What Do You Do When You Have a Populace that Does not Want Freedom?

I don’t have an answer to that question. Very sobering thoughts from Entropy:

“There is non-controversial stuff here like the preexisting conditions exclusion and those sorts of things,” the Texas Republican said. “Now we are not interested in repealing that. And that is frankly a distraction.”

What the GOP will work to repeal, Cornyn explained, are provisions that result in “tax increases on middle class families,” language that forced “an increase in the premium costs for people who have insurance now” and the “cuts to Medicare” included in the legislation…

If they run on that…

Fuck em.

No use. What you’re doing politically is no different then what we’ve all done fiscally. Borrowing against the future. ‘Just give me 6 more years of only mildly debilitating socialism before you crush me outright’.

The whole damn government is insolvent and they’re just gonna repeal the part that made spending cuts to medicare.

Fucking goobers are less realistic and more Unicorn then Obama.

They’re going to repeal the tax increases, repeal the spending cuts, repeal the premium increases, and keep the mandated extra costs coverage.

HOW WILL YOU PAY?

Posted by: Entropy at March 23, 2010 06:17 PM

———————————————

Get the Presidency and Congress(es) first.

Then use the Democrat-pioneered winner take all strong-arm tactics to not only force repeal, to roll back major elements of the welfare state.

That requires a political party to do it.

One we do not have.

We might as well plan on using the Omega-9 Neutron Starburster to terraform Iraq. Perhaps we’d advise George Washington he should have just sent 43 million infantry to invade Essex.

Oh, but there’s Republicans. They’re not “as bad”.

Yes yes. Let us seceed from Britain by declaring allegiance to the Crown of Louis XVI.

Posted by: Entropy at March 23, 2010 06:27 PM

———————————————

If you don’t have a political party to do that, then you certainly don’t have a sufficient cadre to successfully rebel against the United States government, even if and when it has (or has already) slipped in to tyranny.

The colonists had no political party in Britain.

We have no whole party in the 2-party-only system of DC.

And armed revolution is not the only course available.

India kicked them out as well, through non-violent civil disobediance.

And the kooky Russian Rand had some ideas of her own, ones that have not yet in history been tried, the willfull acceleration of phenomena and natural causes that in their own way, did more then Reagan to bring down the Soviet Union.

You could attempt to create a 3rd party.

Humanity is full of innovation.

But if Cornyn’s plan is the best we can do in Washington, even now, then he is not even an option.

If democrats get elected once every 10 years and serve only 1 term by ruthlessly expanding the welfare state into as much of the US economy and our lives as is humanly possible for them to accomplish, and Republicans roll back ‘parts’ while leaving the precedent of government jurisdiction and control, and half the parts that are ‘too popular’ with the very people who cheered and enabled the democrats to sieze it without any legitimate right in the first place, WE LOSE.

Statists win.

It is a cultural civil war.

You can ignore it if you please — it will not go away. By not making any choice, you’ll have made a choice anyway.

A weaponized political party to match them, or do not bother me with political parties at all. Reform from within is then impossible, the whole edifice must be toppled, or else we bicker over the date but accept an inevitable subjugation.

If it can not work, if it can not win, it does not matter. We fight or we do not. If we do not fight to win, there is no purpose in struggling at all.

A cultural change is needed. This system was founded by men who said you may kill them, but whether in life or in death, they would not comply at any price. For too long we’ve accepted too much. From the Federal leviathan right down to the state and local level, we’ve shown them we have been unwilling to pay the price of discomfort they’d be sure to exact should we disentrench them.

McCain? To delay it? Save yourselves 5 more years of good times? A tolerable 15? To croak before being called due and pass the burden to your children? If you will not fight for your liberty, you do not deserve 5 more years of it. You are not entitled to it.

You’ve spent the inheritance of your grandfathers past and borrowed against the future of your grandchildren. Not just fiscally, but morally, we have bankrupted not only ourselves but 3 generations.

If you’ll accept any form of tyranny, accept it now. In full. Maneuver for your position in the new pecking order. Fight over the handle of the whip.

One way or another.

PAY YOUR FUCKING BILL.

Posted by: Entropy at March 23, 2010 07:13 PM

———————————————-

I still say winning elections is the first step. If you can’t win elections, then, well, you’ve lost the people and if you believe in democracy, they get to choose.

Democracy is mob rule.

If 4 of my 5 neighbors say they wish me to wash their floors and cook their dinners I will tell them to fuck off.

Had they held a popular vote, the revolution which created this country would not have proceeded, and the men who started it knew as much.

Posted by: Entropy at March 23, 2010 07:20 PM

———————————————

That’s the reality.

It’s bad enough. Get a grip.

I agree….

What bothers me is they’re less vehement about opposition than I am.

And yet their impression of the situation they’re in is a thousand fold more dire.

Boggling.

I do not think there is a limit to what most people will put up with.

Personally… I’ve recently converted and become a dove on military issues. We needn’t so much. In fact, I’ve been wrong – it was never wise.

Posted by: Entropy at March 23, 2010 08:15 PM

———————————————

Elections and the power that flows from them is part of the structure of your Republic.

Elections were part of a structure of a republic that was created 300 years ago and long since became, in all likelyhood, FUBAR.

And for that matter – elections as they are today is not what those men necessarily thought of as even workable. You had to own land.

