I haven’t much to say except to that what happened in Washington tonight has very probably set off a tinderbox, and we will now be in rebellion. May it be a non-violent one, but if violence is what it ultimately takes, we are a people whose nation is founded on such in the defense of human liberty.
[Monday morning update]
Professor Jacobson has a pep talk.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Paul Hsieh on the coming battles. And Victor Davis Hanson says that Obama has crossed the Rubicon. Fortunately, Julius Caesar he’s not.
[Update a while later]
Had enough?
As I have argued now for months – first, in August, here; then, in November, here and here; and, more recently, here, here, and here – a genuine political realignment may be in the offing. This has happened at irregular intervals in our nation’s past – most notably, in 1800, 1828, 1860, and 1932 – and on each occasion the political party benefiting from the upheaval was able to paint a plausible picture depicting their opponents as being parties to a conspiracy to overthrow the liberties possessed by their fellow Americans. This is what Thomas Jefferson did to the Federalists in and after 1800; it was what Andrew Jackson did to John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Nicholas Biddle, and the Whigs in and after 1828; it was what Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans did to the slave power conspiracy and its fellow travelers in the North in and after 1860, and it was what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did to Herbert Hoover and the business-minded progressives in and after 1932. When FDR claimed, at the 1936 Democratic convention, that “a small group” of his fellow Americans was intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives,” he was merely rephrasing the charges lodged in an earlier time by Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and their political allies.
Of course, one cannot plausibly advance such a claim except in circumstances where one has a great deal of help from one’s opponents. In 1800, Jefferson profited from the quarrel pitting Alexander Hamilton against John Adams, and by exhibiting secessionist propensities at the Hartford Convention, the New England Federalists destroyed their own party. Something similar can be said regarding Nicholas Biddle and the supporters of the Second National Bank. The same is true for the supporters of the slave power in and after 1860, and Herbert Hoover was in similar fashion a godsend for FDR.
If the Republicans have a comparable opportunity in 2010 and 2012, it is because of what I described in my very first blogpost as “Obama’s Tyrannical Ambition.” Barack Obama has a gift. He has told us so himself, and he is right, but he errs in supposing that his oratorical skill will enable him to fool all of the people all of the time, and over time he has, in effect, unmasked his own party as a conspiracy on the part of a would-be aristocracy of do-gooders hostile to very idea of self-government in the United States. There is no need for me to review the record of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress in the last fifteen months. It is enough to say that, in an administration that promised transparency, everything has been negotiated behind closed doors in a manner suggestive of tyranny and that, in an administration that promised to distance itself from the lobbyists, every major bill has been written by them and is loaded with special deals that give new meaning to the old phrase “corrupt bargain.” The stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, healthcare reform: with these Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have brought home to the American people, as never before, the tyrannical propensities inherent in the progressive impulse. Thanks to them, everyone now knows that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat.
I’m not sure that everyone knows it, but enough to now to make the whirlwind that they’ll reap pretty big in the fall. And perhaps years to come.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another pep talk, from Bill Whittle:
…in terms of limiting the practical and immediate damage, holding it here — just holding it — is important and essential. Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have an IQ of 130 — that would be combined between the three of them and you can get to 150 if you throw in Biden — and so they actually believe that a few months from now, they will be able to add single-payer to this goat rodeo, this bloodbath, this circus of incompetence conducted by this museum-grade confederacy of dunces. It got them a bill that requires people to pay for private insurance — which I am, of course, utterly opposed to on every level — but that is way short of single payer and we MUST hold the line here and not an inch further until reinforcements arrive in January. And they will. In numbers that will astonish and amaze the most optimistic among us.
We need to understand the great lesson we have learned about these people in this debate. Barack Obama is, to the liberal cause, a politician that comes not once in a decade, or once in a generation, or even once per century. Barack Obama is, to them, a once in history opportunity for progressives to control this country, and they will fall on a forest of swords to achieve those ends because this is the best chance they have ever had or ever will have to permanently shackle the people to the state. They know that this Health Care fiasco will cost them the House and now perhaps the Senate in November, but that new Congress will not seat until January and in the ten months between now and then they will, I predict, start an orgy of legislation that will make this Health Care circus look like a tea party.
