Whatever happens, it’s going to get ugly.
If Trump is nominated, there will be riots – the Perpetually (and professionally) Aggrieved will take to the streets.
If Trump is denied the nomination, there will be riots – as the people come face to face with the true nature of the system they were taught to respect since childhood.
Not since 1861 has America been so clearly divided. These divisions transcend mere political differences of opinion over this or that policy. There is a fundamental schism. Irreconcilable differences. The two sides detest each other, have almost nothing in common. And so can no longer live together.
Trump has been likened to Hitler – which is unfair. He is no Hitler. He is a crony capitalist and some other things, too. Mussolini, maybe.
But he isn’t Hitler.
However, he is riding a wave – make that a tsunami – similar to the one that led to the chancellorship of the German Reich (as it was styled in those days) falling into the hands of the former gefreiter. The people of Germany had been driven to a state of desperation and frenzy by decades of economic evisceration of their country and thus, of themselves. Their country had been ruled over by a revolving, insular cabal of greedheads and frauds, some nothing more than puppets of financial interests, who milked the cow for their and their masters’ benefit.
Sound familiar?
People lacked jobs – and those who did have them felt insecure in them. Depraved elements seemed to be having a field day. Things appeared to be falling apart all around them.
The people had had enough … genug.
And in their desperation, elected Der Fuhrer.
People forget this – or never learned this.
Hitler did not seize power, He was freely elected by a majority in an election whose results are not and never were disputed insofar as whether ballots were stuffed or otherwise rigged. They weren’t. The people turned to Hitler because there was – as they saw it – no one else to turn to.
When one is drowning, one tends not to be picky about the life preserver one grabs.
Today, the life preserver – as he is seen by his supporters – is Trump.
People have had enough of Beltway Conservative greedheads and frauds. The Mitt Romneys and Jebs! and other Bushes (which includes Ted Cruz and his wife, both Bushes in every way except DNA). They have flashed on to the reality that electing any of these people will mean More of The Same. More “free trade” deals that are as free as China. More Wall Street pilfering of their livelihoods to benefit “shareholder value.” More work for less pay. More wars, endlessly. Less and less freedom – all the while prattling about it and waving the flag ever more furiously.
They have had genug.
Trump may not be a Libertarian savior – any more than he is a revenant Hitler. But he is not one of them. And the people revere him for this. He is their weapon – the first one they’ve actually got their hands on since at least 1964 – with which they hope to at least stab out an eye, if only for hate’s sake.
It’s that bad – or that good, depending on your perspective.
The rictus of choreographed outrage directed Trump’s way by the House Organs of DC-New York GOP, Inc., speaks volumes about the mortal danger the establishment is in for the first time in literally living memory.
It’s interesting to recall the motto emblazoned on the standards of the NSDAP. It was Deutschland Erwache!
Germany Awake!
America is awakening.
And the greedheads and frauds who’ve been milking the country for years are absolutely petrified. Because no matter what happens now, they are done.
A Trump nomination – and likely victory in November over the obvious fraud Hillary (despite her core support among embittered lesbians and such, she is as “liberal” as The Chimp was a “conservative”… and the people (including people on the political left) know this… she’s a tool, another greedhead… it is why Sanders, an honest socialist, has been embarrassing her for months) will be the ruin of the DC-New York GOP, Inc. They will be turned out like cur dogs, lucky to find work as Starbucks barristas and Wal Mart “associates” – which would be orgiastic to see. Imagine, for instance, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity with aprons around their waists, asking whether you’d like them to leave room for cream… .
Deny Trump what he has earned – what the people obviously want – and the GOP will find itself as delegitimized as the Ceausescu regime circa fall, 1989.
And just might experience the same fate.
It could not happen to a more deserving crowd.
EPautos.com depends on you to keep the wheels turning! The control freaks (Clovers) hate us. Goo-guhl blackballed us.
Will you help us?
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: EPautos stickers are free to those who sign up for a $5 or more monthly recurring donation to support EPautos, or for a one-time donation of $10 or more. (Please be sure to tell us you want a sticker – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
The worst thing the flounders did, those rotted old fish heads, is convince men that substituting ethos for logos is a viable modus operandi.
Their ink on paper built nothing. Only the masons, millrughts, sawyers, iron workers, actual builders, built anything. They aren’t even due credit as being an inspiration. They inserted the virus of Euro Authoritarianism into what should still be the free frontier and fountain of youthful ideas for a musty old desiccated old world order.
Their intentions always were to be nicer more genial human slavedrivers. And their oily words and foggy promises helped them accomplish just that. Even today’s White House is little more than an enlarged Custis Plantation Manor.
The miracle of the ‘Merkins happened in spite of their predations, not because of them.
Logos is a curb that thoroughly prevents bikes leaving the road. It works and is tangibly logical. It has objectivist reality and existence to it.
The Ethos of a sign is worthless. As is the Ethos of a law saying stay on the road or get a roadside robber bandit on your ass. Maybe even get a gun in your face or a bullet in your back.
As is the Ethos of the fiery sermon of a televangelist saying obey the signs of the elected ruling class Atillas or verily Yahweh and all his holy witch doctors will surely smite thee and imprison your soul for eternity. For all of creation was first in a book. From this written word, did thee heavenly hosts proceed to make a firmament in the waters and a garden and a nourishing river of living waters.
You are maybe not yet as free as the Abrahamic Labyrnth as you would like. It is the Grand Kahuna currently mind fucking close to 60% of humanity. Perhaps all Ethos and Principles are a pretense, at least until they are made manifest, and do not survive only via the blood of evermore victims.
There is no curve to grade on. Even if Merkins did live in the least worst nation, they would still be blood spillers and collectors of the nation state. Truly a vile phenomenon by any humane life loving method of evaluation. Truly you and ISIS are one and the psychotic same.
Do you care if those Jihaddists invoke the flounding fathers and their first and best Fatwas. I seriously doubt it. I love Fred Reed like he is my own family even. Greatly does his wise and humorous writing touch even the coldest oldest cockle of my long ago frozen curmudgeons heart.
But he too is a bloodsmeared zombie faced statist gnawing on the bones and sinew of the ever available individual victim sacrificed to whatever idiotic imposed fraudulent existence he thinks is worthy of technocannibalism Rube Goldberg gleaming mousetraps high on that distant Calvary Hill.
If you read Fred Reed, you know micro aggression comes from Harvard, one of the 3 walled kingdoms mentioned in his Trump Monster piece.
Pointing out that Africans top technological contribution is the pointed stick. And that women have contributed even less technologically, is evidently a micro aggression and is not allowed to be discussed because it disrupts the illusions of egality and equality.
Micro Agro theory
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression_theory
Don’t be a mealy mouth. Tell the fat feminist cunts they can fuck off. Especially the spic and nigger fatties. Go full metal overt macro aggression, don’t hold back.
Telling fat chicks they have a pretty face is a micro aggression
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423987/feminist-internet-telling-fat-person-she-has-pretty-face-microaggression-katherine
Full disclosure, BBWs get a pass from me if they’ve got big boobs.. I know it’s inconsistent, but I also know I don’t care.
Probably has a biological basis, some limbic delusion that you’ve impregnated her and now she is with milk and soon to bear your offspring. Ugggh probably best not to overthink these things. Roll em in some flour and have at em.
It’s the sweet-tasting poison called “equality”… which has tainted American waters since the 18th century at least. The founders were very sloppy int his respect, for men usually so precise with their words.
They meant every human being has equal rights. Equality before the law. That none should be treated preferentially by the law.
They did not mean people are equal in endowments. Or acquired skill. Or will.
They manifestly are not – and it’s absurd to believe otherwise and yet most people operate as if it were so. Take as the premise of their worldview that “equality” ought to rule. That is, equality of outcomes. And that no one is any “better” than anyone else.
Which of course is nonsense.
I am absolutely better at bench pressing 225 pounds than Stephen Hawking. And Stephen is absolutely superior to me when it comes to physics.
Life is not fair.
Corollary: Neither are outcomes.
I am not resentful of the success (material and otherwise) of people more gifted (or industrious) than I. And I have never grokked those who are resentful of the success of others in this regard.
The only thing I resent – and will fight to my dying day – is aggression.
It is not aggression to be smarter, better looking, or more industrious than some other person.
Are you a wizard or a muggle? Definitely no equality between those 2 groups. And while there is no jealousy of muggles among wizards (what’s to covet?) there are plenty of cases of arrogance that help feed the envy of the muggles.
Eric you’re being anachronistic here. Its not really possible to in advance predict that meanings of words are going to change from what they were when you wrote them.
Hi David,
I’m not following you…
Eric,
I think David means that the wording the founders used was clear and precise enough in meaning to them and others from the 1700s.
(although David could correct me if I am misstating what he means.)
Hi Mith,
Yeah.. but David’s either being disingenuous or his knowledge of the founding fathers’ understanding of “equality” is very limited. Whether Federalist or Republican, none regarded men as equal in endowments or achievement or merit. The notion that they are “equal” in that way is an imbecility unworthy of further discussion.
What they believed was that all men ought to be considered equals before the law; that none are entitled to different or superior treatment by the law.
eric, I’ve always like the twist on that. All men weren’t born equal but Sam Colt evened it up.
Me too, Eight!
It amazes me, though, that anyone not literally “slow” could believe that people are equal in any way whatsoever … other than their right to equal treatment by the law, and to have their equal right to life and liberty respected.
Indeed, inequality is what makes things interesting. Some people are much more gifted/hard working than others – and we all benefit from that. Also, the sheer variety of things. Individualism and inequality are corollaries!
Yes, you laid bare the lie of it quite well. Even deaf, dumb and blind, a person with any reasoning would know all “men” are not equal in any other respect.
And speaking of equal and Fred. The guy can drive me to tears when he waxes into a vocabulary I’ve not seen the likes of in my life. I’ll spend half and hour sometimes trying to find the definition of a word……and come away empty. He’s certainly taught me the ins and outs of finding definitions even if they are fleeting memories.
This is what happens when you repeal Darwin’s Law.
Something to consider, since I like r/K selection theory…
IF Rabbits (r) and Wolves (K) were equally long-lived, and both carnivores…? The ONLY difference being the food source, say, one eats Meat A, one Meat B …
I dunno how to phrase this, the point is, that while Wolves would be able to eat rabbits still, rabbits eat wolves, as well, and they aren’t necessarily limited to that one food, either – there are alternatives. The competition is for space, essentially.
So, Rabbits multiply. Wolves fend and slowly grow.
Eventually, Rabbits outnumber Wolves, and demand Wolves submit. Wolves, not needing Rabbits as food, agree to “cooperate” or “concede” or “cross the aisle.”
Pretty soon, the worst of the wolves realize they can snowjob the rabbits, AND the wolves, and eat the pick from each side…
guess where we are now?
Hey Guys,
Remember that old Vonnegut short story, Harrison Bergeron? Here’s the first paragraph:
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everyone was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
http://www.tnellen.com/westside/harrison.pdf
Jeremy
Thanks for the pdf Jeremy. I haven”t read the book yet, but in the movie they also became equal by wearing a government supplied round device around their heads which governed thinking ability and resisted memories. These came about in the 1995 movie due to “The Great Recession” where oligarchs became ever more wealthy as millions of people lost their jobs permanently. Technology had replaced the workers, therefore there could be no recovery. This lead to a massive revolt by the working class. It was decided that society would become locked into the 1950’s era because “everyone was happy.” This would be a very utopian society for a clover and a very dystopian one for the rest of us.
This movie was written more than a decade before the beginning of the current recession/ depression, which began around 2007-08.
People can download the movie entitled Harrison Bergeron for free on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBcpuBRUdNs . It is a copy of a VHS tape, so the picture quality is not up to todays standard.