Such elections today may be very different in outcome.

I have no opposition to representative democracy within a constitutional republic to elect the arbiters and stewards of the law. So long as the law is in stone.

In fact, it is probably the least of all evils. The fairest and most stable and lasting way to determine it.

But I have come to realize (and it is a realization I have come to with a bit of shock, as I was taught the same meme’s as anyone else) it is not necessary. So long as those who arbitrate the finitely limited law faithfully arbitrate the finitely limited law, it does not much matter whether they are men elected representative by plebicite, or nepots in the lineage of the toughest thug, or the most diabolical aristoi.

Liberty and freedom are not about democracy. They aren’t about the masses getting what they want.

In fact, it’s the exact opposite. They’re about the masses not getting what they want. It’s about all getting only what he entitled, and all that he’s entitled whether he wants it or not.

When you add the people who’d sell themselves for profit to the people who’d buy them, they quite outnumber the number left, and always have.

That is the neocon dilemna. What do you do when you have a populace that does not want freedom? Can you ‘force democracy’? It’s an arrogant assumption to think they’d all vote for such a thing if they only understood, while WE OURSELF piss it away and vote it out. They want our prosperty, sure. They don’t understand the slightest what it’s cause are. Many of WE do not understand. They want the power of self determination, sure. They do not restrict themselves. They want power of any and all determination. WE know them well.

So what do you do if you give everyone liberty and a vote, and they use it to vote for depency and slavery? For thugs and thieves who’ll take away the vote with the power of the vote?

Well – all populaces are such populaces. Even Colonial America in the 18th century too, was such.

They (the people) may not vote so. Can you force democracy? Yes. You MUST force democracy.

Our founding fathers were very much warmongers. Such a conflict was not desired at large, and certainly not necessary at all. But they instigated and agitated for it, for years, because it was desired by them. They propogandized, hyperbolized the policies of the British, obsfuscated and sabotaged. They said war was necessary, but they lied because war was desirable. The early adopters were at it for years, to sow tension and dissent, to bring it to a boil.

On account of Natural Right, not plebicite.

They called the upper house the Senate. They called the lower house the people’s house, and they set the houses in opposition.

The people voted for Gaius Julius. The Senate killed Julius Caesar. The people marched with Marcus and Octavius and killed the Senate.

The upside is, everywhere liberty has been had, it has not taken a majority to demand it. Just enough of those extreme enough to accept nothing less. Any single man can have it, if he takes nothing less. If he’s icognito, he’s free. If he is an outlaw, he is a free outlaw. If he’s dead, he died free. No one can take it without your consent, when you realise that acquiescence is consent to acquiesce.

If we are a 1/3rd, there’s another 1/3rd who’ll back out of any conflict in cowardice, and they will side with whomever wins, or whomever seems most dangerous and aggressive. Pacifists always aid the aggressor. These people will sell themselves to anyone at all for a moments security.

So by all means, we must maintain decorum and apologize for calling those Marxist fucks the babykillers that they are. For 1/3rd will not rest until we are dead, and another will not love us until all are resting.

Posted by: Entropy at March 23, 2010 09:11 PM

Joe Schmuck American Blames… Ronald Reagan (!?!) for Current Bad Economy

You want to know how we got into this mess? Here is a prime example of the ignorance of the types of people who are voting for Obama and the radical Democrats in charge of the current Socialist Communist Democrat Party. This is the kind of ignorance and historical revisionism that spreads when Communist/Socialist Capitalism-hating and America-hating hippies are in control of every single medium of information dissemination in this nation — mass media, grammar schools, high schools, universities, “entertainment” industry.

Thankfully, some of the rough men who stand on that wall to protect us from foreign enemies also get down off that wall to protect us from domestic enemies and give them a verbal smack down and history lesson once in a while.

[I will give this "Joe" schmuck guy credit though for the most creative reason for his ignorance of Jimmy Carter's historically bad policies, summarized by one of the commenters: "I am going to use the Joe excuse for when I don’t know what I am talking about. My twentys... the lost years I spent most of the time fighting grizzly bears and scorpions, so I wasn’t too interested in news or politics." heh]

Joe Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Well, conservatives are at a fork in the road. They can over react and go further off the deep end (religious-ideological wingnuts like Palin and other fringe types), or come back down to earth with someone who a) is not a christian fundamentalist, b) who is not a free market fundamentalist c) for whom logic and common sense trump ideology, d) who has one whit of empathy for people less fortunate, e) has good hair.

OldTrooper Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:26 pm
We already had our Moses, however, his lessons and principles have been watered down by the republican party to the point none of them have any idea what his principles were. They stopped reviewing his message and that message was ignored by a bunch of self serving asshats that are still, today, more interested in winning elections than standing on principles and providing a clear choice between the two parties.

That man was Ronaldus Maximus aka Ronald Wilson Reagan

Joe Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Ronald Reagan – where it all started to go bad…

Fred Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Negative Joe,
Ronald Reagan = Last US president to put US national security above all else.

OldTrooper Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Yeah, sure Joe. You weren’t even an itch in your daddy’s pants when Reagan was President. How do I know this? Because of several comments you have made and questions you haven’t answered in the past, that you should know the answer to if you were an adult when he was President. You have no clue what is good or bad. All you have are your socialist bullshit talking points that you keep spouting. Unlike you, I was there for the bad, which was before Reagan. Yeah, that trophy Prez you morons think was so great by the name of Jimmy Carter.