But it seems to me that they have spent every dime of political capital in the bank and have done nothing less than awoken from it’s long and deep slumbers the American Giant, who in attempting to sit upright discovers the Lilliputian threads that have been staked into the ground with finishing nails and who looks around, blinking and disoriented, fatter and softer and much, much poorer than he was when he last opened his eyes back in 1941, but possessed now as then with a terrible anger and capable still of mighty exertions.
So, to the short term: everybody knows that Reid and Pelosi and The Lightworker himself, obviously, are all hoping to use this bill as the foot in the door for the stuff they really want: A single-payer National Health System, or at least the “public option,” which is simply single-payer on the installment plan. We can’t let them get that. Going forward, we can’t let them get single-payer, or cap and trade, or amnesty, or any of it.
We’ll see if their political tone deafness continues.
[Update mid morning]
Another pep talk, from Moe Lane: things we were told we couldn’t do.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jim Treacher says it’s not fair to call this a political Jonestown for the Democrats, because Jim Jones only killed 900 people.
We shouldn’t regulate those good and decent folks that run the insurance industry, they can spend as much as they like on political lobbying. But wealthy private citizens should just butt out, or we’ll turn into 1970’s Russia!
Sweet bleeding Tu Pac, you’d think the drones would at least take one day off for their victory circle-jerk and leave the rest of us alone in peace. Their mouths open and Obama’s voice booms forth like some twisted Orwellian drive-thru clown. It’s like they must convince themselves even harder that they’re rooting for the right thing.
“Only a mindless collectivist would so misinterpret plain English in such a way. Because they like to force people to do things. It’s called “projection.””
Your calling me a collectivist would be another example of projection.
All I did was throw his hyperbole right back at him.
Yes, Rand, Ethan seems to have either a serious reading-comprehension disability, or like most State-shtuppers, deliberate distorts
“Your calling me a collectivist would be another example of projection.”
So Rand is a collectivist now? Judging by the Obama butt-boys posting here, things on Bizarro Planet seems to get weirder every day,
All I did was throw his hyperbole right back at him.
No, all you did was lie about what he wrote. It’s not “hyperbole” to say that Oprah could take care of a lot of sick people. It’s a factual statement. You really need to take a course in logic. And English.
So Rand is a collectivist now?
Apparently, like the word “could,” Ethan doesn’t understand the meaning of “projection,” either.
Although actually, if you did force Soros, Oprah and all the rich “liberals” to pay for poor people’s insurance, what moral argument could Ethan make against that without contradicting themselves? They’re the wealthy, the poor people have needs, etc.
I like the idea Joseph Sobran jokingly proposed years ago. That the government issue script to poor peoplem reading “Good for one meal, payable by an liberal.” If you believe in icome redistribution, redistribute your own income, chief.
And then, as I proposed earlier, LEAVE THE REST OF US THE F**K ALONE!
My income is already redistributed, through the income, medicare, and social security taxes. So’s yours.
And Rand, I really tire of this tactic of insulting someone’s understanding of the English language. Can’t you have one comment thread that doesn’t devolve into semantics and name calling?
It’s like they must convince themselves even harder that they’re rooting for the right thing.
I think that’s definitely a big part of it. Looking at how this thread had disintegrated so fast… and we’ve already got “fascism” in the mix… Smells of self-doubt to me.
And Rand, I really tire of this tactic of insulting someone’s understanding of the English language.
There’s a simple solution to that. Either stop misinterpreting the English language, or comment at a different web site. I have a low tolerance for that kind of bullsh!t here.
“I have a low tolerance for that kind of bullsh!t here.”
Oh Boy! Here comes RANDSIMBERG, layin’ down the law like it’s his job!
Oh please, spare me that nonsense. I didn’t misinterpret the English language, I used a rhetorical technique to counter Bilwick’s use of a similar one. You see what you want to see when it comes to the commenters who aren’t in lock-step with you. I can’t be the loyal opposition…I have to be a collectivist pinko state-fucker, and illiterate to boot!
