In a New York Times story we learn that the NRSC is pulling contracts with advertising and PR firms who have worked with the Senate Conservative Fund, even going so far as to call individual Senators and warn them that they’d better not employ agencies who have done work with such anti-establishment interlopers, cartoonish true believers who somehow got it into their fevered heads that we need not, as a matter of fact, have a permanent ruling elite made up of lifelong politicians — and that perhaps it’s not so terribly unhealthy to send to DC voices that actually represent the constituents in their states, not just their cronies in DC, in the US Chamber of Commerce, or on K Street.
Meanwhile, both the NRSC and the NRCC have become notorious for withholding funds from GOP candidates who don’t hew to the Karl Rove strategy of rebranding the party as Kennedy Democrats.
It’s an all out war now, people, and it’s being led by the same sleazy insiders who continue to give us McCains and Bushes and Romneys — while spending all their time fighting not the Democrats, but rather those politicians who rise up as representatives of the GOP’s rapidly deserting base. They’ve let the Democrats all but buy the state of Virginia. They are actively seeking to run “pro-business” corporatist candidates against TEA Party incumbents — even as Ann Coulter, who when she wasn’t humping Mitt Romney was humping the hamhocks of Chris Christie, suggests that our desire to primary those Republicans who actively fight against our wishes is insane and near treasonous. Revealing herself for who she really is: just another Connecticut GOP party flak who got rich telling conservatives what they once wanted to hear.
Our incumbency rate in this country gives us re-elect numbers higher than the House of Commons, meaning that our political aristocracy is actually more entrenched than that of the country from which we declared our independence. That right there? Situational irony.
This ruling class has long controlled the money and has had the power to make or break candidates. And they often would rather see a Democrat win then allow another troublesome TEA Party outsider to enter their exclusive club of polished DC blue bloods.
Which is why we need to circumvent all these GOP Clearing House organizations like the NRSC, some of which have taken to rebranding themselves “conservative” in order to fool the base, but who remain at heart “center-rightests” whose only desire is to be seen as bipartisan, to “govern effectively” from the top down, in a compassionate conservative instance of the technocratic nanny state.
And the first step to stop these arrogant losing more slowly types is to back candidates using direct contributions — a truly grassroots approach. Or, if you prefer to think in metaphor, to back particular individuals over the attempt by the GOP collective to manage our decisions for us.
All of which is to serve as prologue to this interview with Matt Bevin, the man who is challenging Mitch McConnell and his $17 million (and soon to grow) war chest.
“10 Questions for Matt Bevin, Mitch McConnell’?s Tea Party Challenger”
Before Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky can face off against Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat and Kentucky?s secretary of state, he must turn back a primary challenge from Matt Bevin, a 46-year-old investment executive who has Tea Party support.
Alternately attacked and ignored by Mr. McConnell and his allies, Mr. Bevin has criticized the Republican leader for “surrender” in the recent deal with Democrats that ended the government shutdown and extended the nation’s borrowing authority. Mr. Bevin has vowed to repeat the 2010 success of Senator Rand Paul in beating an establishment Republican.
John Harwood of The Times and CNBC interviewed Mr. Bevin in his campaign headquarters outside Louisville. What follows is a condensed, edited version of their conversation.
Q. A lot of people watching this interview think Mitch McConnell just struck a deal with the president and Harry Reid that saved the world economy from a meltdown. Why should you run against him?
A. There was no threat of default. And as is often the case in Washington there are these faux crises that are foisted upon us — whether it was this most recent one with the potential threat of default, whether it was the fiscal cliff. Many of these things are Chicken Little-like — the sky is falling — when in fact that’s not the case. Under the cover of these crises and the resolution of these crises, there’s any amount of pork that gets foisted about, and billions of our dollars get wasted under the guise of protecting us. The American people are tired of it, the people of Kentucky are tired of it.
Q. Since the crisis there’s an almost unanimous sentiment among the Republican Party that in addition to hurting the country, the shutdown hurt the Republican Party. What about that don’t you get?
A. I understand exactly what polls are telling us but you have to look at the source of those. I also see the very man who supposedly was responsible for this hurting [Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas] just received an eight-minute standing ovation when he went home to his state.
The fact is the American people want men and women to stand up and represent them, and to put their interests ahead of the party interests. Too many of the career politicians, the established politicians in Washington on both sides of the aisle are representing their party more than the people. And no matter what the media says, the ballot box will determine what people truly believe.
Q. How would you explain what your governing agenda is, and why you could achieve it more effectively than Mitch McConnell?
A. I’ll listen to the people. I will not put my party ahead of what the people want. I am a believer in smaller government, limited government, less regulation, less taxes, because I think to have more of those things we suffocate the entrepreneurial spirit of this nation.
It is critical that we’ve got to start to dial back the scale of government. We have $17-trillion in debt, we have a G.D.P. of $15.1-trillion. It is unsustainable. The path we are on financially is unsustainable.
Q. The programs that put the “big” in big government are Medicare and Social Security. What specifically would you do about them? Raise the age of eligibility?
A. There has to be fiscal responsibility applied. There has to be common sense. These programs are going broke. They are bankrupt. Look at the requirements for eligibility on two fronts — both in terms of means-testing if it comes to that, but more critically and more importantly, look at the demographics.
When these programs were created, the recipients on average lived a few years beyond the point at which they were eligible. Now they’re living as long as half their lives after the point that they become eligible — decades and decades. This is what’s making it unsustainable.
Whether it’s 2, 3, 5, 7 years for people who have yet to join the program, the fact is we need to start moving in a different direction and we have to start now. I don’t believe in cutting for those who are now receiving.
Q. What’s an example of where you think Mitch McConnell has put party before country?
A. Syria was a perfect example. He couldn’t decide until the last minute what he believed, because he wanted to side with the party and the party wanted to go to war. The American people overwhelmingly said we don’t have any interest in this.
