Trying not to start the public floggings
The scrofulous New York Times goes boo-hoo-hoo, in a textbook case of self-delusion (“Never mind the facts, we know differently! “) with this little screed.
There’s only one thing to be done:
That, or:
No prizes for guessing as to which consequence I prefer…
One of the (oh so many) bad things that came out of the Obama Years was that the word “trillion” (as in, “this will lead to a national debt of x trillion”) became normalized, in the way that after WWII, the word billion became a substitute for million in government-speak. (I remember the rueful joke made in the early years of the Obama presidency, when the deficit and debt skyrocketed: “What comes after a trillion?” “Whatever it is, just don’t tell Obama.”)
So never mind the devaluation of the currency — an equal, and possibly worse devaluation occurred in political discourse.
Thus, when we learn that the fanciful dreams suggested policies of the radical Left will cost a hundred trillion dollars, we are somehow less alarmed because a “hundred” of something — anything — doesn’t sound like much.
And because Leftists (whether socialists, communists, Democrats, whatever) have a fairly cavalier attitude towards money (AOC: “We’ll just create more!” — like that’s a simple exercise), this escalation of the quantity of money and the accompanying devaluation of the terminology just becomes another means whereby they can disguise the true effect (and intent) of whatever nonsense they dream up next.
This works especially well with two groups:
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that both groups are core constituencies of the Socialist Party, here and elsewhere.
It is we poor bastards in the middle who are going to get shafted, viz.:
I don’t want you to think that I’m making a damn joke about this, because I’m not. At some point, and soon, there’s going to be a financial and economic reckoning — and we of the middle class are going to lose everything: houses, jobs, savings, retirement benefits, the lot.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.
Much has been made about the Socialist Party demanding to be able to scrutinize President Trump’s tax returns over the past fifty years or whatever, and how Senior Socialist Pelosi isn’t able to rein in the demands of the AOC Wing of the Party. Whatever.
My take is simple: a private citizen’s tax information is an intensely confidential business — between the individual (or his agent) and the IRS, and no other.
Once an individual starts working in government, i.e. in public service, then his tax returns should be published in the Congressional Record each year, for two reasons:
In other words, before someone starts working for the Gummint / is elected to office, those tax records are nunya. Once you become a public servant — and only then — those tax records should be subject to public scrutiny.
So if Trump tells Congress to FOAD when they demand to see his pre-presidential tax returns, I’ll support him to the hilt. But should Red Nancy refuse to let us see her tax returns from all the years she’s been in Congress, she should be impeached herself.
We are constantly being reminded that the United States is a representative republic (which it is) as well as being a liberal democracy (which is also true). For the longest time, I’ve had the gnawing suspicion that the two concepts may be antithetical, nay even contradictory, and recent events have proven me correct.
The standard-bearers of the modern liberal democracy have tended towards the “liberal” part of the description, and their modernism has turned liberalism away from its classical roots (the Enlightenment) towards a more baleful and statist, ergo illiberal ethos. It is small wonder, therefore, that this modern liberalism is attacking both the “representative” and even “republic” towards a full democracy, into a government created by a national popular vote instead of a democracy limited by proportional representation. (The sudden popularity of socialism — one of the more repressive governmental systems, is simply indicative of this intent, and the “democratic” prefix attached thereto is, like most of socialism, a figleaf to mask its true purpose.)
It seems clear that if we are to reverse this trend, we need to try to implement an antithetical alternative to the liberal democracy — that antithesis being a conservative democracy, as explained here by Yoram Hazony. I’m pretty sure that few if any conservative small-r republicans will take issue with this principle, for example:
Liberals regard the laws of a nation as emerging from the tension between positive law and the pronouncements of universal reason, as expressed by the courts. Conservatives reject the supposed universal reason of judges, which often amounts to little more than acceding to passing fashion. But conservatives also oppose an excessive regard for isolated written documents, which leads, for example, to the liberal mythology of America as a “creedal nation” (or a “propositional nation”), defined solely by certain abstractions found in the American Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address. Important though these documents are, they cannot substitute for the Anglo-American political tradition as a whole—with its roots in Scripture and the English common law—which alone offers a complete picture of the English and American legal inheritance.
Yes. The famous expression on the Statue of Liberty “Give me your tired, your huddled masses…” etc. is a lovely sentiment, but it is not policy which allows untrammeled immigration, nor does it confer a “right to immigrate to the United States” upon the rest of the world’s populace.
Read the whole thing. It’s really long, but it has to be — overturning a liberal democracy and reverting to a conservative one does not lend itself to bumper-sticker aphorisms so beloved by the Left.
And overturn it we must, in order to return to the proud Anglo-Saxon heritage that is the foundation of our Western civilization.
Afterthought: note the emphasis placed on religion — most specifically, Christian religion — by Hazony. I should point out that I, an atheist, have absolutely no issue with it. I am a conservative first, an atheist second, and I treasure the Christian values of our heritage and their foundation of our culture. That said, the values I treasure are also the traditional aspects of Christianity and not the modern-day travesty they have become. My conservatism is all-embracing.
So let me make sure I’ve got this absolutely clear: if the Gummint passes a patently un-Constitutional law and someone refuses to comply with it, that person would be a “homegrown terrorist”?
Got it. I should also point out that it was Lenin who first equated refuseniks with being terrorists.
Here’s a tip for this asshole: you keep making shitty laws and stockpiling bodybags, and we’ll keep buying ammo. We’ll see who runs out first.
So one rancid Commie (Jewish) bitch femsplains how another rancid Commie (Muslim) bitch just hasn’t had a chance to “find out about American values” — despite the latter bitch having been in the country for TWENTY FUCKING YEARS. (Your Humble Narrator — also an immigrant — had been in the country for about twenty minutes before he got the picture. The only thing that puzzled him, and still does, is how any rancid Commies get elected to public office at all, but we can talk about that some other time.)
For the record, I will have been in the United States for thirty-two years come Memorial Day weekend. Other than the accent (which I have been unable to master), I’m about as American as any, and more so than a large number (e.g. the entire Democrat Congressional membership).
Folks, this isn’t difficult. When you move to another country, your duty is to adopt the ethos of the country in which you live. You don’t try to make your new country conform to your precepts. Once again, had I done that, I’d have been preaching apartheid as a valid political system for the U.S. (don’t go there).
The only parts of “American values” which I have been quite unable to understand, let alone conform to, are things like Velveeta, “lite” beer, “fast” foods and why it’s against the law to hang Socialists from lamp posts. That the disgusting Ilhan Omar can get elected despite all her manifest failings is part and parcel of the American tradition of political toleration, I suppose; but my calling her a rancid Commie bitch is likewise part and parcel of the American tradition of free speech. So there.