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“I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution.”

Really? That’s your simple idea?  Okay.  Now here’s my simple idea.  Consider it a counter-offer:  go fuck yourself asswise with a Halibut.

Of course, once we do this — that is, give up on the one document in the history of human governance that has protected individuals from the natural tendencies of governments to accrue power and eventually become tyrannical and then totalitarian — the only thing left to protect us will be our willingness and our ability to show our usefulness to the needs of the State.

— Which would mean Professor Seidman would either be left unprotected — and we can comfortably dispose of him, his “Constitutional” expertise having been made moot by his very own ideas, in a deliciously ironic bit of self-abnegation —  or else he could study up on how to make a perfect Manhattan and offer  up his services as a butler to some state apparatchik.

Personally, I’d like to see the aged douche in a short waist coat carrying a silver tray.  And setting out master’s slippers every night before retiring to his quarters.

People who advocate for slavery should at least have the decency to set a proper example.

(h/t Geoff B)

70 Replies to ““I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution.””

  1. Pablo says:

    I’ve got a simple idea: Get the hell out of my country.

  2. Mike LaRoche says:

    Another case of 99% of academics making the other 1% look bad.

  3. sdferr says:

    I’ve an urge to urge Seidman to reflect on Yeats, and imagine in the reflection he hears the Constitution speaking in Yeats’ place:

    To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators Of His And Mine

    YOU say, as I have often given tongue
    In praise of what another’s said or sung,
    ‘Twere politic to do the like by these;
    But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

  4. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The Constitution has a mechanism built into it for giving up on it, if we so choose.

    Fucking left can’t even do that much decently.

  5. No need for halibut abuse. But I believe it is useful that the progressives have decided they don’t have to camaflouge their intentions any longer.

  6. bgbear says:

    I look forward to a Republican president so that “Constitution shredding” will be bad thing again.

  7. McGehee says:

    Seidman either never saw A Man for All Seasons, or lacks the intelligence to recognize the lesson.

  8. He believes in something greater than himself. A better world. A world without sin. He’s not going to live there. There’s no place for him there… any more than there is for you. McGehee, … he’s a monster. What he does evil. He has no illusions about it, but it must be done.

    For so long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we will in no way yield ourselves to the dominion of the progressives. For it is not for glory, nor riches, nor honour that we fight, but for Freedom, which no good man lays down but with his life.

    Yes, yes, those are both heavily plagarized and abridged.

  9. “For every problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.” — H.L. Mencken

  10. ThomasD says:

    His quarters?

    Hah! Servants don’t have their own quarters, they all share the quarters.

  11. Parker says:

    I guess he figures that he’ll be allowed to work up in the big house, and not out with us field hands.

  12. Squid says:

    A gaunt wolf, nearly dead from hunger, happened upon a well-fed house-dog who was passing through his woods. He commented on the dog’s sleek coat and full belly.

    “You can be as well-fed as I am if you want to,” replied the dog. “Leave the woods; there you live miserably. Why, you must struggle and fight for every morsel! Why not work steadily as I do, and get your food regularly given to you?”

    “I would,” said the wolf, “if only I could find such a position.”

    “I can arrange it for you,” said the dog. “Come with me to my house and you shall share my work.”

    “What must I do?” asked the wolf.

    “Hardly anything,” answered the dog. “Chase rabbits from the gardens, bark at unwanted visitors, and fawn on the people of the house. In return, they will give you tidbits of every kind: beef bones, choice bits of meat, scraps from the kitchen, and much more besides. Not to mention kind words and caresses, and a warm bed to sleep in.”

    So the wolf and the dog headed back toward the town together. On the way there, the wolf noticed that while the dog’s coat was full and shiny, the hair around his neck was worn thin, and asked how that had come to be.

    “Oh, it is nothing,” said the dog. “That’s just where the collar is put on when they want to keep me from running through these woods. It chafes a bit a first, but one soon gets used to it.”

    “Is that so?” said the wolf. “Then good-bye to you, Master Dog.”

    Turns out that those bitter clinging ungrateful teabaggers date all the way back to Aesop’s time. And I know I’ve said it before, but the delusion of those like the good professor — who believe that they will be the master of the manor, and never the house dog — would be much more amusing if they weren’t all so hell-bent on seeing the rest of us collared with them.

  13. cranky-d says:

    Progressives think their ideas are “new,” when in fact they are ancient. The only new ideas came from classical liberals, and they are fading as we watch.

  14. McGehee says:

    McGehee, … he’s a monster.

    So am I. But I don’t wear his master’s collar.

  15. mojo says:

    Yeah, yeah – another ivory tower heard from.

  16. dicentra says:

    Wow.

