[expat1000]

Sultan Knish/Daniel Greenfield Ping List (notification of new articles). FReepmail or drop me a comment to get on or off.

[Mouton]

Excellent read and on the money.

[Diogenesis]

[Truth29]

Good article, but one that doesn’t deal with the possibility of the US being led by someone who actively intends to cause the collapse of the country so it can be brought into the harness of international socialist rule and the imposition of Islamic Shariah law.

[RepublicOfUSA]

I agree Obama’s not a military guy. He never served. He plans on cutting the budget. But best to leave out the part about cutting health care and other benefits to veterans, because that parts not true. He actually increased the benefits to vets. If you start fudging in part of the article, that calls into question the rest of it. So it doesn’t do any good, when you have true facts, such as the rest of the post.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Bureaucracy is a virus, it depends not so much on who is in power, but on being the ones who run things for whoever is in power. Whether Bush or Obama are looking out of the Oval Office, the men and women who interpret their policies in line with the existing agenda are the ones who actually run the country.

In 2000, shortly after Bush took office, a (very) liberal friend was loudly complaining that Bush was responsible for all of the problems with the State Department. That he should have fixed/changed the SD within a few weeks. Yes, he said literally a few weeks.

I pointed out to him that Presidents come and go, but the liberal intelligentsia that runs the SD never changes. The Pres swaps out a few of the people at the top of the pyramid, a little BS homage is paid to the intents and goals of the the leaders, and the SD continues doing everything just the way it wants to.

He didn't get it at all. No surprise there.

Many years ago in college it was pointed out by a smart prof that when a bureaucracy reaches a certain size, whatever the original intent/purpose of the organization was, it ceased to be. That bureaucracies, at that point, acquire the single purpose of *self preservation and perpetuation*.

[Savage Beast]

In the past, the U.S. President and Congress would not have dared to use the U.S. military to intimidate or attack U.S. citizens because the Federal Government was subservient to the U.S. citizens and the American people would have crushed even the idea of such a thing.

Today however, millions of Americans consider it wise to empower the Federal Government and the politicians who control it to the extent that the U.S. government is the master of the people and the people are the servants of the Government.

Government--the best government ever devised--is a necessary evil--necessary of course but also evil. It enforces its authority by violence or threat of violence.

For this reason, government must be kept under control. Government must be the servant of the people. If it is not the servant of the people, it will be the master of the people, and the people will be the slaves of the govenment and the politicians who control it.

The American people used to understand this. They were monolithic in their determination to control and remain the masters of government. They understood how real is the possibility that government can reduce the people to slavery.

Today--about half of the U.S. electorate does not understand this.

They do not understand the importance of keeping govenment small--so that it can be controlled by the people and cannot enlave the people.

This is the scariest thing of all about the United States today.

Anyone who thinks tanks in the streets--the midnight knock on the door--concentration camps--a praetorian guard protecting a dictator with absolute power--all the horrors that we thought could never happen in the United States-- Anyone who thinks such as that could never happen here is a fool.

[TEXOKIE]

From the article:
“Our dictatorship doesn’t depend on men with guns, but men with pens and pocket protectors. Men who fill out forms all day and who know where our permanent record is. Our rule is under the empire of data. We are less worried about informers and more worried that a form that we filled out wasn’t done the right way or was lost along the way. The American headquarters of the KGB isn’t in a law enforcement building, it’s in the EPA and the IRS and a thousand other bureaucratic institutions.” snip

“The grand show of the American government with its presidents and senators, its elegant domes and assorted rituals, is a facade for the true power of a shadow government of committee meetings and think tanks who shape an agenda and then inject into organizations and associations of government workers who turn it into institutional policy long before the legislatures, governors and presidents have taken a single step.

This is where the true power lies and it is far more pervasive and potent than most people realize. But it is a power that is wholly dependent on our investment in its infrastructure.” snip

Thanks for the post!

[Jane Long]

Another great article by Daniel. Thanks for the ping.

Here's one of my faves...

The American headquarters of the KGB isn't in a law enforcement building, it's in the EPA and the IRS and a thousand other bureaucratic institutions.