I want to point out Michael Knox Beran’s article on Obama and the perfectibility of human nature, the best article I’ve read on the web in a while (Shelby Steele’s perfectly formulated piece about Obama’s appeal being the companion piece and other contender). I’d excerpt some, but you really ought to read the whole thing, even if I think the author underestimates the satirical intent of Machiavelli. Matt Heidt and I both urged Jeff to comment, but he’s got a class tonight, so meanwhile I thought it might be good to point it out. Enjoy.
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
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Obama is running as the I-Candidate, he’s not trying to win because he’s more qualified: he clearly isn’t. He’s not trying to convince people he has better ideas, he doesn’t. He’s trying to convince people they will be considered cooler and sexier if they vote for him. He’s trying to win the way I-Pod won buyers; use this product and you’ll be cool like these people. Vote for Obama, and you can be cool too.
Will it work? Macintosh built an entire business on it but still only sells about 10% of the PC market. Who knows, all I know is if i had to bet, I’d put my money on the older and Jewish vote as opposed to the youth and the trendy vote. Just ask the Obama Girl who she voted for in the primaries… oops.
Kudos Dean Barnett:
LOne pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that Michelle gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Obama
When he’s ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar has given you the call
Call Obama
When he was just small
When the men on the chess board
get up and tell you where to go
And you just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Obama
I think he’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s “Off with her head!”
Remember what the Axelrod said
Feed your head
Feed your head
“As a society, Obama says, we are hurting. Our schools are “crumbling.†There are “lines in the emergency rooms†of the hospitals, and our corporate culture is “rife with inside dealing, “questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed.†He points to the millions of Americans who, in struggling with life’s difficulties (“high gas bills, insufficient health insurance, and a pension that some bankruptcy court somewhere has rendered unenforceableâ€Â), have become bitter and unhappy.””
Again, what’s wrong with the goal? Is he suggesting that because we
cannot transform the electorate and the body politic overnight, that it shouldn’t be3 attempted?
Beyond that, his litany is a mishmash of Socialist Nihilism and Socratic perfidy. Perhaps he is the sole possessor of it’s value in terms of evaluating a ‘charismatic’ politician.
He seems to think Hobbesian cynicism CANNOT, MUST NOT be supplanted with anything other than acceptance of our miserable human state.
“Like the Nicene Creed, Obama’s doctrine begins in belief. Credo. Once we believe in the possibility of a transformative politics, “the perfection begins.†”
‘Perfection begins’ seems like a weasel word. Otherwise, what’s wrong with this concept, I mean except for die-hard Materialists?
Obama’s conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good,
WTF is wrong with this. It’s worse than Typepad. Upgrade much?
“Obama’s conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good,”
As Grace sang,
Feed your head,
Feed your head
“Obama’s conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good,â€Â
The vision of the common good will be brought to you by teh Narrative, all rights reserved.
Transcend through palliative rhetoric, eh, ‘cleo?
Teach us how to take responsibility, O! just as you did regarding your 2nd Amendment questionnaire.
Many have tried to perfect man.
Thanks to them we have such horrors as the True Aryan, the New Soviet Man, and Eugenics to provide us with lessons on hubris.
Correct, matoko?
I don’t mind aspiration. I don’t mind heuristics. For goodness sake, I’m a friggin’ Catholic. What he’s selling, though, is a celebrity diet.
“…he has entered the American psyche not as a hero but as a healer.”
Rachel Lucas called them “beer goggles”.
“…This commitment to absolute truth, he [Obama] argues, stands in the way of a politics that can solve our problems and change our lives. …”
There just is no fact of the matter about human nature, Obama would have us believe. Nothing constitutes a human nature that cannot be over-ruled by our choice of his prescriptions for our lives. Believe that and he has you.
Again, what’s wrong with the goal?
262 million dead bodies. That’s what.
““Obama’s conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good,â€Â
The last time it was tried we ended up with a charnel house of torture and mountains of dead bodies.
Aren’t 120,000,000 dead, murdered victims of “selflessly pursue(ing) a shared vision of the common good,” enough?
How much blood does it take to slake the monster god Fascism?
Glad you linked this. I had it bookmarked myself, and only laid off due to the crazy Novak traffic we’re getting.
Now that’s a bad pun, m’friend.
“Volk Force One”
FROSTED CHEERIO!S™
Cleo I’ve seen you on blogs for 2 or 3 years and while you have always been a foolish lefty your posts are closing in on scary. That crap you just posted is straight out Communist clap trap. There is a reason the USSR no longer exists the fact is that common good spiel always ends up the same.
I thought, given this sentence, “… What both Aristotle and Weber made too little of is the mentality of the charismatic leader’s followers, the disciples who discover in him, or delusively endow him with, superhuman qualities. …”, that the bulk of the article would be devoted to the psychology of the current Obama-philes.
Beran elucidated something of the general condition of followers, to be sure, but didn’t explore our contemporaries in Obama’s train, at least not to my satisfaction. The sketch of talkshow culture doesn’t go on to explain the reason we have a talkshow culture. What is it good for? Why do we seem to need it? Do we in fact need it? And so on.