    That’s some weapons-grade sophistry right there.

    But I’ll bite: Instead of referring to what a bunch of dead white men thought 2 centuries ago, I’ll refer you to what I think NOW, in 2013:

    Anyone who makes the kind of arguments that Seidman makes is champing at the bit, slavering and drooling at the thought of having unconstrained power.

    Which is why there’s nothing more dangerous in this world than a group of idle academics. They should all be made to dig ditches 20 hours a week, just so we get some use out of them.

  17. LBascom says:

    Geez, another link from newrouters above:

    Homeland Security graduates first Corps of Homeland Youth

    […] the Dept of Homeland Security has just graduated its first class of 231 Homeland Youth. Kids, aged 18-24 and recruited from the President’s AmeriCorp volunteers, they represent the first wave of DHS’s youth corps, designed specifically to create a full time, paid, standing army of FEMA Youth across the country. […]

    Over the past two years, President Obama has signed a number of Executive Orders suspending all civil and Constitutional rights and turning over management of an America under Martial Law to FEMA […]

    Individuals around the US have begun reporting the site of strange, new, heavily-armed FEMA fighting vehicles. What would a disaster relief agency like FEMA need with 2,500 brand new GLS armored fighting vehicles? According to the agency’s own mandate, as well as President Obama’s recent Executive Order, the answer is ‘population control’ during a time of Martial Law.

  18. cranky-d says:

    Well, that’s lovely news, Lee. I will sleep soundly tonight.

  19. newrouter says:

    good thing there’s alot dhs ammo around

  20. Mike LaRoche says:

    Homeland Youth? So when are the new Nuremberg Rallies taking place?

  21. cranky-d says:

    All they need is jackboots and brown shirts.

  22. leigh says:

    What color are boy scout uniforms these days? They’re good to go.

  23. LBascom says:

    I’ve heard rumors of high unemployment among Americas youth, not least of which, many college graduates. You, know, the best and the brightest. I’m sure this homeland security youth thing could only be a net positive for our national well being. After all, the military is basically just recruiting lesbians now, right?

  24. sdferr says:

    Yipes, Pat Schroeder — now there’s a call-back to a lesser day of days in the history of the great state of Colorado.

  25. sdferr says:

    novus ordo seclorum, says Mark Levin about Seidman’s schtick, taken a bit too far, albeit not in precisely those terms.

    Still, there may be a serious problem anyhow. Making over the world entire, just as the tyrant knows regarding the means by which he came to power, can be turned upon itself for yet another undoing.

  26. Alec Leamas says:

    McGehee:

    William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

    Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

    William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

    Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

  27. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Yeah, about this, that and the other thing: Here’s my conclusion.

    Not only has the White House, for whatever reason, decided that they’re not going to do anything to stop Iran going nuclear, they’ve decided on how we’re going to have to live with the consequences of the first decision.

    Tragically, that’s perhaps the best case scenario.

  28. sdferr says:

    Did you listen to Bernard Lewis and Norma Podhoretz in conversation with P. Robinson, Ernst? They sound to me like they’d both agree with you, yet find the conclusion equally incomprehensible (roughly 28 mins in).

  29. Ernst Schreiber says:

    No I haven’t sdferr.

    I don’t find it at all incomprehensible, by the way. I believe they’ve run the numbers and decided that containing the damage is more affordable than preventing the attack.

    Besides, never a let a crisis….

    Also, it isn’t like we don’t have it coming….

  30. sdferr says:

    What does containing the damage mean in a practical sense?

  31. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Picking up the rubble after we lose a city.

  32. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Although now that I’ve said that out loud, it seems to me that we were a lot more open and even optimistic about preparing to endure what must be endured and to overcome what must be overcome back in the Cold War days of civil defense.

    I’m sure our elites would tell us how lucky we are, how better off, because they’re less naive than either they were then or we common folk are now.

  33. sdferr says:

    That’s even harsher than I’d imagined. Podhoretz at the link asks the question (gisting now, forgive the quote marks) “how long would either the Israelis or the Iranians sit contemplating whether to strike first should Iran come into possession of nuclear weapons?” and his answer is not longer than six months. Lewis entirely agrees that Iran wouldn’t hesitate to use whatever weapons they may obtain. Obazma, I’d thought you to mean, wouldn’t mind losing either an Iranian or an Israeli city, either one being so much water off a ducking President’s back. But one of our own?

  34. LBascom says:

    one of our own?

    Well, you have to admit, it would be a marvelous excuse to declare martial law and suspend elections, don’t you think?

  35. sdferr says:

    I don’t, Lee. It seems to me a sooner path to the gallows than not, for the inattentive ass who would stand by to watch the catastrophe come.