Don’t forget Animal Farm, where everyone was equal, but some were more equal than others. The swine became ‘more equal’ by wearing pants and walking on their back legs.
Hi Brian,
I started watching the 1995 movie yesterday, I’ll finish it tonight. Anyway, it uses Vonnegut’s idea as a starting point to create a longer, fleshed out story. The Vonnegut story is only 5 pages long.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hey Eric,
I’ve tried to comment on this post a few times without luck. I have commented on another post successfully. So, this is a test.
Jeremy
Weird, that went through. I tried to post the opening paragraph of Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut. But, it wouldn’t let me.
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
I wish I knew what/why… and what to do! But I’m not a software guy – and I’m running this shop pretty much solo. I would love to be able to hire a full-time tech support person… but have to have the funds for that.
Hi Eric,
Yeah, I know and sympathize. Trust me, I’m not complaining just alerting. I wonder if Word Press has some copyright infringement detection crap. Anyway, I just tried again (at least 5 times now), and no go. But, all of my other posts have gone through. So, it must have something to do with the passage. Pretty weird, huh?
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hey Eric,
Here’s a link to the story. It’s only 5 pages long. It’s an absurdist tale of a dystopian future where “equality” is mandated and enforced. Still don’t know why I couldn’t write the first paragraph. I even tried substituting all the e’s with 3’s., didn’t work.
http://www.tnellen.com/westside/harrison.pdf
Jeremy
Tor, I’ve been meaning to post Fred’s latest all week. Thanks for reminding me.
http://fredoneverything.org/it-cometh-from-the-pitand-hath-a-knout/
Fred’s a mensch. And a helluva writer. One of the best still above dirt. He may or may not remember me. Our paths crossed back in the ’90s, when I was a young editorial writer at The Times and he was the police beat columnist. MSM media no longer publishes guys like Fred. And that says a lot about them… and about Fred, too.
Why they all fear Ted Cruz: Rush Limbaugh
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/03/23/why_they_all_fear_ted_cruz
God took Scalia to help Cruz win: Glenn Beck
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/glenn-beck-god-killed-scalia-so-cruz-could-win/
Michael Savage destroys the weasel Ted Cruz
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FUcCxMpFQbE
Hi Tor,
Rush has been serving as a kind of ex-officio Dr. Goebbels for the establishment GOP since the ’90s – and it amazes me that people still line up for fresh servings of his swill.
On Cruz: I keep hearing about how bright he is. What evidence is there of this? What has he produced? Invented? A great work of literature or prose? Some new device?
He is – apparently – a gifted parser of the secular Talmud (the law).
Which doesn’t count for much in my book!
I truly don’t know anymore. I’m like that kid in the shining who sees nothing but Redrum. Only I left the inn and no longer care to read all the reams and reams of – All work and no play makes Jack a Dull Boy. Be proud of your clean thorough domesticated status if you can. I wager you can’t long do so and am betting on your impending raged filled stampede 19th Nervous Breakdown, here it comes, here it comes….
I remember sitting in my car and listening to Limbaugh. Really he was the voice of the fatherland 2.0. Was fun for a bit, but the Stalin like diatribes against Clinton turned me off. Guess I’m against all forced domestication. And also forced rewilding in some steampunk neo primitism lunar scrape too. Though I do admit the Zerzan / Unabomber stuff is at least thought provoking.
What does it matter which way it goes if somewhere unseen, you are secretly a puppet pawn of some other man or men. Trump truly is Big Brother. Adam Corolla exposed his show creating false narratives via post production. Truly chilling.
NBC is both TV and defense contractor. Trump is their shallow nigger frontman of blinged up gold spinning rimmed sky scrapers and is a true establishment pimp and prostitute twofer of the worst sort.
Trump will eliminate all jobs everywhere, we will all be feudal apprenti cowering and humiliated by everymanmade thing no vestige of our old selves left behind.
No more striving period. He and his will get things done and we will watch and second hand spectate as Trump fucks all them Miss America honeys and we will imagine we do to in a dank memed planetary reality show plantation.
It an uneasy position rather like our Israeli friend, knowing others have bought your lies, and you are free to do whatever and pursue anything because almost everyone else is a thrall of this glimmering spectacle or that one. Really how do you win the barnyard game as their domesticate caliphate unless you opt out and be your own farmer or emerge yourself in the true earth and abandon them altogether?
John Zerzan anti civilization theorist…
http://www.johnzerzan.net/articles/disinfo.html
“God took Scalia to help Cruz win” – even if that laughable claim were true, it surely wasn’t so he could be replaced by Merrick Garland.
Just ask Will Grigg – http://www.freedominourtime.blogspot.com/
I can’t believe I used to watch Beck’s show. Here in Houston, he has his own TV channel. Suppose it’s not the worst thing, but it’s close.
Irrefutable Logos: You’re either an anarchist or a criminal…
http://abolishgovernmentnow.com/you-are-an-anarchist-or-you-are-a-criminal/
It seems the summer could be postponed. Heck, half of Rome survived into the 14th century. Why can’t us ‘Merkins do likewise.
Just resist the urge to agree that something must be done. Someone must take the reigns. It just ain’t so. Get a backbone and learn the art of refusing to give them a shit.
One of the kids refused to go to school yesterday. I waited bribed them with Chick Fil A and annoyed them, making further slumber impossible, but after 90 minutes, I got the call to give it up and let it go.
Really, what are they going to do if the remaining middle class decide to join the lower class epsilon minuses and refuse to comply anymore. Probably a big fat nothing is what. Let them choke on their old fish heads and don’t pay them no more never mind.
“Just resist the urge to agree that something must be done. ”
I think most of us agree, something must be UN-done…
I’d much rather see the Trumpster win than any of the other turds, but I wonder just how genuine he is? I tend to have this idea in the back of my mind that he knows what mainstream lower working-class America wants to hear, and is playing the part, much like Reagan, who would often speak almost like a Libertarian, and then go and do the very opposite in his actions.
And no matter who gets in, I think it’s too late to fix this country, as our political and economic problems are too long ingrained (over 100 years now), and our people are too dysfunctional, having been groomed by government schools and the media for generations now. Our problems are not just political or economic. Those things are merely the symptoms. The very fact that people like Sanders and Hitlery can run and have millions of people vote for them, is a testament to just how debased our people have become. (How can a socialist even run for an office for which he must swear an oath to uphold the tenets and values of the Constitution?! )
Maybe it’s better if the worst candidate gets in (Trouble is, I can’t figure out if that would be Hitlery or Sanders), as it would just hasten the big crash, rather than perpetuating the dysfunction. And considering the choices my fellow citizens have made during my lifetime, that’s almost guaranteed -that the worst one will be elected. But I’m still hoping for Trump. (I’m not going to be so foolish as to actually vote, or anything…)
Surprisingly, John is an amiable, beer guzzling old boy. He’s not quite the dimwit he plays on radio. I don’t really know if the politics on the show is just for the NASCAR fans. Billy is sharp as a tack, and most of the comedy comes from his imagination.
Probably, if you met John, you two would end up burnin a doob and drinking a case or two of Shiner on your front porch. 😉
Yep, he says a thing now and then that would lead you to get that impression. I have often thought he’s the go along to get along kinda guy and really pretty funny in a self-deprecating way. Now and again they get into one of their skits with crap like Ax Ike and other stuff where they seem like they’ve already done a doob and can’t stay with the script. You can hear everybody in the studio laughing like crazy.
Speaking of Shiner, I picked up a twelve of their new Birthday Beer. It says Hoppy Beer on it and sure enough is. I’ll leave it for somebody else. Last year it was a chocolate black lager similar to their Bohemian Black Lager but more chocolaty. I had the locals get me all they could and then had them get their distributor to pick it up from slow-selling places and bring to them. We had stacks of Birthday Beer although not enough. When you find a good one, it’s not often it keeps being made unless it’s been around long before you found it.
A side note about alcoholic drinks in Tx. The specialty beer and especially hard liquor markets are flooded with high-end bourbon’s, rye’s and similar. It pretty quickly gets out of my price range. No, it’s just mostly out of my price range but it’s good as in really good…..I just can’t afford $50-200 fifths. But it’s kinda funny in that Evan Williams that makes some really good other brands has their own cheap brand and while I don’t much care for 80 proof bourbons being basically an old Wild Turkey drinker, they do make a 100 proof that’s very good and cheap. I buy it in a bottle I call tribe-size with the old lady being the tribe.
BTW, if you read some of my comments and find a letter missing, I’ve been having to go back over them and insert e’s for the most part. I’ll get on ebay and find a wireless one. This keyboard is probably well over 15 years old and like typing in mush.
8, I’d like to have a video of you and John Boy on your front porch, doobed out and drinking birthday beer and hollering shit back and forth. That would probably get 10 million views on Youtube. 😉
Ed, as JB frequently says “all right then”. I could retort with my old fave “farm out”, a phrase that’s pretty much lost to all but a few.
“farm out” – right arm, outta state, 8SM
” “farm out”, a phrase that’s pretty much lost to all but a few.”
Yep, along with the old joke about the tattoo of the winged ear of corn with the motto: “Born to Raise Corn”. ahaha
Ed, speaking of corn, I’ve been on a mission lately of keeping track of my mileage on Step Child since I’ve spent weeks doing nothing but rock hauling. It’s a fairly easy comparison since using the same trailer and being loaded to the legal limit every load and making the same 94 mile run time after time, day after day(boring as hell) should generate the same numbers.
I fuel every day at either a T/A or an Alon. The T/A advertises “up to 10% biodiesel” and the Alon has no biodiesel plus I caught the fuel delivery truck there this week and asked about biodiesel of which he was unaware there might be any from the refineries he loaded from.
I think I’m seeing a big less mileage from the blend although Step Child has been on a bend electronically and we’ve had days of 45mph winds which screw things up.
So, did you check out the Chevy Turbo-Diesel pickup yet? I sounds like a winner to me. BTW, what sort of transmission does it have and what final gear ratio?
Correction, a “bit” less mileage.
“So, did you check out the Chevy Turbo-Diesel pickup yet? I sounds like a winner to me. BTW, what sort of transmission does it have and what final gear ratio?”
It’s a ’99 GMC w/auto and turbo Detroit. I don’t know about the final gear ratio. I’ll take it to the logging truck shop and get the guy to go over it as soon as I get time.
My daughter just had my first grand child. That is going to keep my undivided attention for a few weeks, probably.
Is biodiesel some kinda fractionated corn or soy oil? It sounds like pure T old horseshit to me, and would have to cost several multiples of what petroleum diesel would cost, or it seems like they’d be selling the pure bio horse shit for less than regular diesel.
Around here they have this dimbulb program for subsidizing the use of “bio-solids” for fertilizer on farmer’s fields. The bio-solids is just fuckin unprocessed shit from NJ and NYC sewer systems, so any time I hear “bio” this or that I automatically think of shit.
The welfare witch farmers put the shit on their pastures and it stinks all to be damned. The their cows eat it and we are supposed to buy the meat of cattle fed on stinky grass grown with yankee shit.
Sometimes this world is just too ridiklus a place to live in.
4 of the remaining 5 – all but ‘the Bern’ – will speak at the AIPAC dinner tonight. And what does Hitlery really thing about the Middle East? Check this out.
http://newobserveronline.com/clinton-destroy-syria-israel/
PtB, excellent article….thanks.
Eric is right about 1932 Germann federal election. If someone has a source that refutes what he’s said, please share.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_July_1932
BTW we have our own Uber President Hitler here. She/He’s called the chairman of the federal reserve, and wields more power than all other politicians combined.