State-FALLATOR, Ethan. Not State-Fucker. Sheesh.
*FELLATOR. Can’t have RANDSIMBERG and the English Language Police jumping on my sex typo.
I used a rhetorical technique to counter Bilwick’s use of a similar one.
No, you deliberately implied that he wrote something that he didn’t. That’s called a straw man argument, and it’s one of the lowest rhetorical tactics in the book, albeit effective with the ignorant or those of low mental acuity (which is why Obama and the Democrats engage in it so much). And you implied that I’m a collectivist, even if you don’t understand what the word “projection” means. If you’re going to engage in such odious tactics, expect to be called on them.
layin’ down the law like it’s his job!
It’s my web site, you anonymous moron. If you don’t like it, no one makes you read it, or comment here, either.
“no one makes you read it, or comment here, either.”
This is entirely true. But, man, it feels so fucking great.
I was pointing out the nonsense he was using to make his little Oprah joke. Pointing out that it wasn’t funny, in other words. But you’re determined to see it as an ODIOUS attempt by me to twist his words for evil. Whatever.
And I wasn’t calling you a collectivist, I was laughing at you for calling ME one. What you were projecting wasn’t “collectivist leanings” of your own, it was your tendency to demonize and belittle those who disagree with you.
Ethan,
As an Anonymous Moron, I feel I have the obligation to tell you that your understanding of the English language is severely flawed.
That is all.
I was pointing out the nonsense he was using to make his little Oprah joke. Pointing out that it wasn’t funny, in other words.
No, you were “pointing out” that he was proposing that Oprah be forced to contribute. In other words, you were lying.
And I wasn’t calling you a collectivist, I was laughing at you for calling ME one.
If you really think that the things you write should be interpreted in the way you intend them, then you need to work on your writing skills as well as reading. Because we can only read what you actually write. We’re not mind readers. That’s constructive criticism. And again, if you don’t like it, no one makes you either read or write at this site.
“My name is Richie Cunningham, and this is my lovely wife, Oprah” -Austin Powers, International Man…of Mystery.
And that’s being charitable. Worst case it’s gratuitous boot-stomping-on-a-face-forever from the self-described party of compassion. Talk about your sore-winners. Way to win-over converts, boys.
Allow me to quote what I just wrote, in the hopes that this time you’ll understand me:
“you’re determined to see it as an ODIOUS attempt by me to twist his words for evil. Whatever.”
“What you were projecting wasn’t “collectivist leanings” of your own, it was your tendency to demonize and belittle those who disagree with you.”
I didn’t expect YOU to find it funny, naturally. But I did.
You shouldn’t have expected any intelligent person to find it funny.
By the way, I’ve done something unusual (I’ve only done it a few times in the history of this blog). I’ve banned “Mark,” because he has never added any value to the discussion — only subtracted. And in the past (assuming that it’s the same “Mark”– the style seems similar), his only purpose in commenting is to attack or insult me.
Based on his latest (9:04 am) post, Ethan is not only promulgating Bizarro Planet history, economics and logic, he’s now writing in Bizarro-ese, a language only comprehensible to people from his home planet.
Some good news, finally!
Yes, my home planet of New Jersey. Where up is down and black is white. Where sarcasm is meant as malicious twisting of words and no one understands English.
So, you don’t understand the meaning of the word “sarcasm,” either…
As evidenced by the election results last year, most of your fellow Garden State residents would seem to be smarter than you.
Great news about Mark. I was about to point out that the law of this blog is Rands. Until the government begins regulating the internet like healthcare; everybody is free to create their own blog where they can suggest “could” means “should”. Fortunately, freedom still exists in some places, so if you come here and say stupid things; expect to be called stupid and consider how fortunate it is that somebody is willing to spend time correcting you.
As far as the healthcare bill passed… it’s not like the Senate bill, so I don’t understand how the President can sign anything other than the Senate bill. All the game playing will only add to the number of ways this law can fail judicial review. And I believe in the interim, the Democrats will pay the price at the polls in November.