  36. LBascom says:

    Like all the heads that rolled after 9/11 you mean?

  37. sdferr says:

    Here’s Podhoretz’s thought expressed in another interview, from Powerline:

    ** In this context, consider Norman Podhoretz’s assessment in an interview with Giulio Meotti: “If Iran gets the bomb, the Israelis would have to decide whether to preempt or to retaliate from the rubble. The Iranians would face the same decision. Each would therefore have an irresistible incentive to beat the other to the punch. It is hard, if not impossible, to see how a nuclear exchange could be avoided under such circumstances.” **

  38. sdferr says:

    Nothing like the attacks of 9/11, so far as I can see. But most especially so in a scenario envisioning a leap to martial law after an obviously disastrous policy set upon moronic beliefs.

  39. LBascom says:

    Ambassador Bolton: I think President Obama’s foreign policy rests less on defending American interests and more on his ideological distaste for the projection of American power and values. He is comfortable with a declining U.S. role, whether acting unilaterally or through our structure of alliances like NATO, as reflected by his massive defense budget cuts in his four years, nearing a trillion dollars and his apparent indifference to further cuts of $500 billion through the looming sequestration mechanism.

    The Obama Administration has failed utterly to stem rogue nuclear proliferators like Iran and North Korea, and we have seen al Qaeda and terrorism generally metastasize across North Africa and the Middle East, as the September 11 tragedy in Benghazi and the deaths of 23 Western hostages in the Algeria terrorist attack demonstrate. Obama has made a complete mess of his own “reset” policy with Russia, and he has no China strategy whatever. This is a prescription for real trouble for America going forward.

    We’re all standing by watching the catastrophe come. I hear no talk of gallows

  40. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I refuse to believe these evil bastards are simply stupid fucks who don’t undertand how the economy works. Anyone paying attention can see that the world we’ve built since 1945 is unravelling, and they’re both uninterested in stopping it abroad and invested in accomplishing it at home. So they prepare to squat upon the ruins.

    A more charitable reading would be that they’re preparing for every contingency of man-caused disaster, as well as Katrina/Sandy/New Madrid/Krakatoa type natural disasters, that they can think of. Personally, I don’t see a problem with that. Massive natural disasters happen. History tells us that economies collapse, starvation happens, political turmoil ensues. And as s to the terror threat, we have to be perfect, they only need to get lucky once in a great while. And while frankly there’s probably enough disconnect between the ruling class and the country class for the former to believe the latter can’t handle the truth, and the latter to assume the former lies about it’s intentions, that doesn’t pardon the failure to communicate what they’re doing or to attempt to justify doing it.

    But I’m done being charitable. If they insist on treating me and mine as an enemy to be defeated, it must be because I am.

    So what does that make them to me?

  41. sdferr says:

    You do understand I speak only of gallows in reaction to the loss of a US city to a nuclear strike by Iran though, yes? There has been no such loss, nor do I expect that there would be, if only because it seems a higher likelihood that the Israelis’ and Iranians’ conflict would preempt the possibility. Still, should such an Iranian strike come to an American city, I don’t believe Americans in general would find it in themselves to forgive the failure of a President, any President, to have paid sufficient attention to his oath of office to have allowed such an unnecessary catastrophe to take place.

  42. LBascom says:

    I hear no talk of gallows

    Lots of talk of domestic militarization, FEMA tanks, and a billion hollow points though…

  43. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Sdferr, you’re forgetting the well-practiced bromide, now is not the time for assigning blame.

    Besides, it’s always going to be Bush’s fault, now and forever.

  44. LBascom says:

    I think an EMP attack leaving half the country without power for six months to a year a more likely scenario than a single ground strike on a city somewhere. I think the former would actually be more destructive in the long run.

    Plus the whole population would be too busy surviving to worry about waiting for the TV to come back on and tell us who was responsible.

    Especially since deep down we all know it would be blamed on Bush.

  45. LBascom says:

    Damn it Ernst…

  46. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You came up with EMP attack, so kudos to you Lee.

  47. sdferr says:

    I’m not even certain people would pause to speak of blame, so much as exercise their trigger fingers forthwith. Blame or no in some future discussion, I believe it would be a treasonable offense under any serious assessment. More than ample warning has been given, even from out of the man’s own mouth.

  48. Ernst Schreiber says:

    sdferr, I’m saying that they’ve decided the only way to prevent a nuclear strike from Iran or North Korea (or more probably a terrorist group supplied by Iran or North Korea) is regime change, and after spending the better part of a decade blaming Bush for imperial overstretch and foreign adventurism, they can’t very well go and do the same, can they?