I would say we are far more slavish than Cuba or N Korea even and don’t have the excuse of crushing poverty and hunger to justify our pathetic fetish of adoring and empathathizing with our ruling class bandits and brutalizes.
“our own Uber President” – well, yes and no. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve does have wide discretionary latitude. But he/she serves ‘at the pleasure of the President.’ So the president is consenting to whatever the Chairman is doing, or he can pull the plug.
I can’t stomach listening to them, so I wouldn’t know. Has there ever been a president who has even mentioned anything of substance about the Fed, much less criticized them or threatened to replace them due to poor performance.
Money should be of equal value of whatever you trade it for. Not the pathetic green tickets we trade our labor for. Our money is about as good as those tickets you get for playing skeeball, or knocking over three milk bottles with a baseball.
I should think they would never dare mention the power of the Fed to take a tithe, or take the entire value out of every dollar you earn or save.
The dumb injuns sold Manhattan for some trinkets, and traded the rest of their land for a few bottles of fire water. But we’re just as dumb, accepting paper and digital trinkets for our labor. And enslaving the whole world to boot, saying here’s your only legal form of exchange.
Use only these green trinkets, or else we kill you and your family for being terrorists.
Eric wrote:
“Hitler did not seize power, He was freely elected by a majority in an election whose results are not and never were disputed insofar as whether ballots were stuffed or otherwise rigged. They weren’t. The people turned to Hitler because there was – as they saw it – no one else to turn to.”
This is wrong! Hitler was never elected at all in any kind of election that could be deemed fair. After the Reichstag fire, Hitler essentially eliminated opposition by killing thousands….the remaining people were too cowed to resist.
That said, the whole Trump phenomenon does remain intensely interesting. You are right enough about the two camps detesting each other but the two camps are Democrat/Republican establishment and the supporters thereof and the people who are tired of being shat on by the beltway bullies and their minions. As I have said before, I think this year will mark the end of an era by one means or another. It’s also interesting to look at the similarities between the situation with Goldwater in 1964 and Trump in 2016…..so, pass the paleo snacks, we’re in for a wild ride.
The problem is that they don’t have any more arrows in the quiver. If anyone in Washington has any idea what is really going on, they’re running away from the problem. Look at Japan. Government debt is 200% of GDP, the bank of Japan is running with negative interest rates and they still can’t get the population to spend money. The same thing is happening in the EU and is starting to be a problem in the US. China’s growth is decreasing and suddenly the hybrid communist-capitalist system is showing its true nature. The wheels have fallen off the Keynesian model and no one in power knows what to do to fix it.
The US government runs on future earnings of the workers, thanks to the 16th amendment and the Federal Reserve act. That’s the only reason politicians give a rats’ ass about employment and jobs. They know that they need more revenue to keep the bond market plate spinners happy. But they end up screwing the retirees who lost their “widows and orphans” dividend stocks in the 1980s, and now lose their interest bearing CDs. Nothing like having to cut into your principal to keep you from making any big purchases. Don’t think for a second the 60 year old worker is going to even think about quitting at 62 when they see that their underfunded 401(k) is down 20% this year. So we see media stories about how baby boomers are going to keep working past 70 just because they really enjoy their work. The reality is that most of them want to retire but can’t because they know they’ll never be able to live on the interest, so they’re saving every penny they can (or at least trying to pay down debt). If they’re still working there’s no way anyone moves up, and no place for new workers, unless there’s enough growth to justify another $50K+ (including salary and benefits) warm body, something that just isn’t going to happen in a deflationary time.
My inner-conspiracy theorist says this is the biggest asset grab the elites have ever pulled. Make all the rent-seeking industries so expensive that the only way to get stuff is to take on far more debt than can ever be paid off and just take everyone’s future away from them. I thought the banks would open up property management divisions after the 2008 crash, but I now realize it is much easier to just keep re-inflating bubble after bubble and keep feeding out credit. Student loans are one of the most hanus acts ever portrayed on the American people. Instead of using interest compounding to your advantage when you’re young, kids are forced to fork over future earnings.
The century of the self documentary
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
In praise of the risk takers
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/nassim-taleb-the-black-swan-author-in-praise-of-the-risk-takers-8672186.html
So where is the surprise in what is about to happen? The Progressives(socialists) have had over 100 years to fold all 10 Planks of their Communist Manifesto into the American Fabric. The income Tax,Inheritance Taxes,Defacto ownership of most of America’s land,control of private Industry,control of private property,Public Education etc. Cultural Marxists have taken over most of Academia,Public Education,the Mainstream Media,Hollywood,TV. Except for the Internet,the Left controls where the majority of American’s receive their information.
The sad part of the story is that most Americans like things just the way they are. A Glance at national statistics reveal that a majority of Americans are either employed by or receive most of their sustenance from one level of government or another. The rugged,self-reliant, responsible citizen is becoming a dwindling minority. Long ago a voting majority of Americans gave up their birthright of liberty for the illusion of security. Now we are all walking around with Social Security numbers and asking our masters for privileges,permissions and licenses for things that were once rights. Citizens have rights. Serfs have privileges. America has ended its road to serfdom and has arrived at the tax plantation whose fences were constructed over a period of many years. Its too late. Even for Donald Trump or any politician to change history’s fate. America is done.
I agree with you, Jerry.
Which is why it may be necessary to bulldoze the whole thing and start over. Trump is not my hero except insofar as he is taking apart the Republican Party.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend….
Could it be that Trump is right about NATO? David Stockman seems to think so. In fact, if anything, he is too easygoing for not (yet at least) suggesting going all the way to dismantling it.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/trump-is-right-dump-nato-now/
After FDR gave away the farm to Uncle Joe in WW II, then died, Truman was stuck with a bad situation. Whether it was justified or not, NATO was begun to help ‘our allies’ in Europe defend themselves against the Soviet Union. But said SU has been gone for 25 years. It’s past time for NATO to follow suit.
Most of the focus has been on the Republicans. It will be just as interesting when the Bernie-bots find out that Hillary wins the nomination even if she loses.
When they find out their “votes” aren’t worth the paper they are on.
We have seemed to have sunk to third world style of corruption just like that it seems, but its a long time coming. This was all set in motion over a century ago. But if this summer means the end of the two major parties, the chaos may be the worth it. The two party “system” does not work at all for the common guy, and this kind of politics has to end.
Great article! Totally agree it’s going to be a long, hot, civil disruption filled summer. The Republican National Convention is scheduled relatively early this time…..July 16 thru July 21. That’s when it’s all likely to hit the fan.
I predict a false flag event at the Convention. Visualize the worst of all false flags that have gone before. The evil entities will be so desperate by that time, they will reveal not only their real intentions, but their true identities. The only way they can get away with that will be an attempt to impose martial law.
Well, they’re hedging their bets:
– Riot if Trump wins
– Riot if Trump is excluded (brokered conv.)
– Attempt to destroy us from within using Moslems
+ Change the demographics / culture
+ screw the education system
+ incite and engage in warfare with police “unable to keep the peace” (due to their hands being tied by FedGov, but who cares “why”? “What difference does it make now, anyway?”)
The fact we aren’t shooting people is apalling, by itself.
Amazing both the quantity and repulsiveness of what has slithered out of the earth by poking sticks and shining lights into the Republican and Democratic snake pits. I think we always thought those who were drawn into the calling of lording over us were scumbags, but even I am shocked by the filth that has been exposed.
This enlightenment is the best thing that has came out of these primaries. Maybe now people will start questioning the rules and authority doled out from their local elected hayseeds right up through to the utterly corrupt federal statist, instead of acting like Elois. The status quo is crumbling.
The thing is most people are still fighting about how they will be ruled over. They are still looking for just the right person the person who just isn’t as bad or the person who will get things done. So what they are fighting over isn’t even principle. It’s emotion, it’s perception, it’s details.
Yep. As a pundit whose name I can’t now remember (and whose quote I’ve been looking for unsuccessfully since) said a few years back, only Cubans and North Koreans love being “led” more than Americans.
With the assumption that voting isn’t rigged, is it better to accept that we’re voting for a ruler, but one who will seemingly give us more time to prepare? The moral high ground is probably to not vote, but some on the alt-right condemn that decision by saying that you can’t ignore what’s going on around you, and hope that things will just get better without any personal action.
Hi brandonjin,
Of all the “personal actions” one could take, voting is the most pointless. Even in relatively small elections (say a few thousand voters) the chance that one vote will matter is vanishingly small. In a statewide election, the chance that one vote will matter is so small that it can be correctly considered impossible. Two conditions must be met for one vote to matter: first, the margin of error in the vote count must be zero; second, absent one vote, the two leading candidates must have an equal number of votes. Above some level of voters, meeting these two conditions is impossible.
So, on a personal level, voting to effect change is the least significant action one could take. But, the political class insists that voting is a duty and that one forfeits any right to object if one does not vote. In addition, they tend to criticize any other action one might take. Why is this so? It is because voting has symbolic value to the political class; it maintains the illusion of choice and consent.
Notice that most of the actions one could take that are meaningful are either lambasted or dismissed as trivial by the political class. For instance, the creators of the Wire, came to advocate the idea that every member of a jury should refuse to convict anyone on trial for a non-violent drug offense, regardless of the law. To anyone who values liberty, this concept should be extended to any “malum prohibitum” prosecution. It was once understood that juries have the right and, according to some, the duty to judge both the facts and the law. But today, jurors are lied to and told that they can judge only the facts of a case, not the justice of the law. If one objects to a law, the only acceptable recourse (to the political class) is to vote for a politician who may or may not seek to change or abolish the law. Meanwhile, as injustice occurs, we are condemned for suggesting any alternate strategies.
Voting is the means of maintaining the status quo, not challenging it. Voting is a sacrament in the civic religion of democracy. Its’ purpose is to affirm the legitimacy of political authority. If one wishes to challenge the status quo, there are many actions one could take that are more meaningful than voting.
Simply not voting is more meaningful as the political class needs to maintain the illusion of choice and consent.
Explaining to anyone who will listen why you didn’t vote is far more meaningful than voting. The political class insists that non voters are apathetic and selfish because they need to promote the idea that voting is the only “responsible” way to seek change. Dispelling this myth is meaningful.
Seek private, voluntary conflict resolution. In other words, don’t call the cops. Or, at the very least, never call the authorities to address “malum prohibitum” offenses.
Seek to educate oneself and others. Write articles, letters to the editor, blog posts, talk to friends, recommend books and videos, etc…
Engage in private charity that is meaningful to you. This helps to undercut the false idea that only the State can “provide a safety net”.
The next time someone chastises you for not voting, ask them what else they have done. Point out what you have done and explain why those actions are significantly more important than “merely voting”.
Jeremy
Amen and amen, Jeremy. In the past I have often registered a ‘protest’ vote for a 3rd Party candidate, even though I knew it would do no good. I made me feel better, at the time anyway. Now I have to agree with Samuel Clemens and Emma Goldman about voting – if it made a difference, it would not be allowed. I may still vote in primaries, not sure about that yet. But General – no way Jose. (even though it’s not PC to say that)
Hi PTB,
Thanks! Breaking the social conditioning in favor of voting is very difficult. I remember reading an article in Reason magazine about twenty years ago that advocated not voting. At the time I thought, “this is nuts”. Even though I considered myself to be a pretty hardcore libertarian, I couldn’t accept the argument. Eventually I found more radical voices, some explicitly libertarian some not, that removed the mental block.
One of those voices was George Carlin:
“I don’t vote. Two reasons. First of all it’s meaningless; this country was bought and sold a long time ago. The shit they shovel around every 4 years *pfff* doesn’t mean a fucking thing. Secondly, I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around – they say, ‘If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain’, but where’s the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
Jeremy
Jeremy!
Hear, Hear!