Amnesty — any number of corporate interests who line Mitch McConnell’s campaign coffers are very in favor of expanding amnesty yet again. Mitch McConnell voted for it in 1986, he voted for it in 2006. He voted for it in 2007, and then changed his vote and pretended he didn’t. He was very silent this time because he’s running for re-election.
Too often we have aligned ourselves with larger corporate interests and we’ve done it at the expense of the people — of all communities.
Q. Mitch McConnell has told his team to build the greatest Senate campaign in the history of the country. Why should anyone think that you as someone who’s never run for office before can overcome that?
A. Is what you’ve seen coming from Mitch McConnell, in your estimation, the greatest Senate campaign you’ve ever seen?
The only Republican in the state of Kentucky who can lose this seat is the guy who’s in it. Mitch McConnell will lose this race. In the history of the United States there has never been a Congressional leader in either the House or the Senate who has ever lost a primary — ever. This will happen. The more his people talk the better it is for my campaign.
Q. They’ve called you Bailout Bevin, they said you didn’t pay your taxes, they said you exaggerated your ties to M.I.T., said you voted for a third-party guy in 2008 who’s on YouTube waving a Confederate flag. Have those things hurt you?
A. They have not because they’re not true. When you have a 37 percent approval rating, the only way you have to get re-elected is to make the people running against you less popular than yourself. So I think we’ve only begun to see the tip of the iceberg. He makes these claims up, and then he runs ads about them, and I think he’ll continue to do that.
Gandhi said first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you, and then you win. So we’re somewhere on that spectrum.
Q. His people have talked about raising tens of millions of dollars. How much can you raise, and how much of your own money are you willing to put in?
A. We will not match him dollar for dollar, nor will we try. This is not a race that is going to be purchased. He believes he can buy this seat again. I believe he’s wrong. He will put a 1 or a 2 in front of any number we raise.
We’ll need $4-million to $8-million to win this race. That’s what it will take, and we’ll need to turn the voters out. We will raise the money. I don’t intend to buy it myself. Buying your way in with your own money doesn’t turn people out.
Q. If you?re so great as a Tea Party candidate, why isn’t Rand Paul for you?
A. Who says I am so great? I’ve not made that claim. But the fact is that people want an alternative. You’ll have to ask Rand — folks can guess to what his aspirations might be, and what avenues he needs to take to attain those aspirations.
But here’s what I’ll tell you. Rand Paul is only one vote — and everyone who ultimately coalesced behind him is already behind me. I’ve known Rand a long time. I was there the night he was elected. I was with him in his suite before he went down. He knows full well that he and I are cut from very, very similar cloth — and that he and Mitch McConnell are not. He understands that.
Q. Have you spoken to Ted Cruz about your race, and is he going to help you?
A. I have spoken to Ted Cruz. Many of the conversations I’ve had with people were had in private for a reason. They have more in play as elected officials right now than I do.
Out of respect for them, I’m going to defer to them as to when they choose to talk about the conversations we’ve had. It’s disadvantageous to get the cart ahead of the horse.
The truth is, it may take us several attempts at storming the barricades of the establishment’s entrenchments before we breach them. But in the mean time, making them spend their money and explain themselves to their constituencies, who they then ignore once they return to Congress (unless they’re cutting deals in exchange for pork as a way to appease the dullards), is a perfectly admirable first step at remaking DC.
Combined with local attempts to bring together a state amendments convention, this is a strategy that, should it catch the imagination of the disillusioned GOP base and those Democrats who aren’t hard leftists and who reject the progressivism that now brands their party, can gain momentum of the kind that gave us the 2010 election results.
It’s clear now that they not only despise us, but that they’re willing to do so almost openly. Fine.
These are just men and women, not kings or demi-gods. And it’s time they learn that crowdsourcing our discontent is a powerful method of overcoming their monetary and institutionalized advantages.
Game on, fat cats.
the relative positions of the cart and the horse are really the least of anybody’s worries here I think
we got fascism afoot and that chinless kentuckyslut is worthless
Bevins is just pointing to the ordinary distinction between what’s private (like private property, but not restricted to it) and what’s public, or nominally the business of everybody.
In a kind of counterposition to this, Pambasileias ClownDisaster tends to elide any such distinction between public and private, where His own godly purposes are concerned (for what is your business is by definition also His business), if only because all is revealed to His All-Seeing Mind: though He hasn’t any necessity laid upon Him (for what Being could possibly be positioned to lay necessity upon a godly ClownDisaster?) to share with all [the common-men] that which these common-men cannot possibly grasp. Why burden them beyond their needs or capacities?
The WSJ had a piece yesterday wherein Stephen Moore, the author, tries to explain the TEA Party. He approaches it like an cultural anthropology experience. He’s Margaret Mead in the land of Samoa and can’t decide if he’s being pranked.
The gist of the article is his incredulity about the fact that none of the folks he interviewed were the least bit concerned about the fate of the GOP.
Leigh, from your link
And he doesn’t (can’t?) back up that assertion with any examples.
It’s like Medved trotting out the vote “rankings” of McConnell or McVain to “shame” people who come on his show and criticize Establicans. Then sneering at people for wanting “purity tests.” What votes, where? A 100 “conservative” votes on minimal, low effect items overcomes a vote that supports Fed takeover of 1 sixth of the economy?
Darleen, the TEA Party is his hobby horse for the last year or so. We baffle him, so we must be wrong or stupid or evil or all of the above. As for Medved, meh. I lost respect for him ages ago (so long ago I can’t remember the exact year, even) when he was willing to sell us down the river for Compromise™.
And where did that advice get you, Mikey?
sdferr, what does Pambasileias this mean, please? I can’t find a definition.
