Posted on 11/08/2012 11:31:38 AM PST by EveningStar
Tired. That is my overriding sensation as I write this. How to bang one's first impressions of hell out on a keyboard? Let us begin a new day, in a new world, with a first principle of sorts -- in this case, a negative principle. Here is a short list of words or turns of phrase that I never want to hear again.
(1) "America is a center-right country." Center and right are entirely relative terms. The "center" between Lenin and FDR, for example, is very far to the "left" of George Washington. And political self-identification is a meaningless standard of judgment, even by meaningless current standards...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I never want to hear the word Romney ever again. I don’t ever want to hear moderate again. I never want to hear that “polls are biased again or bullcrap” again. I never want to hear that “such and such is going to win by a landslide unless they are so assured that it doesn’t make the entire Republican Party look like a bunch of asses on election night”.
I don’t want to hear...’this is the most important election in our lifetime’...I doubt it will stop though
No more apologies. No more embarrassment. No more veiled language when on the big stage. The left won the day by making the most radical, anti-human irrationalism of this epoch seem safe and normal, while portraying freedom and individualism as the dangerous, radical path.
“The left won the day by making the most radical, anti-human irrationalism of this epoch seem safe and normal, while portraying freedom and individualism as the dangerous, radical path.”
Not quite. They “won” by (decades ago) taking over the process of educating and training journalists. Thus they have controlled the means of mass communication.
By this method, they have been able to distort their message to make it seem conservative on the surface: Obama says “I think the free market system is the most important part of our country’s heritage.” Inevitably, he slips in the socialist underpinnings as an abstract and disguised afterthought: “But I think we need to take care of people who need help.”
Americans would never vote for socialism if it were presented in a straighforward and honest way.
The left appeals to conservatism’s Christian foundation by claiming to “want to help” those in need.
But they can’t get around the fact that Christian charity takes place in the absense of state authority, while socialism, through its coersive nature, deprives the individual of the opportunity to be charitable. Charity comes from free will, not government tyranny.
Ok, here is the list of things I never want to hear again or EVER,
“Im Hillary Clinton and I approve this message”.... I never want to hear from Bruce Shitsteen, John Bon Jovi, Bill Clinton, David Letterman, the phrase “eye-candy”, “Republican landslide” from Dick Morris’ mouth.... I could go on.... I am so bitter today!
In America, beginning in the late 1800's, under the name of "liberals," now known as "progressives," that movement began its now decades-long effort to remove the principles and ideas underlying our Constitution's protections from the nation's textbooks and public discourse.
On another thread today, the question was aked, "What do we need to do differently?" Good question!
Constitutional illiteracy--that is the primary reason we are continuing on the road to tyranny under deficit, debt, and government control! The secondary reason is the GOP's failure to use its billion-dollar campaign to focus like a laser on educating voters!
During the primary season, one of my FR posts stated the following in response to a Jonah Goldberg comment about Romney:
Sorry, Jonah, but this is not as simple as "not speaking the language (of conservatism) naturally." When a person is steeped in the ideas of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Washington, it just "naturally" slips through in the ideas they convey. Remember Reagan?Do Republicans seriously want to conserve America's constitutional principles? Or, are they just objecting to Democrats? Do they have a passion for liberty? Is this just about changing the Party in power, or is it about preserving freedom?
If their concern is for convincing enough voters to reject the idea of "a government big enough to give you everything you want" and turn to advocacy for "a government small enough to allow you freedom to keep most of what you earn," then they'd better get busy seeing that someone is nominated who has been "marinated" (to use a word coined by Ingraham last night on "The Factor") in the Founders' ideas (isn't that what conservatives purport to "conserve"?).
So far (February 2012), Mitt Romney, though a good man, demonstrates no such "immersion." He has been "successful" in benefiting from those ideas, and he recites familiar words and phrases from patriotic speeches and songs, but that is different from understanding and being able to call up and articulate the philosophy which made such success possible.
Ronald Reagan's life and letters reveal that he had "immersed" himself in those ideas for years before he agreed to run for President, and that is why he could set "issues" in light of constitutional "principle." and explain his advocacy or rejection of solutions in by that light.