UpNorth Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:22 pm
“come back down to earth with someone who a) is not a christian fundamentalist, b) who is not a free market fundamentalist c) for whom logic and common sense trump ideology”.

As opposed to your wet dream prez, Joey, who is a) a communist fundamentalist b) has no idea what he’s doing, economically c) has no logic or common sense.

Joey, can you point out which Article in the Constitution demands “empathy”? Didn’t think so.

Joe Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Hey UpNorth,
Only on a site like this can someone be maligned for mentioning qualities like common sense, logic and empathy.

Claymore Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Only on a site like this can someone be maligned for mentioning qualities like common sense, logic and empathy.

Oh, I’m not so sure about that… try here: http://www.democraticunderground.com a veritable clearinghouse for all of those wonderful attributes. True story.

Old Trooper Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Joe; you wouldn’t know common sense if it slapped your melon. Also, the left has no interest in logic, only feelings. I know that when you morons get together to make your protest signs and have a group hug, you’re playing Bobby Vinton records. Empahty? What the fuck would you know about empathy? You haven’t lived long enough to have empathy for anything, other than the struggles of Spongebob. I don’t even think you know what the word means.

Have you ever noticed that conservatives start out saying “I think” and liberals start off with “I feel”?

Joe Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:33 pm
OldTrooper,
Painting with a broad brush, aren’t you? Age-wise, I suspect i am older than you, if it matters.

Old Trooper Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Really Joe? Well then tell me; what 2 major events happened in 1979 and how did yo feel about them?

UpNorth Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Joey, still waiting for the article in the Constitution that demands, requires, or even mentions “empathy”. As to #18, Old Trooper and Claymore have slapped you around enough, I’m sure you’re even dizzier than normal about now. And, we’re all waiting for your pronouncement on 1979.

OldTrooper Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:11 am
Ok, Joe, here’s a hint for ya… read a book called 444 days.

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 9:39 am
OK, I’m back. I do have a life outside of TAH y’know. 1979. Well, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, right around Christmas I believe. If we knew then what we know now, we would have let them keep it. And somewhere in there, a very dark day for America, and something we’re still paying dearly for and will continue to pay dearly for, Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for the presidency. And I didn’t even have to look it up.

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 9:53 am
Oh, and the reference to 444 days, without looking it up, is probably the kidnapping of US Embassy personnel in Iran.

OldTrooper Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 10:34 am
Joe; there should have been no reason for you to “look it up” if you were an adult, or even in high school back then. So, why don’t we start over and you can tell me again how you are older than me?

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 10:37 am
Well, I was born in ‘50. You do the math….

justplainjason Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:20 am
I didn’t have to look it up and I was just four. Joe if you are sixty I am the prince of wales. You don’t act it. You don’t think for yourself. All of your arguments are based on emotion and not on facts.

I’ll give you one reason why Reagan should be remembered fondly. His actions led to the downfall of the Soviet Union. I remember growing up in the 80s. There were missle silos all over the area I grew up. I knew that if the war actually happened I would be dead.

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 am
justplainjason,
Reagan made an admittedly great speech at the wall in the mid eighties. But many historians say the USSR was headed for collapse all on it’s own. Reagan took a huge gamble with the fate of the entire world when, in response to the deployment of SS 20’s in eastern Eurpoe, he deployed Pershing missles with a travel time to target of less than 5 minutes. Now we can look back with the benefit of hindsight and say it worked, but if it had gone a little differently we would not be here to talk about it. We dodged a bullet there. Gorbachev saw the writing on the wall and tried to bring the USSR in for a soft landing, with mixed success. The idol worship of Reagan’s foreign policy is misplaced. And as for the repurcussions of his Milton Friedman-inspired domestic policy, he sowed the seeds of the current global economic crisis, and the world may never recover from his wrong-headed economic policies.

Old Tanker Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:47 am
…he sowed the seeds of the current global economic crisis, and the world may never recover from his wrong-headed economic policies…

so much for the benefit of hind sight… your blind in one eye and can’t see with the other.

OldTrooper Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:59 am
LOL!!! Joe, yer killing me with all this boilerplate BS. Just stop, please, because I’m laughing too hard. Everything you just put down reads like something off a term paper at a liberal university political science class.

Do you honestly believe that tripe you just wrote? Or, would you believe the people in the former Soviet Union that have said repeatedly that the fact that Reagan stood up against the Soviets and they weren’t accustomed to being told no, since Carter was their bitch and gave in to whatever they wanted. Reagan upped the ante and called their bluff. I really enjoyed watching the dumbasses around the world start wetting themselves and calling Reagan a cowboy, blah, blah, blah, and insisting that he was going to lead us into WWIII and so on and so on. It didn’t happen and Reagan’s foreign policy was a triumph, no matter how you want to spin it. I supposed you think that Carter bending over all the time was a better approach?

I suppose you think Keynesian economics is far superior? Let me guess; your textbooks don’t cover the Keynesian approach that Carter had; right? If you are 60 years old, please tell me what the economy was like, from your perspective, in ‘78-’80? Show me how all the right moves by Carter worked. Tell me, old man, exactly what barometer was a visible sign of the great economy of Carter, other than the double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, double digit unemployment, etc.

Don’t look it up, you should be able to remember this all on your own. I know I do, but then again, I wasn’t in a dope fog.