Pambasileias, (Aristotle Politics, 1287 a8
Thanks, professor.
” of rebranding the party as Kennedy Democrats.”
Are they even hewing to that? they let the Bush cuts expire and I haven’t heard any tax cuts or simplification schemes since Herman Cain got “rich old black men are all rapey ultra-sexist horndogs”-ed out of the primary by Gloria Alred. Nor would Kennedy Dems put up with Benghazi.
Teddy Kennedy Democrats, perhaps? The Fredo of the Kennedy brothers.
Herman Cain had a crazy chippie problem
like you could’ve made a sitcom
actually they really should’ve
it was the kind of chippie problem what’s usually kind of endearing in real people
but not in wannabe presidents
presidents have to look all focused and serious
it’s a thing
No more voting for “pragmatic”, “center-right”, “moderate” or “reasonable” establishment Republicans. Not gonna vote for another McCain or a Romney. Which means if our our GOP crony-corporatism betters decide to give us a Chris Christie or equivalent, I’ll be staying home in November 2016.
My preference is to pull the bandaid off quickly rather than slowly. Unless we get a true conservative for the GOP nomination, then we may as well put Hillary or Slow Joe in the driver seat and let them hit the turbo boost button. The sooner we go over the cliff/hit the wall (pick your preferred metaphor), the sooner we can start clearing the wreckage and rebuilding.
‘Double Down’: Huntsman Campaign Behind 2011 Smears of Herman Cain and Mitch Daniels’ Wife
the fear may for reals be palpable but still you should refrain from palping it I think
at least not where people can see
oh and also
Mitch Daniels’ Wife is self-smearing she’s like an early-90s performance artist
Not if we’re prepared to vote against them at every opportunity.
It’s the least they’ve done for us.
voting lol
The GOP doesn’t seem concerned about the fate of the GOP, so why should we be?
pickachus manning the barricades lol
[…] – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=51804#sthash.tICTt0YR.dpuf […]
that was hurtful
[…] to know if the SCF or DeMint’s work is gaining headway? Well, when the NRSC starts pulling contracts with contractors who work for the SCF, it’s safe to say DeMint is making his presence felt. Seems like the […]
how about pikachus mounting the barrycades?
Don’t knock the ballot box. Especially when it and the jury box are the only things between you and that ammo box you won’t take up.
The GOP doesn’t seem concerned about the fate of the GOP, so why should we be?
Exactly, Ernst. Matt Kibbe seems to scare the daylights out of Moore. Frightful extremists and all that. Get used to it, Establicans.
sometimes we gotta make it up as we go cause laying low ain’t all that goes on around here… but voting?
lol
voting is gay when all you can vote for is a mindfucked cowardwhore like John McCain and a piece of shit statist coulterquim-moistening freakshow like Mitt Romney
sometimes c’mon y’all yeah that’s all it takes
I got yer voting right here you want you can pet it
pikachus for huntsman
pause for smoov
pretty sure a huntsman is what you get when you cross an osmond with one of Jon Huntsman’s whoreslut daughters
you don’t have to actually cross them they fuck like bunnies with absolutely no encouragement
Not to change the subject (he said as he changed the subject), that Deneen piece sdferr linked the other day was pretty interesting. I’m surprised it didn’t touch off the next round of the perennial so-cons vs. libertarian-cons intra-mural debate.
It’s November. Close enough to Thanksgiving, don’t you think?
He said impishly
did you just slap my rosy-cheeked lil pikachu face with your glove?
Do I have to cite chapter and verse on all the times you said voting for Romney was the only thing to do?
No. I don’t think so.
trollslut
the unfettered individual culminates in the rise of the collective
i’ve farted entire symphonies what were less trite
On the off chance my position on voting isn’t clear. In regards to McConnell, McCain, Boehner and other high profile establicans, I want them gone. I would vote for their primary opponent. And if necessary, their opponent in the general election. Vote against them every chance you get.
I think you meant to say it gives us longer tenures than the House of Lords, which is to say “for life.”
Romney was all that was left
he was all that you had once you took out retarded momo Rick Perry and the chippie-fucker pizza boy and the screechy tardasil bitch and Mr. baby-in-a-box baby-in-a-box baby-in-a-box and “Ron Paul” and wackadoodle Callista Gingrich’s boy toy and Mr. Tim “where’s the exit” Pawlenty
just a sad lil excuse for a party
and at the worst possible time
No. Trying to have a serious discussion with you would be a complete waste of time.
thank you for making my point in advance.
oh you
I guess being a bemused pragmatist means you never have to stop kvetching long enough to say your sorry.
Although, come to think of it, bitchy whining doesn’t really qualify as bemused, does it?
*you’re* sorry I mean
oh wait that wasn’t me
Mr. baby-in-a-box baby-in-a-box baby-in-a-box
does the baby have a sweater vest?
only in the broadway production off broadway they just keep the lid on
“. . . surprised it didn’t touch off the next round of the perennial so-cons vs. libertarian-cons intra-mural debate.”
Oh, it touched off debate alright, but one more focused on the particulars of Tocqueville’s intentions regarding individualism, it seems.
the particulars of Tocqueville’s intentions regarding individualism,
that has jack squat to do limiting the fed gov’t
And this you know due to your careful consideration of Tocqueville, no doubt.
they’re pointless discussion that don’t rectify our current predicament. big gov’t has been defeated before see: history, ussr
besides the “individual” is not the same as the collective called “individualism”. the individual is align with subsidiarity.
big government won’t stay dead and decently buried see: Putin, Vladimir
lord have mercy it’s a…
FIVE pound bass
it’s as big as a goddamn baby!!!
The truth is that there are lot of individuals, a majority even, who happen to like big government to one degree or another. Partly because they see (or have been conditioned to see) big government as all that stands between them and being at the mercy of all those other individuals out there.