Hi David,
Although it took some time, I have come to realize that the “sanctity of voting” is a mental straight jacket placed upon people, the purpose of which is to limit the “resectable” sphere of action to the pointless but self-aggrandizing. In addition, anyone who doesn’t vote is branded as a heretic whose opinion is either reviled or dismissed.
It is telling that even casting a “protest” vote for an outsider candidate is vilified by most of the political class. When the political class claimed that Ralph Nader “stole” votes from Gore, they revealed their true colors. If one “leans” liberal, then your vote belongs to the Democratic candidate. If one “leans” conservative, then your vote belongs to the Republican candidate. As the loathsome Chris Mathews explained: “you only have two choices”.
Diatribes about stolen votes, wasted votes and spoiler votes are commonplace among the political class. This fact clearly shows that the political class does not value “democracy” on its’ theoretical virtues but rather on its’ efficacy in maintaining the status quo. The hilarious irony is that the political class doesn’t actually believe in “democracy”, unless it produces the desired outcome. But, without shame, they excoriate anyone who refuses to play along.
Jeremy
Yes, I noted on another thread recently that if Algore had gotten 1/2 the votes that went to Nader in NH, Florida would have been moot. But even my boss, who is a bleeding-heart tree-hugger (and considers me a ‘Climate Change Denialist’) couldn’t bring himself to vote for big Al. Not that his vote in MD made a difference in the election, but it did to him.
The Simpsons broke the code years ago…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAT_BuJAI70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcngdW2Ju4
…not to mention the late, great George Carlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk
Hi Jason,
Thanks for posting those links.
I posted the Carlin quote because I think he got most of the way there. However, his emphasis, shared by many libertarians, on blaming the public for the crimes of politicians is misplaced. Sure there are many “clover” types who support politicians precisely because they wish to control others, but lack the courage to do so directly. However, I think these people are a minority.
Most people have more important things to worry about than politics (family, bills, employment, college tuition, etc…). Thus their engagement is superficial and limited to the choices offered by the lifetime of conditioning that they have received (pick sides and vote accordingly). Also, blaming the “people” for the quality of the “rulers” perpetuates the myth that the people have control over the “rulers”.
Jeremy
Typically the only “votes” that could count are the ones cast on issues rather then candidates. For example, the few times you are allowed to vote on things like school tax increases. I relish casting my vote against any tax increase. And at least in my area, many of those tax increases are voted down by about 50 votes. Its really the only way you can put your thumb in the eye of the elected crooks that will do things they way they want rather then what the voters really want.
There is a park district that has tried to get a tax increase every year for about the last 6 years. It has lost every time, one time with under 40 votes. Unfortunately many voters are voting against it because of the a**hole running the district (not elected) rather then the actual increase. So when he is gone, the increase will likely get voted in.
I would rather vote on issues instead of which crook to put in office. But that won’t be allowed, because many things would be different from what the government would want.
Yes, if ‘the elected’ could be thrown out of office for voting contradictory to their campaign rhetoric (e.g., the Shrub and ‘no nation building’) it might make some difference. As it is, ‘fuhgeddaboutit!’
Hi Rich,
You make an important distinction regarding voting for a particular legislative issue as opposed to voting for a “representative”. First, the pool of voters engaged in an issue vote is usually quite small. Thus, your vote has a better chance of counting. Second, the vote determines the legal outcome of a specific, concrete issue. Not the vague hope that a “representative” might do the right thing. Personally, my opposition to voting is restricted to electoral politics.
Jeremy
Thanks Jeremy, for the knowledge and perspective.
I can never use this argument on someone who religiously believes in the system. But you have given me some reassurance.
Hi Brandon, Thanks!
While those who “religiously believe in the system” may be unreachable, there are many who oppose the system but still believe that voting is the most important action one can take. These people are reachable. This is why I stress the importance of other actions. It is time to ask (as did Minor Threat, the greatest punk rock band ever) of those who merely vote, “what the fuck have you done”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nORTDFpy9ks
Now, I understand that the song is about the “coolness” of drinking, but I think it applies to the “coolness” of voting as well. Or, I just wanted to make a plug for my favorite punk rock band.
Jeremy
Hi Brandon, PTB, David, Jason, Adam and Rich,
Perhaps these passages from Frank Chodorov will also give some reassurance.
“Remember that the proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution. As soon as the nonvoting movement got up steam, the politicians would most assuredly start a counterrevolution. Measures to enforce voting would be instituted; fines would be imposed for violations, and prison sentences would be meted out to repeaters.
It is a necessity for political power, no matter how gained, to have the moral support of public approval, and suffrage is the most efficient scheme for registering it; notice how Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin insisted on having ballots cast. In any republican government, even ours, only a fraction of the populace votes for the successful candidate, but that fraction is quantitatively impressive; it is this appearance of overwhelming sanction that supports him in the exercise of political power. Without it he would be lost.
Propaganda, too, would bombard this passive resistance to statism; not only that put out by the politicians of all parties — the coalition would be as complete as it would be spontaneous — but also the more effective kind emanating from seemingly disinterested sources. All the monopolists, all the coupon-clipping foundations, all the tax-exempt eleemosynary institutions — in short, all the “respectables” — would join in a howling defense of the status quo.
We would be told most emphatically that unless we keep on voting away our power to responsible persons, it would be grabbed by irresponsible ones; tyranny would result.”
“Why should a self-respecting citizen endorse an institution grounded in thievery? For that is what one does when one votes. If it be argued that we must let bygones be bygones, see what we can do toward cleaning up the institution so that it can be used for the maintenance of an orderly existence, the answer is that it cannot be done; we have been voting for one “good government” after another, and what have we got? Perhaps the silliest argument, and yet the one invariably advanced when this succession of failures is pointed out, is that “we must choose the lesser of two evils.” Under what compulsion are we to make such a choice? Why not pass up both of them?
To effectuate the suggested revolution all that is necessary is to stay away from the polls. Unlike other revolutions, it calls for no organization, no violence, no war fund, no leader to sell it out. In the quiet of his conscience each citizen pledges himself, to himself, not to give moral support to an unmoral institution, and on election day he remains at home. That’s all. I started my revolution 25 years ago and the country is none the worse for it”.
These passages from the essay “If We Quit Voting” originally appeared in July 1945 in a monthly newsletter Chodorov established called analysis. It later appeared as a chapter in his book “Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist”.
The entire essay can be found here:
https://mises.org/library/if-we-quit-voting
Jeremy
Jeremy, For some reason the website will not allow me to reply below. But I agree with you perhaps %99. Which is close enough for most of what we have been discussing. Thanks for the declination of vitriol.
Bravo Jeremy, bravo. Can I copy and paste that?
Hi Adam,
Sure, I’d be honored.
Jeremy
Brandon,
If voting really changed anything, TPTB would make it illegal!
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
Dang! PTB beat me to it! 😛
It’s Coke vs Pepsi. I know plenty of people who turn their nose up at the “other” choice and are very vocal about it. Water isn’t even considered. And RC Cola is for freaks…
Time to start offering them Faygo…
“Time to start offering them Faygo…”
cue Stan Laurel – “I’ll take the Red Pop.”
Hi Jean,
Faygo, are you from Detroit?
Jeremy
Nah, just an ICP fan.
I’d be the one chasing people with a cleaver. Like a dog chasing a car…
ICP!
I dig those guys, too!
“Hitler did not seize power, He was freely elected by a majority in an election whose results are not and never were disputed insofar as whether ballots were stuffed or otherwise rigged.”
Totally not true. The 1932 election results:
Hindenburg 53%
Hitler 37%
Thalmann 10%
Hitler seized power because Hindenburg was foolish enough to divvy up the control of various state agencies the way Hitler wanted – the other parties got most of the agencies, but Hitler got the military and police, and with those thugs under his control that meant he soon got everything else.
Hindenburg did not see Hitler for who he was , and forgot that the government is based on who controls the guns, not who was voted into power — while Hitler knew exactly what government is really based on — the use of violence, or credible threat thereof.
Hi Jim,
The Nazis obtained a plurality and Hindenburg (as President) appointed Hitler Chancellor on this basis – Hitler’s popular support. The Chancellorship was therefore not seized. It was lawfully (under the system) handed to Hitler.
If by lawfully, you mean as a result of back room negotiations where anything could have happened. Hitler lost the first election in 1932, his party LOST seats in the second election in 1932 and had a lower vote percentage while the Communists gained seats, but got a plurality of 33% of the votes because of the splintered nature of elections. Then this happened, which made the next election in 1933 a farce because of massive violence and voter intimidation once Hitler got control of the guns:
“Hindenburg, intimidated by Hitler’s growing popularity and the thuggish nature of his cadre of supporters, the SA (or Brownshirts), initially refused to make him chancellor. Instead, he appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who attempted to steal Hitler’s thunder by negotiating with a dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. At the next round of elections in November, the Nazis lost ground—but the Communists gained it, a paradoxical effect of Schleicher’s efforts that made right-wing forces in Germany even more determined to get Hitler into power. In a series of complicated negotiations, ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, backed by prominent German businessmen and the conservative German National People’s Party (DNVP), convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, with the understanding that von Papen as vice-chancellor and other non-Nazis in key government positions would contain and temper Hitler’s more brutal tendencies.”
Best analysis.
Weimar Republicans warn keep us or you get Hitler.
It’s extremely enjoyable watching the likes of Jeb! squeal and flounder… damn the whole GOP to hell. As bad as the Democrats may be, at least they are honest in terms of being open that they are collectivists and authoritarians.
What I can;t abide about the typical Republican is his prattling on about “freedom” while shitting all over it at every opportunity.
The democrats just lie by saying they can turn the government into an over-unity device for nearly everyone and that their control of our lives is for our own good rather than their own.
Not quite spot on but close – “The Century of the Self”
worth a watch if you have never seen it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
yeah I know of the marketing etc. but that becomes an essay. But you’re getting well above the knowledge level of the average democrat politician.
” But you’re getting well above the knowledge level of the average
democrat politicianAmerican.”FIFY.
It’s extremely enjoyable watching the likes of Jeb! squeal and flounder
I swear, the Bush family gene pool deteriorates even within the same generation. Five seconds of listening to Jeb tells you that he’s even more of a congenital imbecile than his older brother. Within two more generations the Bushes will be nothing but a clan of microcephalic mongoloids (ok, I take that back – I have no right to insult microcephaloids or people with Down Syndrome). I cannot believe any American with even a room temperature IQ would want to be “governed” by ANY of them.
…unfortunately, they are very durable. Even the old Greaser himself is still alive. Must be all the homeless teenager blood he has transfused into his creepy old veins each week.
Will Trump make a ‘good’ president? No one knows, but he might. None of the others will, just more of the same.
“Will Trump make a ‘good’ president?”
If he did, wouldn’t that make him the first in history?
“the first in history?” – agreed. What I should have said was that, if we’re going to have a president, he might not be as bad as the others, all of whom are definitely “Worse and Worser.”
I saw a comment somewhere the other day that if Hilary were elected it would be like having a 3rd O-Bomb-Ya term. I replied that it would be more like a 5th W term.
Exactly.
Whatever Trump is, he’s not one of them. Or at least, not perceived as such.
The hate for the establishment (Republican and Democratic) is palpable.
Fuhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttttttttball is no longer sufficient as a diversion/steam valve.
Trump is playing on that hate to gain support. I still suspect he is “one of them” where it counts (bank/corporate/Israeli interests). There is also the fact that you cannot trust anything a politician says they will do, it’s all just a show and the real agenda is always business as usual.
Your only real choice is whether you prefer to be screwed doggystyle or missionary….
If Trump manages to destroy the GOP, I will be pleased beyond measure!