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Gov’t spending skyrocketed during Reagan’s term, GOP rhetoric notwithstanding, OldTrooper. The S&L collapse of the ’80s (remember that?), just another case of privatizing the rewards, socializing of risk – the bankers gamble and win, they make the profit. The bankers gamble and lose, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Sound like a more recent fiasco, OldTimer, I mean OldTrooper? And his policies on deregulation, i.e., no regulation, lax regulation, turning a blind eye regulation, putting industry shills in charge of regulating their own industries (the fox regulating the henhouse), which Bush expanded on, have brought the country to ruin.

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
And don’t forget, Carter had the aftermath of a little thing called the Arab Oil Embargo to deal with.

Old Tanker Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:27 pm
As I recall Joe, Democrats ran the house and senate, continued passing those spending bills, and over rode Reagans veto to do it… you remember Ted Kennedy getting a veto override to get money for the Big Dig don’t you?

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Don’t know much about Carter’s economic policies except to say at least they didn’t continue wreaking global havoc 30 years after his presidency.

OldTrooper Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
There you go, AGAIN, saying some stupid shit that leads me to believe that you aren’t as old as you claim. You won’t answer the question I posed to you, instead you go into a textbook diatribe against Reagan, then you answer with “Don’t know much about Carter’s economic policies”. Don’t know? Don’t know???? What the fuck is that?? You would have been in your late 20’s at the time and you don’t know??? Bullshit. You lost your cloak, boy. Go back to your latte swilling dumbass friends and see if you can get your prof to give you a hint at what the hell we’re talking about.
Old Tanker called you out on who was in the majority in congress, I called you out on Carter and you have no fucking clue, except to spit and sputter shit out of a text book.

I’m through with your bullshit.

Old Tanker Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Joe, Carter started the whole Community Reinvestment Act which is THE major reason for the financial woes we are now in. It was loans going to people who couldn’t pay them back that created a bigger loan market, that made loans cheaper, that made more people get them, that artificially ballooned housing prices… etc… Yes, bankers new it was bad paper but thought they had the backing of Fanny and Freddy. They were given the wink an nod after Clinton expanded CRA even with Franklyn Raines telling them this very thing would happen. Bankers bundled bad paper with good in an effort to offset the risk they were forced to take with looming lawsuits from community organizers at ACORN… look how things turned out for ACORN!

Carter’s economic legacy 30 years on…

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:52 pm
In my twenties (the lost years) I spent a lot of time in the mountains and deserts away from society, didn’t follow politics much. So when I say I don’t know, I mean just that – I don’t know.
Unlike you, I don’t know everything.

TSO Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
At long last Joe stumbles upon the truth.

justplainjason Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Thank you Trooper and Tanker you saved me some time. I am going to use the Joe excuse for when I don’t know what I am talking about. My twentys… the lost years I spent most of the time fighting grizzly bears and scorpions so I wasn’t too interested in news or politics.

OldTrooper Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
So, Joe, you actually did pull a Moses and wander through the desert?

With that said; how can you then jump all over Reagan as the beginning of the end and carry on with your arrogant attitude and have no clue about what was happening before Reagan. You have nothing to compare it to. Life didn’t take the same sabatical that you did between Ford and Reagan. We endured Keynesian economics, pussified foreign policy that made us weaker, not stronger, double digit inflation, interest rates, and unemployment. Not to mention ending our control of the Panama Canal (which the Chicoms now control), gas lines (yes, we had those, post Arab Oil Embargo), higher taxes, that wonderful new term stagflation, disco (don’t get me started), and another new term “the misery index”. All negatives, all on Carter’s watch and most of it could have been dealt with quicker had Carter not gone the Keynes route.

Enter Reagan, who actually didn’t blame the previous administration for everything, but set to putting Americans back to work. Did he spend some money? Yes he did, but nothing on the scale of today. Did he cut taxes and control spending? Yep, he sure did, because he knew that if you were going to cut taxes, you had to cut spending, also. A deficit created from cutting taxes is far better than a deficit created from increasing spending, because it means more private sector money is put to work in the private sector, not in Washington. Within his first term, people were getting back to work, interest rates were coming down, businesses were investing again. De-regulation… Airlines weren’t required by law to service highly unprofitable routes anymore, so the airlines could expand their business where it would do the most good and in the process, hire a few people, also. That’s how you create jobs, not by taxing the crap out of business and punishing those that make the money. JFK (you remember him, you were in school when he was President) even cut taxes, because he knew that in order to create jobs, you first have to let the people keep more of their money. I know that’s a hard concept for you to understand, but the money that people make is theirs, not the government’s. We give the government a portion to do what the Constitution allows them to do (the enumerated powers), but the “progressives” think that all money belongs to the government and they allow us to keep some.

Thus endeth the lesson on economics.

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:16 pm
The economy is a complex adaptive system, with a billion inuts and a billion outputs, not an all-or-nothing proposition as you would have us believe. It’s more complex than, “the government takes all the money” or “the government takes none of the money”. It’s a matter of balance. John Wayne fans forget that to earn his millions even he had to drive on gov’t funded roads, cross gov’t funded bridges, fly to his next movie set under the guidance of the gov’t funded FAA, and take his meds tested and scrutinized by the gov’t funded FDA. Our current system is totally skewed for the benefit of corporations and the top 5%, and in serious need of rebalancing, or redistribution of wealth (which has been going on since the first tax), as you might call it. A complex adaptive system is not a healthy system if most of its “agents” (i.e., citizens) are in dire financial straights. Do I want the gov’t to take al our money? No. Does the system need some serious tweaking to avoid further collapse. You betcha!