Collectivism, in all its forms, may have been a colossal bloody failure everywhere it’s been tried, but damnit, O! can make it work, if you only believe!
Right, cleo?
Obama’s Republic is Platonic, not Machiavellian. So is Michael Knox Beran’s. The Constitution isn’t. Checked swing.
Satan is Real is a good record, though.
Speaking of good records, Man of Peace, off Dylan’s Infidels album kept running through my head after I finished that excellent article.
As a prolepsis for those familiar with the tune, no, I don’t think O! is Satan.
Don’t you think, Dan, that were Obama capable of shame, he would not have run for President in the first instance?
I’m not criticizing your title here, because I think it funny and appropriate, but wanted with this question to explore a little more the seeming disappearance of that public check on our hubris.
As a people, have we learned to be less judgmental, less demanding of virtue (in the sense of arete, not Nicolo’s sense), in part to avoid causing shame in others, in order to spare them pain, and perhaps more importantly, to avoid have our demands for excellence rebound upon ourselves, causing self-inflicted pain (not to mention the greater trouble of actually striving for excellence)?
how far is the lake regoin , NH from where you are, Dan ?
I look forward to another 2 SC Justices who will further extend Eminent Domain. Seriously I do. Having no private property will be great for Cleo and Obama’s vision of the “common good”. “Common good” as determined by the State of course, but hey what will not be to love? The MSM will be sure to remind us what to love every day, as they are doing now. I am all for it.
Pass the bong please……
Ba haa haa … Cleo’s in rare form tonight.
“Transcend through palliative rhetoric, eh, ‘cleo?”
You think that diatribe is limited to the forces of “O”?
His emetic is on the cafeteria menu for all humankind.
‘Hope’ is as delusional a concept as the afterlife. You are
a traditional Catholic, aren’t you Danny Boy?
“…due to the crazy Novak traffic we’re getting.”
– Nah, most of it is just hit and run.
– Ding! (get him off the stage!)
Cleo if you believe you can perfect mankind, you do believe in a delusional concept. You are just a traditional Communist, aren’t you Cleo?
I think Cleo has … glug glug glug … been hitting the bottle. Comment 26 is crazy-delicious.
“His emetic is on the cafeteria menu for all humankind.”
– To be sure. Unfortunately every times its tried it turns out the entre’ is loaded with rotten tomatoes.
But I don’t want to pursue the “common good”. I want to pursue my own goals; that’s the very definition of liberty.
I don’t trust anyone to define “the common good” beyond the results of each of us pursuing our own happiness.
And I sure as hell don’t want to live in a world where someone else defines what I will “selflessly” work towards. “Selflessly” implies a blank check, and I decide who gets to make that big of a call on my life.
There’s nothing “beautiful” about that vision; anyone who knows the least of history will recognize it and reject it.
Can anyone here point to a time where Mizz KKKleo made a point? And you found yourself agreeing with it? Nah. Didn’t think so …
But, hey, we know cleo’s fully behind slavery. What better way to get people selflessly working for the “shared vision of the common good”, eh?
I think Cleo has … glug glug glug … been hitting the bottle. Comment 26 is crazy-delicious
I think he’s just trying to deal with Bobby Sherman turning 65.
Carin, can you find 5 differences between # 26 and neocon agenda?
– Cluseless is not all that special. She drank the Koolaid, and that pretty much seals her fate til she gets some experience and insight, and maybe not even then. Sometimes the “free lunch” pot at the end of the fascist rainbow is just too hard to resist for people with almost zero imagination, and a terrible self image. Individuality takes a lot more courage than most on the Left can muster.
One Nation,
One People,
One Leader.
What could go wrong?
Sashal, what is there in 26 to find?
Sashal, sashal, sashal … comment 26 is full-on bullshit. I can’t find 5 differences because it’s hard to argue against gobbity-gook. It’s like trying to move a mound of jello with your hands. .
“What could go wrong?”
– Overheard in the power control operations room at Chernobyl, a few minutes before the “reduced power” test commenced.
And just add this:
http://volokh.com/posts/1216794178.shtml
Seriously – what could go wrong with asking for this level of sacrifice? It should be required, I think.
You’re right, JD. We need a better class of troll around here. But, if wishes were like assholes, we’d all have a unicorn. OR something, I may have messed up the quote.
For the greater good of the people, of course. Complacancy will not be allowed, nor should it.
sashal is arguing with those imaginary NEOCON voices in his head again.
My all time favorite Miss Cleo moment was when she was asserting that PRE traumatic stress disorder is real, as she suffers from it, and used that as a defense of Beauchamp lying.
#42 Carin – some assholes would like a unicorn.
I’m just sayin’. The lightworker will see to that, I’m sure.
PRE-traumatic stress disorder?
So that is what I have, my worry about the future means that I am disabled.
I should look into that.
Oh goody for TIME on 41, Mikey, an excuse to make up some new ‘Corps’. Let’s just hope we don’t end up with new ways to make new ‘Corpses’.
Carin – I think the quote you are looking for is “if my aunt had dingleberries, she would be my uncle”.