I lost the link but I read transcripts of what Trump said. He’s convinced once he’s ensconced in the WH everyone will do what he says because he’ll be the boss. He intends(this is what he said)to strengthen the authoritarian state and remove things such as the 1st amendment since people are writing about his dirty dealings and ties to lots of Cosa Nostra members who have gone to prison in connection to the very same projects Trump has made tens of millions of dollars from himself and without a dollar put up to do so.
If there is not something illegal going on in these deals on his part;, why are others involved being sent to prison by the injured govt.?
I’d say he’s as close to being an insider as you can get. Maybe I’ll get to haul material for that “wall” he and congress are going to charge all of us out the wazoo to build.
And we get back to the old saw of ‘when can you tell a politician is lying?’.
He’s convinced once he’s ensconced in the WH everyone will do what he says because he’ll be the boss.
Maybe he’s taken a page out of J. Edgar Hoover’s playbook and dug up some seriously ugly dirt on everyone else who might stand in his way?
That sounds good, but we know that the Clintons (and most politicians these days) have a teflon suit that keeps anything from sticking to them. What dirty dealings could Trump possibly have that we don’t already know about?
This is the bizarro world of post-Roe vs Wade politics we live in. Dirty tricks and felonies are no match for platitudes about abortion and support for Israel.
I did not hear about that one 8, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I already knew that Trump was corrupt.
I will not vote for anyone, therefore I have not been following the debates. However, I am sure that a columnist at Lew Rockwell’s site would have loudly announced a campaign promise by any Presidential candidate to roll back the police state, the TSA, and mass surveillance. The very fact that no such thing has happened is very telling!
Also telling are the responses to Trump:
– Rethuglicunts working to deny him the nomination NO MATTER WHAT the polls say
– Rethuglicunts are going to make a Third Party should Trump win, to bring back “TRUE Conservatism.”
I’d like to nuke them all from orbit. “It’s the only way to be sure.”
“to bring back ‘TRUE Conservatism.’” – hopefully that will open a lot of eyes about what TRUE Conservatism TRULY is.
That’s like a second marriage…
Triumph of hope over experience….
If only that we could say that a Trump election could destroy the Democrat party. There seems to be a certain enmity towards Cruz in most of your posts. I suspect that a declared “Constitutional Conservative” that is disliked by most of his Senatorial colleagues might be more likely to get a few things done than Trump.
Trump says he will make deals.
Compromise on a matter of principle only allows the advance of evil.
I will vote Trump in a nanosecond over Rodham, but I suspect that it would only delay the inevitable.
Hi mstahl,
Cruz and his wife are both Bush Co. People. Which means: Wall Street/Crony/Neocon front people.
Might as well elect Jeb!
Or The Chimp himself.
Given that Cruz is roundly derided as the most disliked man in the Senate I find it hard to believe that he can be described as a “Wall Street/Crony/Neocon” front person. I think his wife can be described as actually “working” at Goldman Sachs as opposed to simply collecting speaking fees. Personally, I regard Goldman Sachs as almost literally the anti Christ for what it is worth. I hardly regard Cruz as the perfect candidate (and no I am not running), but compared to Kasich, Trump, Hills, or Sanders it is not even close. I do not find any likelihood that he would be even remotely similar to Jeb. And trust me, I have no love for the Bush syndicate, but you diminish yourself by referring to GW by “Chimp”. After all, his GPA was higher than Gore’s if we are referring to intelligence. And physically, I find him to resemble a chimpanzee a lot less than a number of other politicians that I could name.
You’re absolutely deluded. You aren’t some society maven choosing the best wine to go with your country club dinner here. Quit pretending you’re in some kinda catbird seat.
You’re more akin to Kunta Kente voting on serving the master who will cut off his toe so he can’t run away again. Or choosing to serve the master who will cut off his balls and take away the desire to runaway.
I’ve got you pegged as a ballsican. But if you keep coming here, you might upgrade to a toe-Ican, and ultimately a don’t give a fucharchist at long last.
Cruz is just another witch doctor and voodoo guru who serves as a diversion while all the atillas ransack your property and have their way with you and yours.
Just out of curiosity, are you taking any medications? Or did you stop taking your medications? What you need to realize is that if you are not within the Washington penumbra of power, politics, money and power, you are simply cursing the darkness. Better to light one candle my friend. I do not suppose that you think that anyone within 100 miles of DC reads this blog. Or cares. Deriding someone who is far more simpatico with what I assume are your values is rather puerile. If only you could muster the same effort against Hills or the Federal Leviathan itself.
Hi Mstahl,
Well, Jeb! just endorsed Cruz… along with Mittens.. what do you think of that?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/jeb-bush-ted-cruz-endorsement/index.html
Support Cruz and you support Chimp & Co.
The oily GOP warfare/Wall Street establishment.
” Better to light one candle my friend. ”
Well…y’know, I’d rather curse a candle than light your darkness or something like that.
Anyways, using “puerile” in the same paragraph as candle means you have a 2 inch dick.
Hi Mstahl,
Cruz worked within The Chimp’s organization for years. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Neocon National Review (friendly to Cruz):
“Cruz spent a good portion of his early career working for President George W. Bush — first as a legal policy adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, then as part of the recount team in Florida. He was the Department of Justice coordinator for the Bush-Cheney transition team and then spent six months as Associate Deputy Attorney General at the DOJ. But his longest stretch of work for Bush was at the Federal Trade Commission, before he departed to become the Solicitor General of Texas.
What does this tell you?
He is also currently surrounded by ex-Chimp people, including his greedhead shyster wife. The same neocons who backed The Chimp back Cruz.
The election of Cruz would be the recycling of Chimpian policies and people, nothing more.
Is that what you want? Is that what you support?
I despise all collectivist authoritarian politicians – but The Chimp is particularly egregious. He normalized psychopathy and idiocy at the national level of politics. He gave us the full-flowered police state, the odious, Nazi-ish (in name and otherwise) Department of “Homeland” Security. The Fear State. An endless “war” on “terror” – and an aggressive, unprovoked actual war that cost at least 100,000 Iraqis and thousands of Americans their lives.
He’s arguably a war criminal who ought to be in prison. He makes Nixon look like a decent guy.
We got Obama because of The Chimp. Obama would not have been possible without The Chimp. We have Obamacare because of The Chimp.
Please tell me you’re not defending that inbred little son of a bitch…?
Do I like Trump?
No.
I do like that he is destroying the neocon-infested GOP – and Cruz is its Last Remaining Hope.
And I believe millions of others agree, if only for hate’s sake.
Cruz is an oily little operator; another scumbag opportunist.
Would you buy a used car from him?
If it were a low mileage Cobra 427 for a reasonable price, maybe.
Describing a low level operative at the beginning of his career in a political organization that comprises about half of the populace as a neocon, oily little operator, and scumbag opportunist, is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps it would have been better if he worked for the Center for American Progress or Al Gore’s team.
The truth of the matter is that the neocons supported Jeb (who is GWB’s brother incidentally), and now support Kasich or Hillary.
And to say that GWB normalized psychopathy in the Presidency or even the Federal Government is about two centuries too late. Start with Jackson and just keep rolling.
In any case, as what could be described as a very thin libertarian, I think we are on the same page for the most part. From a political standpoint, do not miss the forest for the trees. If Hills is elected, this country, liberty, and freedom will not recover until the next revolution. And I am serious about that. Three or four Supreme noms, expansion of the welfare state, unlimited amnesty and benefits for illegals. This country will look like any South American banana republic in a generation. I do not look forward to telling my son that principles do not matter, just get yours. I always laugh when liberals deride social Darwinism. What do you think collectivism is?
And to think that Obama and his pals want this to happen. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Hi Mstahl,
Cruz worked as a direct subordinate of The Chimp’s odious attorney general; he was anything but a “low level operative.”
He and his wife are (as David aptly described them) “made men” in the Bush Syndicate. The outsider pose is just that – a pose. No one who worked as a high-level Bush operative, who is married to a high-level Wall Street crony capitalist, is an “outsider.”
It’s risible.
Whether Cruz or Hillary becomes Dear Leader is of no importance. Heads they win, tails we lose. The police state will not be dialed back; the endless wars (on “terror,” on “drugs”) will continue and probably expand. There will be more corporate pilfering of our pockets; more “free” trade deals with unfree oligopolies. Obamacare will not be repealed.
Do you disagree with any of the foregoing?
All we’ll get with Cruz is more Freedom Talk and rah-rah flag-humping (and Bible beating)… the usual GOP boilerplate.
Again, I am not endorsing Trump. I am extremely leery of him. My assessment of him is that he’s a thug, an authoritarian narcissist and potentially very dangerous in his own way.
But more than anything else, I want the GOP stomped into the earth, taken apart, ground into fine powder and cast to the winds.
There is no fixing this thing, friend.
The question before us is how to start over. And we can’t begin to do that until we end the GOP and everything it actually stands for.
“Describing a low level operative at the beginning of his career in a political organization that comprises about half of the populace as a neocon, oily little operator, and scumbag opportunist, is a bit of a stretch.”
Half the populous my ass. Half the shadow govt. to be sure. Oh, I don’t deny lots of well to do folks and those who imitated the WTD were taken in after 9/11 but half the populous is hilariously wrong.
By that same token BO has “half the populous” in his corner. But what about the estimated 49 million voters who stayed at the house last election?
And yes, as eric and others have pointed out, Cruz is the staunch “keep everybody else in poverty while we clean up” crowd. The military/welfare/warfare rah rah rah crowd.
Yes, we all support the military whether we want to or not. We might not wave the flag but we give till it hurts…..involuntarily.
I’m sure Cruz’s wife got her GS job strictly on her “merits”.
Eric,
Remember his Greedhead, Shyster, Thug loving, North American Union wife also worked in the Chimp Administration. :-/ The Cruz crime family is two fer two.
@mstahl
“oily little operator, and scumbag opportunist” is an apt description of Rafael Edward Cruz. As that other oily little operator and scumbag opportunist Franklin Roosevelt stated, “Nothing in “Politics” happens by chance!” Cruz’s demeanor in the Senate was scripted to make him appear to be an outsider. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think about what has happened this primary election cycle. Trump announces he is running. Promptly 16 other people did too! the Jeb! & RustTED! were both there by design. If Jeb could have pull it off and crush Trump well no need for Cruz. But Jeb was worst than the chimp so he’s out. Cruz is the backup plan for the BushCo Crime Family. Make no mistake about it. No one enters politics on a whim. Cruz got his connections as a made BushCo Crime Family Consigliere during GWB’s tenure as El Presidente! No ifs, ands or buts about it.
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
Exactly, David!
Cruz is such an obvious Bush shill I’m amazed anyone falls for it. But then, the credulity of “conservatives” passeth all understanding!
Eric,
It’s not the credulity that’s at issue.
Rather, it’s the “Go team” mentality.
Just as we notice that the peaceniks and media go bonkers when a Republican is in office – and disappear when “their” guy is in?
And they don’t mind the Police state so long as it’s directed at the wrong-headed (evil) conservatives?
So too on the “right” – as long as it’s THEIR guy wrecking the constitution, it’s OK.
Fuuuhhhttballlll…
Or, Baseball, basketball, or even (for the 5 people who watch it) Hockey…
We’re back to being a Tribal animal – the problem is, our “tribe” is being redefined. We’re not allowed to be Germans, Americans, or Chinese or Tutsis.
We are to be McDonald’s, Whole Food’s, Democratic Socialist’s, Liberal’s, Starbuck’s, Bank of America’s, all FedGov’s.
