bombs hit. After that, the guys manning the machine gun nest at the front door and everybody else in the building had other things to worry about than one more guy running away. The prisoner escaped.
So some of us we will be looking out the window for the retribution that will come and some of us will be piloting it. And the real targets will look around in bafflement as the walls come down and crush them.
December 19, 2009 - 7:46 pm Link to this Comment -
38. Josh
But not yet. Until the last hour the party's gonna rollick on. Folly has always been like that. You drink down the champagne and then when it's gone you crack the bottle against the edge of the desk and defend yourself with the shards. How does one avoid the fate of Detroit, or Fannie Mae? Improving things each year with a fix until there's nothing left but ruins? That's the characteristic of all these hare-brained schemes; the signature of the Ponzi racket. Everything is described as improving and getting better until the hour the whole thing collapses.
Please submit this for the 2012 Republican nomination speech.
I might quibble with the fear that it is necessary. OTOH, it's also just Parkinson's Law of sorts, all available resources will be expended, hence the trouble with building a "lock box" for social security, etc. But screw that, it's a lovely, poetic, concise indictment of the Democrats, and there is enough Puritan work ethic yet in the US that it would hit a nerve.
Of course, in response, the Democrats could pass an extension to the health care bill that covered unlimited free beer and seven hundred billion dollars to the Ringling Brothers for a national circus stimulus program, and I suppose the voting might be close.
December 19, 2009 - 8:04 pm Link to this Comment -
39. Voltimand
"4. Yes We Did:
You racist oppressors can whine forever about times gone by. President Obama rules this country now and the Progressives control the government. They are leading us all forward into a new world of peace and justice.
The time of the racist white male oppressor has gone, never to return. Just shut up and pay your reparations."
I was hoping that the above was a serious statement, but I'm afraid it looks too much like a parody of the Jeremiah Wright version of black racist-led race warfare.
On the assumption that this little piece of viciousness is real, however, let me simply put it simply: you want race war, you will get race war, and when you get it you will wish you hadn't.
"Raparations"? Marxists call it social justice, but I prefer the thief's version: what I steal, I steal because it don't have it, and because I don't have it, I steal it. Forget the ideology."
You seem to have forgotten that America undergoes a scheduled revolution every two years, and unless you friends are successful in their attempts to steal the 2010 elections–in which case there will be a backlash the likes of which you have never conceived in you worst nightmares–the Obama will govern without a congress to support him, and can look forward to a being a one-term president.
Don't push your luck, little guy. Just a friendly warning.
December 19, 2009 - 8:16 pm Link to this Comment -
40. Marie Claude
Well Wiskey Napoleon must have kicked into one of your ancestors bottoms, that you're always after him, though what you reproach him in that matter is erroned :
In the contrary Napoleon promoted liberalism (with the european sense) in France, farmers did get lands for free, they had to buy it, which was escluded during the monarchy. Naturally the richers among them got bigger properties, but Bourgeoisie managed to buy the most of the available land that were mostly belonging to the State and to the Church.
and you wouldn't believe it, France's population increased from about 25 millions of souls during the revolution to 42 million during Napoleon Bonaparte "mendate".
all explained here in french
and here also in french
(Sorry that you could'nt find these "explanations" on english books – must be for good reasons !)
In resumé, Napoleon thought that ownship was much bettter than pauperism, that populations can better involve and respect morals within being motivated to work for themselves, otherwise … vice and revolts !
the only "mourning" that the peasantry had against their new General, was conscription !
December 19, 2009 - 8:22 pm Link to this Comment -
41. Marie Claude
" farmers did get lands for free"
"didn't get" was ment,sorry
December 19, 2009 - 8:25 pm Link to this Comment -
42. wretchard
Re the decline of the West as similar to the fate of the Ottoman Empire. While we don't learn from history, we don't live in groundhog day. Each turn of the cycle brings something old, but it also brings something new. Here's an alternative scenario.
The Left runs itself down, like a has been rock-star does by spending long after he's stopped selling records. The ex-star make a mess of everything around him, but people adjust. They make money off of the has-been the way China wants to take Obama for a long ride in the country. Eventually the Left runs out friends except for the ones they can rent. And one day the celebrity kicks the bucket and someone makes a fortune from the old rights. In just the same way the left will cancel itself and then we can sell all their stuff on EBay.
The interesting thing about following the fortunes of the British Labour Party is that they are the leading edge of Western stupidity. They're down to offering people the equivalent of hamburgers. Gordon Brown is hanging out with tenth raters. He sleeps in sheds to impress people. The thing is, if Obama doesn't watch out, he's going to wind up like that. He's already starting to. Flying off to tout the Olympics, going off the Copenhagen. He'll be like the old recording legend who ends his days playing at supermarket inaugurals and parking lot ribbon cutting ceremonies.
They can't help themselves. They would have done so much better if they had let their countries grow. Gordon Brown should have been happy to be a forgettable PM of Great Britain rather than the Face of NuLabour. It's always better to be a player in a big growing scene then to be the biggest turd in the punchbowl. But when you're faced with a guy like that, look out and survive. China, has gone a step further and is selling them designer straight jackets. Bless their dark souls, they are selling the guilt-stricken West carbon credits. I wouldn't go that far, but I wouldn't be averse to waving goodbye as they tread the bright road to the Future and sending my regards to Karl.
December 19, 2009 - 8:30 pm Link to this Comment -
43. maineman
Wretchard, Re Obama's incipient decline: Not that there aren't myriad positive alternative scenarios to the way these things usually go, but wasn't it you who reminded us that the Left's way of handling the deterioration of a useful political icon was often assassination and replacement?
December 19, 2009 - 9:00 pm Link to this Comment -
44. Tcobb
They can't help themselves. They would have done so much better if they had let their countries grow. Gordon Brown should have been happy to be a forgettable PM of Great Britain rather than the Face of NuLabour. It's always better to be a player in a big growing scene then to be the biggest turd in the punchbowl.
I don't disagree with this, but it doesn't fit the mindset of many people who are drawn to politics. It is well to remember the first politician and the words that John Milton ascribed to him "it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." And besides, if you keep on telling the idiots around you that's its really Heaven rather than Hell you might actually get some of them to believe you. And if the politicians in question were the ones who designed that Hell, they might even believe that themselves.December 19, 2009 - 9:22 pm Link to this Comment -
45. maineman
For what it's worth, this is how it looks to me like it will go:
Obama and the rest of them will continue to try to control more and more but will actually be in charge of less and less. (They are, after all, the Keystone Cops.) The national government will become the enemy of most Americans, and cooperation with taxes and government officials will go out the window. (You should have heard the applause for Glenn Beck on Leno last night whenever he pushed the "don't tread on me" button.) There simply won't be enough money or organizational capacity to build a totalitarian system to cope with America's size and complexity.
The American economic engine will slow way down, which will be good for us because we're out of control with our materialism, but it will also mean that tax revenues will essentially dry up, and those who are most dependent on the government will become even more like the Donner party than they are now. That's what Whiskey's war will look like, a shut-down of blood flow to the nethermost reaches of the distribution system. And big American cities will not be a good place to be, or maybe even to be near.
National Healthcare will be so complex that it will never get off the ground, although it will create more odious obstacles to health care delivery which will hasten the decline of our system that was inevitable even without it.
Local control and safety nets will be where the real action is for most people. Those with money will pay for their health from doctors who take cash, for example, and the big items like bypasses will be rationed so that only a portion of us are better off now than we were in the 1950s or 60s. Smaller systems that work on relationships will offer more security, so that's where most Americans' energy will be focused, especially as they see the large systems continue to come down around their ears.
In the end, the real enemy will turn out to be our own hubris. Some of us will realize that and will right our own worlds, putting God and natural law at the top of our cosmologies, then the individual, then the government. That will reduce cooperation with the powers that be even further.
At that point, either things will start to heal or Jesus will come back again, in which case those who chose evil will be very disappointed.
December 19, 2009 - 9:39 pm Link to this Comment -
46. Promethea
Re China, as far as I know, there aren't too many Marxists left in China. The Chinese still revere Mao as the guy who saved their country from breaking up, but they know that he was a fool and a poultroon (as well as a mass murderer).
It would be very funny if the Chinese helped save Americans from our nutty government. The Chinese people do not seem to be particularly anti-American. Maybe they will help us when the Big Zero tries to bring us down. They probably know that most Americans would be grateful. A lot of mainland Chinese have relatives in the United States. A lot of Chinese have traveled here as tourists. Maybe more of them appreciate our country than we realize.
December 19, 2009 - 9:41 pm Link to this Comment -
47. Tee
ANOTHER UPDATE: Megan McArdle: "No bill this large has ever before passed on a straight party-line vote, or even anything close to a straight party-line vote. No bill this unpopular has ever before passed on a straight party-line vote. We're in a new political world. I'm not sure I understand it."
I'm not sure I understand her, at all. The state of health care was a gigantic factor in the last election. Many, many people want to see some kind of reform. Obama is an effect, not a cause, of this. So he and the Democrats believe a) they had a mandate, which b) is evaporating, so they're getting it done while they can. It's business, with a lot at stake, and with Republicans and Democrats very busily being Republicans and Democrats.
An Obama voter reflecting upon a "new political world" vis-a-vis this issue, just does not ring true.
December 19, 2009 - 9:48 pm Link to this Comment -
48. Don Rodrigo
A lttle sardonic humor to lighten the tone here a bit:
Obama came back from a colder-than-usual Copenhagen to the biggest December snowstorm in Washington since the 19th century, meaning, since records have been kept.
It puts all the madness in stark relief.
December 19, 2009 - 9:49 pm Link to this Comment -
49. Marty
I'm reminded of Pat Buchanan's infamous "culture war" speech at the (I think) 1992 GOP Convention—roundly denounced by all right-thinking people of all political persuasions, and pretty much aborted his political (electoral) aspirations.
Buchanan is an a-hole and a bit of an anti-Semite, I fear, but he was mostly right on that one. And in the ensuing 16+ years, the Left has continued to eye-gouge and worse while the Right has for the most part fought by Marquess of Queensbury rules and the Center pretended none of it mattered.
I found the above comment comparing DeLay and Frank to be interesting—I don't have a lot good to say about DeLay but compared to Frank and his ilk, DeLay was a Little Goddy Twoshoes, and it's only because of Democratic and media spin that anyone thinks otherwise.
After no prominent and effective champion for conservativism or traditional values from 1989 to 2008, one came along who might have been and she was destroyed in a month. And the center continued to not see what was really at stake and took out their frustrations with Bush and the lame GOP by joining the left in electing Obama and big Democratic Congressional majorities in 2008. If an honest history is ever written, that will be viewed as a stolen election, stolen by the media and huge fundraising illegalities, but what historians may write in 2030 doesn't matter now.
So, here we are, on the precipice (in Obama's oddly-chosen word) of the Left clearing the table of what's left on it.
When the lack of money catches up with them they'll just double down again. Lack of money may slow their progress toward their dystopic utopia, but it won't cause them to lose power, they'll just turn the screws tighter—2008 and 2010 may be the last nearly-fair elections in the US for a long time. Everything about Obama and his supporters suggests they see no limit to what they are entitled to do to take and hold power. Since they control the DOJ, IRS, military, etc., and have come to largely dominate the judiciary, that means no limits at all.
Good people will resist where they can, and maybe the health care monstrosity and the Copenhagen agreement farce can be stopped for now. But as long as the Right tries to fight by civilized rules and the center sits it out, it's still only a matter of time.
I think I sound a lot like Whittaker Chambers, who when he abandoned Communism lamented he was probably joining the losing side. That analogy gives me hope, he was wrong at least for longer than he thought. I don't know how or who, but the future is not written, only the past, and while history can instruct, the fight is still before us.
December 19, 2009 - 9:50 pm Link to this Comment -
50. Martyu
Tcobb @ 43 wrote–
"And besides, if you keep on telling the idiots around you that's its really Heaven rather than Hell you might actually get some of them to believe you."That's the best 1-sentence summation of the Left's strategy, including a 1-word description of the people in their political base, that I have ever seen.
December 19, 2009 - 9:58 pm Link to this Comment -
51. Josh
All this gloom and doom … remember, so far Obama is just talk, and his actual actions have been to funnel huge money to the establishment. Let's see if he really, truly attempts to cross the establishment at any point, rather than just mau-mau it. I doubt he himself knows where the line is, and I have no idea if he means to cross it, or cares. And, Obama doesn't *do* anything, he runs his mouth and others do whatever. Do we really think Pelosi and Reid are going for the victory of the proletariat, or are they really in the same game as Obama? My fear is the lot of them are too stupid to play their game right and might accidentally take themselves seriously – IF this health care plan is passed, that would be the case. But there is still plenty of time for the idiocies of this plan to show up after passage, and in time for it to be retracted. I'm just not ready to panic yet. I'm more worried about the unintended consequences of the actions so far, the trillions of dollars causing a wave of hyperinflation. Oh yeah, and Pakistani or Iranian nukes. The triumph of the left … is rather down my list.
December 19, 2009 - 10:07 pm Link to this Comment -
52. wretchard
Ian Fry, who gave a tearful performance lamenting the imminent inundation of Tuvalu, who he represented at the climate conference, turns out to be an Australian who may never have lived in Tuvalu. The Australian reports:
But the part-time PhD scholar at the Australian National University actually resides in Queanbeyan, NSW, where he's not likely to be troubled by rising sea levels because the closest beach at Batemans Bay is a two-hour, 144km drive away. Asked whether he had ever lived in Tuvalu, his wife told The Australian last night she would "rather not comment".
A career environmentalist who once worked as a Greenpeace political liaison officer, Mr Fry has found his niche in global climate change talks over the past 10 years, representing small Pacific nations and running the climate negotiations for the Association of Small Island States.
Perhaps nothing has to actually be real. The requirement has been dropped in modern politics. You can commit to vote on a health "reform" bill that nobody's actually read; on a bill which may not even exist in its final form, about which as much is known as the dark side of the moon a hundred years ago. What does it matter? We live in age where leaders fly in an out and save the Earth in hours doing unprecedented things. Who checks? Who cares?
Personally I don't blame Mr. Fry, with his shtick and bow tie. He's no more bogus than anything else. Par for the course. We should no more blame him for representing Tuvalu than we should blame James Earl Jones for playing Darth Vader. It's a part, with a script and a costume.
How did it begin? Maybe somewhere along the line someone discovered that a completely bogus story could be substituted for the facts and no one would notice. From there it was hard to look back.
December 19, 2009 - 10:37 pm Link to this Comment -
53. Ashen
National strike 20 JAN 2010. Pass it on.
December 19, 2009 - 10:42 pm Link to this Comment -
54. bogie wheel
I'm not sure I understand her, at all. The state of health care was a gigantic factor in the last election. Many, many people want to see some kind of reform. Obama is an effect, not a cause, of this. So he and the Democrats believe a) they had a mandate, which b) is evaporating, so they're getting it done while they can. It's business, with a lot at stake, and with Republicans and Democrats very busily being Republicans and Democrats.
