The House is said to working on behind-the-scenes secret “immigration reform”; the Senate is about to green-light gun-control measures (a cap on mag capacity, entirely unenforcible “universal background checks,” if I had to guess — which will later be added to a vaguely worded sense of the Senate resolution by Reid, with his controlling the process, giving cover to vulnerable Senators), with perhaps a few Republicans breaking ranks and yielding to the “do SOMETHING!” impulse that infects government like a tenacious case of the crabs; 5 Republican governors (including Brewer, Kasich, and Martinez) have caved on the “optional” (per the Roberts Court) Medicaid expansion that is the last hope for stopping ObamaCare’s implementation and stalling the destruction of most innovative health care system on earth, transmuting it from one based in private enterprise and competition into, eventually, an inefficient, disinterested single-payer national monstrosity; Karl Rove and the establishment ruling class, including both Boehner and McConnell, are setting up a “conservative victory” group intended specifically (and ironically) to thwart conservative challenges to incumbents and to both take control over the primary process, reducing we the people to Potemkin voters who are allowed only to pick from the menu selected for them by their betters, and to redefine “conservatism” so that it comports with the Scarborough, Podhoretz, Brooks, Frum, National Review summit / Weekly Standard “American Greatness” vision of a more composed and restrained group of technocrats managing a giant federal government, off of which the accrue power and wealth, while simultaneously pushing actual conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians to “fringe extremist” status — in a move the consequently repositions progressivism to the center.
It’s been nearly five years now since I first explicitly stated that what we are seeing in this country is the ruling class vs the rest of us in what is, demonstrably and undeniably, in my view, a statist, coup. Party has ceased to matter — because the establishment GOP can fundraise off of losses (as can the Democrats), and neither party has any desire to pare down the scope and reach and power of government. It is the tit to which they all cling — and they are not going voluntarily to give up the mother’s milk that keeps them fat and contented. They are insular and insulated. And they view us as the font of “revenue” that keeps them living like aristocracy, while they belch out laws and regulations to keep their subjects from getting too uppity, and craft messages that keep identity groups, economic, social, ethnic, turned on each other and fighting over ruling-class crumbs. And it’s entirely intentional.
They rely on corporatism and cronyism. They embrace liberal fascism, even as many of them spout free-marked platitudes and wear flag lapel pins and GOP-colored ties. But they disdain the real free market for the very reason that they can’t control it. They hate Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz for embracing foundational ideals and trying to bring us back to first principles and grassroots politics while extolling the virtues of professional politicians like (now Democrat) Charlie Crist or Dick Lugar, who refused to endorse the Republican for his Senate seat. They see as up-and-comers moderate Republicans who cozy up to Obama while bashing those groups who are a bulwark against the usurpation of natural rights.
This is the reason Boehner has fought hardest to restrain and punish and turn the 2010 TEA Party candidates; this is why Rove’s group, who lost 10 of 12 Senate elections and 4 of 9 House seats in which their Super Pac backed a candidate, is presuming to use the corporatist wing of the GOP — its largest donors — to thwart the grass roots of the party; and this is why, for all the phony Kabuki theater we’ve seen, Obama has gotten nearly everything he’s wanted out of the House (which, despite GOP majority status, continues to pretend its hands are tied).
Perhaps Jonah Goldberg will pen a column suggesting I’m getting rich as a “huckster” who is standing on principle. Perhaps David Frum or David Brooks or Bill Kristol can remind me that holding to certain ideals is simply naive and unnuanced — that we can’t really claim to love our country while wanting to severely slash its government. Perhaps I can be further marginalized as a kooky “True Believer” by people who keep telling us the way to win elections is to nominate those who constantly lose them — and who for their troubles are invited to speak and conferences, pretend to be TEA Party supporters, and are flush with advertising money as a result of their reach and prestige in the new media.
It doesn’t much matter anymore.
At this point, I don’t think we can save the thing as is. I think at some point there will either be a splintering of the populace of significant proportions or else widespread resignation as we settle into the world of Brazil or the first 30 minutes of Joe vs. the Volcano.
As a father and a husband, I’m torn over what to do. I need to be there for my children. And yet at the same time, I can’t stand by and watch them transformed from free people into slaves to the state, economic units to be managed and nudged and “fundamentally transformed” by social engineers and bureaucrats who treat them as drones in a beehive. So I fight on.
Yesterday, one of my two cars — the oldest, a 1993 Land Cruiser — finally gave up the ghost. My other car, a 1994 Jeep Wrangler, is hanging in there, but for who knows how much longer. At a time when gas prices are at their historical highs for this time of year — and facing a hefty new tax burden — I have to go find a replacement vehicle that will keep the kids safe. So that’s what I’m off to do today.
It is with fear and despair that I now gaze upon my country. What used to be the last best hope. Destroyed by selfish, self-serving demagogues and political animals who advance through deceit and emotionalism, and who have managed to weaken the Constitution in such a way that they’ve finally made it work for them — in our names.
If I fill them all into a giant tank and take a piss on them, I would.
Have a nice day. Oh. And if you haven’t already, go listen to the first hour of Levin’s show from last evening. Which expands upon this post from yesterday.