Possessive S intentional, for those who might wander onto the site and not comprehend English…
Eric,
The question you will never hear the MSM, that supposedly doesn’t support Cruz, “Mr. Cruz, how can you claim to be an outsider when you were an legal policy advisor to the GWB campaign, was on the Florida recount team for GWB, spent 6 months as an Associate Deputy U. S. Attorney in the DOJ & spent 2 years in the Bush Administration as Director Of Office Planning for the Federal Trade Commission?”
Smooze Cruz has been in politics his entire adult life in one form or the other. Remember he is a Lawyer. That, by definition, means he is an officer of the Court. The Court is part of the state. The working corollary means that as a bar associated attorney he is part of the state. This is the other sham the ABA cartel/monopoly foists upon the masses.
Here in Memphis it is worse, the Judges (All Lawyers don’t ya know. Can’t have any of the unwashed masses being judges now can we?), refuse to appoint an defense attorney if you look like you can hold a job (since Steven Hawking can hold a job that means the Judge means in order for him to appoint a lawyer you’d have to be dead). Nevermind, there aren’t any jobs available where you could actually afford competent (competent meaning thousands of dollars not a few hundred.) legal help and the Court only looks at members of the Bar Association as competent legal help. So if you hire someone that is an excellent debator for a fair price unless he is part of the crime syndicate known as the ABA he can’t represent you. This is the sham of the ABA cartel. So the judge in Memphis will deny your right to a speedy trial until such time you obtain a Lawyer to represent you. You either do that and agree to pay for it out of your pocket or you spend time in jail for comtempt until you agree to get a Lawyer and pay for it. This is the essence of corruption writ large due to the marriage of the state and the legal cartel.
Again Fish heads to all of these scumbags.
My apologies to any scum that may have been offended by my associating them with individuals known as Lawyers aka Attorneys.
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
Fish heads to the ABA crime cartel and all their workless scum members.
In some respects Cruz is like John McCain – remember him? His father and grandfather were both admirals, so Anapolis had to let him in. When he ‘retired’ from the Navy as a captain, he entered politics. IOW, he has never held a real job, only suckled the gunvermin teat.
BTW, in his Wikipedia writeup, it says he was nearly killed in a fire on the USS Forrestal in 1967. It says nothing about him having caused the fire.
McCain reached the level of Captain, and that was all she wrote. The Navy will only let you remain as a captain for so long. Then you must either be promoted to admiral (not going to happen for Johnny Boy) or get out. Not a ‘voluntary’ retirement.
Who would want to be represented by a Public Defender anyway? While I am sure there must be some out there who are well intentioned, the vast majority of them are in the business of pleading out their clients and avoiding going to trial. Innocent? What difference does that make. The cops arrested you, so you’re going down. I’ll do what I can to minimize it.
Might as well represent yourself. And if your Memphis judges won’t allow that, you have grounds for dismissal.
Hi David,
Great comment. Mandatory licensing is, and always has been, a protectionist racket. Sold as protecting the consumer from bad players, its’ actual purpose is to protect the established players from competition. Calls for mandatory licensing always originate from the industry itself.
This is true for every licensed industry, including healthcare. The effect of mandatory licensing is not merely corruption and inefficiency, it is devastating to both people and innovation.
Over one hundred years ago, the problem of access to affordable health care had already been solved by voluntary mutual aid societies offering what was known as “Lodge practice”. Because of the success of this innovation the established players in the medical industry complained of a crisis. Not of high prices and poor access, but of too much access and low prices. The government, in collusion with organizations like the AMA, created mandatory licensing and gave control of the licensing procedure to the established players in the industry. Physicians who signed “lodge contracts” were punished and denied licenses.
For at least half a century, the so-called healthcare crisis has been a major driver of government intrusiveness and growth. Had the voluntary, innovative system of lodge practice been allowed to continue, we would have better, cheaper healthcare and a smaller government today. The State is truly the enemy of humanity.
Jeremy
http://www.freenation.org/a/f12l3.html
http://fee.org/articles/from-mutual-aid-to-the-welfare-state-by-david-t-beito/
That’s the way it is these days, people choose a career of government jobs and elected and unelected political offices. They have no clue what it is to produce something for a living.
@ PTB,
The point is when you are out of work, behind on your bills and need someone to represent you you can’t get someone that could be affordable because of the ABA cartel. To make matters worse the ABA cartel here in Memphis FORCES YOU TO HIRE AN ATTORNEY! The Judges here refuse to appoint any representation as long as you appear to be able to hold a job. Remember I stated earlier that means to be unable to hold a job you essentially would need to be dead since a total invalid like Steven Hawking is holding down a job.
BTW on another note, Memphis/Shelby County really doesn’t have a PD office. The PD office here is basically an accounts payable division to reimburse private Lawyers appointed from a rotating pool. If a Lawyer is appointed he is contracted from the available pool of trial lawyers here. This is why the Judges force hiring because most Lawyers in Memphis will beg out of the appointment claiming heavy case load when in actuality they are refusing to be paid peanuts when they can bilk thousands out of morons that believe only a STATE Sanctioned scam artist can help them.
Additionally, If you lose? Well, no refunds. You lose twice. F’em. Feed them all Fish heads
mstahl,
There are two possible explanations for Cruz’ supposed status as “the most disliked man in the Senate”.
One: it is an orchestrated sham.
Two: he is an extremely unpleasant person, even by Washington standards.
It is certainly not, as you suggest, because he is an outsider who threatens the establishment.
Jeremy
Guys, I find it hard to believe that a blog populated by so-called libertarians is so infested with ad hominem attacks and vitriol. By the way, you may, in the future, refer to my penis as Little Lord Fauntleroy, he is really quite insistent. And the whole “two inch” thing is really a micro-aggression don’t you think? Or perhaps too many big words just make some people self conscious and subject to displacement. It is unfortunate that the political process is what it is. Cruz vs. Trump is probably an exercise in Alien vs. Predator, but if a Dem is elected you can kiss your ass goodbye for generations if not forever. 3-5 SCOTUS appointments, complete Second Estate infiltration within the Government, a populace of sheep solaced by freebies, I could go on. And there are people here who say “burn it down”. Jacobins. At this point in the history of the world, complete chaos within our political system would likely result in devolution into a number of number of “State states” such as TexOklaSas”, and the Eastern Seaboard into utter disarray or perhaps an Islamic Caliphate. Not to mention what would happen in the rest of the world. Luckily for me, I have made preparations for just such an eventuality and have ample foodstuffs, guns, ammo, and a way to what will most likely be an unaffected part of the world.
Hi Mstahl,
I’ve asked whether you believe there would be any significant difference in terms of the police state, wars, Obamacare, etc., if Cruz rather than Hildebeast became the next front man?
I’m curious why you see Cruz as “different” from Jeb! or Mario or Willard … or desirable in any way.
Trump is doing a service by destroying Republicans like Jeb! and Mario and (hopefully) Cruz. The GOP is hag-ridden by such vermin, wheedlers and influence peddlers and power lusters and sellouts.
Yes, I understand that Trump may be cut from the same cloth. That he is certainly no Libertarian savior. But he is undermining this noxious, intolerable system – the establishment GOP especially – and the value of that cannot be underestimated.
There is no material difference between the Democrat and Republican parties. You are caught up in the false flag, WWF-style nonsense that it matters whether Hulk Hogan or Andre the Giant wins the title….
The one upside to a Hildebeast victory would be an accelerated timetable. There might actually be resistance by people nominally disposed toward our side of the aisle.
But if the oily little operator wins, we’ll get more police state, wars, crony capitalism, Bible Talk and rah-rah flag-humping “patriotism”… and the typical got-damned Republican will wave his flag and lip sync to that Lee Greenwood song about how proud he is to be an American, where at least he knows he’s freeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Never forget: The Chimp (and GOP and Cruz) are responsible for Obama. Without Obama there would be no Obamacare.
Burn in hell, all of them.
PS: I’m amazed you’d characterize people who despise an authoritarian toady like Cruz as “so-called” Libertarians while implying that the Libertarian thing to do is support an authoritarian toady like Cruz.
Why are you defending this Bush Machine operator? This Bush in all but name?
Do you like the Bushes?
If you support Cruz, you might as well have supported Jeb! (who supports Cruz). Or Mittens. Or some other brand-name “conservative” shyster who is only interested in “conserving” the status quo and lining his pockets and those of his filthy influence-peddling cronies. Who is champing at the bit to launch more wars; to throw more of our money at the military. Who will not end Obamacare, as it is much too profitable for the insurance mafia that owns politicians like Cruz.
Can you feel my anger?
Can you feel the country’s anger?
People have had enough of the Bushes and their ilk. Of the GOP establishment.
Of Cruzes and Jebs! and Mittens, et al.
Not that the Democrats are any better – they’re not. But you know what you’re getting, up front. What makes the GOP establishment so insufferable is the way it croons about “our freedoms” while systematically taking them away (usually, in the name of “security” and “safety”)… its noxious paeans to the “free” market, while systematically erecting and enshrining a crony capitalist system that fucks the 99 percent for the benefit of the 1 percent.
You have no doubt heard the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?
That is how I see Trump.
And yes, I get that Trump’s ascendance may herald the opening warble of an overtly, unabashed authoritarian state in the Mussolini mold.
So be it.
That has become inevitable.
I’d rather this happen while I am still young.
Hi Mstahl,
I, and probably many others here, find it hard to believe that someone who has, so far, offered nothing but boilerplate partisan Republican rhetoric, considers himself to be a “very thin libertarian”. Now, this observation is neither an ad hominem attack nor vitriolic; it is an accurate representation of your stated views.
You seem to be impressed by Cruz’ claim to be a constitutional conservative. This is problematic. Recent history has shown that a “constitutional conservative” is almost invariably someone who simply ignores any part of the constitution that does not comport with his agenda. So, from that perspective you are right, Cruz is a “constitutional conservative”.
However if, by constitutional conservative, you mean someone who respects and intends to honor the limits on Federal and executive power supposedly enshrined in said document, then Cruz is no such thing.
In foreign policy, Cruz is as belligerent and reckless as they come. While it is considered ridiculous among “constitutional” conservatives to point this out, the president does not have, under the enumerated powers of the constitution, the authority to unilaterally wage war anywhere he pleases. That Cruz believes otherwise, is all one needs to know about his supposed reverence for the constitution.
If one is concerned about liberty, adventurous US military policy has always produced disastrous results. Now, if the goal is the increased regimentation, regulation and control over every aspect of the lives of the US populace, then US military adventurism is great. That is why so many early progressives were unabashedly pro war. They understood that a state of war creates the justification for the massive domestic interventions they desired. This is why the old right (Mencken, Nock, Chodorov, etc…) mocked the idea that the mostly chimerical bogeymen, dangled before the people, posed a serious threat to America which required intervention. They understood that the power to intervene could not be limited to foreign affairs. Unfortunately, because of your stated fear of an Islamic Caliphate taking root in America, you seem to have bought into this baseless fear-mongering that fuels the dangerous statism you claim to oppose.
Most modern Republicans advocate a state of permanent war. Many also claim to believe in constitutionally limited government at home. As the early progressives understood, and exploited, the two are incompatible. This makes people like Cruz either deluded or dishonest (personally, I vote for both).
You claim to be fighting against the Federal Leviathan but, your oft expressed beliefs merely empower it. First you advocate the false Democrat/Republican dichotomy. You believe it is necessary to support Cruz because Hilary is so bad. Guess what, Hillary supporters are saying the same thing about Cruz (or Trump). This is exactly what the Statists want. As long as otherwise intelligent people are distracted by the fraudulent gulf between Democrats and Republicans, Leviathan will never be challenged.
You also express horror at the idea that the US may break up into smaller regions. If you sincerely wish to fight against Leviathan, this is something to be celebrated, not feared.
Without intended vitriol,
Jeremy
Jeremy, you just made my day!
Thank you, sir, for that excellently put-together stomping.