It’s an ink blot, and sashal has read into it his personal obsession. He seriously needs to pull his head out of his ass and breathe fresh air for a change; the brain damage is blatantly obvious.
Dan, aren’t you concerned that if the story is always about Obama then he will win simply because no one knows enough (anymore) about McCain? Don’t doubt that, man. Obama owns Big Media’s sorry ass right now. It’s almost surreal. Everything is framed in reference to him as a person, thinker, and potential leader. Is there anything to compare it to since FDR?
Sasha, it’s about 2 1/2 hours. Just beyond Dartmouth.
From Mike’s link:
Involuntary servitude. There used to be a word for that…
Obama: he’s the choice of a post-shame generation!
“Obama owns Big Media’s sorry ass right now.”
I know, right? Which makes it all the more strange that he commanded them to talk about Reverend Wright for a month during a contentious primary. Can we trust someone that incompetent to be president? I think not!
“Involuntary servitude. There used to be a word for that…”
“Draft”? Not “jury duty,” I imagine, since that’s two words…
Thomas Sowell expands on the Constrained and Unconstrained Visions of Mankind in his Conflict of Visions. Those who subscribe to the Unconstrained Vision believe that man is perfectible. They also believe that any means necessary is permissible to achieve a given goal.
Reading that book answered a lot of questions for me–some that I didn’t even know enough to ask.
Mikey – Yeah. PRE traumatic stress disorder. An insta-classic.
Hey Dan, could ya fix that fer me?
Beran elucidated something of the general condition of followers, to be sure, but didn’t explore our contemporaries in Obama’s train, at least not to my satisfaction. The sketch of talkshow culture doesn’t go on to explain the reason we have a talkshow culture. What is it good for? Why do we seem to need it? Do we in fact need it? And so on.
I gotcher answer right here:
Having millions of kids serve in FreiCorps or whatever is probably the surest way to kill off Progressive ideas, really. Happens every time you see that crapola up close.
Sure thing, Juliette.
And anyway, what are they gonna have the kids in the FreiCorps do? Not shoveling bodies into ovens, c’mon…. that’s a job Americans won’t do, so we gotta get illegals for that.
So, “Barret Brown”, you have no problem forcing people to do the bidding of others?
You won’t hear me arguing for the draft — I leave that to the lefties. And jury duty is a reciprocal obligation — if you’re the accused, other peers will sit on the jury hearing your case.
Dan, If you feel like it, I will be at Steele hill resorts between 8/11-8/13.
If you come over (in the daytime we, my wife and me, will be doing recreational things AND LATE, LATE NIGHTS TOO -WINK )
we will have a few drinks and good conversation as promised, Dan
The Sweet Illusion of Socialism
See, sash? Lots of people are onto this scam.
Rob, I will be in NH for a fresh air.
Do you think it will help me to understand better the obsession of the bolsheviks/neocons to change the world ?
Thanks for the invite, sasha. Please remind me on around the 5th, and I’ll run it past Mary.
One People,
One Nation,
One Leader.
Obama.
That does get easier to type each time.
Thanks, Dan, my love.
Or-
One Nation,
One People,
One Leader.
Obama.
to-may-to, to-mah-to
From aforementioned article:
Shaminism? Shaminism! Shaman don’t dribble thrice and drop a three-pointer like a red hot oven-baked brick while America’s major news network’s cameras are rolling. No, shaman shake rattles and chant and shake chicken bones.
So toxic is the neo-radical R-wing’s subliminal black culture creep-speak. Insidious! O-man doesn’t/didn’t live in the underbrush and slither ’round like a bush shaman. Our Golden-brown Super O! climbed Mt. Harvard and leapt tall buildings in Chicago. The rad-wing of the R-wing’s lingua franca has such brain softening effects that you people can’t see the author’s accidental self-portrait by rote of his word choice.
I shant bully the benevolent O! nor kowtow to your R-wing false gods of yawn-inducing subliminal racial smirkings. How keen your base agony is! How lurid and flush your jealousy of the O-ster! How miserable your closeted sexual deviancies! Adore your step-daughters! Dote on the family dogs! You thoroughly white suburban jackasses!
He’s O!. You’re not. Six.Dolla.Bit.Otches!
What a riot, (c)leo.
You have just described America before the loony left decided that illiterate, lazy motherf***ers deserved the money that people who work for a living have.
You are a riot. The Left has destroyed communities, families, and neighborhoods, not to mention the most important thing they have destroyed.
And that would be shame. If you had a half a brain, you would be ashamed of yourself, but you, and the rest of the proggs have no idea what the word even means.
Too bad. The only way to gtow as a human being is to be ashamed of being a tit sucking, stupid moron who thinks that the world owes any stupid asshole a living. “Go smoke your crack, you poor thing. WE will force those who bust their butts for their families to take care of you, and try to make other people feel badly about the fact that you are a useless, lazy piece of crap”.
Sorry. As compassionate as you feel for these gold brickers (many of whom can’t even speak proper Englosh), you are a fool to think that stepping in shit will not make your feet stink…
And not only your feet stink, your entire philosophy stinks!