****
update: Jeffrey Lord takes note. Surprisingly, some of the Hobbits are signaling a refusal to “get our asses into line” — and in fact, when it comes to asses, we have an idea of where Karl Rove might want to stick his white board.
“You were stationed on Hera at the end of the war; Battle of Serenity Valley took place there if I recall… Seems odd that you would name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of.”
“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”
I think I’ll start selling little badges that say “Enemy of the State” on them. Should go real well alongside the torches and pitchforks.
I want one that says “Fuck Leviathan and the RINO it rode in on.”
Join the fight in your state. It needs you, badly. Conservatives did pretty well on state and local levels this last election – time to strengthen our positions.
It’s become gut-wrenching, trench warfare. Every body, every voice, every phone call, counts.
“Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/
Whatever you do, do not buy a VW. The 1999 Jetta is proof that the Germans hate the Irish more than the Jews. It’s the forgotten holocaust. I spend more time fixing that piece of shit than I do washing my balls, more money too. And I like and need my balls.
Find an older Volvo that someone loved. Be very careful, though, it must have been loved well. Steer clear of any car owned by a perfesser. Find one for sale by an old guy with perfect hair. You can drive that bastard for ever, relatively cheaply. Look for one with a couple of used condoms in the tailpipe.
I wonder what it will be called one fine day in the future, when some historian looks back to survey the scene? “The Great Unraveling”, maybe? That would be nice.
The problem with that name though: the mess seems more like a felt — a chaotic mass of fiber created by moisture, heat and friction — than a mere tangle of threads.
And it is with despair that I now gaze upon my country, Jeff.
I no longer fear it because I know that it shall end and I know more or less how it shall end. With it I shall go too. I don’t fear that but then I don’t have two young children. My fear is instead for my one adult child. For myself, none.
Awhile back I threw in the towel on the relationship between State and the institution of marriage in this train wreck of a nation, a profoundly and spectacularly decimated milieu and thus without a shred of hope, that being American majority character and that especially being the effects of the works of the ruling class you write about today. My comment was not taken well here at protein wisdom — too libertarian, I suppose.
I suggested giving up on it as an institution and holding it instead as a personal sacrament. In much the same way you eventually give up on any of the remaining manifestations of liberty in this place, and in so doing you become free in the heart.
So you get to the same place wrt the whole damnable federal government, a cabal knowingly and willing and criminally and all but entirely rogue to American principle and structure. You get to that place sooner or later.
The other day I saw someone write — as if by surprise or startled by the rarity of it — that Thomas More valued his principles more than his life. That in turn surprised me.
This. Every molecule does count.
First let it all go personally. Then, having accepted the loss of physical liberty — and this is critical — work to regain principle and hope. With hope you will beget hope.
Even in fiction we know who they are. They do too.
Jeffery Lord: Karl Rove and the Cotton Conservatives
At this point, I don’t think we can save the thing as is.
The founders of this nation let liberty (on a national level) out of the box and drafted some documents that, when followed, allow for a people to govern themselves in a way that ensures individual liberty. Those documents are not going away. How many thousands of us understand what that means and what it entails to truly live as free people? When the rest of the masses begin to see the leviathan for what it is (which won’t happen until they lose what they thought they coudn’t lose) then those who have held the flame aloft through their daily lives lived as free people will be here to lead the way back out of slavery. What you can’t see will kill you. Well, the beast that is the state is becoming more and more apparent. We can’t miss it now. It is no longer hiding in Wilsonian platitudes or the dreams of an LBJ great society. It’s out in the open and is held up as the “one”. We’re starting to feel the full impact of the promises it has made. Soon even the masses of the unenlightend will begin to feel the effects of the flip side of the “deal”. So now that we can see it clearly it can be defeated.
Just keep doing what you’re doing. Poking the bloated beast with a stick. Wait and see what happens. Keep the powder dry.
perhaps rovester wasn’t available
ACU ANNOUNCES GOVERNOR JEB BUSH TO ADDRESS CPAC 2013
On the car front, one tiny upside is that cars have been getting better for a while now, so the newer vehicle is likely to cost you less in repairs than the older one did.
ACU ANNOUNCES GOVERNOR JEB BUSH TO ADDRESS CPAC 2013
Rumor has it he wanted the convention moved to Malmédy.
If you’re going to be keeping a car for a decade or two, I’d strongly recommend going Japanese. My ’88 RX-7 has served me well over the last 25 years, and still gets me where I need to get to… as long as no one says the word ‘snow’ anywhere near it.
Like LMC, had a German car (’94 BMW) which was fine for 6 years or so, before morphing into a land-based version of the “hole in the ocean that you pour money into”. Key keep-the-car-moving components made of now brittle, dried-out plastic… Over the 14 years I had the thing, I spent more in repairs/maintenance than the purchase price, which wasn’t exactly cheap.
I’d say find a nice 10-year-old Toyota Land Cruiser or something.
OR some old American thing that they’ve been cranking out forever, and thus parts will be cheap and readily available. F150, etc.
