Bastiat and "Organized Plunder"

http://www.sobran.com/columns/2005/050310.shtml ^ | March 29, 2005 | Joe Sobran

[Irontank]

The other night a local talk-radio host, usually a polite conservative, was discussing whether American corporations should be allowed to "outsource" jobs. But his good manners deserted him when a caller said, "As the nineteenth-century economist Frederic Bastiat said, --"

The host cut him off right there: "I don't want to hear some eighteenth-century [sic] economic theory." He immediately went on to the next caller.

I was shocked. A conservative who'd never heard of Bastiat? Didn't even know what century he'd lived in?

[The Great Yazoo]

Part of the problem is that "conservative," despite what has been reported in the mainstream media, is a "big tent."

There are free market conservatives, libertarian conservatives, national defense conservatives, control-the-borders conservatives, American exceptionalist conservatives, evangelical Christian conservatives, Catholic conservatives, big government conservatives, small government conservatives, smoker conservatives, non-smoker conservatives, pro-Wal-Mart conservatives, anti-Wal-Mart conservatives, internationalist conservatives, isolationist conservatives, "no abortion, ever" conservatives, states rights conservatives, and all manner of other varieties and shades of conservatives.

[Publius6961]

Well, the problem is, you see, Mr Sobran. That it all depends on how the information is presented. If you insult your audience, or condescend by starting with the obscure, you turn many people off, myself included.

Had the caller started with a positive idea, like the concept of "organized plunder", and it resonated with the audience, details, as to who popularized the concept and when, can be accepted in due course. Regardless of what century he was from.

[Zionist Conspirator]

You mean Buchanan's buddy Sobran is a fan of Bastiat, whom Buchanan denounced roundly in The Great Betrayal? What is he, a free trader or something?

Oh well. I suppose "palaeos" allow for all sorts of different opinions . . . as long as one hates Jews and Israel.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

What about the statement, "If one person does it, it is a crime. If 10,000 people do it, it is a political problem" This is irrespective of what the law says.

A question - What speed limit is enforced in your state?

[freedomfiter2]

Right. The law is what the state is willing to uniformly enforce. The creation of laws which are selectively enforced is tyranny.

[Irontank]

Ahh yes...anything short of primary allegience to Israel constitutes "hatred of Jews and Israel"

[Zionist Conspirator]

Ahh yes...anything short of primary allegience to Israel constitutes "hatred of Jews and Israel"

Well, considering that your hero Sobran has blamed Bolshevik terror on Talmudic "hatred of gentiles," I'd say that you are exaggerating somewhat . . . wouldn't you?

Oh, of course not.

So, how many times have you been banned in the past, under other names?

[The Great Yazoo]

What about the statement, "If one person does it, it is a crime. If 10,000 people do it, it is a political problem" This is irrespective of what the law says.

A question - What speed limit is enforced in your state?

I have no idea where your comment comes from, but you do raise a good point. The speed limit that is enforced in my state (more accurately, my community) is about ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit. On some roads, it's 15 miles per hour over the posted speed limit. Where there's road work actually taking place (there's usually a "project" underway, but rare is the actual road "work"), it's perilous to exceed the speed limit by more than, say, five miles per hour.

This is very confusing because we have large population influxes seasonally as well as permanently. It takes a while for the newbies to figure the speed limits out and the winter visitors never figure it out.

The problem is that the state has designated that roads with certain characteristics have to have a certain posted speed limit. Locals who drive on those roads know that the posted speed limit is unreasonably low and the sheriff's traffic control unit as well as the local state patrol troop seem to recognize it as well.

A conservative would ask, "Who'd be in the better position to determine a safe speed for a road, the people who drive it every day (and whose lives are forfeit if they're wrong) or a computer model?"

Speed enforcement is a huge political problem for authorities, because the local sheriff is elected. He doesn't want to spend the political capital on actually enforcing a law that most (otherwise) law-abiding citizens skirt, yet he is criticized in the letters to the editor respecting lax traffic enforcement.

Consequently, the letters to the editor section of the local morning paper is a good guide to the likely intensity of that day's traffic enforcement.

[Irontank]

Sobran's my hero? He wrote a good column...he's written many good columns...many on the subject of Israel and the US and the tendency on the part of many Americans (mostly Jewish but certainly not only Jewish and certainly not most Jews) to too closely tie America's policies to Israel's interests.

If Sobran did write what you say (and it wouldn't surprise me...he often drifts off into bizarre conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel)...I agree that it should be unequivocally condemned...

he's certainly not the first to make that charge but I've never seen any real evidence that Jews orchestrated the Bolshevik Revolution and, whether or not a high proportion of the revolutionaries were Jewish, to charge that their activites had anything to do with their religion is ridiculous and contemptible

[Zionist Conspirator]

Your attitude towards Sobran's views linking Bolshevism to the Talmud (which he has done, among other things) is commendable, and I apologize for my comments about you.

As to whether or not some people want to tie US policy too closely to Israel's, I am not Jewish but a gentile Noachide. And the only thing I want to tie the US to is the G-d of Israel. I also want to tie the current State of Israel to Israel's G-d. I am a Biblical Fundamentalist and a "roundhead," not a civilizationist or cavalier. I reject the idea of numerous autonomous "autochthonous" civilizations that over millenia of trial and error create their own valid worldviews. I am guilty of subscribing to the "subversive," "leveling," and "proto-Communist" idea that there is only One G-d and all mankind owes Him their loyalty and obedience. This contrasts with the "palaeoconservative" notion of a familiar/tribal/national "gxd." I believe the Jewish People and the Torah are the One, Absolute, Objective means by which the True G-d has chosen to address all mankind and that all later religions are man-created impositions lacking the objectivity of the Revelation of Sinai (which is acknowledged by chr*stians and moslems). And like those dastardly Puritans (who didn't appreciate the importance of organic chr*stendom and its traditions) I advocate the reordering of all societies in accordance with G-d's "rationalist blueprint."

Furthermore, I believe that G-d chose a Nation rather than a multinational religious body or abstract philosophy precisely because it is a more objective indicator of Truth. In theory Pat Buchanan and Mexican illegal aliens are co-religionists, but in actual fact they are not. The "J*sus" of Pat Buchanan is a subjective "gxd" of "Aryan civilization" and the J*sus of the Mexican illegals is a subjective "gxd" of oppressed "indigenous pipples" in need of liberation theology.

The upshot of if all is that I advocate the establishment of the Objective Kingdom of G-d as soon as possible, including the ingathering of all Jews to Israel, the expulsion of all non-Jewish religions from the Holy Land, the rebuilding of the Temple, the reinstitution of the Holy Sacrificial Service, and the acknowledgement by all mankind of the True G-d and His Law. And despite all the potshots at Jewish liberals, it is ultimately G-dly Israel and the Torah that are the targets of the Sobrans, the Buchanans, and all the anti-Semites of all ages.

My web site.