Have we already lost it?
Decades from now, it’s possible that historians will look back and conclude that the American experiment, which began with its declaration of independence from and defeat of Great Britain, ended sometime between 1999 and 2014. As with Rome, the pivotal event isn’t obvious, and the list which follows isn’t all-inclusive.
The failure by the U.S. Senate to convict Bill Clinton after his impeachment by the House was the first signal that the rule of law might not matter any more. These days, the law seems to be whatever Barack Obama and Eric Holder want it to be.
President George W. Bush’s formation of the mammoth Homeland Security Department and mission creep at the National Security Agency after the 9/11 terrorist attacks consolidated awesome and disturbing powers in very few hands. Now both outfits are out-of-control monsters.
The 2007-2008 crackup in housing and mortgage lending would be a leading candidate for the pivotal moment prize if one believes that it was the result of decades of conscious effort. Evidence that it was, including the Community Reinvestment Act and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo’s 1990s housing discrimination directives, both of which forced banks to make loans to vast numbers of borrowers who couldn’t repay, is compelling. Compounding the problem, government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “routinely misrepresented” the quality of both the mortgages they packaged for the securities markets and those they kept on their own books for 15 years. The amounts involved were in the trillions of dollars.
It would have been painful in the short term, but the nation’s economy would likely have recovered, as it always previously had, from that Cloward Piven-like attempt to collapse the system if a frightened George W. Bush administration, opportunistic Congress, and conflicted Federal Reserve hadn’t intervened in the fall of 2008. But they did, and heavy-handedly. Congress passed TARP, despite citizens’ overwhelming opposition. Bush’s Treasury Department then used it to “put a gun to the head” of big-bank CEOs, forcing them to accept government “investment” and de facto control, which the Dodd-Frank legislation solidified two years later.
All the while, the Fed engaged in a massive, undisclosed bailout of domestic and even foreign banks, followed by what became known as “quantitative easing.” And $4.1 trillion later, our central bank’s tiny cadre of suits and skirts now has the ability to almost instantly send the economy into a tailspin any time they see federal government policies or actions they don’t like. Don’t think for a minute that the three branches which nominally run our government don’t know this.
Historians may conclude that the presidential election of 2012 was the last chance to undo the authoritarian encroachment. Pervasive Obama administration harassment of political opponents by its Internal Revenue Service, serial lying about the September 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, and the mother of all 21st century lies — “if you like your health care plan, doctor, medical provider, and drug regimen, you can keep them” — inarguably delegitimized its result.
Something that may be rectified this fall. The biggest problem, though, is a low-information electorate. And a government and media that wants to keep it that way.
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, Ron Fournier is getting tired of having to defend ObamaCare, so maybe not.
I don’t believe we had an honest election November 2012, and I’m not expecting an honest election this November.
On a small planetoid orbiting Jupiter, somewhere in between Europa and Io, exists a place where there are no jeans, where tipping is considered the greatest possible affront to free-market employees, and where all people have held the same opinions their entire lives (“I’m surprised anyone could have ever thought differently…”) It is a society in which every man, woman, and child wears nothing but ill-fitting khaki pants and longsleeve shirts designed and manufactured at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century. Everyone who is not a member of this community is categorized as a “douchenozzle” (sometimes spelled “Douche Nozzle”, for emphasis). Styling one’s hair is considered optional, but more generally, frowned upon.
Yes, this wondrous society is real and represents all the best things libertarianism has to offer. There is no FDA, no EPA, and guns are given to all citizens at birth. The sheer quanity of calories consumed has absolutely nothing to do with the girth of the populus. And although carbon dioxide is routinely released into the atmosphere to increase the temperature, it is still not considered “settled science”.
This outpost just past the asteroid belt is the pinnacle of human political, social, and cultural acheivement.\
This. Is. Randsimbergtopia.
How stupidly droll.
Surely you intended to write something more intelligent than that?
Surely not, you douche nozzle moron.
That’s good, because if you were, it was a pathetic failure.
Are you trying to place with Douche Nozzle for village idiot?
The Martians tried pumping their atmosphere full of CO2 to stay warm, but it got colder than Antarctica because CO2 is a miserable greenhouse gas. Water, clouds, and atmospheric pressure work much better.
I live in this sector of the solar system. I do not wear khakis, and I was a democrat for many years (as Rand was, I believe).
We left your doucheplanet because we saw the hypocrisy of the democrat party. They did things that Orwell warned us about in Animal Farm and 1984.