I seem to remember that "health care" polled at or very near the top of issues concerning voters in 2008. More recently, however, around 86% of Americans polled said they were satisfied to very satisfied with their own health care coverage. And something like 58% oppose (even strongly so) the current cr*p being gussied up in Congress.
I take several things from this situation:
1) As electoral issues, national security and "welfare" (in the broad sense) tend to see-saw. I've never seen both of them uppermost in the same election; only one or the other. When voters feel safe from getting blown up by jihadis, they obsess about their mortgage, their medications and their kids' college tuition. OTOH if voters believe they are not safe from terrorist-induced fireballs, somehow screaming at your Senator to vote for the free prescription benefit kinda pales in significance.
As 2008 went, with economic meltdown occurring at the (ahem) most
conveeeenientcritical time and pretty much wiping foreign policy from the headlines, it's little wonder that "health care" polled as high as it did. (Just as it would be little wonder for "jobs" to have polled #1 if the election had been held 6 – 8 months later.)2) The devil you know vs. the devil you don't know. People know the devil of "the eeeevil insurance companies" because the media and the left have been flogging that horse for some time. But people (in this country, anyway) don't know the devil of government-run health care. So what is going to get criticized and negatively responded to in polls? The devil you know. But criticism of TDYK does NOT translate into support for TDYDK. All it means is that people don't know what they don't know. And when they aren't asked about what they don't know … guess what, it doesn't show up in the polls! Fancy that!
3) The Dems didn't misread a (non-existent) mandate. That would assume they care what the majority of people want. They don't. The popularity or unpopularity of what Congress is cooking up on health care is irrelevant. The actual effect on any bill that gets passed & signed on actual health care outcomes is irrelevant. What is relevant is who is in on the looting that any such bill empowers. That is all this thing is about. Nothing else. For Ms. McArdle to scratch her head about "unpopularity" is for her to miss the point.
Many, many people want to see some kind of reform.
Meaning, what? "Some kind of reform" is so vague as to be meaningless in terms of translation into a legislative agenda. It's easy to advocate or oppose something in the abstract. But what does it tell us when "health care reform" polled high in the abstract one year ago, but the specific bills in Congress right now are opposed roughly 2-1? And that, when polled, more Americans are saying that sticking with the status quo would be better than what Congress is currently doing? That tells us that that "demand" for "some kind of reform" one year ago was a vague and ill-expressed discontent, one year ago. And that is all.
Can you imagine someone walking into a restaurant and saying, "Waiter, I'd like you to give me some kind of food." If they care at all about customer satisfaction, the waiter & the cook are going to need a lot more specifics than that from the customer and will press said customer for those specifics before putting ingredient one into a pan. To start cooking without specifics almost guarantees an unhappy outcome. OTOH if the restauranteurs are so arrogant as to not care about customer satisfaction, but instead to tell the customer in no uncertain terms, "You will not only eat but you will ENJOY what we serve you! And you will pay top dollar for it! And you will eat ALL your meals here under those and only those terms!" … well, I guess such knaves are deserving of seats in Congress.
December 19, 2009 - 11:08 pm Link to this Comment -
55. Walt
Lord Monckton may have awakened to a world he presumed he would never live in, but it is not as bad as all that. I, Waltradamus, am here, with another set of delightfully accurate quatrains! It's all truth, all the time, here at Waltradamus. I see much confusion as people wonder who they can believe, climate scientists who cook the books or their own lying eyes. As for Lord Monckton, the Maya have predicted December 2012 would be the end of time, or possibly just the beginning of a new cycle that would see the end of the present cycle and all within it. So either way Lord Monckton's world has not long to live. Of course I do not entirely rely on ancient predictions, so let me look into the future to see what I can see. Dang! The Maya were right! The market in green bananas is headed for the toilet.
The Power sees if they could die
Embracing full the warming lie
Reducing populace to beggin'
At summitry in CopenhagenFierce run winds and snow and ice
In a geologic trice
For just eleven thousand years
Fomenting global cooling fearsThe people write it down in stone
And keep it for themselves alone
They know men will no longer delve
For it will end in 2012December 19, 2009 - 11:27 pm Link to this Comment -
56. Marty
bogie wheel @ 53 is right—this whole health care thing has been a farce. No definition of what's wrong, no clear description of how to fix it at acceptable cost. It's just been an exercise in pure political muscle almost divorced from any facts or even informed opinion.
And yet, 40% of the population, more or less, is perfectly hapy with that, because some sort of vague slogans appeal to them.
Climate change is pretty much the same deal ona global scale—no definition of the problem, no proof it even exists, no demonstration that CO2 limts would make any difference, but everyone wants to rush ahead and trash their own economies and wealth. I understand the LDC's they're playing a smart game getting the developed countries to pay them for political cover, and I get what the Western elites are trying to do in creating a carbon trading scheme they can milk for billions of dollars a year forever, but why so many who will get no ben efit from any of this just mindlessly go along, enthusiastically, is deeply distressing in what it says about tyej viability of dempcratic governance.
Up to now I looked askance at the EU's technocratic model, where the people get to vote on who shall lead them (Tweedleleft or Tweedlelefter) and the govt then treats them as subjects, not citizens. But the US model leads to the same place if the people do not care to be involved. Many people seem to be having buyer's remorse about Obama and the big Democratic majorities in Congress—well, SHIT, what did they think they were voting for? Even with the media running interference, it would only have taken about 15 minutes of effort last October to learn enough about Obama to know what he would do if elected.
I think it was Mencken who said that democracy is the form of government that gives the people what they want, good and hard.
Thing is, even tho some people seem to have learned something about what they voted for in 2006 and 2008, I just don't see anything to instill confidence they will suddenly become sophisticated enough to see through the inevitable next round of lies, or sustain their interest and involvement in the face of the media, academia, and the political class assuring them that they just need to trust "us."
A health bill will pass, maybe a cap-and-trade bill, too, and I just think people will shrug, say they don't like it, but resign themselves to live with it (The Day After, if you will).
What happens next, who can say? Whiskey has an interesting conjecture, as does wretchard. I would just suggest that we are at an inflection point and whatever the future brings will be far worse than it had to be, but for a few tens of thousands of senatorial votes in 2008, or a couple of bonehead moves by GWBush who gave away his political chips for nothing much and started the current political and economic disaster that Obama took advantage of and has now consummated.
December 19, 2009 - 11:31 pm Link to this Comment -
57. NahnCee
America is withdrawing from the world. We are ever more-rapidly pulling in on ourselves, focusing on internal issues like healthcare, taxation without representation, and the Big Green Lie. Our poor military will be left stranded in Afghanistan for another year or two before they are pulled out "with honor". Military left in Iraq will hunker down and hide behind their bomb-proof ex-Saddam palaces until they are given leave to retreat, too. Somali pirates can roam free, Putin can kill journalists, Iran can hijack British sailors, Pakistan can gang rape 12-year-old girl children … all with impunity because America won't be around to say or do anything about it. Don't care, and can't afford the effort, any way.
The country is in an ever-quickening spiral of change, except now it's not HopeNChange, it's down the toilet change, which leads to national malaise and pessimism. Previous generations have had world wars to bring them together and inject some enthusiasm and patriotism back into the concept of "being an American". But we are no longer allowed to consider America to be exceptional, so it's very hard to drum up any of that "can-do" attitude. Especially since *all* the extra wealth we have historically be able to generate is now to go towards bringing a richer lifestyle to the backwards and lazy freeloaders who should not even be alive in a Darwinian world. Even in the face of Islamic (and Russian [and Chinese]) hatred and attacks, our leadership bows and grovels, and expects us to bow and grovel in turn … and to pay our unemployed next-door neighbors because they are talented enough to be able to sit up and breath (and whine).
I read a headline in passing recently that within the next few years, whites will be the new minority in the United States. And I have to wonder if having a majority of new "Americans" who weren't the first to come here and colonize and pioneer and make up that Constitution has something to do with the new and ever-increasing laissez faire / manana attitude which now seems to be de rigueur for this country.
I really do hope there will be blood in the streets before we give the country over fully to the polar-bear-loving / healthcare-inflicting / taxation-wielding communists. But whatever happens here, the world is not invited to participate nor to kibitz. This is one American who is happy to wave "hasta la vista, baybeee" to all our overseas critics, enemies, and assorted remora . We won't be back.
December 19, 2009 - 11:44 pm Link to this Comment -
58. Subotai Bahadur
#33 Wretchard
"We're in a new political world. I'm not sure I understand it." Well I think I understand it perfectly. It's a permanent power grab, the equivalent of one man, one vote, one time. And the interesting thing is they're doing it in the face of a near certainty that they'll lose this 60 vote majority in 2010. Unless the rules around that are going to change too.
From the moment today that it became apparent that regardless of the wishes of the country, that this was going to be imposed on the American people against their will; an image came to mind.
Samuel Adams. Old South Meeting House. Boston, Massachussetts. December 16, 1773
Immediately after receiving word from British Governor Hutchison that the Tea Ships in the Harbor would not be moved until the cargo was landed and the tea tax paid; Adams told the 7,000 patriots gathered there:
"This meeting can do nothing further to save the country."
For those who do not know what happened then; a number of those present left and donned pseudo-Indian garb. And boarded the ships and had a certain famous Tea Party by throwing the tea into the harbor. And that was the flash point that led to further British oppression, which was met with yet more resistance. Until it culminated in a document signed July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, and the war to defend that document and make it real.
The rules you refer to, I suspect, have changed. An American government that imposes laws against the will of the people is of dubious legitimacy. And if we have an American government installed without free,fair, and honest elections; it has no legitimacy under the Constitution. We will see in a very few months why they feel they can be so high-handed in dealing with the American people. Just as Sam Adams implied, the time for discussion may be over. Somewhere, there is going to be a spark, and I fear that it will be far less benign than throwing chests of tea into a harbor. Actions have consequences for both sides. May the Diety protect the American People, Constitution, and Republic.
Subotai Bahadur
December 20, 2009 - 12:01 am Link to this Comment -
59. whiskey
It is true that History does not simply repeat itself like Clockwork, but the examples we have of:
1. A Majority ethnicity identified with the nation suddenly made quite poorer, with no respite ever, AND
2. A different set of ethnic groups dominating the only economic game in town, GOVERNMENT, AND
3. No possibility to grow economically, plus defeats abroad and the majority population being told it will be replaced and to get to the back of the Bus …
I don't know what other model holds. Iran's middle classes AND the military revolted when their economy fell apart. Obama has little respect and less influence on a military that despises him and sees him eager for their defeat. [Obama won't respect the flag/anthem or use the word victory.] Milosevic rode Serbian anxiety to the peak of power, being tossed only when he could no longer deliver patronage. Ataturk rode to power Napoleon-like on the discrediting of the defeated old regime and on Turkish identity and spoils.
There is not any "making do" Middle Class people can do. People lose their homes and (men anyway) lose their families. Provider status and loss of it means a permanent loss of pretty much everything for the Straight White Male (Democrats would like them all to die anyway). You have people going from the American Dream to desperation in a few months. With the Left/Dems/Obama saving the Polar Bears, Health Care for illegals, and the like.
If that is not an invitation for straight out revolution whenever some external shock (further financial collapse, ala Greek default, or what the Times of London describes as Bombay in London, or something like that here, or a nuclear attack, or what have you) … I don't know what is.
I can say there is no more restraint. The power of PC and Multiculturalism and Diversity depends on Straight White Men needing to go along to get along and continue to make money. With unemployment at 17% at least and heading up (most of that White guys) that restraint is gone. I've seen things, open and expressed, that would have been unwrite-able just a few years ago, wrt Tiger Woods, Obama, and so on. People have nothing left to lose.
December 20, 2009 - 12:07 am Link to this Comment -
60. wretchard
1. A Majority ethnicity identified with the nation suddenly made quite poorer, with no respite ever, AND
2. A different set of ethnic groups dominating the only economic game in town, GOVERNMENT, AND
3. No possibility to grow economically, plus defeats abroad and the majority population being told it will be replaced and to get to the back of the Bus …
Shorn of the particulars, that's simply a description of autocracy. In a lot of countries you have some kind of "in group" defined by religion, race, class or language set up as ruling elite. You have families transplanted to the thrones of Middle Eastern countries who are technically foreigners. The Shi'ite Alawis rule over predominantly Sunni Syria, etc. Democracy is supposed to make this impossible, or at least consensual.
But at heart, its a crisis of process. The process is busted. Democracies are supposed to be self-healing. When the process goes blooey, then the normal recourse is to fix it through political action.
December 20, 2009 - 12:25 am Link to this Comment -
"We're in a new political world. I'm not sure I understand it." Well I think I understand it perfectly. It's a permanent power grab, the equivalent of one man, one vote, one time. And the interesting thing is they're doing it in the face of a near certainty that they'll lose this 60 vote majority in 2010. Unless the rules around that are going to change too.
All in all its a destabilizing event.
I think I understand it too, and yes, it's a very destabilizing event. The American political system just failed. Utterly. One party used a momentary surge in power to do something strongly opposed by the country, with the idea that future elected officials wont be able to unwind it. To a certain extent, it's the same with the bailouts, GM bankruptcy shennanigans, etc. They're counting on the overall intertia of the American political system to protect the castles they've built – built by ignoring that very same inertia.
Like most of what the Left does, it doesn't actually make long-term sense. They count on others to follow rules they themselves casually ignore. It works for a while, so long as they don't steal too much. But at some point, the patience wears out. Their work can most certainly be undone, though how much else might fall with it is unclear.
At any rate, the Democrats have thrown down the guantlet and said they govern in their own name, not ours. They're toast. The only question left to settle is whether they're replaced by another group of oligarchs who use this precedent for their own gain, or by a group of patriots who find some path back to the country we used to be.
December 20, 2009 - 12:28 am Link to this Comment -
62. wretchard
The Daily Telegraph says that despite efforts by Obama and Brown to put a positive spin on things, Copenhagen was a disaster. But in what way? Basically it was neither true to its leftist rhetoric, having betrayed the NGO and Third World expectations, nor was it true to any semblance of economic sanity. It gave the Greenies nothing and still managed to find billions to spend things on. What it delivered wasn't the shamanism demanded by the warmies, but a PR and jobs package to First World bureaucrats and insiders, also known as pork barrel.
In other words, it was the international version of health care "reform". Like health care "reform" it had nothing in the end to do with its ostensible goal, and everything to do with gratifying special interests. It was an unprincipled, pointless and utterly corrupt process. It wasn't even high minded idiocy. Just low greed. Low greed slanted to make the scamsters still look good. So Greenpeace are livid with Brown and Obama, but for the wrong reasons. The environmentalists, having backed these men found themselves shafted; they had forgotten the first rule of dealing with sharpers, a rule that every woman should remember tattoo on her arm before hooking up with a married man. If he'll lie to his wife, he'll lie to you. That goes double for politicians. Elect a man who'll mislead the electorate and he'll eventually get around to leaving you standing in the railway station waiting for a train to nowhere.