Have you looked at Christie’s approval rating lately, Rand? New Jersey has spent the last few months uttering a collective “oops.” I voted for him, too.
You mean you’re shocked that he’s going to rein in an out-of-control government, something that he ran on?
Seriously? Stick to whatever passes for politics in California.
He’s cutting government jobs, but he’s cutting the wrong ones….think DMV employees instead of the six-figure-salaried, eighth secretary to state representative X. He’s cutting the budget but in the wrong places…think education instead of wasteful programs. And he’s as corrupt a governor as any we’ve had, not that this should surprise any of us. New Jersey…one state, under indictment.
Given the existence of the teachers’ union, education is a wasteful program. Counterproductive, in fact. And what corruption are you talking about?
Debating NJ politics with a guy from California seems a bit ridiculous to me…it doesn’t to you?
Not necessarily. There’s no reason that someone in California couldn’t pay closer attention to Jersey politics than someone living in New Jersey. But it is off topic for this post.
As far as the healthcare bill passed… it’s not like the Senate bill, so I don’t understand how the President can sign anything other than the Senate bill.
You are misinformed. The House voted for the Senate bill, verbatim, and the President will sign it. Call that one Bill #1.
The House also voted on a separate bill, call it Bill #2, that makes a number of budget-related changes to Bill #1. If the Senate also passes bill #2, the President can sign it too, and those changes will become law. If the Senate doesn’t, the unmodified Bill #1 will be law.
The Senate is expected to pass Bill #2 because it’s a reconciliation measure, and therefore can be passed with a simple majority, and over 50 Senators have signed a letter promising to vote for it.
You can kiss that goodbye now. Soon the US will not be able to afford much more than a few satellites.
Did you miss the news that health care reform actually reduces the deficit?
So they finally pushed it through. Vast amounts of ink, bits, bytes will be expended in numerous rants against this health care reform as right wingers everywhere vent their spleens. In a couple of days it will go back to the previous usual traffic. In a couple of months few people will care about it.
If the Republicans get a majority, which is likely although I doubt it will be overwhelming as some here wish for, at most the program will be renamed and changed in form while content remains basically the same.
Sorry folks but that is reality. People cannot bother themselves out of the sofa to power off their TV screens to save electricity. Let alone bother doing the math on which health care scheme is working better when costs are opaque at best.
If the Democrats lose the majority it will be because they neither got out of Iraq or Afghanistan in time, or because the economy did not bounce back quickly enough, regardless of health care.
The natural tendency is for increasing state social support. As productivity increases and jobs get automated a lot of people will feel disenfranchised by the system otherwise.
If anything these changes are increasing, rather than decreasing, as time goes by. It used to be that most people worked in agriculture, then it was industry, then services. Now even services are getting automated. So what is the future? Entertainment?
Barring a societal implosion due to external factors that is IMO the most likely scenario.
Education as counterproductive and wasteful, because of the existence of a union? Our public schools are fantastic, and students and teachers alike benefit from the existence of the NJEA. But anyway: Off topic.
“rhetorical technique” = contextually irrational sentence formation (?) Win!
Perhaps if you can show how your ‘logic’ built upon the ‘evidence’ from the discusison shows how Rand is “projecting” his alleged collectivist tendencies we’ll all take your arguments a bit more seriously.
As an example from this thread:
While Rand’s argument that you are collectivist did have some similarity to a fallacious argument from intimidation, the intimidation part was just gravy. The argument was fairly intuitive: 1.Ethan used “should be forced to” rather than the original author’s comment “could” (factual evidence), 2. Ethan used this terminology in reference to taking wealth from those who generated it and giving it to those who did not (a collectivist ideal), 3. collectivists prefer the use of state force over individual initiative (common knowledge, look at history), 4. collectivists desire to spread the (other peoples) wealth (i.e. equalizing outcomes), a postion with which Ethan just exhibited sympathy, and 5. Projecting is the unconscious act of denial of a person’s own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world,…or other people. Therefore, assuming Ethan is not ignorant of the meaning of what he has written, he is a projecting collectivist. QED.