    That’s why NATO or France or somebody has to ask us.

    Except Maliki and Karzai, because, fuck them, or something.

  49. Ernst Schreiber says:

    And yeah, this is what poisoning the well for the better part of two or three generations gets you. America is ungovernable, because the New Left made it that way.

  50. SDN says:

    Six months to a year, Lee? You (and lots of other people) wish:

    It follows rather logically that if “most of the largest transformers” were destroyed, as things stand today, it would be at least a year before power was restored in the United State, and probably considerably longer – four to six years, in fact. If that (and this would depend on the willingness of the rest of the world to start building transformers to help out an utterly devastated United States that had become a vast graveyard, and whose loss would precipitate the greatest economic collapse in the history of the world).

    The links inside that post will curl your hair.

  51. McGehee says:

    Alec Leamas says January 28, 2013 at 7:32 pm

    On the nose.

  52. sdferr says:

    Humnph. Opposition to the weasel immigration amnesty push is blooming widely where people stop to think.

    I believe I just heard Beck, for instance, advocate a third party arise to replace the Republicans — and to all appearances, somewhat spontaneously, to the extent his broadcast partners were slightly surprised he spoke about it on air — since he seems to think the whole dog and pony show with McCain and Graham is merely another in a long series of betrayals.

    Levin, yesterday, once again walked right up to the line of advocacy, and stopped short. The Republicans, he says, are dooming themselves.

  53. palaeomerus says:

    ” America is ungovernable, because the New Left made it that way.”

    Other than the huge debt it’s still a pretty stable place.

  54. Ernst Schreiber says:

    A stable place where everybody distrusts everybody else’s motives.

    (And yeah, there’s more than a little hyberbole in both statements)

  55. sdferr says:

    That just sounds like a Hobbesian world to me.

  56. happyfeet says:

    the republicans are already doomed

    it’s all weirdo rape philosophies and and porky porky chris christie welfare bills with those ones

    if they can take immigration of the table in their death throes they’ll have done the emerging third party a favor I think, plus doom weirdo Susan B. Anthony crotch-sniffer Marco Rubio to political irrelevance

    meanwhile the emerging third party needs a theme song

    something with a bit of twang I think

  57. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Drudge thinks he’s all immigration gandalf at the bridge

    you just get on wif your bad self Mr. Drudge you want i can pick you up a breakfast burrito

  58. sdferr says:

    Something from Captain Beefheart’s opera might do, like say, Dachau Blues — or maybe better, Zappa Willie the Pimp.

    It’s even got a ‘third party check’.

  59. happyfeet says:

    oops and

    I just do not know my zappa as I should

    it always sounds kinda potheady to me

    in a black light poster kind of way not in a cool hipster let’s have casual sex and then eat something fun kinda way

  60. sdferr says:

    Maybe it’s the musicality that befuddles ya.

  61. palaeomerus says:

    If you wan to give up on the constitution then GTFO of the USA. You could go be an undocumented immigrant in Mexico. Oh wait, they don’t have those there. They just have illegal aliens. Having unstigmatized access to the use of the term’ illegal aliens’ and actual common sense border controls, is now exclusively a ‘brown’ or ‘developing world’ privilege in the Western hemisphere.

  62. palaeomerus says:

    “Ernst Schreiber says January 29, 2013 at 8:37 am
    A stable place where everybody distrusts everybody else’s motives.”

    I don’t live in a Detroit/St. Louis/Chicago/LA/Long Island NY yet. That’s pretty stable from my view point.

    “Yet” being the huge flaming letters that fill up the sky and seem to watch me whatever direction I happen to walk in.

  63. happyfeet says:

    that could be it too if it’s just challenging I’m really not one to work for my musics i like it to just waft in like a summer breeze through an open window

  64. palaeomerus says:

    The GOP is as clever as a cloud. It can take any shape you want to see in it, but don’t ever think you can stand on it. And apparently a COPD sufferer can blow it to the left by accident.

  65. sdferr says:

    The propaganda operation is well underway: Despite momentum, tough fight looms over immigration reform

  66. LBascom says:

    Six months to a year, Lee? You (and lots of other people) wish

    Ah, but you forget an important aspect of the disaster. The 100 million Chinese soldiers sent over by the UN to help with disaster relief! We’d be up and running (and speaking Mandarin) in no time!

  67. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Palaeomarus, the idea I’m trying to get at (poorly and incoherently) is that “the mystic chords of memory” that bind a people like ours into a people no longer bind anything, having been deliberately and systematically frayed and unwound by anti-foundationalists (to borrow from Jeff) embraced by a political class who’ve acquiesced to the political conveniences of the transitory.

    Too abstract, I know.

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