And guess what? You'll be back for more.
December 20, 2009 - 3:08 am Link to this Comment -
63. toad
59. wretchard:
excerpt:"But at heart, its a crisis of process. The process is busted. Democracies are supposed to be self-healing. When the process goes blooey, then the normal recourse is to fix it through political action."Lately I think I smell cosmoline and Hoppe's #9 in the wind. I hope to hell political action can retrieve the situation. I fear external events will precipitate a crisis that the Democrats will not be able to handle before things go pear shaped.
December 20, 2009 - 3:14 am Link to this Comment -
64. Mongoose
Thrasymachus: If you cannot tell the difference between Franks or Delay then it is you who is not listening, and if you think Delay's constituency are a "bunch of rubes" you need to check your moral compass, and, while you are at it, do something about that supercilious self-importance of yours. (You also might try to find a better philosopher to "emulate", of that is indeed what you are trying to do).
Franks and his constituency are the core of the problem; De Lay and his are very much a part of the solution.
This snide "elitist conservatism" and the attendant contempt for the average, and decent working American out in flyover country, which of course is not conservative at all, but rather a pompous and comically high self-regard, is also part of the problem.
December 20, 2009 - 5:16 am Link to this Comment -
65. Mongoose
Oh the left is not afraid of running out of money. that is what they want.
They want to impoverish us all, and thereby enslave and rule us in a rationalized global economy where there is much less wealth to go around. Running out of money serves these ends, it does not jeopardize them. They may be evil, but they are not stupid.They do not need AGW, and this confab in Denmark is really just a side show; carbon markets are just gravy. Destroying the Dollar, which they have almost accomplished, will be more than enough for their designs on us.
If we are going to get that "People's revolution", it better happen soon. No one fights when they are starving or their children are held at gun point. Americans that think it will be a matter of holding off a small British Army on the periphery of a larger international conflict, such as the Revolutionary patriots did, are kidding themselves. The full force of the modern Federal and state governments will be upon them–LOTM is quite wrong about this. Behind that will be the full force of the Tranzi's international intuitions and operations. The entire amount of ammunition in civilian hands would be exhausted in a week. Then what? Human wave attacks?
If Patriots did manage to take over a section of the country. they would just nuke them, or let China nuke them. This is not 1778, and do not imagine that they are not that ruthless. They are out to destroy us.
If the MSM and the educational system can turn the nation against such an obviously good, decent and rational man as GWB out there protecting us day and night from an obvious and dire threat, and con them into voting for a man named "Barack Hussein Obama", who is just as obviously not a good, decent or rational man, in a time of war with Muslims, then, believe me, they can successfully demonize a gaggle of patriots out at highway intersections with deer rifles and shot guns. If they happen to have some local LEO's or national guard with them, well those too will be another "issue" to be "framed" by our traitorous media.
Long before there is the possibility of a coup, the military will be purged of anyone that would even think of doing it. Some gaggle of former NCO's and Officers is likely not going to manage to get an Army Corp to turn on the Federal Government of the USA.
One pull of the plug, and every one on BC could never hear from each other ever again
This is what most of history has mostly been about. It is the USA that has been the exception, not the Democrats, not in the broad outlines of history. The Democrats are only an exception to American history.
If this is to be stopped, it has to be stopped by Americans–by average, work-a-day Americans, and somehow through the political process and somehow very, very soon. This is a tall order. The Third World stopping us from a communist NWO? That is a bizarre construction. China and India have no tradition of freedom or liberty. They have a history of Communism. They are quite used to the sort of stuff that the tranzi's are up to, that is how their own nations work. Those are their elites crowding round the table, not their "people". Their people are ruled just exactly like the Democrats want rule us. The BRIC's are their inspiration.
The left has decided that they would rather rule in Hell than serve in heaven, and they may well get their way.
LOTM: I cannot figure out why you are so sanguine about modern LEO's. Yes, what you say may have been true about them in your cadre, and your immediate experience, but it is not true today across the board. Not at all. Most of the young Leo's I know are Liberal Democrats, more concerned about their Unions (or psuedo-unions where outright unions are banned). The Feds are even more to the left (though they would know know that they are on the left) than the regional and the state level, and do not forget, they have created whole new police structures the last few years. In any event, the Danish police were known for their reserve and dedication to their nation too, so were the British LEO community.
The American LEO community can well be bought off, co-opted or purged just like any other constituency, just like any other police force anywhere else in the world.
This is the problem, and it is part and parcel of the thrust of W. post here.
It can happen here. What is going on in America today, and across the world, is no different from how collectivist tyrannies came to power at any point in history. They too relied on complacency to take power back then. All that is new here is the scope and the locale.
We are just kidding ourselves if we think otherwise.
Reagan's point is wonderful, but i will point out if that tiny band of men were sitting at the time in downtown Paris instead of Philly, they would have been taken out an hung, and we would have never known their name.
America's history has been exceptional, and its development aided by exceptional circumstance, but when we have lost our liberty and civlization, it will not be a simple matter to get it back, nor will there be some other "band of brave men" out there somewhere to save the world from the encroaching beehive of the NWO.
Monckton has every reason for alarm.
December 20, 2009 - 6:17 am Link to this Comment -
66. no mo uro
TCobb wrote:
"The curse of the modern world is utopianism. Many people find the idea to be incredibly attractive, and it is, much like the idea of winning the million dollar lottery, and it is just as realistic, at least as history seems to show."
I've often thought that a good line for a bumper sticker might be:
"Guns don't kill people, utopias do".
As far as the rest of the thread goes, I think that our situation can be summed up by saying that the hopes of the Founding Fathers that the implied threat to the tyrant present in the Second Amendment would be sufficient to prevent catastrophe will likely be tested in the next five to ten years.
The overschooled but undereducated and underintelligent NPR left that currently hold sway over the U.S. can call a notion like that "insurrectionism" all they want, but the truth of it is evident. The people of gun could be a force. Whether this threat is perceived as real by TWANLOC or not will be the hinge point of history.
Whiskey and Mongoose and others have seen the truth of this. We aren't a different species because we have the internet or cell phones or nuclear weapons or jet airplanes. Year zero has not occured. Historical evils and responses to the same can still happen.
December 20, 2009 - 6:56 am Link to this Comment -
67. what da ya mean, its too hot?
Merry Christmas and God Speed, Habu.
December 20, 2009 - 6:59 am Link to this Comment -
68. hdgreene
Is it the winter solstice? Sure seems dark. Of course, it'd be the Summer Solstice in the Global South. Must be warm and bright down there!
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
December 20, 2009 - 7:28 am Link to this Comment -
69. Phyllis
Looks a lot like end times to me. Remember: GOD IS IN CHARGE. It's His world; He loves His people; He will never leave us nor forsake us.
I am praying daily 2 Chronicles 7:14 that He will save our land, but I am ready to bow before His judgment. He has been very patient and merciful with the land He blessed beyond any other, but it has forsaken Him. Alas!
December 20, 2009 - 7:45 am Link to this Comment -
70. Doug
Kangaroo Attack
'roo holds dog underwater with front feet.
Man tries to save dog, 'roo almost eviscerates man with hind feet.'roo holds dog underwater with front feet.
Man tries to save dog, 'roo almost eviscerates man with hind feet.December 20, 2009 - 7:49 am Link to this Comment -
71. Doug
First time I've ever enjoyed most of a Frank Rich Column:
Tiger Woods, Person of the Year
AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon.
The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard's megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century's history so far. That's why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade's flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).
Though the American left and right don't agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama's brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger's public image — a marketing scam designed to camouflage either his covert anti-American radicalism (as the right sees it) or spineless timidity (as the left sees it). The truth may well be neither, but after a decade of being spun silly, Americans can't be blamed for being cynical about any leader trying to sell anything.
As we say goodbye to the year of Tiger Woods, it is the country, sad to say, that is left mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out.
December 20, 2009 - 7:54 am Link to this Comment -
72. Talnik
Well now they have 60 votes for "health care reform". Nobody has read the bill. It could re-instate slavery, or require all U.S. "citizens" (now subjects)to live on a diet of toads. Nobody knows. But it has 60 votes.
I suspect that one day those 60 people will realize their votes were (how shall I put this) ill advised.December 20, 2009 - 7:54 am Link to this Comment -
73. Tee
53. Meaning, what? "Some kind of reform" is so vague as to be meaningless in terms of translation into a legislative agenda. It's easy to advocate or oppose something in the abstract. But what does it tell us when "health care reform" polled high in the abstract one year ago, but the specific bills in Congress right now are opposed roughly 2-1? And that, when polled, more Americans are saying that sticking with the status quo would be better than what Congress is currently doing? That tells us that that "demand" for "some kind of reform" one year ago was a vague and ill-expressed discontent, one year ago. And that is all.
My first instinct was to joke and say that they voted in a vague and ill-expressed candidate to solve the problem. This is absolutely true for an abstract concept like "working for a greater good" or "restoring our standing in the world." Or "change". But health care, seriously? The 86% figure suggests that if you have health insurance you're happy, and if you don't have health insurance, you're not counted? Now that is funny.
December 20, 2009 - 8:01 am Link to this Comment -
74. 3Case
"…rules this country now…."
Thank you for openly displaying your fascist heart.
December 20, 2009 - 8:01 am Link to this Comment -
75. monkeyfan
There is a reason the TEA Parties are called TEA Parties…Only this time instead of a room full of patriots there are hundreds of thousands and millions doing their damnedest to peacefully rally conscientious Americans into rejecting the [commie] memetic virus that is laying US low.
What happened?
The Ad hoc parties of the real people are denigrated, marginalized, and ultimately ignored by the very pillars of this once great Republic that, rather than support the roof of the national structure upon the foundation of its founding principles, stand only to profit most through the left's national concentration of raw domestic power; with the near explosive dissipation of our sovereignty and individual liberties into congealed blobs within the greater mass of some tranzi fiefdom.It looks bleak and dark for lovers of Liberty but the only thing is, is that the crackling energies displayed by the TEA Party people -Americans who remember that history hasn't ended with the year 'zero', can see what is going on, and are resisting- will not be dissipated.
There are those who won't suffer the candle being snuffed out by fools and wicked tyrants but will instead stoke the flickering flame into a bonfire…A mighty fire that sees the forest for the trees. THEY are Americans.
Marx delenda est.
December 20, 2009 - 8:05 am Link to this Comment -
76. Josh
Personally I don't blame Mr. Fry, with his shtick and bow tie. He's no more bogus than anything else. Par for the course. We should no more blame him for representing Tuvalu than we should blame James Earl Jones for playing Darth Vader. It's a part, with a script and a costume.
Sounds like an invitation to have an entirely fake Copenhagen parody conference, with completely written stories, have a guy in a polar bear costume voting, you name it.
December 20, 2009 - 9:00 am Link to this Comment -
77. starling
@ whiskey (10): "Not even Obama and the rest could sign on to massive destruction of their economies to give money to China and Sudan."
Whiskey, you neglected to include Zimbabwe in the list of would be recipients of American largesse. Not to worry, however, because Mugabe has not neglected to include you in his calculations. I'm pretty sure he dreams of a variant of that thing he did to the white farmers in his country…back when Zimbabwe was still worth being called a country.
December 20, 2009 - 9:21 am Link to this Comment -
78. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn
Josh @ 76
Then these should come in handy.
December 20, 2009 - 9:25 am Link to this Comment -
79. steveaz
Marie Claude @#40,
"In the contrary Napoleon promoted liberalism (with the european sense) in France, farmers did get lands for free, they had to buy it, which was escluded during the monarchy."Was Napoleon France's Mugabe?
Marie, I judge Napoleon both by the legends that his court propagated after his death (despite his being greatly disliked outside of France's urban power-centers and by the general enlisted men who bled dearly for his frivolities, his reputation enjoyed a contrived "Camelot"-style rehabilitation in French governing-circles), and by the concrete, remaining relics of his confining "Napoleonic Code" architectures, which run the gambit from its centralized, "spoke" roads patterns to its Paris-centric lycees' hegemonic lock on provincial politics, to France's institutional jurisprudence flaws, like its "accusers' bias."
D'apres mois, Napoleon was a control-freak with a country-sized purse, and free Frenchmen can only look forward to stumble and grope over and around his grotesque confines, be they concrete or social, for at least another century, I fear.
This isn't just a French problem either, Marie. Napoleon has company, both alive and dead. Just as Napoleon strove to effect, centuries after his death, private Parisians' twists and turns as they navigate down geometric spokes, around ornate fountains, and through imposing government gates like L'Arc de Triumphe, Saddam Hussein too designed to command visitors to Iraq's capital cities, long after this "Son of Nassir's" death, to drive under statues of his imposing extended swords. Similarly, Stalin made urban planning part of his campaign to engineer his "New Man." The Kremlin renamed St. Petersburg and redesigned Moscow's streets in aid of that goal. And here, closer to my home, Obama wants to funnel America's citizens into government-mediated health-insurance and to impose centralized taxing "gateways" on Americans' private earnings. Whether living or dead, elected or divine (as was Napoleon, or so we or told), all of these are or were tyrannical social-engineers with a military-sized budget.
And European history has shown us again and again, that he and his comrades are the banes of freemen the world over. Donc, here's a word of caution from my side of "the pond:" one should not permit Napoleon's, or John F. Kennedy's, or any politician's post-mortem obituary-writer too much say in history's drafting.
December 20, 2009 - 9:38 am Link to this Comment -
80. Marie Claude
A French Mugabe?
are you kidding ?
if not I don't give a damn of what you're advocating
are you sure that you're talking of Napoleon ?
seems to me that you push your nightmares and your anti-french bitterness ahead instead of
Your evident bad faith authorises me to use Cambronne's motto facing arrogant tw*ts "MERDE !
December 20, 2009 - 9:46 am Link to this Comment -
81. Peter Warner
In his written description of being knocked out (temporarily) by being knocked down from behind, Lord Monckton relates with pride that he was trained in the best protest tactics; part of that training was to keep both hands in his pockets throughout the encounter with the bully police, knowing that they were likely to be filmed at that moment. He's a brave man, and I respect him tremendously, but I have to think that that specific tactic is no longer the wisest posture. He should (perhaps he does) feel fortunate that he's still with us. Sticking our hands in our pockets just renders us defenseless.
Those living in the USA can contemplate fighting for their freedom, there is both a tradition and the means. Those living in Asia have less options, I think. If America loses its financial clout, its military strength (and/or the will to use it, who is going to be the world's cop when China blockades Taiwan? When North Korea threatens South Korea, and places demands on Japan? I have to think that Japan is thinking seriously about going nuclear, and that means the Philippines will also, and honestly I don't blame either for going that course. Israel is on its own, and that means they are too.
Phyllis, thank you: 'If my people who bear my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my presence and turn from their wicked ways, then I will listen from heaven and forgive their sins and restore their country.' 2 Chronicles 7:14 That is the first hopeful thing I've read all week.