Preach it, Jeremy. I’ll sing in the choir.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – there is no such thing as a ‘small’ empire.
If Dishonest Abe had not fought (and won) against the seceding states, none of the mess we have might have happened. But we’ll never know now.
The average Congressional district is rapidly approaching 3/4 of a million in population. That’s about 1/2 of what the 13 states had total at the time of ratification. So much for ‘representative democracy.’
Hi PTB,
Absolutely! Small and empire are mutually exclusive. This applies to domestic and foreign affairs. The “greatest” achievement of the neo-cons is to fully synthesize the welfare and warfare State. The two parties play their roles. Democrats lean welfare, Republicans lean warfare. This appeases their constituencies and guarantees the perpetuation of both.
Jeremy
I like to refer to the “2” parties as Demlicans and Repubocrats, to emphasize the (lack of) difference between them. But I’m not averse to Jesse Ventura’s nomenclature of DemoCrips and ReBloodicans.
Hi Eric,
I’m glad it made your day. Thank you for providing this forum that allows me to learn and (hopefully) teach.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Morning, Jeremy!
It is my pleasure. Engaging with people such as yourself and others here gives me hope that all is not lost. The quality of the back-and-forth here is exceptional. Compare it with what you find (as a counterpoint) over at HuffPost and such.
“Guys, I find it hard to believe that a blog populated by so-called libertarians is so infested with ad hominem attacks and vitriol.”
Mstahly, I’m an anarchist, of sorts. I’m too nutzo to be a libertarian but they kind of tolerate me here, as long as I just rib visitors like you and don’t attack them.
If you can’t take a little good natured ribbing, you might want to toddle back to Huffpo or where ever you usually act as sitepest.
Hi Ed,
I usually describer myself as a Libertarian but probably anarchist is more accurate. I believe in self-government rather than government.
I do think rules are necessary – but that does not necessarily mean a centralized authority.
Example: There are House Rules at my place. I will not tolerate rap “music” on the premises. If you want to listen to that, you will please take it elsewhere. Self-government.
No need for government.
You know when I read the term MICRO-AGGRESSION, I nearly puked. That term comes straight from the commie only black lives matter thug crowd. The use of that term on this site, in my honest opinion, is tantamount to heresy and blasphemes the good name of Anarchist everywhere!
Off with his metaphorical Cloverific HEAD!
Guitarman6052 offers fish heads to msthal at a bargain basement price of $100k each (not that he’d take’em snicker..)
msthal supporter, you know the jock strap for Smooze Cruz.
On another note Trump really did a funny today. He posted a tweet with Heidious Cruz photo next to Melania Trump. OMG, it was hilarious. Between the two, I think I’d much rather look at Melania. LOL! Gnome wut I’m sayin?
Hi David,
I won’t have that (“micro-aggression”) nonsense here, either. If I find anyone using it (other than to ridicule it) the Clover button’s gonna get pushed!
Speaking of which: I have come up with a new idea that I hope spreads like fire among Anti-Statists. Whenever a tax feeder dies and the flags are at half-mast; We should be publicly celebrating! We should create posters stating all the corrupt and evil things the tyrant has done and hang them up in all public locations. We should also include invitations for the general public to join our nightly parties to bid good riddance to the departed until the day after he is finally buried. On the last night, a picture of his grave should be hung up with a commode and a urinal photo-shopped over it (hint, hint).
This mockery would of course would outrage the politicians, but what could they really do about it? Send cops to guard the graves 24/7? Place surveillance cameras that can be smashed at each site?
The mockery would at first upset certain common people of the same political party as the departed too; but the things they learn about the scumbag that the news media with-held from them will probably dampen negative reactions.
Think about it: When Ted Kennedy died: Do you not think that many people would have accepted an invitation to such a party? Same with Bush, senior once his time comes.
Hey, Brian, ever heard of undertakers charging people a fee to come in the prep room and piss on the corpse of a dead politician?
Some undertaker could get rich if he got the job of prepping Obama’s corpse.
Hello Ed, I have to reply here because there was no button below your comment. No, I have never heard of undertakers charging a fee for urinating on a politicians corpse. Now I feel so uninformed! :0(
I’d rather (per Hunter Thompson) they simply be flushed via the sewers out to sea, there to be gnawed on by crabs and such.
Goodness, I am so glad to be assaulted on three or four sides by righteous “libertarians”! If one cannot figure out that a comment about a two inch penis is a “micro-aggression” than I guess it would be hard to explain just about any thing else in the world. As Mick Jagger once said “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke”. The political process in this country is barely functional. I have hardly endorsed any political candidate over another except to say that a Dem victory in November will be a disaster for any of us who value liberty. If you think that now is the time for revolution in this country, I empathize, but in the same breath dare you to proclaim it so. And while you are at it make sure to publish the names of yourself and all of those who will rise up with you to overthrow the Government. Truth or dare baby. And just to make it interesting, I knew Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard. You folks have no idea. Sayonara, I am becoming quite bored with this discourse. Besides, I trust my motor vehicles are quite a bit more interesting than what you drive anyway.
Hi mstahl,
I and others here have always consistently defended the principle of non-aggression, which is arguably the essential premise of Libertarian philosophy. Why therefore do you air quote disparage us as “Libertarians” – implying that we aren’t – because we deride an authoritarian statist such as Cruz?
I agree that a Democrat victory would be a disaster. And so will a Republican victory.
There is not an iota of meaningful difference – from a Libertarian point-of-view- between the two (to use your format) “parties”… because in fact there is only one party with two wings.
It is the party of the state.
You are allowed to choose between a “wing” of the party that emphasizes warfare and a “wing” that emphasizes welfare – though both will give us plenty of the other, too.
Do you seriously disagree?
I’ve challenged you – civilly – to explain whether you believe the police state will be dialed back, the wars ended, civil liberties protected, Obamacare ended (and so on) if Cruz becomes the president.
Well?
Hi Mstahl,
Actually, the political process in this country is quite functional… if the object of the exercise is to enshrine and maintain the power (political and economic) of a relatively tiny cabal of interchangeable elites.
It is entirely non-functional if the object is to protect the right of the individual to be left in peace so long as he himself is peaceful toward others.
Will the election of Ted Cruz mean I’ll be able to fly without a crotch-groping? Will random, probable cause-free stop and searches be ended? Will I no longer be forced to send money to the health insurance mafia? How about the other mafias? Will “the troops” be called home and disbanded to civilian life? Will the government cease making “war” on individuals who choose to put certain substances into their bodies and cause no harm (as such) to any other person by so doing?
Will the practice of monitoring and recording the private communications of individuals en masse, not even suspected of having committed any kind of crime, be discontinued? Will the federal government repudiate the use of physical torture/arrest/indefinite “detainment” without charge (let alone conviction) as policy? Arrest and prosecute those government officials who enacted and enforced such policies?
Will the creepy talk of a “Homeland” be ended, at last?
Please (as Clover styles it) tell me…
Rand, incidentally, was something of a loon. If you knew her, you know this. While advocating in her work for the individual, she derided individuals in her circle of intimates who did not conform to her whims, even to the extent of their personal preferences regarding music and other art.
She admired the Apollo program, without mentioning the source of its funding (extorted funds) and failed to defend the non-aggression principle as a moral absolute, which is arguably her greatest failing as a philosopher.
On revolution: I dread what is coming, chiefly because I see the country as dominated by authoritarian collectivists of one species or another rather than people who have embraced the philosophy of non-aggression and voluntary, peaceful interaction. But even though I dread this, I do not fora moment believe that a Cruz victory is somehow going to hold the line. Not only because Cruz is himself an authoritarian collectivist (do you seriously deny this?) but because it is too late.
A people, a nation, cross a Rubicon at some point and become irremediable. Once this happens there is nothing to be done but ride it out. It cannot be undone or dialed back anymore than you can change the fact of old age.
I do not relish chaos or violence. I am appalled by the prospect of either. But perhaps it is better to let the sickness pass… and start over, with a healthy organism.
And I fully understand that the disintegration of this country’s unitary/centralized system very well could entail even worse violence/oppression than we’re dealing with now. However, it could also mean real liberty for break-away regions. Perhaps not the ideal Libertarian state, but certainly a vast improvement over the central/unitary state.
Expecting the GOP to advocate for real liberty is akin to Charlie Brown expecting Lucy to not pull away the football at the last second.
And looking to a cretin such as Ted Cruz (for god’s sake) for a renewal of real liberty is downright pathetic.
mstahl
Just to be perfectly clear, I am not a libertarian. I am an anarchist. I don’t vote for the very reason George Carlin stated in his comments on voting. I don’t think very highly of anyone that promotes a thug seeking more power over others. That includes the Don, the schmooze, the Crazich or any other psychopath seeking political office. I, like Eric, am enjoying the show that morons running for office are putting on. Again, like Eric, I hope the GOP, that lying stinkin pile of scum masquerading as humans, dies a slow long protracted death. I want the GOP to suffer like they made people suffer from false hope. The GOP flaps its’ jaws about small gov and fiscal responsibility which is the big lie. Why? Because the party of the first worthless GOP president is was and always will be Mercantilist. The war to prevent southern independence was to enforce that mercantilism by force of arms. The northern money interest didn’t give 2 shits about slavery unless it was to them. Their goal was to enslave the south by taxing them heavily with tariffs. The south finally said enough was enough and left. Unfortunately they never reckoned on Lincoln being as vicious and brutal as any English despot. Lincoln’s save the union crap was just that. Lincoln got pissed in essence because his regime lost it’s largest tax base and that just would not do. Hence the very first GOP president gave the united States big gov and all the misery it entails.
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
P.S. BTW, I always use my real name on here. Eric, I personally think it may be time for the clover button because mstahl can’t seem to stop using that statist commie thug “Micro Aggression” term when he makes posts.
Hi David,
I’m getting there… I’m almost at his latest… let’s see what he says… .
Whoopee! You knew some people named Ayn Rand & Murray Rothbard. Uh, er, am I supposed to be impressed by that? I know Alice Cooper, he’s a nice guy. So what? Do I read Rothbard? Sometimes. Do I read Rand? Again sometimes. I read Robert Heinlein too. I don’t fall for that celebrity clap trap. These individuals are worth no more or less than I am. Sure they like writing. It may have been their calling. I like making / composing music an working on computers. I am very good at what I do. So what?
So far none of your post have impressed me much. As a matter of fact, you are probably one of the worst trolls to grace this site recently. Such a shame so much effort is wasted.
Scuse me Brian, just needed a jump in point, nothing pointed at you to to speak.
I’m amazed that so many “anarchist” are nothing but Republicans through and through. I haven’t even participated in a private blog lately, having gotten my fill of hypocrites. I can read any old thing and get overloaded with that type.
mstahl said election of the Dems would be the final nail in the coffin(paraphrase) when election of either one will in effect, be the same damned thing. But SOME people can’t see that all pols take their marching orders from those who have more $ and are willing to throw crumbs their way. The only difference between the two major parties is one uses some of its welfare/warfare money to buy votes and give some freebies to those disenfranchised voters(sic) while the other party would simply be tickled to see everyone not capable of owning XOM or US Govt., er, I mean, Lockheed-Martin kept underfoot for use when those of money need them(all the time, they simply can’t admit it). And while that bunch is railing about welfare, they cash their too large SS checks for stuff like shits and giggles and still berate those whose SS check merely allow them to die faster.
I have no use for either party nor those who consistently pander for one or the other.
The first campaign I was involved with was JFK’s and I wasn’t schooled enough to know what I was doing anyway. But his death did grab me and get my attention and made me start paying attention.