“big government won’t stay dead and decently buried see: Putin, Vladimir”
yea but that is the history of russia. usa not so much
This post made me happy. And that’s odd on account of being officially a crabby old man. I turned into one without even realizing it. But here’s how I know for sure it happened. Already. Man, that was early too. A ballot came by and it was easy as eating delicious pie with ice cream on top, quite natural to go “no” to this, “no” to that, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO There were not many of them this time, but no to everything. And since they left blank spacer left overI used it to say, my right as a newly hatched crackpot.
THAT’S “NO” TO EVERYTHING.
YOU ARE NOT TRUSTED TO COUNT THIS VOTE RIGHT.
YOU ARE FLATLY NOT TRUSTED.
It was all about taxes, and size, and power, and consolidation of resources and such, all self-concerns, all regulate the new pot cash, so no, do less with less. We don’t like you.
Do you ever watch local government on teevee? The one for Denver has a lady with a busted voice. Completely ruined voice. Guess what ruined it. Guess, I said. Talking too much, that’s what. Guess who does most the talking. Right! The one with the busted voice. That’s government in a nutshell for you. The obsessed people prevail because nothing, and I mean nothing, can stop obsessed people when they are crazy like that, even their own busted voice boxes. Honestly, I know people who have already resorted to sign because their vocalization is wrecked but still better than hers.
I heard a woman say about something else, “There is starting to be some activity here we need to regulate it.” With no sense of self-awareness at all about how insane that sounds to non-obsessed. That it is axiomatic in her thinking all activity automatically requires REQUIRES government regulation is disturbing.
Ernst
It is the rationally moral person who knows the biggest struggle one has is with one’s self.
The biggest lie told is that people are basically good. And it is on that lie the Left works its machinations … if you are basically good, then someone else is responsible when good things don’t fall into your lap.
So the people convinced of this want Big Brother to go beat up and make “them” pay. They just hope others don’t get a clue and lump them in with the “they”.
It’s the history of the USA since Roosevelt (take your pick); It’s latent in the history of the USA since Lincoln (some would say) or perhaps Jackson (where I personally would locate it).
You just had to go and spoil your ballot, didn’t you?
Now, if you’d voted yes to everything, and written I LOVE BARAK OBAMA! I LOVE BIG BROTHER!, well, naturally that’d be different.
It’s the history of the USA since Roosevelt (take your pick); It’s latent in the history of the USA since Lincoln (some would say) or perhaps Jackson (where I personally would locate it).
gee that sounds proggtarded. have you ask flo about the rates?
– My current voting criterea is simple:
– No one under 45
– No one who has held office before
– No one that has friends in the lumber business.
– No one who thinks McCain is a war hero.
I can’t very well argue with that now, can I, Gabby Johnson?
You know what else people say about the truth? They say it begs nobody’s pardon. Some also say that when insufferable cartoon characters get drunk and make fools of themselves, the truth goes out of its way to be hurtful.
I’m still on the fence about that part.
– Specially if its a picket fence.
There’s no helping those who won’t help themselves, eh, nevermind those who won’t help anyone else? So, would that make him who won’t help himself one of the individualists Tocqueville feared would be to come, due to the too great success of Democracy, since there simply is no collective called individualism. The potential danger with too great an individualism expressed in individuals, as Tocqueville saw it, is the atomization it brings, the withdrawal, the disconnect with all the web of association in family, town, church, tradition, neighborhood, club and group — a disassociation with every heritage binding what had gone before. It’s every new-man a pretend king and none a father or brother. It’s unsouled institutions displacing ensouled human beings.
But lucky us. We have someone to pronounce what is proggtarded and what is not.
sorry Mr. McGehee but i was well ahead of the curve in smelling the rotten festering gangrene what had set well and good into the soft tissues of Team R
you can have your voting and you can vote for Team R proper or you can vote for a canuck piece of shit lilaroser like ted cruz makes no difference to me
we didn’t get where we are now cause of we was voting wrong
You’re wasting your time sdferr. That’s all
proggspeakor maybegreekmost definitely dwarfish to newrouter.a disassociation with every heritage binding what had gone before
you be “bowling alone”
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community [Paperback]
Robert D. Putnam
>My favorite moment is when the president mentions someone he’s been talking to. “I had a conversation a couple of weeks back with Robert Putnam,” Obama says, “who I’ve known for a long time.” Putnam is a renowned sociologist, and the ability to drop his name is a requirement for membership in elite circles. What makes this name-drop special is that Obama not only assumes the reporters know who Putnam is, he amplifies his snobbery by mentioning that the author of Bowling Alone and American Grace has been a personal acquaintance for years, as though that in itself is an achievement, as though that somehow makes the sentence he is about to utter more meaningful.<
link
“you”, says the sage, “you be”, he says, diagnosing crisply across any and every barrier of space and time.
That’s all proggspeak or maybe greek most definitely dwarfish to newrouter.
well i think you are doing the putnam’s “bowling” lament. individuals throughout the ages have found different diversions. because not many peeps bowl anymore doesn’t mean, ahole educated losers notwithstanding, that usa is in the gutter
““you be”, he says, diagnosing crisply across any and every barrier of space and time.”
liv outreach sir
Christopher Lasch was a cultural marxist. Which means his diagnosis was only half right, and his prescription entirely wrong, but that doesn’t mean he’s not worth reading.
also this clown putnam picks -bowling. what about bridge the upper classes don’t play that no mo’. or it is not given such attention.
well i think you are doing the putnam’s “bowling” lament.
Then you are mistaken about what is meant by an account of someone else’s terms, or point of view. For instance, if I were to say newrouter’s view of the expression of Tocqueville’s intention regarding individualism by sdferr is sdferr expressing his own adherence to what he thinks is Tocqueville’s view as expressed by him, you would only have missed it by, as Maxwell Smart would say, “this much”.
