…yer honor, your job is to manage the city government, to make sure the snow gets shoveled and the trash gets picked up, not to lecture the rest of us and use the power of City Hall to impose your particular life-style choices on everybody else. But that’s what happens when conservatives let the Left seize the narrative and promote governmental mission creep. Once government “addresses” a problem by throwing taxpayer money at it, it’s only a short hop to government claiming — as Bloomberg does in the clip — that because government spends money on a “problem,” it now has the right to dictate personal behavior. Sheer genius, really.
By now, the notion that government from the feds on down has the “right” to interfere in every aspect of American life is well-established and nearly unquestioned. Two generations of red-diaper babies have grown up with visions of the Frankfurt School dancing in their heads; they’ve adapted Marxist tactics to the capitalist system in the furtherance of their world-view — George Soros, take a bow — but their goal remains the same: power, disguised as “compassion.”
The collapse of free societies doesn’t start with the Vandals’ assault on the gates of Rome. It starts with “reasonable” restrictions on freedom, “carve-outs” and “exemptions” to constitutional principles, “temporary” taxes and suspensions of civil liberties — all designed to inure the public to the destruction of bedrock guarantees ( i.e. “Congress shall make no law…”) in the name of what’s good for them.
If Jonah does another edition of his book
[Update late morning]
Opposition to Mike Bloomberg on guns has nothing to do with defending our civil rights. No, it’s because we’re anti-Semitic:
According to MSNBC contributors Mike Barnicle and Al Sharpton, opposition to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control push is partly the result of anti-Semitism. “Let’s get down to it, Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, there’s a level of anti-Semitism in this thing directed towards Bloomberg,” Barnicle argued on Morning Joe, “It’s out there.” “No doubt about that,” Sharpton responded.
“If he was not a big-city Jewish man and was from another ethnic group, in some parts, I think it would be different,” Sharpton continued.
Note that that this is the same Al Sharpton who incited riots against Orthodox Jews with anti-Semitic code words. I’ll never understand why any television outlet would give this race-baiting ass-clown a venue for his idiotic opinions.
No, no, no! You must NEVER use the term “liberal fascist” to describe someone–even if he (a) is a “liberal” [in the bastardized modern sense of the term] and (b) wants a powerful State that can force his beliefs, desires, etc., on the rest of us. It’s bad form–almost as bad as calling someone who loves the State and wants to give more and more power to it a “statist.” Just isn’t done, old man.
I’ll never understand why…
It’s because we are not outraged enough to make a fight. They are not civil, just disguised as such. You can not beat them being civil (letting them define it for us.)
“You lie” you bastard son’s a bitches. They killed Patton who could have explained it. Some of us need to be willing to die. We need to be Breitbart.
They give him a venue because they agree with him.
“your job is to manage the city government, to make sure the snow gets shoveled and the trash gets picked up”
I wouldn’t know about shoveling snow but did you know that the vast majority of US cities have privatized curbside collection? Yet, if you were to suggest to citizens that they pay directly for this service, the majority would object. They know sending the money to city hall just makes the service expensive but they like it that way. Why? Because it buys compulsion.
The rest of the world is similar, or behind. We’re simply not ready for liberty.
In Independence, MO, population over 114K, there is direct payment to the trash collection companies. Yes, companies, the people get to select which company will pick up their trash based on which service is best in the mind of the customer. The city will cite you if you let your trash pile up and charge an outrageous amount if they have to send someone out to clean up your place.
There are politicians and some citizens who complain that trash should be handled by the city but they are laughed at or treated they way one would treat a child with a silly idea.
More cities should try it.
I used to work for a large multi-national service company. In the UK, this company provided many services for local, regional and national governments. We talk about how the UK is socialist for their health care system but in many ways, American government is worse. For example, why do we need government employees at the Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Services and a host of other services? Why not outsource and save a lot of money while getting better service while avoiding the money pit of government pensions?
Of course, it would be better if they asked if the job needed doing in the first place. I wouldn’t contract out the police department but just about everything else (including the fire department) could be outsourced.
Bloomburg is Jewish? Who knew, and why would we care?