I'm torn by this health care debate. As an American, the entire premise offends me: it is naked government control from cradle to grave, as Mark Steyn points out. Yet, living in Japan I see a universal health care system that functions decently for the most part (although it is presently showing troubling signs). One reason it works here is that the populace is basically honest: abuse and deception isn't widespread (yet). I don't have the same sense of present American society, to my own shame.
Final point: Someone asked Wretchard a few days ago, if life in the Philippines was so corrupt, why not just get out? I had the same thought, until I remembered the realities of being responsible for a family. My goodness, what guts it must have taken for men to uproot their wife and children from whatever they had established, say goodbye to their parents and community, and then to chance it all on a fresh and penniless start in a foreign society. How many of them felt that by losing their fortunes, they also were losing their honor? Where did they find consolation? Yet thousands did it, and thank heavens they did. Can we match their courage and fortitude? And where will the destitute and desperate seek refuge and hope fifteen years from now?
I'm sorry for the gloomy thoughts. Let me solemnly wish a
Merry Christmas to everyone, and a Happy New Year.
December 20, 2009 - 9:50 am Link to this Comment -
83. Marie claude
stevee with the short memory :
This architect construct Bombay with what he appreciate from Paris and washington
are you conveying then that Capitole and washington avenues are the manifestation of the new world hubris ?
Can't see the difference with our capital
December 20, 2009 - 9:58 am Link to this Comment -
84. cfbleachers
No, my dear boy, Wretchard…it will not collapse, it will go on. And on.
What I have witnessed for the first time in my life, over these 56+ years, is a group willing to cram down their ideas upon us, by any means necessary…and then have their propaganda arm tell us we like it.
This is not my America. Not any longer.
When it is clear that those in power (elected and unelected) steal from us every remnant of truth, every trust, every dignity, every respect…and arrogate to themselves the mantle of keeper of the "facts", we are doomed to die fighting or die surrendering.
The loyal opposition has no weapons. The media, academia, Hollywood…all of news and entertainment are filled with people who side more reflexively with Chavez than they would with a Reagan.
These are lying cretins who defraud us in an open, naked and taunting manner, sneering and slandering those of us who harbor even the slightest principled dissent.
God help us all. When honor is this cheap, when integrity is this ignored, when truth is so missing…what is left is dark matter. Nothing of substance can survive. And we are fooling ourselves, whistling past the graveyard if we believe that we can fight against a tide of lies, when the ability to obtain facts is tortured daily.
And, when their power over our "pop" culture is so complete, in every corner where we gather to shape our opinions "en masse", that they are no longer satisfied to pen revisionist history, they are penning a revisionist present.
December 20, 2009 - 10:03 am Link to this Comment -
85. Marie Claude
oops, New Delhi in place of Bombay, scuses
December 20, 2009 - 10:06 am Link to this Comment -
86. steveaz
Marie, I love the French people. But I also think there is much about their country that they'd like to change.
BTW: my fourth year French teacher taught me about the very angry debate about Napoleon's legacy, and about what should be France's official monument to it, after his death.
Napoleon's legacy has always been contested, and if not for his having concreted so much of his political philosphy in architecture and "historical" monuments, then France's republican politicians would probably have made better progress in dismantling his legacy.
Literally carved into monuments, dams, streets and boulevards, an unfortunate politician's legacy like Napoleon's requires a lot of abrasive scrubbing and clic cleaner to overcome, so modern France's politicians, being rational human beings subject to cost-benefit equations, have simply found it is easier to build on top of Napoleon's accretions.
December 20, 2009 - 10:11 am Link to this Comment -
I don't think some here realize how serious the working white man is.
Or how pissed off he is.
Or how fast he will organize resistance.
Or how well armed he really is.
Or how much contempt he now has for our ruling elite since they have thrown mud in his face.You won't starve him out, or buy him off.
Many of him, maybe most, don't see the news, just the NFL, and are just waiting for it, business, "to get back to normal".
When he realizes it won't, then the elites are in trouble. Big trouble.What will those "elites" do when they have no water, power, cell phone/internet service, deliveries, or anything else in their little enclaves, particularly when they are afraid to go outside! When everything is sabotaged, and they can't even trust those "sworn" to protect them?
I'll tell you what they will do, they'll fly out of here like the cowards they are, some will even end up at the UN seeking "sanctuary". They think they'll be safe with their stuffed Swiss/Cayman accts, but the money will evaporate into thin air, and they will be penniless with a bounty on their head!
They may even end up in a Chinese court, for financial crimes against the people of China as well as the US citizens. We, the US people, will be glad to let the Chinese try them first for stolen billions!December 20, 2009 - 10:19 am Link to this Comment -
88. NahnCee
So far, the only ones willing to take physical action of their beliefs to the streets are SEIU and the Black Panthers. What do you want to bet there is an action plan at the highest levels of the White House that would be a government counteraction in a one-on-one confrontation between Detroit / Chicago union thugs and Tea Party protestors. My only question would then be whether the Pentagon is spending as much time figuring out how to protect San Francisco as it is how to protect Kabul, and which particular armed government entity Obama plans to unleash on his fellow American citizens.
My final question is whether I would rather see America die than be turned into a wannabe-Russian failure.
December 20, 2009 - 10:19 am Link to this Comment -
89. Charles
33. wretchard:
They're going down a road that the Republican party, poor dense things that they, won't ever know what to do with. But they'll trap themselves down that dark path.
Remember the words "we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness."That is men's right's come from God and not from government.
It has been the great object of the communist endeavor to make men's rights come from government–and not from God. You cannot rewrite the constitution… But if all medical benefits come from government. If your primary health relationship is with the government, if you are interacting with the government for your healthcare from the womb to the tomb…then its tough to know for sure where your rights come from.
December 20, 2009 - 10:21 am Link to this Comment -
90. Dishman
Sooner or later the Progressives will try to tame the Third World through biological weaponry and genocide.
I hear the ground-work being laid for that. "A lot of people are going to have to die". There are other versions of that statement.
I've heard people express sadness that no one has the will to address "the problem".
I'm not okay with that.
Perhaps it just needs to be called out.
Perhaps a counter-meme is required. The nastiest one I can come up with is "Will the corpses be sodomized before you eat them?"
December 20, 2009 - 10:22 am Link to this Comment -
91. steveaz
Marie, I love the French people. But I also think there is much about their country that they'd like to change.
BTW: my fourth-year French teacher taught me about the very angry debate about Napoleon's legacy, and about what should be France's official monument to it, after the "Emperor's" death.
Napoleon's legacy has always been contested, and if he hadn't concreted so much of his political philosophy in French architecture and "historical" monuments, then France's republican politicians would probably have made better progress in obscuring his illiberal legacy during the last century.
But, literally carved into monuments, dams, streets and boulevards, an unfortunate politician's legacy like Napoleon's (or FDR's, or Bill Clinton's) requires a lot of abrasive legislative scrubbing and gallons of caustic cleanser to overcome, so modern France's politicians have simply found it is easier to build on top of Napoleon's pattern – not out of any profound love for the pattern, but only because it has historically been politically expedient to stay in Napoleon's well-worn tracks.
To me, Marie, France's citizens are confined in a plaster Napoleon cast from a bygone age that many would gladly break out, if only Paris' archaic Impirial campuses would let them.
Alas, it might take a revolution…
December 20, 2009 - 10:23 am Link to this Comment -
92. Charles
Newt Gingrich: Impeach judges – Crush and Replace the Left – 2012 "Victory or Death!"
December 20, 2009 - 10:27 am Link to this Comment -
93. Mike
@Marie Claude and the others who've posted that Lord Monckton kind of deserved what he got (at least that he's a privileged fool who deserved to be disillusioned about police behavior):
Have you seen Lord Monckton? He looks like a cross between Mr. Bean and Bill Buckley. He's the most obviously harmless, physically non-threatening man on the planet. There's no way any cop felt threatened by him, or that Monckton was being boisterous or obnoxious.
Cheering on thuggery because you hate the British upper classes is… lower class.
December 20, 2009 - 10:35 am Link to this Comment -
94. Marie Claude
"by the legends that his court propagated after his death"
Saint Helena was a great court indeed ! that that the Brits found necessary to isolate him from the rest of the world, and particularly from the French, where they imposed him every day vexations, and poisned his food, oh they didn't want that he died quickly, but that that takes a long time, instead of judging him in a fair trial.
But wasn't the legend of the bad Napoleon written by his geolers too.
Napoleon never murdered his population like the exemples that you gave above, he was victim of his successful power that implied isolement, and thus he lost the sense of trivial realities. But isn't it what happens to any politician that holds power for a long time, they forget what their electors think and live
December 20, 2009 - 10:37 am Link to this Comment -
95. Marie claude
Steve, an advice, forget what your teacher of history said, it's almost fantasies
uh your lord had some pervert ways of talking, of course upper classes can say such things when they supported Hitler
December 20, 2009 - 10:44 am Link to this Comment -
96. Whitehall
The best definition of "intelligence" is the ability to predict the future.
The people who believe the Leftist promises have repeatedly been wrong, again and again.
Ergo, leftism appeals to the dumb.
The metaphor of a lottery is a good one – at least it fits with my theory of excess energy.
Through most of history, the energy available to a civilization just meets the subsistence requirements of the population. When excess appears through innovation or climate change, the civilization has new-found powers of war making and can go on wars of expansion and conquest. The rise of the Roman empire was caused by a warming trend that increased agricultural productivity. The empire waned with a cooling trend. The Mongols exploded out of Asia due to increased fodder for their horses. Napoleon's rise coincided with a warm spell in France, ending with the "Year without a Summer" (1815-1816).
The story of America has been the excess energy available on the new continent when opened to a more advanced civilization with better animal and crop strains and better agriculture.
With the Industrial Revolution, relatively advanced technology, fossil fuels, and the ability of a free people to innovate made the West the global hegemon. Resistance to long-standing diseases and better sanitation helped. Add synthetic fertilizers and the retreat of the Little Ice Age and population boomed.
Today, peak oil is near and excess energies are slacking. China's recent rise was as an untapped supply of cheap labor under some sort of social and political organization but even that wanes.
On top of those factors, the climate is now cooling.
Unfortunately, in future years we'll all be singing that Stephen Foster dirge, "Hard Times, Come Again No More."
December 20, 2009 - 11:06 am Link to this Comment -
97. NahnCee
I sighest.
Once again, a cheese-eating surrender monkey has hijacked the thread.
December 20, 2009 - 11:08 am Link to this Comment -
98. Habu
If this has already been presented but the crush of time prevents me from reading all the previous contributions.
Many of you have read nat Henthoff of the Village Voice, a liberal publication.
When he makes this statement, which he did;
"I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had."—Nat Hentoff ..it is time to pass the ammo.
The entire interview can be found here:
December 20, 2009 - 11:15 am Link to this Comment -
99. Marie Claude
Steve, a good explanation on what was the Napoleon best aptitudes
Most of the persons that wrote on Napoleon, conceid that he was a great soldier and administrator, not a politician, otherwise a significative part of the US would still speak french
December 20, 2009 - 11:16 am Link to this Comment -
100. Marie claude
too bad, Lassie, I was provoked for it, but you seem to haven't missed some space though and f**u !ya know where you're wellcome, F**France.com
December 20, 2009 - 11:20 am Link to this Comment -
101. Habu
88. NahnCee:
"So far, the only ones willing to take physical action of their beliefs to the streets are SEIU and the Black Panthers."
Nahncee, fear not. I know numbers larger than those you have used as examples who are ready RIGHT now to take to the street. They are not Nazi,KKK kooks or the like but mostly active and retired military who aren't that far out of retirement. If it comes to it, it will be ugly but the SEIU and the BP's will be evaporated within days. Trust me on this.
Take a look at the organization such as Oath Keepers. They are but one example but their charter and template is easily reproduced a hundredfold across the USA.
Here: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/
December 20, 2009 - 11:26 am Link to this Comment -
102. steveaz
Thanks for the link Marie, I learn so much at Wretchard's site. Sauf de dire, Napoleon etait controversable.
En ce qui concerne "Provoked," ca ne me fais rien, mais…
S'il vous plait, il faut comprendre que les Anglais, tout comme les Francais, employent souvent de numereux idiomes. Donc, on doit souvent ne pas faire cas des impressions immediates en parcourant les textes anglais. Et puis, en les lisant le deuxieme ou troixieme fois encore, vous verez peu a peu l'intention reale de l'auteur.
-SteveDecember 20, 2009 - 11:28 am Link to this Comment -
103. Habu
On the matter of the provocateur Marie claude …. …IMHO the most effective way to handle this person is to ignore the writings and to absolutely NOT respond no matter the comment regurgitated by him/her.
Continue with those you know here regularly and enjoy the season …..we all know his/her objective…deny the persons existence. He/she will eventually leave to surface again and repeat more unctuous palaver.
December 20, 2009 - 11:38 am Link to this Comment -
104. Habu
50. Josh:
Your opening sentence:
"All this gloom and doom … remember, so far Obama is just talk, and his actual actions have been to funnel huge money to the establishment.One of your last points:
"I'm more worried about the unintended consequences of the actions so far, the trillions of dollars causing a wave of hyperinflation."First Obama's actions have caused great harm to our economy and world standing; to the dollars value and its ability to remain the world's reserve currency. To mention the debt he has already incurred and intends to add prodigiously to needs no review. I do not believe these are "unintended consequences" when perpetrated by a totally dedicated Marxist Socialist , ie. obama.
So, has obama just been talking or did he really do any of just the very few items I've illuminated?
December 20, 2009 - 12:01 pm Link to this Comment -
105. Right Wing Realist
Mongoose @ #65 — I say bosh! AWM @ #87 has it right.
You underestimate the ammo supply and the will of pissed off people. I envision a scenario where an average Joe like myself is arrested for doing a naughty thing, and I will have to be made an "example of" what happens to those who balk the authorities. One way to do that will be the typical smear campaign to paint me as a loon, mentally unstable. Background checks will have to be done to try and find some skeleton, and if none, then an invented skeleton.
In court I will simply say, "You need me to be a loon; you need me to be unstable, for the alternative is terrifying!" And what is that alternative? Quite simply, there are legions of average Joe's like me out there.
The National Guard will not turn on the people, for they are us. And Obozo and his minions have no sway if it should come to this.
We are Maximus in the arena. And there comes a point where even faithful Quintus says "No" to his totalitarian nutcase of a leader!
December 20, 2009 - 12:02 pm Link to this Comment -
106. Papa Ray
"Moncktons' premonition is by no means yet a fact. Nor is it inevitable."
Maybe not, in America but if you look at the numbers and the affiliations and the mind set of millions who still…still don't care or just have not interest at all in politics or government but are more interested, nay consumed by reality TV, YOUTUBE, and what ever is current in the EU (most certainly including Britain) it just might be inevitable in just a few years.
Right now there is a media (and culture) battle going on that is way lopsided in America. On the one hand you have the conservatives, the middle of the road that are too timid or too stupid to make a choice or you might say a life decision and then of course the left leaning liberals. But don't forget you have the hard left which many say comprise 20 percent of the voters (voters are much more important than the hard right that very seldom vote)and hardly ever get involved in anything other than their work, their Church and their families.