I can’t believe that people like you even dare to judge those who do give a good portion of their income snd time to people who are less well off. You proggs just want to have the government to take care of charity so that you have more time to beat your withered chests over how “compassionate” you are.
Proggs make me want to puke. Your self importance is nothing more than a cop out. In the last fifty years, the proggs have almost completely destroyed the community safety nets that have worked forever, and then have turned around and called the right (which STILL gives about ten times more than the proggs) fascists and “hard hearted”.
Sorry, baby. It is YOU and YOURS that are the fascists.
And you are not even smart enough to see it.
Cool!
DO IT YOURSELF, you poser. That’s what life is about. There is no proxy for helping people by your “own self”. If you want the government to do it, move to France. We have lost enough freedom here, and don’t need those who cry crocodile tears to snuff out even more of our freedom.
How funny is it that the left uses lies to smear W, when THEY are the ones who have been throwing our human rights into the toilet for fifty years?
KABOOM! MY head just exploded…
Mikey how about?
Overman
Bringing
Art
Masterfully
All-in-One
Well, once you pull your head out of your ass you might understand the difference between removing a tyrant and installing one. The American vision is to change the world; to free it. That you cannot (perhaps refuse to) grasp that makes you utter ignorance of American culture and history clear.
But, hey, you got yours (thanks to other people), so what do you care if no one else is free, right? Besides, all those little people crushed under the boots of tyrants are easier to handle than free people pursuing their own dreams. Just ask your soul-mate Jimmy Carter.
Thor, you should fuck off, too. We get it — you live for the taste of O’s semen. The joke’s old and worn out — go tell it to another crowd.
Good God, the O-philes are more tedious and annoying than the Luap Nor twats.
#3 Semanicleo: Obama’s conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good
Progs love to mock the Christians who donate to charismatic televangelists, but they themselves are just as fervently religious. The only difference is that progs express their religious impulses through politics. Unfortunately, giving the political televangelist the power of the Presidency is far more dangerous than giving him a television ministry and a McMansion.
Thank you so much for the link. I had never heard of Beran until I read this article. Beran is obviously a very well-read and thoughtful man. This was also my chance to experience “Semanticleo.” What a deluded purveyor of vapidity. Your politics are beyond pathetic. Why don’t you just sell your soul to the freaking state you collectivist tool?
Great. Thor’s been on the sauce tonight too.
“So, ‘Barret Brown’, you have no problem forcing people to do the bidding of others?”
Yes, “Rob Crawford,” I do have a problem with that. I also have a problem with all coercion. However, I think it’s a little much to compare such things as drafts, jury duties, and whatever wacky proposal Obama has on a given day to slavery, as was implied in the post I was responding to.
Fuck me? No, you pompous, dull, longing to be fascinated dick-felching pussy. I lay witness to you as the non-contemporary jerk who constantly derides a fairly noble contemporary man because you find him hard to understand. I hate to indulge in Psyche 101 terms such as “denial” but you’re feelig the big fat denial and repression rub, in other words I think your Mommy fucked your little head up, and you deserved it Junior.
Funny thing about the “common good”: it’s not all that common, and it sure as hell isn’t good.
Bingo, Aldo. You absolutely nailed it.
Cleo, I think the common good would be improved if everyone in America could take a turn kicking you where your nuts should be. I’ll start.
dicentra, what do you think will happen if I come into the crowded theater here in US and yell: “Socialism”, ‘Socialism'”?
But seriously, I have been on this blog for a while, most of you guys have no clue what real unobstructed socialism is , most of you guys know a boogie man.
Say the words “socialized medicine”-heart attack, “government regulation of banking and whatever”-heart attack.
The 19th century unrestricted market system had died, dicentra.
That is part of the reason why many European countries escaped violent revolutions of the proletariat scum, they learned how to keep them quiet and satisfied…
O’K?
Rob, 74 it is all utter BS, Utopian fantasies of yours, we discussed it so many times.
But whatever.
You want to be a naive kid with no reality concept?
Fine…
I missed you too, Alpo.
The chudaks with their tongues hanging out and their swollen red eyes bulging pounding away on their greasy keyboards. It’s the Chuvashian blood in their veins and Appalachian white trash in their hearts that won’t allow them to feel respect or admiration, much less love, for the man who would be their next President.
Do you think it will help me to understand better the obsession of the bolsheviks/neocons to change the world ?
And the first thing to do is to understand that the post WWI/WWII settlement is dead, and that Kipling’s World has come back with a roar, and then to deny all of the ‘stability’ talk from the Bakers and Scowcrofts and start talking like Jefferson and Madison and Jackson.
Because they espoused the most radical ideas ever given life on this earth. I think Lincoln said it with that “…government of the people, by the people, and for the people…” thing.
It isn’t just for the USA, you know – no copyrights on that.
The Tragedy of the Common Good
hey, “chudaks”, “Chuvashians” what is going on?
Why should anyone feel respect, admiration, or love for the next president before he’s shown us he earned it?
87. But remember you will always lose to the trump card that notions like your awesome final line that you wrote are always a mask for a hidden, sinister neo-colonial desire to enslave and exploit.