That assistant football coach who taught us civics in high school probably did me one of the best favors of anyone when he said “You boys know anything about Vietnam? No? Well, you might want to learn something about it cause you’ll be there all too soon. It’s not going away on its on”.
Well, damned if he wasn’t right. Uncle made me all sorts of offers(the same one actually)I did barely refuse……could barely refuse.
By the time of the Tet offensive I was prime in their eyes but had already caught on to the scam. It was touch and go for years till the lottery happened to come out in my favor. No ain’t that a hell of a way to pick slaves you’ll use up?
But both sides of the political coin were on board. Son, you gotta protect us from all them commies. There’s a few million who don’t like us. Ok, they didn’t even know who we were or anything else about us and weren’t anymore communist that the Boers of S. Africa…..till we started slaughtering them.
As long as the upper crust made huge money off that war though, they saw no problem in wasting 50,000 ‘Mercun lives……for God and country don’t you know.
And it was the same bunch who wasted that many lives in Korea but there were few to complain at that time.
Oh, local politics that my vote can affect I might still participate in even though I don’t even know the candidates these days so I’ve begun to see, as the signs go up, that’s not really a good option for me any longer and I’m lumping the next elections together no matter what the race. I ain’t wastin the gas or my time to vote.
I know they’re all slathering at the mouth to hit me again and take away what was left from the last time. Piss on em.
Anybody know where Scalia is (besides hell)? I’ll drink a whole six pack to piss on his grave, that maggot was more responsible than anyone for inflicting us with the Chimp and his minions.
Amen, Mike.
The words of the late Kaiser come to mind…
Ich scheiß alle über sie…
Mike in Boston, Scalia was front and center in backing up the legislation that allowed me to be incarcerated and lose most everything we had.
But the circumstances of his death and the lack of finding out the cause are more upsetting to me than that he’s gone on to some other place.
I wouldn’t have pissed on him if he was on fire but I’d damn sure tell you why. Whoever is covering this up or causing the cover-up are the very ones we need to fear the most.
BTW, I’ll buy a six too and up you a six.
eric, speaking of football, the Republicans are worried sick that the popularity of this past season collegiate football is going to continue the very real and large fall in the numbers of tv watchers and bowl game attendees.
Of course, this is the moneyed crowd who doesn’t realize the average wage keeps dropping like a rock as well as the number of jobs and welfare rolls continue to grow at an alarming rate. But never speak of NAFTA and the scum who passed it though.
8s,
The demise of college sports can’t happen fast enough for me! 🙂
David Ward
Amen, David.
Worship of athletes/obsessive following of sports is a symptom of the sickness of this society. Men used to discuss matters of importance – philosophy, politics, culture. Today, they talk about “the game.”
It’s a form of emasculation – the ironic part being these “men” see themselves as virile and masculine because they worship other men … who play a got-damned game.
When I hear some dude say “we” won I have to fight the urge to puke all over him.
The players themselves must feel utter contempt for the freaks who huff their jockstraps.
Lighten up Eric. Sports and athletics were always part of men’s discussion. Witness the 30 round bare-nuckle boxing matches and strong-man competitions of the 19th century, which gathered far bigger crowds than any political debates. Of course there was a large amount of money exchanged on the outcome, which I believe is the real motivator of all the sports excitement for the post-teenage fan. “We won” takes on an entirely new meaning in the sports-book.
Sorry to s*** on you point, but the idea that everyone was a gentleman and philosopher is naive at least. The difference today is that the media makes a large fortune selling eyeballs and will do anything to keep the gravy train going. Actually, scratch that: The media has always made a ton of cash on sports hype. Just that now we get to see just how much because the media companies are publicly held and know that if they don’t deliver the cash the hedge funds will run their options into the ground.
The problem I have today is that many of us have become downright passive. Many of us participate in amateur sports, but most of us don’t. It’s much more fulfilling to do something yourself than it is to watch someone else, no matter how good they are, but we’ve let ourselves be wowed by the lights and surround sound instead of putting ourselves into the experience.
But then again, I used to be in television advertising and lived in State College PA for 15 years. If that’s not enough to make you a cynic about sports I don’t know what will…
Oh, and I’m getting over a nasty cold and that’s got me feeling surly and out-of-sorts…
No worries – I feel that way all the time!
Hi Eric,
I disagree.
I’m old enough to remember a world when most men’s conversation was not about “the game.” When men who had nothing to talk about but “the game” were considered meatheads.
Today, all most men want to talk about is fuhhhhhhhhtttttttball.
http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lae3e4Y5t41qe5ztso1_500.jpg
Got-damned TeeVee screens showing yet another game (or jocksniffers discussing the game) are ubiquitous.
Imbeciles driving around with the flag of “their” team fluttering from each window. Endlessly analyzing and debating. Fantasy Fuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhttttball.
The deification of athletes repels me – the disgusting way that athletics now dominates college. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon. In the past, there were “football schools.” Today, they are all fuuuuuuhhhhhhhtttttball schools. Or some other got-damned “game.” And even “good” schools admit literal Epsilon Semi-Morons because they can run fast or throw/catch a ball.
And make the schools millions, of course.
Another example: The news once actually contained… news. Not “news” about “the game.” Fuuuhhhhhtttttball and so on were not the lead stories, if they were even stories at all. It didn’t dominate life/culture/society – as it does now.
Ironically – in my experience, at least – the most ardent jocksniffers are themselves the least athletic people you’ll meet.
PS: I’m – ironically enough – a jock who hates the Fuuuuuhhhhhhttttball Cult. I’m a fairly big guy; lift weights (can bench more than most Fuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhtttttball fans I know) and run more distance and faster, too.
But then, my IQ’s over 90, too!
I’m an ex high school jock as well. Even played football (wide receiver) but sports was never my obsession. Music was at the time. Still is to a great degree. I even have a degree in music. 🙂 But my true calling is working on and maintaining computer systems. I’ve now been doing it since 1975. BTW, working on computers in 1975 paid for my music degree! LOL!
Just to point out a fact, a lot of computer folks started out as musicians of one form or the other. One of my associates at work is a trumpet player now trying to learn guitar.
At 63, I do not work out like I should. While I do enjoy what I do to earn money, most times when I come home I’m mentally exhausted. :-/
As a side note, I put a new sound system in my truck yesterday. Of course, as my luck would have it. I used a oscillating saw to modify the 1.5 din Dodge opening to accept the 2 din radio. The vibration from the saw caused the indicator needle for the tachometer to fall of! Shhhhhheeeeee it! I pulled the instrument cluster and put it back on but now the tach doesn’t operate properly. Luckily, I found a shop in Ripley, Tennessee that repairs Tachometers for 49 dollars. I intend driving there this next weekend so the shop can repair it. Sigh…..
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
Hi David,
Just got back in from the garage – I’m doing a valve clearance check on the Rex!
I wish I’d given more time to learning an instrument when I was young. I love good music – and so appreciate good musicianship!
It wasn’t always like this with sports. I can remember a time before sports worship. What we have now is on par with if not exceeding the games in Roman times and for the same reasons.
Professional sports has become a religion. Remember the time before you were taxed to support the local professional and now college sports teams? The city of chicago is taxing people to build DePaul a new basketball stadium. DePaul had a popular team 30 years ago. Now nobody much cares but they’ll get a taxpayer funded stadium for their private college sports team.
When sports are rolled back to 1930s levels that would be great.
Brent,
The taxation issue is my base rub against college and professional sports. While I was not alive during the era of early college and pro sports, I do know that before the state took ownership of stadiums they were built using the owner’s money. Hence the names of stadiums like Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park & Fenway all named for the people that built them. Today the NCAA & NFL are nothing but thugs that are subsidized on the backs of the people that live in the city the team is based in. Fish heads for all of them!
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
Amen, David.
Plus, the teams are riddled with steroid-addled cretins who’d otherwise be in prisons. It’s my fervent wish that people who huff the jockstraps of thugs such MIchael Vick find him moving in next door one day.
The private era lasted well into the 1980s most places. In the mid 1980s is when teams started to extort tax money by trying to anger voters. Reinsdorf did this with the white sox and its been downhill since around here. Except for Wrigley field. At Wrigley government has leveraged their involvement building for all the other teams into a lot of control over even the interior of Wrigley field.
Brent,
Memphis, the sphincter of Tennessee has always been a statist cess pool. Check this out, all these places were built on the back of Memphis/Shelby County residents. The Liberty (I know nothing Liberty about it) Bowl Stadium, The Mid-South Coliseum (Memphis State University use to play their games there. It was closed in 2006 although there is talk of re-opening that piece of c**p.), Autozone Park (triple a baseball stadium), The Pyramid (the argument for building that 63 million dollar boon doggle was, it will attract a pro basket ball team. Yeah, Memphis got one alright but they refused to play there. It is now being leased by Bass Pro and still isn’t paid for. The building also sinks 3 feet a year into the river thus requiring expensive mud jacking to block that trend. Built on sand don’t ya know?), the FedEx Forum & the Mud Island Amphitheater . All of those places are owned by the City/County and all are still being maintained and/or paid for.
Saw a car on I-270 last evening with the plate “RDSKNGRL” – but she looked dark brown to me. Now my wife, when she gets too much sun, could compete w/a lobster, except for the freckles.
David, eric, not to fear. That entire consortium of evilness has already passed a new “rule” that allows 18 year olds to get an agent. Never fear though(as if I could give a shit), they can’t be drafted…..at least not until they’ve matriculated to some college.
And now, to get the shrill-deal fem crowd and the upset mama crowd of brain dead “warriors” off their ass, the NFL has given some lip-service to the growing brain-damaged and is forming a women’s touch league(I shit you not).
This might lead you to believe I keep up with sports but I get all this from the John Boy and Billy Show in the pre-dawn hours. While their politics is right out of the shrub’s playbook, they have some fairly funny stuff with the likes of Ax Ike, Mad Max(who actually hits some spots I have close to the same opinion about)and a couple others.
8s,
When I was younger, I played all sorts of sports. Tennis, Golf, Basketball, Baseball & Football. I attended a parochial school so the emphasis was never on sports but on academics. I did pretty good at that though seeing as how I graduated at 16. 🙂
These days there is no emphasis on learning just sports and indoctrination to obey the state. The current system puts out useful idiots and nothing more. This is I fear a very sad thing.
First a disclaimer, I do not in anyway endorse or advise anyone to vote for any person running for statist office. I, however, can understand why some people are attracted to the Don. As stated above the current system passing for education turns out useful idiots. I will not say that people who support the Don are low information voters because they study the Don like they study sports stats. But! They have a limited ability to think critically and this was stolen from them by the state. If a person could think, why they’d have ideas! As we all know ideas are what is really dangerous to the state.
Thank the creator my son isn’t like the rest of his generation. It took a lot of work but I raised him right! Additionally, I also taught him how to work on cars! He does all his own maintenance. Even the heavy stuff. A couple of years back we rebuilt a 1964 Chevy C10 step side. Put a 350 in it that we did ourselves. New crank, rods, pistons, cam, the works. A new Edelbrock carb and intake. Doug Thornton headers too! After that experience he isn’t afraid to tackle any project. I’m pretty proud of him needless to say! 🙂
David Ward
8, I lived in Charlotte when JB&B were strictly a local show. My wife-to-be beat John Boy in a crab leg eating contest at a local crab house in ’88 or thereabouts. The prize was all you can eat crab legs. ahaha.
I still listen to them from time to time, though their W worship turned me off a long time ago. The characters are pretty original, for sure.
Yep, their politics are just pitiful. Thankfully for them, somebody picks and chooses their comedy skits well. Glad to know your wife can handily beat JB. He seems really beatable at anything. i’d love to get him in a philosophical/political debate, just chew his dumbass up.
No doubt your wife could just stomp his ass in a good free for all……and enjoy doing it.