I have forgotten what other things I needed to say in the regard of this post. It is a mad house here with a group of young girls here that want to go skating and to McDonalds. So pardon my leaving.
Americans are distracted, depressed and ignorant of their pending doom, so don't depend on them to save your ass or this Republic.
Papa Ray
December 20, 2009 - 12:03 pm Link to this Comment -
107. Marie claude
provocations ? Habu, here it's legitime defense, sorry, but your constitutional firstamendment isn't abolished until now
but if you consider that calling me a surrender monkey isn't a provocation, then you're not more worst of respect than the person who wrote it
December 20, 2009 - 12:05 pm Link to this Comment -
108. Marie Claude
oops worst of respect, too bad worth was ment, but I do find funny that worst came first
December 20, 2009 - 12:10 pm Link to this Comment -
84. cfbleachers: These are lying cretins who defraud us in an open, naked and taunting manner, sneering and slandering those of us who harbor even the slightest principled dissent.
God help us all.
Welcome to my vision CFB as I've been noting their incremental advance in my series Progress-of.
Of course you could also welcome me to your vision, because I firmly believe that most of us have recognized it, only most of us didn't vocalize. Most remained silent for fear of being marginalized. Instead, we think to ourselves "nah, they could never be so obvious, could they?" and then we applied Heinlein's razor. Those who did may well curse Heinlein yet.
My vision has been clear, and I offer you all hope. I'm no great seer, just a simple man who can barely string ten sentences together on most days and be happy with what I wrote.
CFB , I believe your "God help us all" is still available.
Read Genesis 22 dear Men of the West. The idea that human sacrifice is unnecessary was told us there. This is why the Western Tradition is hated by the misanthropes who've adopted Malthus and fanned a new variety of fear, not from scarcity driven by us, but overabundance of CO2 driven by us. The words written in the Bible — so long ago, anticipating their rise to power — contradicts them, and they cannot abide it.
Malthus was wrong. Ehrlich was wrong. So now they're trying to bluff through with Gore? At least to the two earlier men had some legitmacy even though they were wrong. Gore has always been a self-characterizing buffoon — and this is their high priest.
Yes, BRAZEN open, aren't these power hungerers?
How is it possible that such as we are witnessing today — talk of the need to sacrifice humans to benefit the "collective good"– could be found precisely where Abraham told his son (and all sons to follow) that "God will provide."
Simple review:
Abraham told to bring his son up as a formal burnt offering, akin to the rituals of the pagan gods like Moloch.
God says "NO. This is not necessary. Now I know you understand."
A covenant is made between God and Abraham's seed.But as we find out from following the chronicles, "seed" does not necessarily mean ALL of Abe's blood. "Seed" means all of Abe's idea. Law. Protection of innocents. Human advance.
And we DID advance.
And now we have "Progressive" Postmodernists seeking the reverse in every way imaginable!
Is it merely coincidence? Or are our rulers deliberately following the patterns preordained in the Bible? What is up with that? Sinister forces rubbing our noses in it? Yeah, that is highly likely amongst a great many, the most foolish amongst the powerful would tweak weaker men for no other reason than they have been granted the power.
But actually fulfilling prophecy? Seemingly seeking to do so? Who the hell is steering that?
If those building this globalist government have so much power over us, why must they challenge a God they claim is imaginary?
What do they act like they are playing "King of the Hill" with a God they tell us they do not believe exists?
December 20, 2009 - 12:13 pm Link to this Comment -
110. spindok
Peter Warner (81) writes many good points.
I am not so gloomy myself. With best of cheer and good wishes "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year".
Not so hard really.
Health care does not look so bad now. I think the worst is over. What is shaping up is more covered for less $ per procedure code. That is what is expected. More work, less $, OK I can deal with that but there is some budget stuff here, like a new MRI or Radiation Treatment platform…just keep up.
AGW nearly derailed the course of human activity on a scale difficult to imagine. That is near dead now. Mere politics. My grandchildren will only know about it if they are assigned to write a paper on the subject 20 years hence. Kinda like the disco era.
The US military, best on the planet right now, will fight the Taliban. Nobody knows what will happen there. My problem is that the president has not given them his heart in the matter. He should. That is his job.
So thank you Wretchard for your wonderful thoughts on this day. Christmas is nearly here. Turn our thoughts to home now.
I am a Jew. One nation among many. Family, faith, and ethic will turn things as the Almighty intended.
Tomorrow is work again. Lets go to work together and to hell with the rest.
We did OK this year. May the next be better.
Peace, shalom, and best Christmas wishes,
December 20, 2009 - 12:16 pm Link to this Comment -
111. steveaz
Habu @#103,
Crazy thing is, Habu, (and I rarely disagree with you, Mate) Marie is not really off-topic. Lord Monkton's "tyranny ruled by the unelected Kommissars" evokes Marie's vaunted Napoleonic period. In fact, his beating springs largely from it.So, the injection of a French Emporer and of France's continuing legacy-pains into this wide-ranging discussion need not be seen as a troll-ish obstruction. In fact, France celebrated Napoleonic centralization in law and architecture after Napoleon's death, she adopted tactical DeGaulian anti-American chauvinism during the Cold War, she fell to the beck of D'Estang-ian Euro-ism in the Mitterrand years, and she has abetted Clinton/Annan redistributionist UN-ism thu Bush I and II, all of which makes her government an indispensable agent, second only to German elites, in the construction of the modern European tyranny that Monkton describes.
But, which, too, is nothing more than an extrapolation of the same Paris-o-centric spokes that Parisiennes are channelled down, ratlike, every day.
We're just hamsters in tubes to our social engineers. I contend that it is impossible to understand France's citizens' acquiescence to their government's assistance in constructing grotesqueries like "UN's Oil-for-Food" program, or Lisbon, or Copenhagen without first comprehending the hold that Napoleon's centralizing legacy still holds over every citizens' sense of self in that ancient tribal nation.
Only when you can comprehend their dead Emperor's power over them, then can you also grasp the unrelenting appeal that centralized paternalistic government has for the French diaspora to this day, as well as finally understand France's governing elite's disdain for competing republican state-models.
So, see? Marie's and my jibe is all of a piece with Wretchard's original post. We're not trolls, dude!
And, truth be know'd, I like bouncing Wretchard's post off of a willing French speaker. It's a good reality check for all parties, I think. And I applaud Marie for volunteering to serve.
Merry Christmas, All!
December 20, 2009 - 12:24 pm Link to this Comment -
112. JFSanders031
Habu, Nat Hentoff has hit the nail on the head with his statement of Leftist religious dogma. For proof just look to YWD @ 4. I wonder what will go through YWD's mind when the reality sets in. Will he snap like a twig or will he go like Winston Smith. What I know for sure is YWD will go…
Marie sweet Marie I pine for thee. Such power and ferocity in your defense of Wee General. But surely you don't keep him on a pedestal? He was just a man after all and a flawed one at that. Now Lafitte! He was worthy of such praise and adulation. Surely you agree?
December 20, 2009 - 12:30 pm Link to this Comment -
113. shivermetimbers
One problem I see is that even if we are able to vote the Dems out in 2010, and then again in 2012, how do we prevent weasels like Rahm Emanuel, Axelrod, and the rest from simply hiding in the private sector, probably making millions in bonuses from places like Fannie Mae, until the time is right to creep back into politics?
Or, prevent people like Soros and his machinations that seek to destroy the US? Or, MSM outlets like the NY Times from leaking secret information that helps our enemies in times of war?
Until the light of day is shined on these cockroaches and the American public sees them for what that they are, I'm a bit worried about this country.
December 20, 2009 - 12:33 pm Link to this Comment -
114. Mongoose
Habu: Add the F22 to that list.
Seriously, Obama must be in the employ of enenies.
His every move is designed to destroy the foundations of American power. It is calculated, cunning and orchestrated. Actually, I think someone else is calling the shots. Obama has never shown this sort of intelligence or knowledge.
And it get worse with everyday.
We cannot tolerate ever 6 more months of this. It may be too late already.
None of this had to be. A simple tax pull back would have turn this recession around, and it would be over by now.No one is that willfully stupid, mot even the Democrats. This sort of stuff takes determination.
December 20, 2009 - 12:42 pm Link to this Comment -
115. Marie Claude
steve, I appreciate your efforts, but they are unuseful for what you want to demonstrate, Napoleon was so far of what you think of a paternalistic government, in fact he was more capitalist than the anglo-Saxons, this is the irony that the brits couldn't support !
and let me tell you that you're very late for updating the oil for food conspiracy that was first an american concept, that all the members of the UN conspirations cheated, and you weren't the lesser of them !
Now, if you had read our friend Wiskey's comment, Napoleon came on board first by his referrence to him, naturally contestable IMO, but I understand that what is contestable for us is an objective truth for you, especially if it comes to demonstrate how evil and what scum of the humanity we are.
Now, let me tell you, it's not a Habu, nor a Cee, that will stop me to contest falsh or volontary bias facts upon our history and or us.
Fortunately, I met much more people with good sense on that board, with whom rational discussions can find an agreement
French centralised government is called colbertism here, and so far it isn't a bad solution for economical crisis, we didn't suffer like your supposed so uncentralised powers, but still you have an administration and civil clerics, that makes your governation more or less like ours, a soft socialist and paternalist governation, that is !
December 20, 2009 - 12:46 pm Link to this Comment -
116. cfbleachers
Pascal, I fear that fascism is upon us. Liberty once meant that dissenting voices could find an ear, armed with reason and depending upon the goodness of our countrymen.
Now, the word is dead before it is uttered. Republicans are so marginalized they are afraid not only of their own shadows, but of the sunlight that would allow them to even cast one.
They pitty-pat their shadow boxing, with little jabs and tiny feints…but lacking utterly in resoluteness. A peep in the wilderness smothered by the ill wind that precedes it, swallows it whole.
MASS dissemination of "facts" to our countrymen is a stolen field of diseased grain. Sure, talk radio and the internet and Fox make a dent, but UNDOING the New Big Lie each and every time it is told and MASS disseminated to our fellow citizens, is simply too big a task. Global Warming, Health Care, Stimulus, …these are simply large entree's on a plate of a hundred courses.
We no longer own the truth, we have lost the Word and we are living in an ocean of lies. Worse, we have lost the will to fight and the voice to complain.
December 20, 2009 - 12:51 pm Link to this Comment -
117. steeple
Habu 98, thanks vm for that link
Merry Christmas to all of you fine people, whereever you are.
December 20, 2009 - 1:01 pm Link to this Comment -
119. Habu
NH: I have been in schools around the country, and I have written on education for years. Once, I was once doing a profile on Justice William Brennan and I was in his chambers, and Brennan asked, "How do we get the words of the Bill of Rights into the lives of the students?" Well, it is not difficult. You tell them stories. When I speak to students, I tell them why we have a First Amendment. I tell them about the Committees of Correspondence. I tell them how in a secret meeting of the Raleigh Tavern in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, who did not agree with each other, started a Committee of Correspondence.
Young people get very excited when they hear why they are Americans. It is not hard to do. We hear talk now about reforming public education. There are billions of dollars at stake for such a reform. But I have not heard Arne Duncan, who is the U.S. Education Secretary, mention once the civic illiteracy in the country.
JW: Adults are constitutionally illiterate as well.
NH: A few years ago, I was lecturing at the Columbia Journalism School of Education. I asked them about what was happening to the Fourth Amendment. I said, "By the way, do you know what is in the Fourth Amendment?" One student responded, "Is that the right to bear arms?" It's hard to believe these are bright students.
JW: I ask law students who attend our Summer Internship Program to name the five freedoms in the First Amendment. I have yet to find one who can.
NH: That is a stunner.
I highly recommend this interview.
http://tinyurl.com/ybzdo8nDecember 20, 2009 - 1:06 pm Link to this Comment -
120. Barstid
Well, while I feel that fascism is indeed upon us, and must be resisted, the Danish cops have the right to bust heads when people get out of line. Protest is not an excuse for violence and anarchy and the destruction or property of persons who are not a part of, and cannot influence, the conference. If protesters behave there is no reason to bop their noggins. However, when they become unruly and do property damage, or threaten others, then they deserve a good beating.
Witness the G-8 meetings and the masked anarchists who are determined to smash storefronts, overturn cars and set fires. If they were to be shot down like vermin I'd shed no tears. However, LAWFUL protests that are merely loud should not only remain unmolested by the police, but actually protected by the police from more violent counter-protesters.
To tell the truth, I'd rather like to see, just once, a major meeting held in a ruthless police state; just so, for once, we could read about and watch the meeting, its minutes and reasoned reporting without riots breaking everything up and taking away or masking certain reports that are going to affect our lives.
December 20, 2009 - 1:09 pm Link to this Comment -
121. steveaz
Thanks for your well-worded response above, Marie. It is a pleasure discussing Wretchard's blog-posts with you. And I hope you don't mind my fifth-year French on occasions.
I'll do more reading on the topic, but as it stands I still think Monckton's "tyranny" is indeed quietly at work in Europe and that it has its roots, at least a good half of them, in France's ongoing social policies. And I remain convinced that Napoleon's legacy in European – not just French, affairs offer us all, be we Anglo, Han, Slav, Maori or Luo, a common starting point for learning how this institutionalized menace that Lord Monckton ran into in Copenhagen might have come about.
Joyeux Noel!
December 20, 2009 - 1:20 pm Link to this Comment -
122. nolan
Excercise your 2d Amendment Rights and prepare.
December 20, 2009 - 1:20 pm Link to this Comment -
123. Josh
Habu @ 104: Bush and Bernanke started the spending, Bernanke has contributed more to the debt than Paulson and Geithner combined, and if McCain had won he might have done much the same as has Obama. And who knows, all these trillions in debt might be the best solution to the problems that did indeed flower under the Bush administration, though of course with strong congressional Democratic encouragement. Nope, I see Obama's contributions here as nil, he just let existing trends continue. OK, of course, that too is effectively a decision, but the problem was real.
And if (and when) it blows up in hyperinflation, I would not necessarily blame that on Obama, either. At least, not before Bernanke – and Greenspan. Lordy if I'm not going all Ron Paul on y'all here, at least regarding the Fed, who must be blamed for creating the problem and then trying to drown it with our tax dollars and our capital, which may soon become nearly worthless. If we do manage to slide by for the duration of Obama's time in office, I will even give him minor props.
OTOH, stuff like this health care bill I'm afraid make the problem worse, as will raising taxes dramatically, which is the next step, starting with the expiration of the Bush cuts.
spindok says it's just mandating the price of everything down – but hey, why don't they just mandate everyone to perfect health? And I heard on tv this morning that my policy, an individual policy, will increase in price "10 to 13%". But I heard before that my policy, an HSA policy, will be discontinued, and if I have to buy a standard policy, that will be about a 400% increase. And that standard policy would be a "cadillac" policy which would then be increased *another* 40%, so I'd be paying 560% more. I'm mystified, if normal policies are cadillacs, and HSA policies are illegal, what on earth comprises a non-surtaxed policy? I SUSPECT THERE ARE NONE, that our geniuses in Congress and the MSM have entirely missed this, there are additional gaping holes in the "logic", and the entire plan is gibberish.