Hi, George Orwell. Where have you been hiding?
Here in ‘sota, conservatives got crushed at every level in November. This was after we were assured that turning out, making that phone call, giving one’s last two mites, etc., would definitely make the difference. Just be positive! Golly, the candidates may not be what you want, but shucks, they’re all we’ve got. It’ll get better next time. Trust us!
So, sucker that I was, I gave, and I voted for them, even though the motley crew of jackasses on the slate were not independent conservatives or particularly principled. Never, ever again. Anyone who believes statism will be even slowed down through the ballot box is a fool I have no more time for.
Some people suggest leaving the country. I’m on disability, so I could take my “guaranteed” check and go to a cheaper country in Latin America or Asia. Really? Because statism is ramping up here, living in a third world hellhole where I can’t flush toilet paper or count on a decent hygiene level is an answer? Like governments aren’t made up of fascist control freaks in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Vietnam, Laos, or anywhere else? America is a gift to the world, and I won’t spurn her or take my life here for granted. But I also won’t give into the collective insanity and believe that voting again and again for the barely lesser of two huge, overly parasitic evils will ever work.
I’m a Christian, so I believe (and know) that avarice for these temporary, ultimately meaningless goals of money and power amounts to nothing. But we can’t bring about heaven on earth, where voluntary service and sharing replaces such divisive grabbing, until fallible, vainglorious people thinking only of themselves and their own self-aggrandizement get out of the way. I truly fear that I might have to turn my back on nonviolence and pick up a weapon to defend against these new fascisti.
Sorry for all this, but I really needed to get it out. I’m afraid for the world, and I see darkness taking hold everywhere.
Rumor has it he wanted the convention moved to Malmédy.
Ouch. Brilliant, but ouch.
I’ll stay in Bastogne, thanks.
Ford has a new one you might be interested in:
http://blog.robballen.com/Post/3940/forget-the-green-police
Top Ten Things Republicans Have Failed to Learn from Democrats
Jeff, you need to tell me when the little things go wrong with your vehicles. I can probably help you avoid the larger things.
It’s what I do…All I’m good at pretty much. Unfortunately, we’rer3/4 of a Country away, so not all diagnosis may be correct.
Ah, yes. If you liked the Explorer and the Expedition, you’ll REALLY like the new Ford Expletive. It’s fucking big!
Actually? I’d give up the Jeep as dead already. They’re dead off the lot. I just don’t like them, OR the way they’re sold as 4wd…Nope, they’re 2wd with a transfer case assist.
Dodge Ram is good for a high atmosphere, especially the old 12’s. Probably pick one up cheap due to high gas prices.
By the way…most of you probably know this, but not all 4wd’s are. Transfer case allows shifting of power to seperate wheels. ie, if one slips in the front or rear, the Tcase will shift the power to the other. Only 2 wheels are driving at any time.
Last time I bought a car was in 2007, when my ’94 Ram was turning 300,000 miles and I wanted a back-up vehicle. I got on Craigslist for a week to get a feel for prices, drove a few cars, and ended up with this. An ’88 Coupe DeVille I picked up from a woman that didn’t have room for another car (she recently inherited it from Grandma, who bought it new, kept it in the garage, and never missed a dealer service). $1800.
Took it to Pep Boys and got a tune-up, transmission service, new tires and an alignment, $1200. Maaco to fix a dent in the back fender, $400. Got the windows tinted and filled it up with gas, and for under four grand, I still have an awesome ride six years and 50,000 miles later.
Plus, I still drive my Ram [mine is red claret instead of black], hands down, best vehicle I’ve ever owned, about 5,000 miles a year.
Unfortunately, I think Obama’s genius car buy-back program put the hurt on the used car market the way it used to be.
I hear ya, Richlove. And the saddest thing, to me, is that this utopia isn’t even much of a temptation. It’s so poorly stitched together, I don’t know if the devil would even try to sell it. I bet all this nonsense does make him laugh, though.
Unfortunately, I think Obama’s genius car buy-back program put the hurt on the used car market the way it used to be.
Yes it did, Lee. Nearly all the used cars that are available now (that are not being privately sold) are only three to five years old and average around $15-18K. It ‘s partially Obama’s fault and partially the dealers’ fault for their stupid rebate programs they ran for way too long. GM, in particular, gutted their market for future sales by five to ten years when people traded their cars 2-4 years earlier than they normally would have. They really should be honest and admit that they are a finance company that runs a car line as a hobby.
And bonus bail-out dollars.
Ha, nicely put.
They could also admit they’re a civil service jobs program.
while they’re at it.
“Surprisingly, some of the Hobbits are signaling a refusal to “get our asses into line” ”
–Sigh– Remember when asses and lines were the official and unofficial symbols of the OTHER party?
Actually they’re a healthcare and pension program for the UAW.
True dat. They also do loan sharking at GMAC.
As if more evidence that the GOP is a spent force were needed:
House Republicans signal openness to some gun-control measures
Make of it what you will.
Looks to me like the GOP negotiating with itself again. Preemptively.
WaPo? I’ll have to go read to be sure.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett Declines Medicaid Expansion