Sorry that was for #86
Wot up sashalichka. I was recently reading some Chekhov :) Contagious is he.
Christian pagans so poor they can’t afford malaria.
I always liked his short stories better then plays.
But that’s just me..
I know his plays are more popular here.
His short stories are the shnizzlishka. Best evers.
The Obamatrons always speak of Baracky as being smart, a thinker. What objective evidence is there of that?
I likes me teh Gogol.
Read his books. He reflectively thinkers well.
I mean O!‘s books to #95. Yeah, Gogol’s shorts rock too.
Dan, “Dead Souls” ? , how about the “Evenings at the village of Dikan’ka”(absolutely loved it)
Have no clue how it is translated into English,sorry
JD,# 95, how about his achievements?
YOu think anybody can run for a president of United States?
In two man race?
And be ahead?
I love Dead Souls, and the short stories. And as I’ve mentioned, I love Ilf & Petrov. Master and Marguerita. The Devils. I like lots of Russian lit.
= sashal, thats where every collectivist dreamer goes immediately off the tracks. You try to impose unrealistic expectations on human nature, and a more imperfect fucked up fit in nature could not be found.
– That is the poison seed in every attempt at “Socialism”, and why it is doomed to failure.
– You want to remove the very things that make us all human, unpredictability, independence, challenge, imagination, hate, love, lust, vanity, greed, lassitude, exuberance, sadness, envy ect ect ect.
– It will never work because it simply cannot work, and we’re all damn lucky that it can’t.
– The sort of community you envision would be an antiseptic, mind killing, total and absolute boring hell.
– The only thing good about such a construct would be that very quickly everyone would die of nothing left to strive for, and nothing left to live for.
– Quite happily, most humans know that instinctively, and tell you to shove your Utopian daydreams, and get a hobby.
“You think anybody can run for a president of United States?” W not only ran, he ran twice. And he won twice! So that should put him way up there on the smart list, right?
ut seriously, I have been on this blog for a while, most of you guys have no clue what real unobstructed socialism is , most of you guys know a boogie man.
Say the words “socialized medicineâ€Â-heart attack, “government regulation of banking and whateverâ€Â-heart attack.
I don’t need to see “real unobstructed socialism” because the little tastes I get … through welfare and medicaid … are enough. Why do I need to LIVE full socialism to have an opinion that it totally sucks my ass?
The socialized aspects of our current society are rife with corruption and piss-poo allocation of (my tax-dollar) resources. I don’t need to see anymore of it.
For Lit, vodka and decent looking sluts, or any combination thereof, visiting Russia is a must.
sashal – Non-responsive. Bob Dole ran. Dukakis ran. Carter fuckin’ won. Kerry ran. algore ran. Running for office does not make one smart, or a thinker.
No. These days, you’ve got to be something of an asshole to do that.
Dude, would you get yourself laid. Hippy chicks, all you need is a weekend with a long-haired hippy chick plus a nylon tent and a bottle of tequila to freshen up your breath. That’ll kill those Socialist demons dancing in your head. Non-money-motivated pussy does good things for the soul.
hunter, I am of the same exact up to the minute and details opinion, regarding your post # 102
Now that it is of course generally and philosophically speaking.
But when you guys are shooting a mouse under the bush thinking it is a bear, can you tell the distinction?
Some shit is necessary in order to placate the downtrodden and the poor if we want to avoid any further inconveniences of the revolution.
It is not the matter of the “socialism or death”
It is the matter of how much of the socialism we will allow to assure our own survival( mine too, I am not the proletariat, but I have seen what they can do, when frustrated)
Can you understand this, guys?
# 108
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
and if needed, I can supply blue pills , price is negotiable
“Dude, would you get yourself laid….”
– Does having to deal with the reality of that mean ole world out there scare you that badly “duuuuuude”.
– Well, speaking of “laid”, I layed it out for you just why Utopian bullshit like you and yours run around mind-fucking yourself with is just another try to find a free lunch.
– You obviously can’t muster two working brain cells to manage a coherent response.
– Like sashal, you need to get a hobby. Here you just waste bandwidth. Grow up junior.
JD, (sigh) I guess when you bring Bob Dole and Kerry, I can see your point….
Well, sashal, the original concept of the United States was that we wouldn’t have a “proletariat”. Nor an inherently privileged “noble class”. To the extent the concepts fit in Marxist terms, the basic idea was that everybody would be bourgeois… or have a clear, achievable way of getting to be bourgeois. The ones who didn’t want to exert the effort to follow that path were to be allowed to rot, pour encourager les autres.
It took two more centuries for a Peruvian economist to explain why. Short form: the personal possessions of the people, in total, dwarf the value owned by “the rich”; if everybody has a little surplus and can pool it with that of others to finance the means of production, more means of production can be provided without inconveniencing anyone, and the society grows richer and richer.
Unfortunately, if you want to take out a lot of resources (for whatever purpose), the only place you can get it is from the bourgeoisie, because they’re the ones who’ve got it. If you took every cent the top ten percent of wealthy Americans have, it wouldn’t finance the Government for a quarter year. But taking from the bourgeoisie leaves them with less surplus, so less is available for new or replacement means of production; the society gets poorer. As the society grows poorer, the necessity for supporting the proletariat grows, which requires more taxes on the bourgeoisie, which impoverishes the society, which increases the necessity for support… it’s a positive feedback downward spiral with no end until the society itself is destroyed.