In which case Howard Dean will be proved right, this will be nothing more than a giveaway to the insurance companies, which is why they have been mostly mute about the whole thing.
Obama the non-entity at the top of it all.
December 20, 2009 - 1:31 pm Link to this Comment -
124. Habu
….a further comment is warranted regarding the damage obama has done.
It regards our solvency and thus our safety.
I've been in a couple of countries as the currency collapsed. I saw the Okinawans who had been forced to declare all of their U.S. dollars (each was marked with a special brightly colored ink) and promised they would receive 360 Yen for each dollar lose 20% of their life savings overnight. In ONE single night. I have a pair of bills I picked up on my last two trips to Turkey as they tried to get their fiscal house in order to gain admission to the EU… They were both the most common bill in use at the time of the trips (about 10 months apart) and looked virtually identical… Oops… one difference – One has a denomination of 1,000,000 – the later has a denomination of 1… substantial value had evaporated. If you had "illegitimate" amounts (i.e. not where you had to declare them/pay taxes on them) and were caught with them, they were just plain confiscated. Nigerian and Indonesian inflation were legendary and I remember coming home from Brazil with tens of thousands of Quiseros (Sp?) in my pocket… worth about $3.00!
This is the direction we are headed which would lead to a world war given the fact that we would have sabotaged China and other large country's economies They have already stated they can not sustain buying more US debt yet our POS in the WH and his Treasury Sec are printing 24/7/365.December 20, 2009 - 1:32 pm Link to this Comment -
125. eaglesdontflock
Barstid- How is decking a septuagenarian who was a credentialed delegate square with "Danish cops having the right to bust heads" willy nilly?
Monkton was clearly within his rights and the cops response was excessive and uncalled for. Knocking someone at that age to the frozen ground can kill them. Perhaps that was his intent.
December 20, 2009 - 1:40 pm Link to this Comment -
126. Habu
123. Josh:
Use whatever color pastel you choose. obama has been in office and by any measure of meaning has done harm not good.It's also time to uncouple Bush as the engine of the train. He was indeed the engine that started us down the track but if you'll recall he's been gone for almost an entire year and obama has the throttle pegged..obama has been the show runner for over a year…it's his policies that are a disaster.
December 20, 2009 - 1:42 pm Link to this Comment -
127. Marie Claude
a common starting point for learning how this institutionalized menace that Lord Monckton ran into in Copenhagen might have come about
yeah, but it will be the "end of the beans" (la fin des haricots, a french expression) if I 'm to wear a british lord banner for holding the contest, our Claude Allegre has much more the sense of humor while in the same partition, and he doesn't need to use godwin points
December 20, 2009 - 1:53 pm Link to this Comment -
114. Mongoose:
None of this had to be. A simple tax pull back would have turn this recession around, and it would be over by now.No one is that willfully stupid, not even the Democrats. This sort of stuff takes determination.
Some of them ARE stupid, Mongoose, but not all of them. With most top politicians being lawyers, they know this is established in American Law:
"The power to tax is the power to destroy." — Daniel Webster;
SCOTUS Chief Justice John Marshall concurred it "is too obvious to be denied" (McCullouch vs Maryland).Still, the power to tax was deemed necessary in that case and all cases to follow.
That was in a government subject to the will of the governed. The will of the governed? When was that?
Thus we bear witness that the Postmodernist reformation (think Catholic counter-reformation had it succeeded) is showing itself to be both regressive and repressive.
Unlike freemen who are at liberty to seek out the new, the Sinister so lack creativity they seek out successful patterns from history that lead to power.
Their advantage comes from keeping us in disarray with all that their power gives them access.
Our advantage is their patterns are an open book, and we can learn to trust those among us who have a nose for disinformation. Act accordingly as much as possible and thwart the divisiveness. Examples of divisiveness and thwarting of same are exemplified on this thread.
December 20, 2009 - 2:02 pm Link to this Comment -
129. Josh
Habu @ 126: I don't really blame Bush for the financial meltdown, either. I blame, in order, Greenspan, Wall Street including banks and companies like AIG, the mortgage industry, the Fed, congressional democrats and the CRA, the public at large engaging in wild speculation and fraud, and only about then the Bush adminstration in general, and Bush in particular.
I have yet to figure out who gets credit for recovery, because it is not yet clear that we have recovered.
December 20, 2009 - 2:21 pm Link to this Comment -
130. Mad Fiddler
Life has always been pretty chancy. In the 1980′s I bought my first Bible, and a copy of the Qur'an a week later, cause I wanted to read for myself, instead of just getting excerpts someone else had chosen.
My first reading of the Old Testament left me pretty exhausted and discouraged. So much violence and destruction, slaughtering of any who opposed the Hebrew God. Or so it seemed.
In the decades since, I've learned much more about the other cultures that had grown in the Levant, and I came to appreciate that child sacrifice was CENTRAL to a number of them, not just a peripheral aberration. Recent excavations in Carthage – originally a Phoenician colony from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon – have brought to the light of day many thousands of pottery urns with the remains of infants that appear to have been sacrificed as part of regular, if not routine, rituals.
Mentioning this factoid some months ago in these precincts prompted one reader to fiercely defend the descendants of the Phoenicians… but the pots with the babies' bones were not found in the regular graveyards or burial grounds…
Anyhow, reading the Old Testament now, I'm much more acutely aware of how little has changed in the thousands of years we humans have been contending with each other on the planet. Same old lying, cheating, thieving, murder, and betrayal.
Faith, prayer, contemplation of the teachings of the Master, all seem to be important.
At the same time, I note that ammunition of all calibers seems to be available in the local gun stores, at reasonable prices.
We are charged to love our enemies as we love ourselves.
We are not charged to let them devour our children.
December 20, 2009 - 2:22 pm Link to this Comment -
131. steveaz
Josh and Habu,
Bush's record on "his economy" will be clouded because he made such a great show of attempting to reform FanMac.Every time he tried, though, someone'd call him "racist." So he stopped trying. But, by trying, what, three, very public times, he made good progress towards exculpating himself for what resulted. This has got to figure in history's reckoning.
It's basic "Golden Rule" stuff: At some point, a fella's done what he can, baring acting unlawfully, and he should get a pass for trying. What was Bush s'posed to do, dismiss the Congress?
Bush's treatment of the economy demonstrates a surprising similarity to what he did with Iranian Nukes, Social Security insolvency, and our nation's energy plans (and a host of other obvious structural problems): when Bush warned and cajoled and attempted to legislate preemptive work-arounds for the CRA's excesses but was only shot down at every turn, then after, say, the third slap-down, the responsibility (or ball) for preventing what follows, be it Lehman/Citigroup credit corrosion, or erosion of Social Security, or Iranian nuke-proliferation has to fall firmly in the other guy's court.
Josh, respectfully – cuz I enjoy your posts a lot here, you don't seem to want to give Bush that grace after what has been, let's face it, a long, loud and bitter eight-year long ordeal. Can't you see your way to, what with it being Christmas this week and all, give ex-President "W" just that one teensy bit of slack?
He tried to fix "his" economy, several times in fact, and the Democrats simply wouldn't let him.
I know Bush's type – he'd never ask you…but I'm willing to.
December 20, 2009 - 2:24 pm Link to this Comment -
132. Mongoose
First, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all.
Second, I take issue with the Bush Bashing, or even the stating that he "started the train". That train started long ago, It start with the ability of the Feds to tax us, but, less pedantically, it start with the New Deal.
As more practical and current matter, the real initiator of of our modern woes, however, were the so-called Peace Dividend and all the other social engineering hucksterism of the Clinton administration. Most particularly, we must point to the CRA and the various ponzi schemes created by Wall Street democrat insiders to enable this bilking of the Middle Classes for wealth redistribution and bureaucratic looting. Bush did try to contain it and he did warn us. He was rebuffed on the Hill, and by both sides of the aisle.
But beyond that loom two larger and related causes: 1) The moral failure of the so-called elites whereby they as a generation refused to engage in productive enterprise, but rather sought to play games with the levers of the economy for the sake of risk-less rents. 2) The related series of bubbles that they have kept moving around the landscape these last 25 years or so.
Bush holds blame for none of this. Much of Bush's spending was related directly to the war effort, or, in attempt to control the political environment, related indirectly is to that effort.
The Senior Meds bill and the expansion of the Federeal Educational system can be laid at his door, but they are in fact understandable. He was trying to prevent the sort of Democrat take over we see now, and he also needed to rope in a often hostile Congress to his war effort. He mostly succeeded here. People who find Bush a clumsy politician surely were not paying attention to his mastery of the process: He got most of what he wanted out of the legislature.
In any event these bills are hardly as disastrous social or destructive economically as what Obama is up too. One grossly misspeaks if one characterizes Bush as some how the progenitor of the Democrats spending, or that the Obama agenda is somehow a logical evolution of that of the Bush administration. They radically differ in extent, degree, kind and intent.
Bush's biggest mistake was allowing Paulson to spook him into the TARP, but let us be clear: The original TARP plan was roughly about 250 billion, and most of that moeny has actually been paid back.
Had we stuck to the original TARP plan, not bailout general motors, not rammed through the stimulus package,not printed money like it was toilet paper, and had radical tax relief, the crisis and the ensuing recession would now be a distant memory.
Bush can be hardly blamed for all that.
December 20, 2009 - 2:27 pm Link to this Comment -
133. whiskey
Wretchard –
Autocracy depends keeping the thugs paid. Seen the salaries of both LEO and the military lately? Is ACORN big enough to act as the Basij did in Iran (answer: no).
Moreover, the process in the ME and elsewhere was NOT middle class people suddenly made poor over a year — it was poor people held poor, which required either a safety valve of Jihad or a ruthless thug class indebted to the powerful — the Tikriti and Alawai clans in Iraq and Syria, and a huge, massive, and well paid Secret Police. The Shah could not maintain SAVAK when his money ran short, same for the Soviets and the KGB.
In order to pay for ObamaCare and Global Warming (of some sort) AND the various stimuli and Amnesty … taxes will have to be raised massively, suddenly, on everything. Including taxes on tanning salons and "Cadillac" health plans and sodas and everything else. The taxes and the (lack of for the Middle Class) results are as illegitimate as Tiger Wood's love children.
Note: these are taxes that LEOs, and the military, pay as well, while salaries are low and frozen. SOME crisis will arise (it always does) and the "margin" of legitimacy, success, and so on will be so low as to inspire revolt. Note that the Syrians had a mass revolt in Hama and had to use their thug army to kill the entire city, essentially. However, the Syrian Army was well paid and insulated from economic crisis. With all the latest toys too.
America has had revolts and insurrections and flips constantly: Shays Rebellion, New England's abortive succession in the early 1800′s, South Carolina in the 1830′s, Mormons, John Brown, the Civil War, the IWW, the New Deal, the 1960′s, the Reagan Revolution, the Contract with America, etc.
Elites rule in America successfully (Ike, FDR, TR, JFK, Clinton) when they deliver either economic growth or patronage to the common man (excluding non-Whites ala the New Deal which was "White Only.")
You can see that most clearly in Klan-admirer Woodrow Wilson who excluded Blacks from political and social and cultural life for generations.
Populists rule by massive alliances against the elite. [Reagan, Jackson, etc.]
The taxes required to fund all of this will make people suddenly poor. Machiavelli advises this is a sure-fire recipe for revolution. You will see people down to one car, renting instead of owning their home (if lucky), homeless if not lucky, and particularly those who NEED provider status ready and willing to sign on for any lunatic idea or person that will restore them.
The Weimar Republic did not fall because people in Germany were uniquely evil because they ate potatoes and schnitzel and listened to Beethoven. It fell because the Republic offered nothing to most men (and women) had no one to fight for it.
December 20, 2009 - 2:59 pm Link to this Comment -
134. Habu
132. Mongoose:
Your observation of FDR "beginning the end", (if you will allow the paraphrase) will get no argument from me.We could also point to the secret creation of "THE FED", a private club that has way too much control and at times will not even answer to our Congress.
Wedged in between those two is the death of the Glass-Steagall Act. That event began just what was predicted it would by it's detractors. A huge conflict of interest when the Chinese Wall came down that had served us well since it's erection after the Great Depression. Analysts' became touter's for stock and whatever credibility brokerage and investment banks may have enjoyed evaporated in a heap with Enron and others.
Now we have many of those investment bankers running most of our financial machinery for themselves and very few others.
At the major brokerage firms I worked at for 15 years I never encountered a person who knew the truth from a lie. I would not trust a broker with a single dollar.
If first we shoot all the lawyers, then make the next batch the investment and brokerage people..and then we can have the fair trail follow.
December 20, 2009 - 3:37 pm Link to this Comment -
136. Subotai Bahadur
#123 Josh
I'm mystified, if normal policies are cadillacs, and HSA policies are illegal, what on earth comprises a non-surtaxed policy? I SUSPECT THERE ARE NONE, that our geniuses in Congress and the MSM have entirely missed this, there are additional gaping holes in the "logic", and the entire plan is gibberish.
Just curious; you seem to attribute the situation either to ignorance or an error. I have generally found that when one group [in this case the Democrats in Congress] impose [and that is what is happening, consent of the governed not applying here] unilaterally disadvantageous terms on another group [the American people] it is generally the outcome intended by the first group. Why do you think this is unintentional?
#129 Josh
I have yet to figure out who gets credit for recovery, because it is not yet clear that we have recovered.
Or that we are even approaching bottom yet, or if a recovery is even theoretically possible.
#133 Whiskey
The Weimar Republic did not fall because people in Germany were uniquely evil because they ate potatoes and schnitzel and listened to Beethoven. It fell because the Republic offered nothing to most men (and women) had no one to fight for it.A common feature at the fall of a culture/society. The Roman Army was not wiped out by barbarian hordes. The cities and peoples of the Empire frequently welcomed the "barbarians" and opened their gates to them. The "barbarians" were not just tribes, they had kings, courts of sorts, and governments. The late Roman Empire exempted the rich from all taxes and duties, pandered to the urban poor, and squeezed the productive middle class with taxes and oppressive laws. It got so bad that the middle class was fleeing the Empire and Diocletian had to try to impose a hereditary caste system for municipal offices [normally held by the middle class and the duties of the offices paid for out of their own pockets instead of tax revenue] to keep civil administration functioning. The people of the Roman Empire began to regard the Empire as more oppressive than the barbarian kingdoms, and the Empire as having little to repay their efforts.
Similar things have happened with Chinese dynasties.
Anything sound familiar there?
Subotai Bahadur
December 20, 2009 - 3:53 pm Link to this Comment -
137. Papa Ray
106 Papa Ray "Americans are distracted, depressed and ignorant of their pending doom, so don't depend on them to save your ass or this Republic."