Dont’ forget to check your premises!
“people who value dependency over liberty.”
Do explain how government-guaranteed private student loans foster liberty to such a degree that they’re worth giving $6 billion a year to politically-connected bankers. For context, that’s equivalent to nearly 1/3 of the NASA budget.
Did you miss the news that health care reform actually reduces the deficit?
If you believe that, I have a bridge on the moon for you, half off today.
CBO = GIGO
Jim – are you asking non-statists to explain a statist measure?
Or are you making an uncharacteristic comment that state interference in the economy leads to corruption?
““rhetorical technique” = contextually irrational sentence formation (?) Win!
Perhaps if you can show how your ‘logic’ built upon the ‘evidence’ from the discusison shows how Rand is “projecting” his alleged collectivist tendencies we’ll all take your arguments a bit more seriously.
As an example from this thread:
While Rand’s argument that you are collectivist did have some similarity to a fallacious argument from intimidation, the intimidation part was just gravy. The argument was fairly intuitive: 1.Ethan used “should be forced to” rather than the original author’s comment “could” (factual evidence), 2. Ethan used this terminology in reference to taking wealth from those who generated it and giving it to those who did not (a collectivist ideal), 3. collectivists prefer the use of state force over individual initiative (common knowledge, look at history), 4. collectivists desire to spread the (other peoples) wealth (i.e. equalizing outcomes), a postion with which Ethan just exhibited sympathy, and 5. Projecting is the unconscious act of denial of a person’s own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world,…or other people. Therefore, assuming Ethan is not ignorant of the meaning of what he has written, he is a projecting collectivist. QED.
Dont’ forget to check your premises!”
Are you serious with this stuff? Your complete misinterpretation of my intentions with that post is beyond infuriating, considering I explained myself at length afterwards.
Am I really going to have to explain that I wasn’t saying Rand had collectivist leanings…yet again?
Am I really going to have to explain that I wasn’t saying Rand had collectivist leanings…yet again?
Apparently, since your first attempts at explaining it weren’t satisfactory to those familiar with English and logic. We all read what you wrote, and understood it, even if you didn’t. Why don’t you just give up?
Jim,
I’m not mistaken. I stated in a previous thread that they would have to vote for the Senate Bill. And as I said in this thread:
I don’t understand how the President can sign anything other than the Senate bill.
Pelosi is out trying to convince people that the reconcilliation bill will be the eventual outcome. That’s what the Democrats were selling all last week. And as I pointed out in the previous thread; those who believed it will be deemed unworthy to hold an elected position as dog catcher.
“Oprah should be forced to pay for covering the uninsured, but it’s fascism if your taxes have to go up by thirty cents a month!”
It was meant to be nothing but hyperbole. I wrote it in haste, and accidentally changed one word. And now…now I’ve been flayed open like so much rotten meat, my inner communist, my secret shame, visible for all the other commenters at Transterrestrial. I should have known I could not keep my collectivist beliefs secret from the keen minds in these comment threads, and I kick myself now for letting that one word give me away!
^ Sarcasm. Heavy.
Leland – they did vote for the Senate bill. I saw it on TV. They then voted for amendments. I saw that one on TV. Now, supposedly 52 Senators have signed a letter stating that they will pass the second House bill under reconciliation.
Unless the 52 Senators are lying (doubtful – they need the House to do anything) or fail (possible, but they obviously think otherwise) thinking that the House fixes will pass is reasonable.
Of course, considering that the House fixes take out all of the special deals that this blog has bitched about for months, you’d think that the Republicans would pass it in a New York minute. Unless of course they just want to be the Party of No ™.
I don’t know why you overemphasize the projection issue, unless it is a feeble attempt at obfuscation.
Projection is a just a silly psychological shortcomming (which you insist was a mistake of your intention-to-writing converter), compared to the gaping philosophical abyss that is your embrace of collectivism.
If you want to convince people you aren’t a collectivist, you need to do more than show you weren’t projecting – you need to renounce the idea that government exists for anything more than the protection of individual rights. Starting with your comments that we should all be taxed to provide for other people’s healthcare.