And as the society grows poorer, those who control significant resources have more and more incentive to protect that control. Despite “soak the rich” schemes you can’t really tax them, because they get their income from buying and selling, and whatever you charge in taxes just counts as another expense along with raw materials, etc. Ric’s Rule #2: markets happen anyway. When you try to destroy a market and substitute bureaucratic control, what happens is you create a market in the attention and favor of the bureaucrats. The rich continue to have access to Government; they contribute to (and bribe) politicians, thereby buying immunity from the depredations, and the bourgeoisie have no such protection.
There’s an intermediate period (now, for instance) during which the bourgeoisie try to work hard enough to join the ranks of the rich. Most of them fail. At some point in that process the assets available for new and replacement means of production are no longer sufficient, and the society begins sliding down from industrial wealth to agricultural poverty. The ultimate result can only be an utterly traditional society, consisting of proletariat, nobility, and a few artisans and craftsmen who serve the nobility but have essentially no economic power.
You came here because the society you left had almost completed that transition, and you wanted something better than crafting shoes or furniture for the nomenklatura for a pittance. What you fail to understand is that the policies you advocate — which you see as necessities, softening the USSR’s system to the point it does no damage — are in fact the reason your children will be serfs. It is entirely possible that the process has gone too far for recovery already.
Regards,
Ric
Seriously, sashal, or the rest of the Baracky apologists. Where does this idea of Barcky being a thinker, or a great mind, come from? So far, he does not seem to think beyond the moment he utters his words. He only means what he says at the moment he says them. The only good decision I have seen is hiring Axelrod for the primaries, and that was just tactical.
– Ric, good luck. Once they catch the “free ;unch” sickness the prognosis is seldom favorable.
– Economics in general, free market economics in particular, Capitalism in short, is to a Socialist as garlic ia to a Vampire.
The 19th century unrestricted market system had died, dicentra.
Murder Most Foul, yo. If FDR hadn’t rubbed his hands together in glee because now he had the chance to “experiment” with the nation’s economy, there would have been no Great Depression. Just a blip, then we’re back in business.
The original SecProggs decided that the free market was passe, along with the Constitution, rule of law, and democracy. They decided to abandon the free market. So the extent to which it died was not a petering out but a murder.
most of you guys have no clue what real unobstructed socialism is,
Yeah, they talk about it all the time on Coast-to-Coast AM with Art Bell and George Noory. Along with Sasquatch and Nessie.
“Real unobstructed socialism” is the economic equivalent of a perpetual-motion machine: a brilliant source of free, clean energy IF ONLY WE COULD GET IT TO WORK RIGHT.
Next time, homeys. Next time. Now we’ve got iPhones.
Rick, I fail to see any substantial differences between our positions.
Now if you claim that there is no proletariat or plainly speaking
– working class- in America I will fail for words of amazement.
The theory , which you basically advocate in your post about trickle down economy , had shown and demonstrated itself already in the last few years.
Now we have some sort of economical crisis.
Do you think the constant erosion of the middle class and poor is good for the country? Fine
Do you think the growing gap between the wealth of the top few and majority of others is good for the country? Fine.
I may think the same too. Fuck them, unsuccessful people.
Just do not feel too bad when they vote their frustration or worse….what could be worse then vote, hah? Ask, Russians….
That’s where I am saying, that proletariat MUST BE BOUGHT….
I just said about 19th century unrestricted wild system.
I haven’t said anything about FDR, democracy, constitution(and we should not even go there in lieu of Bush’s administration frivolous interpretation of it) or whatever.
If this makes you feel good and superior , fine.
As far as “real socialism” you’re exactly correct, like perpetual machine it is not possible with us normal human beings with our own feelings and emotions and goals and aspirations…
Facts don’t make anyone feel superior; they just make people wiser. Usually.
Now if you claim that there is no proletariat or plainly speaking
– working class- in America I will fail for words of amazement.
sashal, you may have lived here for a while, but you don’t understand our country.
Really.
– sashal, given the specifics of your last sentence, aspects of human nature we cannot, and thankfully so, avoid, nor should we want to, the only “system” that works with an essential longevity is based on incentive. Give men incentive and theres almost nothing we can’t accomplish. Give men a handout, and very shortly there will be no reason to accomplish anything.
– The lack of incentives is just one of the weaknesses of Socialism. Thats why Unions, one of the absolute fundamentals of the Eastern Socialisms, are basically useless enterprises. You can simply kill all ideas of incentive when you amorphise everything.
– The idea of a Union, used to balance the tyranny of big business, sounds like a great idea on the surface. But once installed it degenerates into a good ole boys club that insures zero incentive to excel, and a common goal of minimalism and commonness. A dumbing down of all workers to the least common denominator. Unions always start amid a high level of expectation, and always end in an endless downward spiral of less and less productivity for the same wealth transfer in exactly the ways Ric describes.
