Posted on 05/04/2010 12:59:07 AM PDT by militanttoby
Sarah Palin is one of the most intriguing (and polarizing) personalities to emerge on the national political stage in a long time. The way that many conservatives embrace her and many liberals vilify her illustrates in microcosm the yawning political divide in America today.
We can draw insights about Palin's significance in America today from a trio of three markedly disparate historical figures: Ronald Reagan, the late Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, and the Gospel of Matthew's King Herod. The connection between Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan is fairly simple and straightforward. They share conservative convictions and a special gift of communication. Palin is reminiscent of Reagan in the way she resonates, inspires, and energizes conservatives.
Less apparent are the links that may be drawn between Palin and the long-departed Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises -- and Palin and the much-longer-ago-departed King Herod.
The connection between Palin and Mises occurred to me while rereading Mises' 1944 book Bureaucracy. Mises wrote, "...the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors." Indeed, Marx, Lenin, et al., were intellectuals, and the leaders of socialism have been relatively well-to-do educated folks like Bill Ayers, not salt-of-the-earth blue-collar folks.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
big thumbs up... thanks for the ping
Omit the first sentence, and you guys could have written the rest!
read
bttt
So, so true.
The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office.
Mises was a freaking prophet. What an excellent quote.
You betcha!!
Ping for later
...”Mises wrote, “...the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors.” Indeed, Marx, Lenin, et al., were intellectuals, and the leaders of socialism have been relatively well-to-do educated folks like Bill Ayers, not salt-of-the-earth blue-collar folks”...
This is mysterious until one considers the evil part of human nature. The elite’s want to hold their power..While they feign otherwise, they really do not want a situation, such as traditional American capitalism, where the more skilled lower classes can rise to the top. In the Marxist state the elites long for, they would have the control to decide the economic fate of everyone, not the least of which is to secure their own position as elites. When the economic part of Marxism is secured, other horrible consequences can occur. For example, despots always remove the influence of religion which makes them God. As God, carried to the extreme, they just might decide that it is O.K. to rape little girls and boys or to kill old people. The depths of unbridled evil in the human heart is horrifying to say the least and Marxism opens the door to all those possibilities. Now, most elites, being protected from the raw side of life as they are, just develop fantasies about how life should be and are just plain ignorant about how it really is. Ignorance and idle time build a “devil’s workshop,” and that is a problem. We, as a people, should be very certain that our lawmakers, including the President, and their families, should have to live under the same laws they make for the rest of us. It is a crime that the private sector in American now has an average income of only half what the bureaucrat makes. That is a recipe for disaster, in and of itself. Pardon the long-windedness and rambling..It is hard to stay calm when a new blow to freedom comes out of Washington D.C. on a daily basis. WAKE UP, AMERICA!
You read my mind. You quoted what I would have. Bump!
There fixed up a little.
Good read. Good post.
This cannot be repeated enough.
“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office.”
Good read ping.
Onyx, Thanks for the ping to this terrific article. It really synthesizes the great battle which is approaching in 2012 between the elites (personified in Obama), on the one hand, and the American people, their Constitution and Almighty God (represented by Sarah Palin) on the other. It is a time for choosing, as the saying goes.
I particularly liked the author’s use of “common sense” versus “leftist tunnel vision” dichotomy. It reminded me of the dripping contempt with which these same elites (and that includes the GOP elites, the Bushes, Rockefellers, Romneys, etc)always held Reagan. In much the same way that Palin is able to puncture their bilious balloons with pithy one liners, the Gipper used to say with a smile:
“It’s not that our liberal friends are wrong...it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
I must say that I would only take issue with one historical analogy that the author makes: Given Sarah Palin’s propensity to allude to the Book of Esther (and even to quote it in responding to the elitist press which, of course, didn’t get it), I think the current elites more closely resemble the evil Haman, who persecuted and tried to destroy Esther’s people before she bravely risked her life (after praying and entrusting her life and mission to God) to approach the king (which was a capital offense) to save her people.
Come 2012, that is exactly what she is going to do.
How unusual, an article comparing Palin to Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ.
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