And, frankly, if you bring up calories in a discussion on nutrition, you will be reduced to a pile of slobbering stupidity by many of us here who do actually follow the science of nutrition. I doubt you’ve done any research except a vacant stare at the food pyramid on the back of a box of Cheerios during breakfast. Study the history of saturated fats and George Mc Govern. Read about carbohydrates, sugars and calories. You will be embarrassed by what you just wrote.
Judging by the way rand looked when I saw him on Connecticut avenue last week I can assuredly say he knows absolutely nothing about nutrition, much like his daddy.
OK, so we clearly have a troll here. I’m not going to bother with it, other than to allow it to expose itself. I’ll let others deal with it.
Just remember that it took insulting a man’s dead father before you got the ban. And while you did get banned, Rand didn’t sue you even though after that last comment, he would have as much reason as Mann. Something you should think about regarding Mann’s suit.
Hmm, would Rand build his settlement in an area with so much radiation and would his settlement even have an atmosphere?
Once President Bush set up homeland security and with it the ability to wiretap and read emails, I would think the first thing that institution would do would be to go after every elected official at the Federal level to gain leverage to keep that institution in place.
Yes, it’s like J. Edgar Hoover on steroids. I wonder if that’s why Roberts changed his vote on ObamaCare?
The problem isn’t the tool but the intent of those wielding it. My father was a skilled carpenter. In the hands of a man like him, a hammer is a tool to build homes, schools, and businesses. In the hands of a thug, a hammer is a tool for destruction, mayhem, and murder.
Bush did participate in the creation of powerful tools for gathering intelligence. Had he used them with bad intent, Obama wouldn’t have become president. Obama, on the other hand, appears more than willing to use those tools for evil purposes.
Obama just delayed a portion of his bill until after the election. No one is crying that he cannot do it. I am happy it is delayed because ACA is a terrible law, but as a president he cannot do it.
On the other hand, dictator in chief does seem to think he can do what he wants: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/10/obama-thats-the-good-thing-as-a-president-i-can-do-whatever-i-want/
Waiting now for Jim to have some sort of wonky answer to blatantly disregarding the Constitution.
The sticky problem will come out in numerous legal cases, which are inevitable. Suppose you’re an employee who wants some aspect of Obamacare implemented, but your company, like all companies, has just been granted a waiver for another year. Under the law they can’t do that, and the only reason they can blatantly violate the law is that some guy with big ears said they could. There are no court precedents for a judge to rely on in ruling for a company because no previous president routinely flouted the law like this.
What this causes is legal chaos where a firm’s legal council can’t tell them to obey Obama’s dictates, but if they don’t, Obama will likely go after them using the power of the executive branch. Their safest course of action is probably to pack up and move their business to China.
And in the press conference this morning, Obama claimed that companies offering health insurance to their employees would face no impact from Obamacare so it makes perfect sense to delay it a few years…
And really, if it doesn’t impact anyone, then why did we need to pass Obamacare?
The republic died on 28 June 2012 when the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could compel any resident to perform any lawful action.
That fundamentally changed the relationship between person and government. It is not a relationship between citizen and republic.
The republic is dead. We fight to bring it back, not to keep it.
The Republic died a long time ago. See Garet Garrett from 1938:
The Revolution Was
“In a revolutionary situation, mistakes and failures are not what they seem. They are scaffolding.”
The same holds true for the Obama administration. Those who call him stupid and incompetent are missing the point.
A case could also be made that the Republic died in 1913, with the 16th and 17th Amendments, and the birth of the Federal Reserve.
The 16th and 17th Amendments, and the Federal Reserve weren’t immediately fatal, but might be identified as chronic disease that weakened and eventually killed the nation.
My view is that this stuff can only be determined in hindsight. Most reversals in fortunes can be reversed in turn but only until things reaches a point of collective harm or decline that destroys what made the fortune in the first place. Historically, a number of places experienced many places where they could have experienced an apex and subsequent decline, but instead they kept going to better things. For example, the Roman Republic could have faltered permanently in the face of the invasion of Hannibal or England collapse during the invasion of the Spanish Armada.
Even when a substantial decline occurs, it doesn’t rule out a future rise. China and Egypt both experienced numerous rises and falls over the millennia. France fell during the Second World War but came back.
The assassinations of JFK, MLK Jr, and RFK cannot be called definite turning points because they are “what if” points in history. I believe those three events, individually and collectively, were very bad detours that put us on the bad road we’re on today.
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” ~Benjamin Franklin
It would be hard to argue that the people have not already found that they can vote themselves money, as it would also be hard to argue that Ben Franklin was wrong in his prediction of what would happen when they did. Therefore I would have to say that yes we have already lost the republic.