More diversions than ever in this day and age. Paid for by somebody not you was sdferr’s (and Deneen’s) point.
I haven’t read Bowling, but I am going to add it to the reading list. The part I’ll probably never get to.
Anyway, I can guess his thesis. Modern society is corrosive of communal bonds. Therefore we need to create government programs to artificially simulate those bonds. Bonds that were destroyed by previous rounds of government programs designed to overcome the corrosiveness of modernity, modernity itself being corrosive because of government programs designed to eliminate the constraints of custom and tradition.
Bit of a simplification, I’ll grant you….
if I were to say newrouter’s view of the expression of Tocqueville’s intention regarding individualism by sdferr is sdferr expressing his own adherence to what he thinks is Tocqueville’s view as expressed by him, you would only have missed it by, as Maxwell Smart would say, “this much”.
using my key pad i would say that the writers of the past have useful information about dealing with the society that they encountered. what about now and the pikachu problem?
The two names that haven’t come up yet regarding Deneen on Tocqueville?
Rahe and Minogue
Not by much, Ernst. “Bobos in Paradise” is take on the same thing: more culturally/environmentally conscious than thou cred.
So the dead have nothing to say to the living? Because they’re dead, along with everybody they knew? Or because we’re all precious snowflakes and the world has never seen the like of us, or our problems, before?
So the dead have nothing to say to the living
they have things to say but would you want you doctor,plumber,mechanic et al listening to all of it?
. . . have useful information about dealing with the society that they encountered.
So does this mean that you take a historicist’s view of the thought of each man? That is, that each man’s thought is possibly reasonable, useful or good in itself when restricted to his period of history, his era, but of no use or good to anyone who happens along thereafter, and that this is the explanation of the difference of opinion dividing such a one as Saint John or Thucydides from Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon, or Albert Einstein and Karl Jaspers, to pick a few names from out of the air?
Leigh,
That’s because Leftists have been recapitulating the Gospel of Marx according to Dewey, Croly, the Fabians, Keynes and Galbraith.
Unless they’re more esoterically minded, then its the Secret Gospel of Nietzsche according to Freud, Weber, Heidigger, the Frankfurt School, Derrida and Foucoult.
would you want you doctor
Like, would you want your doctor taking and seriously adhering to a Hippocratic Oath? Since, I mean, that Hippocrates guy lived a fuck of a long time ago.
I would have to say, I think we’ve reached the point where the majority of our fellow citizens, stevie for instance, would not survive liberty.
Is why I’ve lost all hope of recovering our Republic. The people are simply incapable of it.
The only scenario in which I see a possibility involves the succession of several states, and that would not be allowed to happen.
Most of it, yes. Special snowflake plumbers might be inclined to think they can make water flow uphill.
Kind of like our President, his Cabinet Officers, their undersecretaries, most of the bureaucracy and well over half of the Legeislative branch, wouldn’t you say?
Would you want the founders and lawgivers of your nation to be studying Aristotle, Cicero, The Bible, among others, not to mention Machiavelli, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Sydney, Locke and the like, who one and all were very dead by the time of the Founding of that nation?
I still believe in spontaneous organization Lee.
But we’d better start devolving onto intermediary governments and intermediating institutions fast, lest we become to fat and happy suckling at the Federal teat to remember how to take care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors.
See, for example, school lunch programs in the summer time.
Like, would you want your doctor taking and seriously adhering to a Hippocratic Oath?
were g. washington’s doc’s doing dat at the end?
who one and all were very dead by the time of the Founding of that nation?
true but their every utterance is not gospel.
were g. washington’s doc’s doing dat at the end?
I’ve not only no idea what may be the answer to the question, I’ve no idea what the question portends. Help me out then, if you will. What does it signify with an answer either way; that is if they were or they weren’t, what would it tell us?
true but their every utterance is not gospel.
Gospel is good news, but then, no-one ever suggested their every utterance is good news. On the other hand, what has that to do with the price of eggs in China?
I’ve not only no idea what may be the answer to the question
“Washington did not lack for the best medical care, but unfortunately for Washington that included “bleeding” him of nearly half his blood. Near death, Washington told his attending physician and longtime friend: “Doctor, I die hard; but I am not afraid to go; I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it; my breath can not last long.””
link
“Help me out then, if you will”
the fed gov’t has maybe 3 – 5 jobs to do. let’s push it back to that.
So an imperfect medicine is taken as a failure to attend to the Hippocratic Oath?
Yeah, I don’t think the oath makes a swearing to a perfect knowledge of some hypothetical medical art to be obtained at a later date, as opposed say, to a good faith effort and intention to keep an ethical standard with patients who are to have their personal privacy invaded, their lives taken into the hands of another, their homes exposed to an outsider who may take advantage of them in a time in which they and their families are incapacitated. But you might want to look into that.
George Washington was bled to death –entirely in keeping with the best medical practices of the time. We have our own invasive, harmful practices. Chemotherapy comes to mind. Introduce just enough poison to the system to kill the cancer without killing the patient.
For the rest of it. Human knowledge increases and our understanding of the world changes. Human nature remains rather more constant, despite the increase in knowledge.
Arguably, our greatly increased grasp of technique has made the failings of our nature more pronounced. I mean, sure, the Romans, the Mongols, others could lay waste to a whole city or cities even. But it would never seriously have occured to them to try to eliminate every last living man, woman and child of a disfavored group from the face of the earth —if only because they lacked the technical ability.
And on that cheery note, I think I’ll retire for the night and go watch John Wayne slaugher a bunch of ignorant savages of some kind or another.
I admit to having some sympathy for newrouter’s point.