NHSparky Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Joe just used the phrase, “You betcha.” I’m guessing Sarah Palin is pulling a Jedi mind fuck on his ass right about now.

Sleep well, Joe. Sleep well.

Oh, and I wasn’t born in the “top 5 percent”, but I’m pretty close to that point now. How, you ask? How about the concept of working your ass off for what you want, rather than pissing and moaning about it? Ever tried that little gem?

Joe Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Yeah, Sparky, 5 days a week. Myself, I’m doing OK, but there are a lot of people who aren’t.

NHSparky Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:15 pm
My point exactly, Joe –- you do the minimum required and bitch when your Skittle-shitting ponies don’t fall out of the fucking sky for you.

And I Know You Will be Holding Me in My Sleep

Considering I have been having dreams lately about a woman whom I know to be my ‘dream girl’ (and about whom I have dreamt and written before), this song hit home for me after hearing it on NBC’s “Chuck” last night. Great, great song.

The show does such a great job with choosing obscure, but wonderful songs for their show to add to the emotional moments within the show between the characters. I hope they keep it up.

“In My Sleep” by Austin Hartley-Leonard & Kendall Jane Meade

Sunday, dark has turned to grey
The stars have made their way
I raise my glass
And part my lips
Tend to many deep
The only time I see you is in my sleep

Sunday, get up on my way
I think I’ll be okay
for a while
I know you
were never mine to keep
But I know that I’ll see you in my sleep

But time has been unkind
and kept me far from you.
But I know you will be
holding me
in my sleep.

I’ve been hanging on,
scraping by all my life.
And I know you will be
holding me
in my sleep.

I’ve been hanging on,
scraping by all my life.

And I know I’ll miss you.
I’ll always miss you.
But I know I’ll see you
in my sleep.

I know I’ll miss you.
I’ll always miss you.
But I know I’ll see you
in my sleep.”

My Futile ‘Debate’ with a Liberal Professor of History

Well, if one could even call this a “debate”.

A conservative Facebook friend of mine yesterday had posted a status message regarding the latest health care legislation tragedy. Some liberal jumped to respond to it with the usual nonsense. I checked out his profile and saw that he has a degree in History and was a current “Adjunct Professor” at Oakland Community College. I stupidly thought that meant he could debate logic and facts on issues. Boy was I ever wrong. The following is our back-and-forth, wasted time in my life I shall never get back:

Friend’s Status Message: Prager: “The Left corrodes everything. The Left is toxic. The Left destroys. The Left is useless. But they think they’re wonderful. It is another religion… People don’t understand. The vast majority of people have been destroyed in the 20th century, enslaved, tortured, and murdered by Left-wing regimes. But it doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They’re never called that… The Left is never blamed for this.”

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: Utra-right wing = fascism and Nazism. Far-left socialism and marxism. Both have killed their fair share of people. Get it right.

FACEBOOK FRIEND: Get it right…? You might want to check what “Nazi” was shorthand for. Also, don’t forget the communists…

MICHAEL IN MI: Wonderful. Another professor of History calling NAZIs “right wing”. Brilliant.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: Nazi were the definition of far right. The name does not define their policies. Many business leaders in the US were admiriers of Hitler and the Nazis (ie Henry Ford) In fact some (conservative) business leaders (ie Rene DuPont) were planning to overthrow FDR in 1933 and establish a Nazi regime. You don’t know that marxists are communists.

MICHAEL IN MI: I didn’t know that “far right” people are socialists. The NAZIs’ policies were socialism. No one on the Right endorses socialism. “Far right” is basically libertarian, which is small government. NAZIs were about big government control of industry. No one on the Right wants government control of industry.

So, again, NAZIs were not “far right”.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: Really, then WHY are they so popular with the business leaders in the US in 1930s?

MICHAEL IN MI: The same reason the current crop of Communists in government are so popular with many business leaders today (ie, GE, Microsoft, Google, which all are HUGE supporters of the current crop of far left radical Democrats)… because some business leaders of the 1930s were NAZIs themselves. The common theme is consolidated control and power. They wanted it back in the 1930s and they want it again here in 2010. But government control is a NAZI/Communist ideology, not a conservative/libertarian ideology. Conservatives and libertarians want small government and as much free market as possible. NAZIs and Communists want the opposite… they want large government and as little free market and as much government control of industry as they can get.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: Interesting arguement with one flaw, Communists and Nazis hated each other. Why were the Nazis rounding up the communists and putting in concentration camps, if they had so much in common? Where do you get your information from? Conservatives only want a government who supports them. Its only socialism when the government helps the people.

MICHAEL IN MI: Every government which has had socialism has not been to “help the people”, but to keep the people down. Socialism helps government control the people. It spreads the misery around, it does not help the people achieve or provide them opportunity to achieve.

And just because NAZIs did not like Communists does not mean they were opposites. I’m a conservative and I don’t necessarily like or agree with the policies put forth by libertarians. But that does not make a libertarian the opposite of a conservative. Socialism and Communism have much in common, similar to conservatism and libertarianism having much in common.