– In sector after sector of the economy, you see the same downward trends. Unions are just one example, you can find the same sort of loss goals in many areas, but the most obvious and flagrant are in any government run operation. I won;t even go into thw Postal services, or the public school system, but one thats in the forefront right now is the Fannie/Fredie mess in the housing industry.
– As Ric has said on numerous occasions, the government produces nothing. Nada, zip, zero. So any time you have to have government involvement it costs you productivity, so you want to make the governmental effects absolutely minimum.
– The arguments that people always use, namely that a “real” Socialism has never actually been given a chance is irrelevant. You have to actually understand what type of system is capable of sustaining producing, and maintaining that production over time, and Socialism simply cannot do that, most especially in its “purest form” which cannot even exist for all the reasons that have been spelled out ad nausea.
– Capitalism, free market economics that you so easily revile, has enough elements of incentive to be workable. Indeed if it did not, we could not even afford the few “modified” social programs (ie. SS, make work programs, ect.) we do have.
– The only purpose government can serve in a free market is regulation, and only that to the extent thats absolutely necessary.
– Now if the impulse to just grasp at any straw, ignoring the way the world actually works, just because you see the existing system as “unfair” is at the bottom of your reasoning, then you are doomed to fail.
– In other words, envy may or may not help you to your goals of a better life, depending on how you use it.
BBH, you are one weird fucked-up fuck. As in that effen name for starters; I won’t bother to ask why the name because I don’t won’t to ruin my own theory of Larry Cragian origin.
Look at you. Hundreds of hours and thousands of words, possibly more hours and words than Ric Locke wastes. And for what? People like you and Ric, you two fight all your lives saluting and defending profit-mad corporations and political power structures that, in reality, have no use for either of you. Think you’ll ever comprehend what being fucked by the system you extol is all about? You two live to advance, propagate in a faux poli-econ system all while believing that someone up there – some government, political party, church, etc.. – will someday be ready and willing to help decent citizens, like yourselves, so long as you do your part in publicly tributing your right-wing political masters and titans of business enslavers.
Sadly, in here anyway, there’s nobody to us from you two hopeless poli-econ proselytizers of all things righteously capitalist. Please save yourselves by dunking your heads into a toilet. It’s what I do to both-of-yaz if I could.
Because I care, sort’a.
..nobody to save us..
121, BBH,
Ahem, what this trite verbal set of middle school platitudes and banalities was about?
Did you even read what I was posting.? Please, sober up and do another attempt.
Hah? Unions schmunions, hahahaha, why would I even give a shit about them anyway….
120 sbp,
sure, whatever you say.
Really
Sashal, I do understand your position. It is a relatively-incoherent version of what Orrin Judd (and others) call “the Third Way” — asserting that (1) it is possible to have some measure of redistributive Government without excessive damage, (2) that we are rich enough to afford the luxurry, and (3) that given (1) and (2) it is politically impossible not to go that route.
The problem is that you can’t buy the proletariat, for two reasons: its appetite is infinite, and the only place the money can come from is from destroying the middle class. There was a spate of science fiction in the Fifties and Sixties that assumed industrialization at the limit, where production became for all practical purposes free; one writer posited that having a job and living a relatively ascetic lifestyle would be a privilege accorded the rich, with the poor required to consume massive quantities of luxury goods to keep consumer industries running. I suppose that if production were magic, as the leftoids postulate, that might happen. In the real world of finite production capacity, there will always be lifestyle disparities, and “the poor” will always resent them and agitate for greater consumption. Trying to pay off the proletariat to keep them quiet — bread and circuses! — requires destroying the production that is assumed. The more they demand, the less there is available to give them.
thor, you badly need to pay more attention to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and reflect upon the definition of “Commissar” as relates to the USSR. It is possible to note that the Sun rises in the East without proposing that glare in the eyes of commuters heading in from Dulles is a good thing.
Regards,
Ric
“Say the words “socialized medicineâ€Â-heart attack,…”
No, socialized medicine is a heart attack and a three day wait to get into an emergency room.
Or a ten month wait for a maternity ward.
It is not the matter of the “socialism or deathâ€Â
‘socialismo Y muerte’
N. O’Brain,
Person who works and could afford to pay for health insurance dying of a heart attack because of socialized medicine: Good riddance.
Person who doesn’t work and couldn’t afford to pay for health insurance dying of a heart attack in an emergency room because he didn’t have insurance: Doesn’t happen in America.
I would love to see a list of anecdotes of poor people being denied critical health care in America in one column, and a list of anecdotes of people being denied health care in Cuba or Canada in another column. I have some money I would bet that the Cuba/Canada column is a little longer.
The United States is continually in a revolution.
And your attitude speaks volumes; you’re a European-style conservative, willing to accept the poverty and servitude of others so long as you’re not inconvenienced by it. You’re not an American in spirit or thought.
“Comment by thor on 7/24 @ 12:29 am #
..nobody to save us..”
Try saving yourself first.
As for “buying off” the working classes. In the US we don’t have permanent classes. There’s no need to buy anyone off, because anyone can change their lot.