There’s little point in trying to teach advanced calculus with someone what needs help balancing their checkbook.
Is there anyone here who needs help balancing their checkbook? I, at least, don’t think so. To that extent, that point would seem more or less moot, wouldn’t it?
George Washington was bled to death –entirely in keeping with the best medical practices of the time.
“if you like your health insurance you can keep it”
Is there anyone here who needs help balancing their checkbook? I, at least, don’t think so
$17,000,000,000,000. you go baracky!!11!!
Ah well, off to bed.
sir a good night’s rest to you
– There is something missing from the formula. The something is incentive.
“When Curtez ewached the new world he had his men burn all their ships. Thus they were well motivated.”
– We need to be yanked off the teat and set to running from the King again. Incentive. Motivation. Food for the freedom loving soul.
Dana Milbank thinks that any GOP wins are actually meaningful wins, and that, with the almost certain Cuccinelli defeat in Virginia, the TEA Party has jumped the shark..
It’s probably too late to save it, the GOP, this Republic. Even if the mainstream Republicans win their primaries as Milbank and ‘feets suggest they should, with RINOs installed, we still lose the Republic, because socialized healthcare was THE tipping point. The so-called mainstream GOP has given us Losing More Slowly, right up to the cliff’s edge and over.
If Cuccinelli can pull this off, retiring McAuliffe, the TEA Party is back in the game, and Milbank’s mainstream GOP loses. He’s only 2 points back, but millions of dollars behind in funding.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants” doesn’t mean anything to you nay sayers? There’s nothing to be learned from the lessons of the past? The expertise or lack thereof of pioneers in their fields?
I need to go lie down.
– Leigh, its the temperment and shallownwss of the mellinials and boomers, not the legacy of our forefathers.
– Matter of fact we’re lucky they couldn’t anticipate the pussification of the next generations, or they well might have said “fuck it, Let the King prevail”.
“(Rugged) Individualism” is a bit of a straw man.
It evokes the image of Tom Hanks stranded on an island with whatever he was able to salvage off the crashed plane. It effectively cedes society to the socialists. The distinction is “Society?Government”; what Levin calls the “social society”, ruled by voluntary association vs. the coerced socialism of government and community-organized thuggery.
We must hammer this distinction: When all of the parties to a transaction freely choose to associate with one another to bring it about, they do so because they each believe they will benefit from it (based on their values). They will be richer by having participated. Coerced transactions are not only able to leave one party poorer; they’re actually able to leave all parties poorer, by forcing each person to give up something he values more than what he’s getting in return. Proggs don’t get that the reason the free market works is that the buyer and seller each value what the other is giving up more. They think they can substitute their values on us all because they know better than we do what things are worth.
That’s why a bunch of women can go on a Progg talk show to complain about how traditionally-female jobs like school teacher pay less than traditionally-male jobs like garbage collector, firefighter, Bering Sea crab crew… To which I say “Sure, if you place no value whatsoever on working nice hours in a climate-controlled environment where you won’t mess up your hair or nails, much less lose any blood or break any bones, and you don’t go home smelling like shit, then you’re definitely underpaid. Maybe you should go sign up for one of those high-paying jobs. ”
Time and time again, if you just restate the proggs’ plans in terms of what they forbid, you can clear up why they will fail.
Progg: “People should earn a living wage.”
Us: “Your law does not ensure that. It only makes it illegal for someone to earn anything between zero and what you consider ‘a living wage’. It forces people who would otherwise have low-paying jobs to be unemployed instead.”
Progg: “People should be able to afford comprehensive health insurance.”
Us: “Your law does not ensure that. It makes it illegal for someone to purchase affordable less-than-comprehensive plans, and then forces them to pay a fine because they couldn’t afford what your law demands.”
Progg: “Employers should have to buy women contraceptives.”
Us: “Employers don’t pay for the benefits they nominally provide their employees. They just write the checks. The employees pay for their own benefits with the work they do, and the bigger the checks the employers write to third parties to purchase that work, the less money is left to write paychecks.”
In every case, the Left sees coercion as somehow capable of forcing people to do good, but any time a transaction is coerced, it does harm. (There are some transactions that take place under the threat of coercion that do not do harm, but those are precisely the transactions that would occur even without that threat. The coercers therefore do not get to credit for those transactions. But that won’t stop them from claiming it.)
That ? was a “not equal” sign.
I miss preview.
Society is not equal to Government.
There’s another simple proposition afoot, I think, as well. It might go like this: Politics is not equal to Economics.
Somebody should have told Obama, “Rhetoric does not equal leadership.”
heh, and pretense does not equal Rhetoric.
Cuccinelli will lose because he’s been seriously outspent by a Left that understands the power of perception, and undersold by an establishment right who knows the same thing.
Throw in a fake libertarian for insurance, and it’s a perfect storm of deception and fraud.
“we’re lucky they couldn’t anticipate the pussification of the next generations”
They did. Is why women were not allowed to vote.
This blog alone almost makes me think the Islamists have one thing right…their attitude about women.
But then I remember Carin, Maggie, and Maybe , and go back to thinking it might not be so bad to let them drive, at least.
They did. Is why women were not allowed to vote.
Ah, but this was not the case in N.J. at the time of the writing of the Constitution, to say nothing of the absence of any such provision therein.
True; the pre-Amendment-19 Constitution didn’t forbid women from voting, it only failed to prohibit states from limiting the franchise to men. Some states limited, others didn’t.
“Ah, but this was not the case in N.J. at the time of the writing of the Constitution”
Ah, so what?
It was common and accepted practice to limit the vote to male land owners, and had federalism been allowed to work, the wisdom of the thing would have been proven out.
Unless you believe a nation is best governed on feelings of course…
Yeah, that‘s what I meant Lee. That I believe that a nation is best governed on feelings.