I was discouraged and distracted when I wrote the above and wish to apologize to not only the people here but to the Americans that I disrespected and demeaned by the above statement.
Americans will, despite being distracted and depressed come to the aid of other Americans and in fact will save this Republic.
The fact that they (we) have neglected our government or perhaps our own governance for so long is not only shameful but should give us pause when we start to rebuild our Republic in the manner our Founders designed it. And we need to remember that they paid for that design and for the formation of our Republic with not only all of their treasure, but with their lives and in some cases the lives of their families.
We can look back at history and see that they had many problems in the first hundred years of this great nation but that they did not give up and they kept at it in not only good faith but with much discussion.
When it started to go wrong, it was by increments each and every year. Incremental legislation, small bite, medium bite and sometimes large bites and what was spit out was incrementally farther away from the original intention of our Founders. Bite by bite until we have what we have today. Or maybe I should say what we had up until a couple of years ago.
Because what we have today is a Republic that has been raped. Raped in a public manner for not only us to watch and weep but for the world to watch in fascination and in glee. Glee that the once great America was being raped and pillaged as they had been in their long histories.
Moncktons' premonition- "I wondered whether the brutality of the New World Order was moving closer than President Klaus – or any of us – had realized."-
Should be a warning cry to all of us here in America. But we can not save the world unless or before we save ourselves.
And we will, by force of arms if all else fails and we pray it doesn't come down to it. But we must remember that God only helps those that help themselves.
Papa Ray
December 20, 2009 - 4:59 pm Link to this Comment -
138. Ann
Pascal @ 20 and Doug @21 (by way of Goldberg) linked to the same article applauding human sacrifice. They were only 4 minutes apart. From the looks of thread development, the murdering human beings is an unpopular year end thought. Now, if you could get John Holdren and a few others to join you, 2010 may be brighter than you think.
December 20, 2009 - 5:09 pm Link to this Comment -
139. Papa Ray
Ann you forgot your sarc tag.
Or did you?
Papa Ray
December 20, 2009 - 5:26 pm Link to this Comment -
140. steveaz
Pascal @#128,
Worst part is, Pascal, if you follow our nation's basic business cycle, the timing of the recession and its recovery were both predictable. It's an eight-eleven -year long roller coaster ride and then we do it all over again. Most first year econ students get the spiel in their third quarter.And so…
"The Mayan priest, well-versed in his temple's advanced astronomy, slowly lowers his knife to abide the expected solar eclipse."Which makes me a little shy about assigning credit for what was probably always a pending recovery. I've never attributed that much influence to American executives over our economy anyway. Being politicians, they always feel the need to overstate it.
I've never worred about it much, 'till now that is. Because…
"As the eclipse ends on its predicted schedule the Mayan Priest ends the sacrificial rite and claims the Gods' expiation for his flock. The masses below cheer in adoration, and in anticipation of the rich harvest promised for next year."
December 20, 2009 - 5:35 pm Link to this Comment -
141. Papa Ray
Lest we forget: As Christmas approaches
Send packages and prayers for they are the ones that are protecting our corner of the world and the ones who we will be calling on in the future. Both those like my two grandsons who are active duty and those of us who are veterans of America's past and present wars.
We can look to these warriors (even old ones like myself) to preserve and protect our Republic.
Under God with Liberty and Justice for all. For those who wish harm upon our Republic or have done harm, be assured they will get the justice they deserve.
Papa Ray
December 20, 2009 - 6:17 pm Link to this Comment -
142. Tcobb
136. Subotai Bahadur:
Yes–in regards to the fall of Rome the essence of it was that the political class no longer felt any obligations to its own citizens–they were just a resource–like a rancher considers his herd. But they were bad ranchers as well. When you can't be bothered to protect your herd from the predators soon you end up with no herd at all. That's what they did, and that's what is happening in the US right now.Perhaps you have read or heard of it but otherwise I would recommend to you the Fall of the Roman Empire by Arther Ferrill. Ferrill's central point was that the fall of the Western Roman Empire was essentially due to the change in military strategy from perimeter defense to that of defense in depth. Who cared if the peasants at the borders were slaughtered? The important thing was to protect the wonderful people at the center. But the wonderful people never envisioned running out of their inferiors. It never crossed their minds.
What happened to the Romans militarily is happening to us socially, or at least in my opinion.
For what its worth …
December 20, 2009 - 6:29 pm Link to this Comment -
143. Josh
Stevez @ 131: I really blame Bush for very few of the bad things that happened on his watch, he tried to do the right thing much more often than not, and put himself on the block by invading Iraq, and that was as selfless an action as I can recall of an American president. The democrats have been as historically obstructionist, rude, and nonproductive as any party at any previous period in American history. Pelosi and Reid are history-making scum, horrible leaders.
I do "blame" Bush for not climbing all over the energy issue much earlier on, as soon as the price went over $60/barrel. But he was exhausted by 2006, from the ankle-biting and noncooperation of the democrats, so I cut him slack even on that.
But when it comes down to it, there is at least a kernel of truth that when the bad thing happens on your watch, you pick up some of the blame. No, not something as blatent as 9/11, please don't read me that way, absolutely not.
The financial failures had been building for years and decades, Bush and the Republicans made at least some attempts to rein in Fanny and Freddie, but the problems turned out to be MUCH wider and deeper. As I said, Bush is pretty far down the list, but I can't clear him off it entirely.
Thanks for the nice words about some of the stuff I post here, in any case!
December 20, 2009 - 6:34 pm Link to this Comment -
144. Storm-Rider
Lord Mockton: "Europe is no longer a free society. It is, in effect, a tyranny ruled by the unelected Kommissars of the European Union."
"It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan…. If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB .. not yet .. but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes .. two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes." Vladimir Bukovksy
December 20, 2009 - 6:38 pm Link to this Comment -
145. Storm-Rider
Vaclav Klaus: "Maybe it is not brutal. But in all other respects, what it proposes is far too close to Communism for comfort."
"The People's State of Marx … will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker — the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads "overflowing with brains" in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones!" Michael Bakunin
"It is precisely this "new class" that reflects the defining contradiction of modern leftist reality: The goal of complete economic equality logically enjoins the means of complete state control, yet this means has never practically achieved that end. Yes, Smith and Jones, once "socialized," are equally poor and equally oppressed, but now above them looms an oligarchy of not-to-be-equalized equalizers. The inescapable rise of this "new class" — privileged economically as well as politically, never quite ready to "wither away" — forever destroys the possibility of a "classless" society. Here the lesson of socialism teaches what should have been learned from the lesson of pre-liberal despotism — that state coercion is a means to no end but its own. Far from expanding equality from the political to the economic realm, the pursuit of "social justice" serves only to contract it within both. There will never be any kind of equality — or real justice — as long as a socialist elite stands behind the trigger while the rest of us kneel before the barrel." Barry Loberfeld
December 20, 2009 - 6:49 pm Link to this Comment -
146. maz2
O's Fort Sumter?
…-"Fear of violence grows in mountaintop mining fight
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It was the slap heard 'round the coalfields:".
""It's not the working man that's the problem here," Scarbro said. "It's the industry and the way they continue to use and exploit people on both sides of the issue, whether it's the working man trying to take care of his family or the environmentalist trying to take care of us all."
""We absolutely don't condone people who use threats, intimidation and general thuggism," said senior vice president Chris Hamilton."
…-WS Landor: Thugs.
"Petition of the thugs for toleration
We, the most religious fraternity of Thugs, having heard it reported throughout the whole extent of India, that toleration is granted by the wisdom of the British Parliament to every diversity of creed, do most humbly submit our grievances to the patient consideration of your Honorable House. We claim a much higher antiquity than the earliest of devotional institutions known in Britain. We are the first-born of Cain."
December 20, 2009 - 6:57 pm Link to this Comment -
147. Storm-Rider
W: "Islamic extremism isn't going to defeat the West; but it will force an insane elite self-destruct, like the robot shorting out squawking "it does not compute".
"Those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is; in general the greater the understanding the greater the delusion; the more intelligent the less sane." George Orwell, 1984
December 20, 2009 - 7:20 pm Link to this Comment -
148. Storm-Rider
Marty/48: "Lack of money may slow their progress toward their dystopic utopia, but it won't cause them to lose power, they'll just turn the screws tighter—2008 and 2010 may be the last nearly-fair elections in the US for a long time."
"The more the party is powerful the less it will be tolerant; the weaker the opposition the tighter the despotism… Always we shall have the heretic at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible; and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing." George Orwell, 1984
December 20, 2009 - 7:31 pm Link to this Comment -
149. Storm-Rider
Papa Ray / 106: "Maybe not, in America but if you look at the numbers and the affiliations and the mind set of millions who still…still don't care or just have not interest at all in politics or government but are more interested, nay consumed by reality TV, YOUTUBE, and what ever is current in the EU…"
"Crimestop…includes the power of not grasping analogies; of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), and of being bored or rebelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop in short means protective stupidity." George Orwell, 1984
"The world view of the Party imposed its self most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm because it left no residue behind; just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird." George Orwell, 1984
Stupidity reners the individual safe from the insanity of totalitarian Doublethink; but it does not render the individual safe from tyranny and serfdom in the end.
December 20, 2009 - 8:05 pm Link to this Comment -
150. Tamquam
We may be forced back to square one. A modest proposal: Home study groups that study the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, much like Bible studies. Start spreading these groups around, I think they would become quite popular in today's political climate. It would go some way to mitigating the woeful ignorance of these matters among the general population.
December 20, 2009 - 8:26 pm Link to this Comment -
151. tehag
I've been urging war with the EU since it's inception almost 10 years ago. Its ministers have openly proclaimed their hostility to the United States (the exact word was "counterweight," that is, always opposed); their hostility to all human rights has been evident for years. An immediate attack would have been similar to preventing the take over of the Rhineland in 1936.
The war could have been fought on our terms. Now it will be fought on their terms, and will be much more destructive because of it.
Europa delanda est. (The next war will be fought to destroy Europe, not save it–it's too late for that.)
December 20, 2009 - 8:35 pm Link to this Comment -
152. Tcobb
#150 Tamquam–
A good start, but what I would want in any education is a class on classical logic with a focus on the logical fallacies and how to detect them. This would do more than anything to protect the populace against snake oil salesmen, whether political or not, than anything else.December 20, 2009 - 8:45 pm Link to this Comment -
153. Storm-Rider
This was the battlecry of Cato in his drive to save the Roman Republic:
Carthago delenda est! — Carthage must be destroyed!
This must be our battlecry if the American Constitutional Republic is to be saved:
Totalitarian Marxism (EU & Democrat Party) delenda est!
Totalitarian Political Islam (Sharia) delenda est!
December 20, 2009 - 8:50 pm Link to this Comment -
154. Subotai Bahadur
#150 Tamquam
We may be forced back to square one. A modest proposal: Home study groups that study the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, much like Bible studies. Start spreading these groups around, I think they would become quite popular in today's political climate. It would go some way to mitigating the woeful ignorance of these matters among the general population.
Larcenous bugger that I am, I have blatantly absconded with this wonderful idea [giving you credit] and passed it on where it might do some good.
Subotai Bahadur
December 20, 2009 - 10:13 pm Link to this Comment -
155. Marty
I'm seeing an analogy between 1929-34 and 2007-2009, with Bush as Hoover and Obama as FDR's evil doppelganger.
Hoover has gone down in the popular estimation as a heartless, do-nothing president who just watched people suffer. Of course, he was actually quite a humanitarian and his Administration was more active in trying to fight an economic contraction than any previous one had been.
Roosevelt came in promising everything to everyone, but esp that he wouldn't be Hoover, and as soon as he was in office started slinging ideas and programs all over the place, with an attitude of let's just try everything, maybe something will work, trampling the Constitution and by virtue of all his programs creating uncertainty that froze capital in place.
Historical analogy is never perfect, but does all that sound familiar?
December 20, 2009 - 10:26 pm Link to this Comment -
156. Fletcher Christian
#152 Tcobb – Good idea. I would also like to include a study of statistics in such a programme. Often statistics, while factually correct, are misleading. To include an understanding of the importance of confidence level and an explanation of the different types of average.
As an example of the importance of the latter, consider: Say, for the sake of argument, that the average (mean) yearly income of Seattle with the exception of one individual is $50,000. Throw in that missing individual and the figure jumps to maybe $100,000. Why? Because he's Bill Gates. The point is that the arithmetic mean is very heavily influenced by extreme outliers (the "long tail"). The median is barely affected at all.
So when some politician talks about averages, ask yourself which average he means. But one needs to understand at least basic statistics to know why it matters, and there are other similar issues.
December 21, 2009 - 12:44 am Link to this Comment -
157. RagnarD
presbypoet @ 22:
Perhaps this will become a valuable lesson for lord M. All animals are now equal, except for some who are more equal. Lord M. always thought he was special, because he was a "Lord". He must now quickly learn to be ordinary, or he will join others in the tumbrels, as Napoleon's hounds of hell strike. …. Perhaps Lord M. will someday thank the Dane for teaching him painful Truth.
Lord Monckton has been putting his money where his mouth is for a lot longer than you and most likely can quote Churchill from memory. Where did you have to go? Brainy quote? And you? Where is your money? Your a$$? Is it on the line in Hopenchangen?
Didn't think so.
wretchard @ 33:
"We're in a new political world. I'm not sure I understand it." Well I think I understand it perfectly. It's a permanent power grab, the equivalent of one man, one vote, one time. And the interesting thing is they're doing it in the face of a near certainty that they'll lose this 60 vote majority in 2010. Unless the rules around that are going to change too.
Contrary to popular opinion there are those of us who haunt this blog who have been saying that this exact scenario is exactly what we fear/expect come the new year. What is the event that is going to wag this particular dog? We shall see. (See, we were NOT just running about with our hair on fire for naught.)
bogie @ 53:
"Waiter, I'd like you to give me some kind of food."
I am reminded of the scene in "Repo Man" where Bud asks Otto if he wants some food and hands him a can with a black on white label that says 'Food'. We are being handed a can labeled 'Healthcare Reform' that may or may not contain anything but is really, really expensive.
whiskey @ 58:
1. A Majority ethnicity identified with the nation suddenly made quite poorer, with no respite ever, AND
2. A different set of ethnic groups dominating the only economic game in town, GOVERNMENT, AND
3. No possibility to grow economically, plus defeats abroad and the majority population being told it will be replaced and to get to the back of the Bus.
I can say there is no more restraint. …. I've seen things, open and expressed, that would have been unwrite-able just a few years ago, …. People have nothing left to lose.
That describes me to a "Tee". Not to far in the near future I will be out of money and patience. There is no thing more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose. But, you know what? The 'powers that be' are either blithely unaware or uncaring. And that is a dangerous combination.