The other three candidates in the Primary--Paul, Santorum, Gingrich--couch their answers to questions in a manner which indicates personal pursuit and understanding of the Constitution's protections, each in his own way.
Of the two so-called "frontrunners," however, the lifetime history scholar, teacher, legislator, and participant in what was called "the Reagan revolution," appears to be the one most likely to be able to successfully articulate and distinguish those ideas to voters, if given the chance to compete with the "counterfeit ideas" of tyranny cloaked in righteous benevolence by Obama.
Is "politics as usual" to win the day, or might we not bring Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, and others who embrace founding principles together to help to create a "passion" for liberty among citizens sufficient to defeat the counterfeit ideas which are leading the Republic to ruin?
The following is excerpted from "Our Ageless Constitution," p. 181:
"It was John Adams who said: "The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the people." Clearly, the Founders' passion was liberty, and in order to secure that liberty, they sought out and incorporated into the United States Constitution those ideas and principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
"The French historian, Guizot, once asked James Russell Lowell, "How long will the American republic endure?" Lowell replied: "As long as the IDEAS of the men who founded it continue dominant."
"Herein lies the answer to the question, "Will the Experiment Succeed?"
"It can and will succeed IF the motivating "principle or passion in the minds of the people" is LIBERTY, and if that passion causes them to exert the determination and will to complete the needed restoration of the IDEAS upon which the great American experiment was based." ---(End of excerpted material)
My call to the GOP and all lovers of liberty is the same as then! To rediscover and recover liberty from the hands of those who are turning America into just another failing nation dominated by a government-over-people ideology, a determined and massive education effort should begin November 7, 2012, focused on the teaching of the fundamental principles essential to the survival of individual liberty for a people.
From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay:
"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON
Why bother ever voting again?
We are completely, totally, utterly on our own.
As Bill Whittle says in the video at the link below, when it comes to political parties — all of them — “ignore them”. Start your life in a parallel subsystem and that’s about as good as things will get under the circumstances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02SypCcYIc&feature=player_embedded
Some French bastard once said,
“Sir, you may not have an interest in politics, but politics has an interest in you.”
I watched that happen before my eyes consulting for Microsoft in the 90’s when Clinton threatened to bust it up into six pieces.
Byron Dorgan was dispatched to Bill Gates to explain how it works in DC with companies the size of Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft’s entire lobbying presence amounted to one guy in Olympia, and that was it. Nothing on K St. Gates told him that what he proposed amounted to bribery, and he could stuff it in his ass.
The announcement came not soon after, which prompted the Ballmer promotion. Ballmer would address the today, and Bill would continue to address the tomorrow.
Today, Microsoft has one of the biggest lobbying organizations in the world - multiple countries.
Remember how Wal-Mart was in everybody’s crosshairs, and then suddenly - nothing. No endorsements or embracing of Wal-Mart, just no more public or legislative attacks.
The media-DC complex is a shakedown machine, first and foremost.
Ever think having business experience and a positive track record as an entrepreneur would be a liability in a Presidential candidate?
IMNSHO, your analysis is spot on; but, it doesn’t go far enough.
You should add in the take-over of the education system, from K to PhD. Thus allowing for thorough indoctrination of entire generations, and effectively negating parental influence.
You could extend your point about the means of mass communication, by including the movie and TV industries. Only the tiny rump of talk radio is left for opposing viewpoints.
I am with you on that one. Every four years....this is the most important election of our lifetime. Really?
The first person that says to me “If only Romney showed this side of his personality during the race I would have voted for him” is going to get punched in the face. Man, woman or child, so help me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop the reflex reaction.
I don’t believe we can win back the country. This was our chance, and now these “reforms” will be an entitlement. One can hope for a complete collapse, with the horrid resulting suffering, with the hopes of rebuilding the country after that.
Dennis Prager moved me yesterday when he urged us not to despair, that we owe it to those guys on the Normandy Beach in WWII, :
“Never give up, keep fighting. That is our duty to those who died on those beaches”.
Thank you, dear FRiend, for the Bill Whittle link.
I feel deeply better, inspired even.
Thank you, dear FRiend, for the inspiring link.
I feel deeply better already!
Thank you, Chuzzlewit.
You might like this also, courtesy of MayflowerMadam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02SypCcYIc&feature=player_embedded
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