Socialism (NAZIs) and Communism are both about government control of industry. The only way they differ is in the magnitude of control.

The fact remains that government control of industry is not a conservative principle, it is a principle of Communist and Socialist ideology.

And conservatives want a government which gets out of our way and allows us the opportunity to succeed on our own. Conservatives want small government, with limited regulations. Conservatives believe in the free market to be more successful than government control. And history proves that free market systems work better than government-controlled systems. That’s why China has risen over the last couple decades as they have worked in more Capitalism into their Communist society.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: That’s a lot of Glenn Beck propaganda.

MICHAEL IN MI: Okay, if you’re not going to actually address anything I stated, I’m done with you. You’re supposedly a History professor, yet when you’re challenged on something, the best rebuttal you have is to bring up Glenn Beck? Brilliant.

Take care. I pity anyone who expects to learn history from you at Oakland Community College.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: Because I know his propaganda when I see it. How typical that you end it by insulting me. I teach my students to think for themselves. Something that you seem unable to do. That’s sad.

FACEBOOK FRIEND: PROFESSOR, how do you see Nazis as the “definition of far right”? I also am unclear how you make the argument that business=far right and some business leaders supported the Nazis, therefore Nazis=far right. Michael points out numerous examples of businesses supporting the far left today. How then do you account for that?

Socialism is “government helping the people”? Like the government helps the people in Cuba? China? Venezuela? As it helped the people in the Soviet Union? Come on. You’re not Sean Penn, for Pete’s sake.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: Majority did. Site some examples of them supporting the left. What I said was if a govt helps the people that its called socialism. Helping businesses is deemed as good for everyone. Perhaps bussiness support who. Ever is in office because they help put them there. Don’t like the fact that your buddy got personal. How did he know I taught at occ?

MICHAEL IN MI: “Because I know his propaganda when I see it. How typical that you end it by insulting me. I teach my students to think for themselves. Something that you seem unable to do. That’s sad.”

Yeah, I’m gonna bet you don’t even watch Glenn Beck and have no idea about his “propaganda”. You just don’t have a response to any of the points I brought up, so instead you decide to throw out a worthless ad hominem, in order to avoid answering me. Then whine that I “insulted” you. Typical liberal. Get challenged, can’t respond, pull out the good ol’ “that’s just right-wing propaganda from FNC/Beck/Rush/etc” and then whine about insults.

What is sad is that I know how to defend my facts about history better than someone who actually teaches the subject. In case you missed the fact, I responded to all your comments with rebuttals, while you responded with blaming Glenn Beck.

MICHAEL IN MI: “How did he know I taught at occ?”

I took 5 seconds to click on your name and saw the info on your profile, that’s how. I was curious as to your background. I do that with everyone with whom I ‘debate’ on here to get an idea of the ideology I am facing. I check people’s ‘groups’ and ‘fan of’ pages to see if they are fans of say Barack Obama or Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, etc. It gives me an idea of whether or not I should waste my time discussing politics with them.

“What I said was if a govt helps the people that its called socialism.”

Socialism is not “government helping the people”. Socialism actually has a definition, you don’t just get to define it yourself to suit your own purposes, professor. Socialism is about government control of industry and taking wealth from those who produce and spreading it around to those who do not produce. And, as the saying goes, socialism fails because eventually you run out of other people’s money. Socialism is not about “helping the people”, it is about making people dependent upon the government for their livelihood. It is about encouraging people to remain at their status in life and mooch off those of higher status. This then discourages people from working hard to achieve higher status, because they won’t get to keep the fruits of their labor, as, instead, the fruits of their labor are redistributed to those who are not working as hard as they are.

MICHAEL IN MI: “Site some examples of them supporting the left.”

I already did, professor. GE (and all its subsidiaries), Google, Microsoft all fund Democrats and left-wing issues and organizations.

LIBERAL PROFESSOR: There were no facts! Since I realized where all your information came from, you got very defensive. If you presented that as a paper in my class, it would have gotten a c at best. I’ve read beck and he’s full of shit. I read evey side of an issue, unlike you

MICHAEL IN MI: I didn’t get “defensive”, I got annoyed, because I was wrong about you. I assumed you were an intelligent person who could debate facts and logic, but turns out you’re just an ignorant jackass who can’t debate, so you just throw out stupid accusations. I stopped watching TV news in 2004, professor. I don’t watch Beck, nor Fox News, nor any other mass media outlet. I do my own research.

I’m sorry I wasted my time with you, professor, and sorry that I actually thought you had the intelligence to have an actual debate of ideology and ideas, instead of taking the cowardly liberal way out of a debate and smearing your opponent.

And you may read every side of an issue, but you obviously lack the capacity to actually UNDERSTAND every side of an issue. Reading does not = comprehension.

As I said before, I pity your students.

As you should know, from being a History professor, a proper rebuttal to presented ideas is to respond with “you said X, that is wrong, because of Y”. Unless you run your classes by allowing your students to respond to one another by saying “you’re wrong and it’s obvious you’re just spouting liberal propaganda from Keith Olbermann” and “no, YOU’RE wrong and it’s obvious you’re just spouting conservative propaganda from Rush Limbaugh” and “no, YOU’RE wrong and spouting liberal propaganda from Rachel Maddow”, etc etc ad naseum.