Unless, of course, the left gets its way. Then it’s work and re-education camps for most of us, and dachas and luxuries for them.
What you’re saying is “I know what it’s like to stand neck-deep in sewage, so I see the need to add a bucket of sewage to your swimming pool!” Well, no thanks. If you want sewage, go somewhere else.
Perfect. Thanks, Dan.
sashal: Europe has exactly the sort of system you want. Why aren’t you there rather than here?
As for the idiotic “class” nonsense that you inhaled along with your mother’s milk: what “class” do you belong to?
I believe he’s in the class that rides the short bus and isn’t allowed access to knives and forks.
I believe he’s in the class that rides the short bus and isn’t allowed access to knives and forks.
That would be my assessment, too.
I wonder what “class” Steve Jobs is supposed to be in — illegitimate child, adopted by a machinist, dropped out of college.
Wow, spb and Rob, what a statism in thinking.
Of course, any given individual can achieve all imaginable possibilities in life , especially in USA, no matter his birth circumstances.
The idea is for the working class members , WHO ARE AT THE GIVEN MOMENT THE WORKING CLASS Members, (I am not talking about the possibilities some of them can achieve in life) to have high enough standard of living to be satisfied with their life(not all will be Bill Gates).
The erosion of this standards and possibilities , which is occurring lately is not very good for the stability and health in the country.
Try to think at least a few steps ahead, beyond today…
And don’t give me this BS ” you don’t know Americans”. They are normal human beings with feelings and aspirations, and they want healthy prosperous life for themselves and their children. And the dream and possibilities to get it in USA are much higher then anywhere else in the world.
So , let’s keep it like that, and not undermine, which what was happening in the last few years
And the dream and possibilities to get it in USA are much higher then anywhere else in the world.
So why do you want to change it to conform with the failed European model, complete with the pernicious doctrine of “class”?
The class discussions in this thread are missing something important. Class does not mean the same thing in the US as it does in Europe. As used in classic Marxism, class was a pseudo-permanent label for members of the group. Movement from one class to another in Europe was almost non-existent. This is one of the primary reasons class has never really applied to the US in the same way. Of course there is a group of “working class” people, but in the US it is very changeable and transitory, especially in a generational sense, whereas in Europe one’s heritage basically determined one’s class. A friend of mine from the UK once noted the difference to me as saying that in England, a father walking with his son and seeing a man go by in a big car would tell his son, “that’s how the other half lives”, whereas in the US a father walking with his son would say, “work hard and that can be you son.” The US has never had the landed aristocracy that still burdens Europe, though sadly we do seem to be developing a political aristocracy that is bringing the worst aspects of Europe’s class system to us very rapidly.
sigh, SPB.
I really tried hard. I guess my English is very very bad, and you guys do not understand me.
Let me try again as simple as I can.
I do not want to change it to be like Europe, I want it to keep from becoming like Europe, that’s why I am worried for the erosion of our American dream to happen
Actually it’s you who should pay attention to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacle. Ten years ago every bond trader on the street knew that paper (MBS’s) was crap that was meant to be sold to dumbasses who were stupid enough to buy crap paper.
Thanks Republicans. Thanks Citigroup and Bear Stearns et. al.. Unbridled corporate greed combined with their paid-off Republican and Democrat dumbasses in our government have almost collapsed our currency and economy.
No Ric, me thinks you’ll never figure it out, smart guy, because you’re not the type capable of seeing things as they are. You’re one of masses of taxpayers meant to pay the tab, one of the idealogical parrots who soak up and believe all the lies meant to deflect the truth.
– thor, your 141 is total rank bullshit. You obviously have no idea about the numerous individuals involved in the care and feeding of Fannie/Freddie.
– You’d like very much to limit the “truthiness” to it all being a Republican generated mess. Unfortunately the Left/Democrats were even more responsible.
– This crapweasle game of pretending that there are no wealthy individuals and interest groupd on the Left side of the iasle is the howler of the mellenium.
– That too is bullshit.
– Ric gave you some good advice. Read up on the Fan/Gred mess, and stop just wasting bandwidth. The bose you are backing is worse than the one you are whacking “duuuuuude”.
– And sashal, if you’re gappy with America, and you don’t want to change it, then why do you keep talking about change?
– If you don’t like a Democratic Republic, as others have put to you, then why not live in the Socialism of your choice. America is not a Socialism, and most likely with any luck at all, it never will be.
– Every time you comment thor, you show the extent of your ignorance.
– But wtf, knock yourself out.
No, seriously – knock yourself out. It’ll be a bit quieter.
As It Is in Heaven…
A heaven on Earth?Once we believe in the possibility of a transformative politics, “the perfection begins.†[snip] The danger of Obama’s charismatic healer-redeemer fable lies in the hubris it encourages, the belief that gifted politicians can en…
#143
Good. cause I was reading everybody in this thread and thinking to myself,’That Thor guy isn’t making any sense.I mean you read and then, “wa da fu is he talkin’ about?” Is it even the same topic?’
I can see now that I was not alone in my thinkin’
Ya think maybe he’s on drugs or sumthin? Get some intervention goin’?