Thanks for the help.
Exactly sdferr, just like I thought you needed help with your checkbook.
You must work out to achieve that level of obtuseness.
What’s obtuse again?
Obtuse, thy name is not sdferr.
“What’s obtuse again”
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe confusing an expression like ‘the gospel truth’ with the literal translation, ‘good news’.
Maybe to dodge a point for personal reasons like, if I had to guess why…
– Personal rancor aside, where they may have had some inkling of the coming pussification, its doubtful they could have foreseen the total lack of initiative.
– Having grown up on a thorough daily diet of electronically provided virtual reality, these generations seem to lack any personal awareness, and with that a limitless acceptance of “not doing anything” without getting bored, since theres always another set of faux entertainment links to fill in the gaps.
– Mercy.
I’m an eternal optimist, BBH. The Founders could not have imagined our prosperity today. For all the bitching we like to do (and I share in the blame) we have the richest poor people on the Earth. Wealth and leisure breed indolence as has been pointed out since the dawn of time.
Well Lee, I neither confused the origin of the term gospel for the current loose usage of it, nor I think, d0es the point fail to take into account either of the two usages, since in both cases no one had made any claim that the reason for attending to the books in question was as simple as assuming “. . . their every utterance” is gospel.
Newrouter restated the point another way; “they have things to say but would you want you doctor,plumber,mechanic et al listening to all of it?”
Your characterization seems a bit unfair.
Your characterization seems a bit unfair.
I don’t think so, if only because newrouter’s restatement makes too much of “all of it”, where “all of it” was never the question. The question, as far as I grasped newrouter’s previous assertions, had been whether something that Tocqueville had to say about the advance of Democracy in America, and the possible avenues he could foresee as dangers in that advance (namely, the very sort of rampant egalitarianism we now confront in the policy wishes and achievements of TheClownDisaster, many prefigured in the closing chapters of Bk. II) would be of any use in recovering or in possibly changing our polity for the better.
We’d never know, of course, if we never approach Tocqueville at all, leaving him and his thoughts in the position of the cliched “tree falling in the forest” where no one happens to be.
And too, as to the value of any such study or attention to Tocqueville having an effect on the current political situation, even if that effect were to be somehow remote to us now, we can’t tell that howsoever small that effect may seem to be, that it yet may be the crucial piece of information of which we happen to be in need. But that point isn’t a matter of discussion with the so-called low information voter at all, and wasn’t suggested to be such.
It was, however, a question addressed to the people here, who all, I think, can deal with it on its own terms, to the extent they may choose to do. If not, then not. But at least that’s a matter of choosing.
if only because newrouter’s restatement makes too much
you are citing me? oh dear.
1978 The Trammps – Disco Inferno (Burn Baby Burn)
@4:21 of the trammps
Fear The Monster, for The Monste is wise.
“>subsidiarity < a principle of social doctrine that all social bodies exist for the sake of the individual so that what individuals are able to do, society should not take over, and what small societies can do, larger societies should not take over
It would no doubt be wise of me to leave newrouter’s intent for him to clarify, but I’ll go out on a limb and say I took his point to be when your house is burning down may not be the best time to research the history of firefighting.
Tocqueville was and is very informative on how to avoid the situation we are in, no doubt about it. The framers enshrined his concepts in law. But at this point, when the highest authorities are simply ignoring the law, there seems to be little to be gained in revisiting the particulars of Tocqueville’s every utterance . The ins and outs of the law aren’t in question, the question is what to do about the law-breaking.
It’s best to look at every suggestion possible, when we’ve come to a crisis the like of this, I think — and not least those suggestions put forward by such as A. Lincoln in his Lyceum address in 1838 (only a little after Tocqueville visited, if I remember right) hoping to stave off the day to which we have come. I’m happy to look at anything put forward, but not so happy to think I’ve already got in hand enough of the answer to the question Jeff posed the other day (“what happened to the shining city on a hill?”) that I’m going to reject answers like Tocqueville’s, foreseen before the tragic collapse.
If Tocqueville is right about the egalitarian impulse (so to speak) leading to both the atomization of the individual and the weakening of intermediating subsidiary institutions (church, family, civic organizations) then we’d be damn well better put some thought into what it is we propose to replace the the social-welfare/regulatory state with.
Rick Santorum wrote a book about it, and then our friends on the Republican right beat him over the head with it as proof! he was a big government Republican not to be trusted.
Unlike other big government Republicans.
But that’s just me pining away for what could have been.
The lawbreaking is happening because The People (as defined by Obama and the media) want it to happen, or don’t care that it’s happening because they either approve, or at least don’t actively disapprove) of the outcomes. And that’s because we’re no longer a society bound together under a common Law, we’re a disparate aggregate of individuals in need of Social Justice, lest we find ourselves falling prey to other disparate individuals.
Lest it be objected that the Left is all about social groups (race, class gender, etc.) Those are the cateories by which individual victims are victimized by victimizers (racists, sexists, “the rich”) Government seeks to alleviate the (usually historical) wrongs done to these groups so that the individuals within them can prosper in the post-racial (classist, gendered) utopia.
Egalitarianism turns into a real bitch once you take it outside of the moral realm where it properly belongs.
So in answer to your question Lee, the thing to do about the law-breaking is to teach people that lawbreaking can’t be tolerated, especially not on utilitarian grounds.
I’m a big fan of subsidiarity, by the way, at least in principle. The economic concommitant, distribut[iv]ism, I’m undecided about.
I also tend to think that the individual exists for the sake of the social obligations he takes on willingly or finds himself obliged to take on. That for me is a corollary to the definition newrouter offered up.
(I guess I’m about to find out how many Randians lurk here)
The one’s rejecting Tocqueville are our ruling elite. That is the problem and us gaining a deeper understanding of Tocqueville isn’t going to confront them in the least.