That is how you have ‘debated’ here, so I assume that’s also how you handle your classes. Which is why I said I pity your students, because if that is the kind of education they are getting, god help them.

I Have Never Been So Depressed about the State of Government in My Life

This pretty much says it all:

I’ve been pretty much ignoring this fucking sideshow. Why? Because either it will pass, and thus confirm the fecklessness, cowardice, and moral vacuity of most of our elected officials; or it will fail by the narrowest of margins, which simply means that the thieves couldn’t agree on how to split up the booty. Tax-paying citizens protest outside in their thousands; inside the chamber, the Representatives dismiss them as “tea-baggers” and chortle to themselves how they can make up their own rules.

I have never been so depressed about the state of my government in my life, not even during the worst moments of the Iraq War. At least then I had the sense that our concerns were being listened to (if not agreed with). Now? Our nation is being led by three people — Obama, Pelosi, and Reid — who seem to feel that the 2008 vote granted them the power to act by imperial edict and bureaucratic fiat.

My gloom isn’t founded in this particular bill, per se: it is another outrage piled on top of many others, but life will go on. But something has been broken during this process that won’t go together again. It’s not simply the urge of many democrats towards the institution of tyrannical rule by “soft” despots; it’s not simply the inability of our political system to react to the will of the people rather than pressure by victim-groups. No, it’s a breaking of a belief I’ve always had that Americans mostly want the same things, that whatever the means we want pretty much the same ends — a ‘good life’, and an ability to control our own destinies and profit from the fruits of our own labors. To make our own way in society as our desires and skills allow.

The past couple of years have broken that implicit contract Americans have always lived by. Democrats will insist that it was done in the name of brotherhood and mercy for the poor and sick, but the reality is that it was done for the usual reasons: greed, fear, arrogance, and the will to power. Oh, there will be a thin wallpaper of process and rules over the filthy lies and deal-making, but it will fool no one. The murder was committed in broad daylight, and in front of millions of witnesses.

At some point the breaking-strain will be reached. I don’t know when — people are able to delude themselves for a long time that things aren’t really as bad as they are. Tyrannies can persist for years, even decades. However strong they look on the surface, though, the rot once begun is very hard to reverse. It eats away at the foundations until the whole structure topples.

Americans are divided so fundamentally on basic issues that I don’t see how we can continue as we are indefinitely. We are not a “people” united by a common set of beliefs. We are a huge collection of warring factions, interest-groups, and ideological philosophies. Our main point of cohesion in times past was our Constitution, but even that is now broken. A house divided against itself cannot stand, as both Jesus and Abraham Lincoln understood.

It will come to bloodletting, I think; there can be no other way. The tyrant’s final legacy is always coercion and force, and a free man’s response to such a thing is — it must be — to resist that force by all means necessary.

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 11:31 AM

More:

Hell even I,pessimist and cynic that I am allowed myself to believe healthcare was dead.

Not me. The Democrats will not have another opportunity like this for another generation at least: supermajorities in both House and Senate, and a far-left Democrat President. That’s why they’re trying to run the table now; they know full well that they may not ever have another chance like this one to push the liberal wish-list into law.

This is what conservatives didn’t understand until recently. Many on the left are completely willing to take a drubbing in 2010 as long as the liberal apparatus is set up, because while political fortunes may wax and wane, entitlement programs are forever once enacted. And when the wheel turns in 2012 or 2016, liberals will come back to the fold to find their favorite programs still in place.

This is called “the liberal ratchet effect”.

I suspect that only a huge and systemic social/ecnomic failure would motivate the people to reverse these programs: Medicare, Medicaid, public pensions, and now (apparently) a public health system. But the costs of that kind of collapse are grievous; it’s possible that America as a political entity would not survive it.

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 11:56 AM

————————-

The first internecene war I forsee in the coming years is the old against the young. Retired Americans are going to be drawing far more, per capita, from the various entitlement programs than they ever put in. Medicaid will bankrupt the states as inevitably as the sunrise (and the current bill actually makes that problem worse by increasing the state funding for Medicaid). Medicare and Social Security will gobble up ever increasing percentages of the US GDP. The only answer is to reduce the entitlements or somehow manufacture an enormous amount of new wealth. And since the latter option is highly unlikely, that leaves only cuts to benefits and higher taxes.

Grammy and Grampy are going to fight like demons to keep their entitlements. Politicians are scared of them because they vote. Companies like them because they tend to have money to spend. But to keep the money-train moving, that means that Junior is going to have to work like an indentured servant for years and years to make sure Grammy and Grampy can keep taking the RV down to Arizona every winter. It means living on beets and boiled eggs so Grammy can get her hip replacement for only a $100 co-pay; it means living in a 2-room apartment with a balky toilet so Grampy can buy his Viagra and still afford to pay for the charter fishing-boat. And since Grammy and Grampy didn’t save nearly enough money of their own to last for 25 or 30 years of retirement (given the longer lifespans now common in the West), they’ll continue to draw down Social Security for many years longer than the actuaries thought they would.

This war is going to be a very ugly one, way worse than the “generation gap” stuff of the 1960′s. Basically, younger workers are going to be asked to support retirees but without any real assurance that they themselves will be supported in their own retirements (because the system will be bankrupt by then).

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 12:13 PM

————————-

But the costs of that kind of collapse are grievous; it’s possible that America as a political entity would not survive it.