December 21, 2009 - 1:56 am Link to this Comment -
158. Karen Yvonne
Just an observation:
A couple of weeks ago, citizens of Oklahoma City (I don't live there now but was born there, raised there, lived many years there) – in the reddest of red states, mind you – voted to approve a one-cent sales tax to raise $777 million dollars for
- a new convention center
- a 70-acre downtown park
- a downtown streetcar system
- river improvements (sort of like San Antonio's River Walk)
- fairgrounds improvements
- 5 senior aquatic centers, and
- trails and sidewalksNow, maybe I make too much of this; it is just a municipal election and it is just a penny sales tax and the recession's effects in Oklahoma haven't been nearly as bad as some other states. But unemployment has risen to over 7% and state agencies are facing across-the-board 10% budget cuts due to this economy's dwindling tax revenue. Yet the fact that 54% of voters thought this package of utterly trivial and superfluous fluff was a good idea at this time demonstrates a level of complacency and cluelessness that, in this reddest of red states, should be, seems to me, quite an eye-opener. There was a huge turn-out for this vote too. Local Tea Party groups campaigned against it. So did the police and firefighter unions (nothing in it for them). To no avail. Obviously, the majority was unconcerned about who all will be using the new convention facilities after Obama has succeeded in totally destroying the economy. Obviously, the majority is comfortable with Government as Provider of Services – or rather, in this case, with government as provider of frills.
I take this as a harbinger, that in the capital city of the reddest of red states the voters wanted the correct things, things liberals love: mass transit, trails and sidewalks, urban green space, swimming pools to shape up seniors' health. Tea Partiers and Oath Keepers may be millions strong but their opposites are also millions strong and their influence has spread everywhere. There is a tide in the affairs of men and Tea Partiers and Oath Keepers are swimming against it.
December 21, 2009 - 2:48 am Link to this Comment -
Fleckenstine says this in his column this morning:
"It's high time that we head back to the future (think a return to strict Glass-Steagall regulations), separating the "banking" business from the "speculation" business. Then people in the speculation business ought to be allowed to go bankrupt when they fail."
December 21, 2009 - 5:16 am Link to this Comment -
160. Charles
Top Nine Health Care Charts You've Never Seen Before
(75% of the premiums pays for trial lawyers.)
December 21, 2009 - 5:23 am Link to this Comment -
161. no mo uro
Would the entire state have voted for it?
Don't forget, OC has lots and LOTS of public sector union employees living in it.
If you took a vote of the suburbs and rural areas throughout the state I'm guessing it would have failed.
There may be a tide but it is confined to urbanites. It remains to be seen if those of us in rural and suburban America are sufficient to stem the tide.
December 21, 2009 - 5:25 am Link to this Comment -
162. Doug
Astounding, Karen.
Los Angeles is bankrupt, they are closing firestations, yet the city council just voted to give Water and Power employees a 5 year contract with raises of 2 to 4 percent per YEAR!…and this year the state voted for a 7 billion dollar bullet train!
Bank of America's stock is up over 500%
They bought Merrill Lynch, you will recall.
Now get to gamble with our money, risk free.Amazing Charts, Charles.
Depressing, also.December 21, 2009 - 5:43 am Link to this Comment -
163. LFMayor
Ragnar, great analogy from Repo Man… haven't seen or thought of that movie in a long while. Haven't thought of black labels either, takes me back when I used to consider survivalists nuts. Maybe they were all just ahead of their time?
Tamquam, a splendid idea sir… I have seen small pamphlets of our constitution handed out at gun show tables, I'll dig mine out and put your idea to work at my next study group
AWM, Transformers… that's the weak part of the infrastructure. not the little ones on poles, but the large ones at substations. A round or two hitting those big ceramic insulators would do the trick I think, the current would do the rest of the work.
Despair is a sin. This isn't over by far, in fact it's just beginning. Keep faith in your friends and in the Lord… he'll help you if you would only get up and begin. Start doing something and you'll find yourself feeling buoyed.
Communicate, stockpile, THINK. Merry Christmas all, enjoy the season that celebrates real hope.
December 21, 2009 - 6:32 am Link to this Comment -
164. wws
Karen, I've got sympathy for the OK City voters there. For one thing, it's an honest tax; it was put to a vote, it got approved, and it looks to be a pay-go type of proposal. So they're taking it on themselves, not pushing it onto the future. Plus, OK City has always had an inferiority complex and suspects that they're looked at as a whole bunch of nothin' in the middle of nowhere. (at least that's what their in-laws in Dallas tell them) So this is an attempt to counter that psychological insult. I mean really, trying to build a San Antonio riverwalk in Oklahoma? Come on, your Texas-envy is showing a little bit too much there.
December 21, 2009 - 6:56 am Link to this Comment -
165. Doug
PAPER: There'll be nowhere to run from new world government…
UK Brown calls for new group to Police global environment issues…
The Prime Minister will say: "Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down those talks. Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries. One of the frustrations for me was the lack of a global body with the sole responsibility for environmental stewardship.
December 21, 2009 - 7:07 am Link to this Comment -
166. wws
why doesn't Brown be honest and say: "One of the frustrations for me was that I am a toothless, powerless idealogue who's going to be permanently put out to pasture in a few months, and no one is even bothering to pretend that what I think is important anymore!"
December 21, 2009 - 7:23 am Link to this Comment -
167. Doug
S B wrote:
"Hopefully the Chinese will have nothing to do with anything that Brown proposes.
Not content with destroying the finances of the UK, this morbid prat would no doubt find much pleasure in destroying the finances of other countries."December 21, 2009 - 7:27 am Link to this Comment -
Here's a Year End Thought:
I've not written on this because I figure other's have observed it too. I'd appreciate it were someone to direct me to any ruminations on what I'm suggesting.
Rand's Heroes in Atlas Shrugged are essentially bloodless titans who she permitted to hide out while the peopled world collapsed.
Was that ever supposed to be reassuring for the average Joe?
Or even a Lord?
In years prior to this one, I'm not sure very many noticed or cared if they did.
I suspect that may have changed.December 21, 2009 - 8:18 am Link to this Comment -
169. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn
Pascal (the derivative)@ 168
I vaguely recollect an article once read, could have been by Andrew Coyne, wherein he related a piece by someone else regarding the complete abandonment of the evacuation plans in the event of nuclear attack for New York city in the 1960′s.
I search for it from time to time, but get distracted by the whales in the bay. Today is a good example.
However, in it, the technocrats have evolved a foolproof pyramidal plan and are explaining it to the New York City police they've decided will direct traffic while everyone else gets the hell out of Dodge. Unwritten but understood of course are the Technocrats and their families. Then the list first makes provision for Politicians and their families…and on down the list as anyone, should they be even the least bit cynical, can of course construct for themselves.
When finished outlining "the Plan", a question arises from the floor. The gist of it being: We signed on, we'll go down with the ship, but there doesn't seem to be any provision to evacuate our families within your plan.
Response being…I don't get your point.
End of meeting, end of plan.
I suspect it's not urban legend but I do not know it as fact. Coyne used it in order to make a point similar to yours regarding "The best laid plans of mice and men…"
If you or others care (and do) find the story, I would greatly appreciate knowing the source. Its been an earworm for years.
December 21, 2009 - 9:51 am Link to this Comment -
170. DSRGames
The only thing about the future of human society that can be accurately predicted is that folks will try to predict about the future of human society. Or, to put it in bobblehead mainstream media headline parlance, "Experts Surprised by [Fill in the Blank]."
Maybe human society mimics (on a macro scale) a kind of quantum mechanics- by observing it, you can change the results. After all, the Universe is nothing if not humbling to those who want to explain it…..
December 21, 2009 - 10:01 am Link to this Comment -
I'm still under the weather, but my mind won't rest.
The higher-ups in your story represent the demons whom Rand's titans — creativity, competence, and character — do battle. Or rather, the reason for their retirement from the battlefield. The lot of Sisyphus does not sit well with them.
It's left to you and me, the Eddy Willars, to make the world suitable again for titans to feel welcome and happy to operate.
December 21, 2009 - 10:27 am Link to this Comment -
172. RagnarD
Pascal – Whoever wrote that misunderstood Rand. The idea is that to kill with kindness is the lowest form of cruelty. The 'doers' remove themselves from the predations of the "looters" so that the dysfunctional society may collapse more quickly of it's own weight. IOW, that they run out of other peoples money sooner. When that happens, then the 'doers' may re-enter the world and resurrect it.
That statement is perfectly understood from the viewpoint of the looter. IOW, "How can the "rich" be so cruel as to expect work from the people? Are they so selfish that they cannot share?" The whine of the lazy and entitled.
We see it everyday from the looters currently occupying the empty houses in DC.
December 21, 2009 - 10:53 am Link to this Comment -
So far the two accounts sound similar. The doers leave so as not to suffer like Sisyphus, and the rest of us have to deal with the collapse. The devil is always in the details. Truth is stranger than fiction.
I hope I regain access as early as tonight. If not, Merry Christmas everyone.
December 21, 2009 - 11:12 am Link to this Comment -
174. Syd
Rand's point was that if creators go on strike, it's a non-violent way to screw the looters. The leech needs a host; the host does not need the leech.
However, back here in reality, we can't really get to "Galt's Gulch" to strike. The next best option is to produce exactly as much as you consume, and no more. Leave nothing for the looters.
Rand also said that Atlas Shrugged was unrealistic in that things would never have reached the climax in her book; forebodingly she said civil war would have broken out before that.
December 21, 2009 - 11:17 am Link to this Comment -
Doug #162:
BofA was considering buying Merryl Lynch in Sept 2008 and said it did not need any bailout money. They had not gotten into the Sub Prime market as big as other large banks.
The Fed Govt then told them they WOULD take the bailout money; it was an offer they could not refuse.
But then as the value of Lynch fell further BofA decided it was not a good deal and they were backing out.
At which point the Feds told them that SOMEONE would HAVE to buy Lynch for the good of all mankind or something like that, and since the Feds now OWNED a big chunk of BofA, the bank would be the designated stuckee.
Anyway, that is what the WSJ article said.
December 21, 2009 - 11:25 am Link to this Comment -
Syd #174:
I have thought about that and I think that the underground, cash basis, off the books, bootlegger economy is the way to do that. That economy is already larger than many people realize and is quite common in the Northeast, where taxes largely have been out of control for decades.
December 21, 2009 - 11:31 am Link to this Comment -
177. Triton'sPolarTiger
Wow. What to say?
Glad we're out of debt… for now, anyway.
December 21, 2009 - 12:07 pm Link to this Comment -
178. Michael
What really ticks me off is that I was in the process of starting a small business.
I have done nothing since last week. I keep telling myself that I need to get back to work, but I just do not have the heart.
If I do something the government will just steal it from me.
If I do nothing the government will take care of me.
Some choice.
December 21, 2009 - 1:02 pm Link to this Comment -
179. JJRedfan
One possible direction may be the use of an informal currency based on caliber rather than some arbitrary denomination of a bankrupt gummint.
Word problem: John has 3 x 50 Caliber rounds, 7 .45 ACP, and a 50-round box of subsonic .22. If he trades the box of .22 with Julie for a head of cabbage, two onions and one live chicken, can she make change if she only has a box of 25 Russian 9mm cartridges?
Or a currency of canned goods. 1 can of Danish Ham = 6 cans of tuna = 12 cans of peaches = 18 cans of beans & weenies = 36 cans of Puppy Chow.
"This case of condensed milk is redeemable for 1 pound of SPAM at any location…"
One hesitates to extend speculation into certain areas – lingerie, tube sox, No.2 pencils, 3-in-1 oil, water filters, high-efficiency camp stoves, Dr. Bonner's Peppermint soap, Tampax, etc.
Woodcrafty knowledge and primitive technologies may again become highly-prized. Composting, cultivating a family garden, building cob (mud) structures, milling wheat berries into usable flour, blacksmithy, herbal medicine, first aid, midwivery, weaving, felting, knitting, papermaking, gravedigging, et cetera.
Accountants and bookkeepers, and scribes will be much in demand in a post-technological society that became dependent on cash registers with pictures because waitrons otherwise could not enter transactions or make change for payment tendered for a burger and fries.
Buy stock in Boy Scouts of America.
December 21, 2009 - 1:17 pm Link to this Comment -
180. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn
JJRedfan @179
This survivalist fishing skill may also be in high demand.
December 21, 2009 - 2:07 pm Link to this Comment -
181. Triton'sPolarTiger
"Or a currency of canned goods. 1 can of Danish Ham = 6 cans of tuna = 12 cans of peaches = 18 cans of beans & weenies = 36 cans of Puppy Chow."
I was with you JJ, till I got to 18 cans of beans & weenies = 36 cans of Puppy Chow… my first thought was "no way am I gonna start eating dog food"… then it hit me (after a chuckle or two) that having dogs will be an advantage to anyone having to barter and make do with the fruit of the land… a couple of years ago we in the north 'burbs of Atlanta were overrun with rabbits – this year I've regularly seen deer grazing beside residential roadways that pass THROUGH the metro area… at high noon.
I reckon it might help to have the right kind of dog, eh? Along with a .22 varmit rifle along with, maybe a .308 for the larger food items.
It's hard to see this ending without trouble. Wish I lived further out of the metro area.
December 21, 2009 - 2:10 pm Link to this Comment -
182. Mike
@Marie Claude, who said this, when I objected to Lord Monckton being roughed up when he's obviously the last person in the world that any honest cop would think needs roughing up:
MC > uh your lord had some pervert ways of talking, of course upper classes
MC > can say such things when they supported HitlerWhich in the minds of thugs like you justifies beating an old man who disagrees with you. You're a soccer hooligan in intellectuals' clothing.
December 21, 2009 - 4:34 pm Link to this Comment -
183. Kirk Parker
Well, sure–except for the "intellectual" part, that is.
December 21, 2009 - 5:24 pm Link to this Comment -
184. tamquam
Ccobb 152
Logic would be great, along with critical thinking (the latter a practical application of the former). It might be too much for most folks, so I went for KISS.
December 21, 2009 - 7:46 pm Link to this Comment -
185. tamquam
Subotai 154 I don't care about credit, just get results.
December 21, 2009 - 7:47 pm Link to this Comment -
186. Lifeofthemind
While Napoleon did anticipate many of the techniques used by authoritarian regimes since the 19th century he did so before the ideological categories that underpin those regimes were developed. Personally he probably believed himself to be a revolutionary Liberal. He had started as a Jacobin and recoiled from the irrational excesses and incapacity to govern of the Terror. His Empire was in his vision an aristocracy of merit, coupled with bureaucratic efficiency. The centralizing power of the State had been anticipated by the later Bourbons under the Intendant system.
Historically the greatest enemy of monarchy was the aristocracy, who controlled the peasantry. Kings, or emperors from before the time of Rome, would ally with the commercial middle class, such as the Intendants were drawn from. When these alliances break down, as happened in England in the 17th century and France in the 18th century, a crisis can occur. France was unusual because the peasants in most areas were opposed to the old nobility, who had been deliberately weakened and separated from their communities by the royal policy.
To be blogged under the title "Boxing Bonaparte."
December 21, 2009 - 9:21 pm Link to this Comment
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