Whatever gets you through the night though…
And here I thought our ruling elite were using Tocqueville like an instruction manual.
Like they do Orwell, Huxley, etc.
“I’m a big fan of subsidiarity, by the way, at least in principle.”
works way better than tom friedman and O! and nyt. you go edumacated idiots grrl!!11!!
It’s hard for us moderns to get our heads around, but if we were to ask what Aristotle would say to the question “What’s left over after we subtract the economic component from our politics?” he’d almost surely reply something like “Everything that’s important about human beings, is all.” (He had a generally unfavorable attitude toward our attachment to commerce as an end.) Marx, on the other hand, reduced everything about humankind to economics. If that tells us anything regarding the most opposite poles of the spectrum. Is there joy in the middle?
Rousseau thought so,
if we could just get rid of that pesky sense of ownership thingy
“thing to do about the law-breaking is to teach people that lawbreaking can’t be tolerated, ”
Yeah, good luck with that.
that be to nyt not the ernst. oh and tasty cakes or tacos.
“Is there joy in the middle?”
there be rino’s no?
the ernst figured as much newrouter
Does this mean we can finally relegate utilitarianism to the kiddie table in the other room?
John Stuart had better not try to borrow any of Ayn’s crayons.
(in for a penny, in for a pound)
Well, maybe the question would better be put as: Did the framers understand themselves and their political architecture as standing in the middle?
My sense is “no,” but I have to ask,
Middle of What?
OT: I don’t do the twitter thing, but I see Jeff is arguing with Bob Belvedere that “there’s no reason you can’t be moral and virtuous without faith.”
It seems to me that having faith is like having all your immunizations where virtue and morals are concerned. The people with the latter but not the former are free riders taking advantage of the general immunity. That is, I imagine it would be harder to remain moral and virtuous absent the morality and virtuousness (such as it is) of our fellow man.
Maybe it’s more like flu shot. I wouldn’t want to ride the analogy like a rented horse.
Middle of the spectrum sketched, if the spectrum is acceptable as posited. That is, with weight on the high value of commerce (it was a commercial republic, after all) as well as with weight on the invisible realm of virtues that guided Aristotle’s description of the political, neither end winning out, but ever in contention.
Mansfield: Liberal Democracy as a Mixed Regime
I’m really not equppied to answer your question then, because I’m not deep enough into the framers thinking on the middle ground between homo whateverens and homo oecomonicus. Please don’t mistake my flippancy for disrespect for your question. I get your point that for Aristotle (and many others besides) there’s more to the good (or virtuous) life than production and consumption.
My own take is that any system that doesn’t reduce man to any single aspect of the fullness of human life an experience, however imperfectly realized, would sufficiently occupy the middle ground you speak of.
And anyways, sdferr, is their really a middle ground between Man is and economic creature and Man is more than an economic creature?
Iffn yuse still has my email would you shoot me a copy of that Mansfield article you linked? I can’t get it to load in my outdated browser.
Much obliged..
For a politics, it appears to me that there may be such a middle ground. For an individual person, perhaps not, or not coherently so: either he is devoted to the one or to the other as his standard of judgment, for the two seem to be incommensurable.
The computer on which I did have your email died, so no, I ain’t gots. But email me at sdferr at comcastdotnet and I’ll be glad to do.
I’ll do that tomorrow then. Thanks.
Mansfield is the other guy, besides Rahe and Minogue, whom I’m a bit surprised hasn’t come up as part of the Deneen conversation.
Oh well, hazards of the format, I’ll guess.
Totally OT sign off for the night: Epic was just that. Only 3-D movie that I wish I’d actaully seen in 3-D!
Ernst wrote: …I see Jeff is arguing with Bob Belvedere that “there’s no reason you can’t be moral and virtuous without faith.”
Actually, it was Jeff and Smitty [of The Other McCain fame] who were. On some points, I agreed with Jeff and on others Smitty.
I tend to lean towards the opinion of John Adams that Smitty quoted:
.
However, I have not reached a conclusion as yet on the question being raised in their Twitter discussion.
I do believe that conservatives and Classical Liberals are the only hope for restoring our freedoms and liberties. What happens after this is accomplished is what their discussion, in my opinion, concerns. So, while it is one that is rolling around in my brain, it is located well in the rear end of it, as it were.
Obama‘s Girls. His “Army of I-Won.”
I saw part of the Jeff/Smitty exchange last night. My view on the immediate question has always been that virtuous atheists tend to be those raised in religious households, but any argument I might extend from that would simply reiterate Ernst.
Of course, a virtuous atheist would also be an honest one, and that would imply that he knows where he learned his virtue — and is therefore too sympathetic to the role of religion in society to join the godless scolds that run around loose trying to banish faith from the public eye.
The latter are, in my opinion, working out their big-d Daddy issues with God in an unhealthy manner.
Aristotle didn’t appear to be an atheist, except perhaps where it came to asserting or denying the existence of Zeus Father. But then, he too looks to virtues acquired as a matter of a teaching of one’s true father (who may well have believed in the existence of Zeus Father), and thereafter adopted by one’s own reason as one’s own motive principles. It’s a circular bit of business, to be sure, but then circles and the solids they describe when spun are big in his theology, so no geometrical figure to sneeze at. But christian, of course, he was none.
Here’s a circle…
Or, “This is known as bad luck.”
Machiavelli too was keen on the centrality of virtu to politics — albeit a virtu of an entirely different color. And man o’ man, was he ever a success. Since, hey, here we are, his political children.
I for one would like to see the tea party palp that fear with a #2 wood until somebody calls the cops.
Donald Devine: Can We Finally Retire Scientific Superstition? — “What difference does this make?”
Angelo Codevilla: Why Spy? — “What difference will that make?”