Monty I think we are breaking new ground here. I have NEVER in my life seen the average citizen stirred up as they are now. Even during the turbulent 60s they liked to make out that the country was under severe upheaval but it was only a very small minority that was causing the problems then. All that upheaval was really nothing more than press hype.

Truly the last time we had this level of animosity towards Washington was the months leading into the War Between the States. The difference is this time it is not sectional. It is economic and urban vs rural so it makes things even worse.

All that being said, I don’t think that it necessarily leads to bloodshed or a civil war. This IS new ground so the outcome is up in the air. The elections this year are what I think will be the determining factor. This country simply can not stand another two years of communist control of all three branches of government.

If the Republicans fail to take at least one of the houses of congress it will be all over. We will collapse economically. That will happen when the Chinese quit buying our debt (already starting) and Moody’s downgrades our paper.

If the Republicans take a house and stop the left drift we still may be able to save it, particularly if they follow up in 2012 with the Senate and the President. Perhaps they can actually turn some of it back.

Posted by: Vic at March 21, 2010 12:16 PM

————————-

The next war is going to be the private-sector workers versus the public-sector. If you aggregate all the various city, county, state, and federal workers, they account for more than 20% of the entire workforce. In some states — like California — the percentage is even higher. But here’s the thing: those employees don’t actually create wealth. They are supported by tax dollars, and thus are a drain on wealth. And almost all of them are making more than their private-sector peers, with pension and health benefits that are often guaranteed by law.

Private-sector workers are now living in an environment where they make less money, have to fund their own retirements via 401(k) type programs, labor under an increasingly-onerous tax burden, and face a government that is objectively hostile to a free-market philosophy that would improve their future prospects.

The latter group — getting poorer every year in absolute terms — is going to be jawboned into paying higher taxes to the former group — getting richer every year in absolute terms — as a result of laws passed years and sometimes decades ago by the very people who stand to benefit from them now.

California is the bellwether here, followed by Michigan, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. People will either vote with their feet, or will riot in the streets when taxes push the quality of life to an intolerable level. Either way: social unrest and bitter enemies that used to be fellow-citizens.

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 12:25 PM

————————-

Not necessarily true. I am looking at what I put in vs what I am likely to get out and it is much lower than what I put in.

Vic, you are one of the wise ones, then. Statistically, Baby Boomers as a group will retire with less than $60K in the bank. Medicare and Medicaid expenses are going to skyrocket as Boomers age because the bulk of any medical expense in any person’s life clusters in the last ten years of life. And Boomers (as a demographic) are used to having everything — they will demand every test and procedure possible to keep going for as long as possible. And no politician who values his job is going to tell them, “No, Mabel, we’re not going to pay for that hip replacement because you’re 85 years old and it doesn’t make any medical or financial sense.”

I don’t mean to suggest that all Boomers are narcissistic spendthrifts — but they are a huge demographic, and they more than any other demographic formed the core of the “consumer culture”. They tend overwhelmingly liberal in political outlook, which makes the prospect of substantial reform very remote indeed.

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 12:35 PM

————————-

These clowns are simply Catholics of convenience.

I have many disagreements with Catholic thought on health-care. The major disagreement is the Catholic belief that health-care is a “human right”. I don’t think that health-care is any more a natural “right” than the “right” to a pedicure or a haircut. Health-care is a service, one that is expensive to provide and does not have unlimited resources available.

Catholics (sincerely, for the most part) consider health-care to be bound up in notions of human dignity. I’ve always disagreed with this. Yes, illness is often undignified and debilitating. But this is true of so many things, and is often the results of poor personal choices. If you choose to be a lifelong smoker, then you also “own” the COPD and emphysema and lung cancer that will ensue. If you eat two Whoppers and a large fries every day, you “own” the obesity and heart-disease that will come after. It is unethical to expect the rest of society to subsidize your bad decisions. (But it is also unethical for society to demonize your choices; if you choose to smoke and accept the consequences of that decision, then hey: smoke away!)

This is why socialized medicine is inevitably a much less humane healthcare structure than a market-driven approach. Only you can make the best decisions regarding your own health: your motivations are your own, not that of some bureaucrat you’ve never met. You will always care more about yourself and your family than the government ever will.

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 12:50 PM

————————-

Monty, don’t bash the baby boomers so much.

It’s not bashing to speak the truth. I’m not making a value judgement about every single person born between 1945 and 1960 — I’m simply saying that demographics at this level are obvious and inevitable. The only possible way to solve the coming medicare/medicaid/SS disaster is for old folks to accept benefit cuts… which they (as a group) will never, ever do.

It’s a problem of basic fairness, and goes back nearly sixty or seventy years to promises made by FDR and other politicians since: how much societal support do you deserve versus how much do you need? How much of that expense should be born by generations who come later, and who will have to accept a considerable reduction in quality-of-life to honor those promises made by politicians all those years ago?

Civilization should not be a lottery, where you can get an award simply for successfully growing old. It should not penalize the young to benefit the old because it is the young who keep civilization on a paying basis. We owe our older folks dignity and respect, and I’ve always felt that an essential component of dignity and respect is to treat people like adults. To maintain this entitlement fiction for older folks is to treat them like children; that we will continue to lie to them because a lie is easier than the truth.

Posted by: Monty at March 21, 2010 01:06 PM