What was it Bill Murray’s character chanted in Meatballs? It just doesn’t matter.
Or rather, it might – but not for the obvious reasons.
Either way, the country will have an authoritarian corporatist warmonger who shits all over the Constitution for its jefe. The only question is whether the jefe will be a left-wing socialist authoritarian corporatist warmonger who shits all over the Constitution – or a right-wing fascist-minded authoritarian corporatist warmonger who shits all over the Constitution.
In that sense, it just doesn’t matter. We will have more wars, more rent-seeking by “connected” big business; more Officer 82nd Airborne, less Andy Griffith. More hassles – less freedom. It just doesn’t matter. The NFC – that is, Republicans – will cheer their team, regardless of its actual performance. Just as the AFC – Democrats – will cheer their team, irrespective of what it does. The same “liberal” Democrats who have been silent these past going on four years of Obama launching new wars, bombing fresh civilians, drawing up executive kill lists, renewing the “Patriot” act (and enacting the even more egregious National Defense Authorization Act) and pursuing the war on some drugs even more aggressively than the beady-eyed Chimp who preceded him will be just as silent for the next four years of similar and worse outrages – so long as it’s their guy doing it.
Similarly, the same “conservative” Republicans who are crying about Obama’s abuses will forget all about them the moment it’s their guy doing the abusing. Hell, they already have. They’re urging people to vote for the author of Obamacare to replace the implementor of Obamacare! Anything’s ok when it’s your guy doing it. This is the “philosophy” of Republicans and Democrats alike.
Everyone knows this.
But here’s how the results of tomorrow’s (s)election may matter:
If the left-wing authoritarian wins, it may give anti-authoritarians a shot in the months and years to come. Because the left-wing authoritarian is an honest authoritarian. He says openly that the Great Collective’s will – as embodied by the Collective’s Dear Leader – is paramount. There is no I – only “we.” And he will tell us – at bayonet-point – what it is that “we” shall have and do and not do. This will help to focus matters. It will be clear – or at least, more clear – which side of the line you’re on. It is possible that a viable opposition might coalesce. Not necessarily a physical opposition – not at first. But an intellectual opposition. Enough people may question – and that could lead to action. If Dear Leader Obama is (s)elected for another term, at the end of that term – if America still exists – it will be easier to organize an effective – because principled – opposition. Because it will damn hard for the Republicans to bring forth another Obama Light such as Mittens Romney. And if they did, it might just be the straw that finally breaks the proverbial camel’s back – and causes enough people to make a difference to give the old flusheroo to the GOP – and turn to other venues, such as the Libertarian Party and (perhaps) non-jefes like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson.
On the other hand, if Obama Light wins, it will further de-legitimize and so demoralize anti-authoritarianism – because most people have come to equate the Republican Party with “conservatism” – and “conservatism” with anti-authoritarianism. That means guilt-by-association for Libertarians and other advocates of less (or no) government.
What happens when a freedom-toutin’ flag-on-the-lapel fascist becomes Dear Leader? Just as liberal Democrats shut up about Chimponian abuses when committed by their Chimp – Obama – so also “conservatives” will euphemism, apologize for and otherwise sweep under the rug precisely the same (and worse) deeds when it is their Chimp performing them. Worse, the average Joes and Janes out there – the not particularly philosophical/political people – will decide that “conservatism” – what they have been taught to call by that name – is a disaster. Venal, hypocritical – a system of money-bags double talk in the service of the Screw You elements that run Wall Street and the giant corporate cartels.
And by god, they’ll be right.
Meanwhile, the voices of liberty advocates will be drowned out – and denounced. They will be anathematized as “exploiters” and “selfish” – despite being the visceral enemies of such things. It will not matter. The degraded masses – blind with the fury of the abused and ignorant – will turn on them and everything that smacks of “less government.”
They will in fact demand more government.
And that is when things will turn truly ugly. Because that will be the moment when a new Lenin – or Hitler – someone like Obama or Mittens, but possessed of truly revolutionary zeal that neither of the current milquetoast glad-handers – these latter day Kerenskys and Von Papens – come close to possessing.
And that will be the beginning of the end.
Apres them, le deluge… .
Throw it in the Woods?
I found a great quote in a Lew Rockwell article:
Emphasis is mine.
The country has been cooking for years. Eventually it will come to a boil.
This clip is from:
http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/smith-r5.1.1.html
November 7, 2012
Your children will be the victims of this election.
They will live in a world of incompetence and mediocrity. The American experience is over.
Your grandchildren are already socialists. This will be their country to control soon. I hope I will not last that long to see it.
But your grandchildren are not the Children of America the way we knew it.
They will live in a world of slavery and mediocrity and will not know the difference.
The American Experience is done and over with. Let’s not kid ourselves!!
The citizenry at large wants to be assisted and secured and are willing to bargain a lot in the battle.
The battle was not American. This election was bought and paid for by foreign interests.
This man is all about ruining the US.
We are going to have major riots and rationing. I see gas prices and electricity going through the roof.
This fraud was committed on nearly 10 million people in The United States.
You and I know exactly what this means to this country.
by the way Eric , I noticed your comment about disenfranchised , blacks and how so many have an axe to grind with so called white society and they are owed….well did you know that Maoris in NZ have adopted the very worst of the gang banger rap and culture, such as wearing the baseball cap back to front, wearing crips gang banger colors , drugs etc and imitating their “heroes ” ?
and trying to talk the same trash talk …..makes me wonder about the gene pool of the human race sometimes. Sometimes I think the “pool ” needs cleaning out
America likely has ninety-million gun owners. How is it possible then that Lawyers and Career Office Holders, many of whom ARE lawyers, have nullified the UNALIENABLE Unanimous Declaration? What am I going to do about it with my .38 revolver . . . lead a Gettysburg style charge on Washington? I can just imagine heroically reaching the crest of the berm then looking back to discover that no one has followed me.
If a real revolution occurs anyone who doesn’t have a firearm will have little trouble getting one. If it goes that far, can the Ruling Establishment trust all those National Guardsmen?
Unlike those who claim to abhor violence, with me it all depends on who dies. I like it when bad people die and if the timeless appeal of the Western Movie means anything, I’m not alone.
Tinsley Grey Sammons
“their Chimp…Obama”
Somebody call Jesse Jackson!
He is talking about the “shrub”
….if the Constitution is a social contract how could those subject to it not be parties to it? Legal opinions are like
….well,everyone is entitled to one,
but natural rights are endowed not by
governments, kings, courts or lawyers
but by the Creator.
Unalienable Rights are the property of Individuals only.
tgsam
I follow the logic about wanting Obama around 4 more years so his apparent ideology can take the blame for the inevitable hyperstagflationary nightmare to come.. However, I think you’re missing the depressing fact that no matter which color tie the world’s most powerful talking head is wearing in the next few years, the free market WILL be blamed for the inevitable destruction statism brings.
Think about it: in this “bestest freestest nation evar” we have at most 5-10% of the population with even the faintest idea of what the words “free market” mean. Everyone else has been indoctrinated by Communist schoolteachers, Fascist newsfaces, and innumerable other purposefully-ineducable dolts into believing that the “free market” is when an obese Mr.Peanut doppelganger with a cat-o-nine claims prima nocta on your wife while you toil in his salt mine.
(I read over that last sentence and it came out in Dennis Miller’s voice.. not sure how I feel about that.)
Ha ha top drawer Jay, it does sound like Dennis Miller!
I haven’t seen him in quite a while. Is he still quasi-libertarian?
Smart man.
Miller is now an uber Chimponian – and utterly not funny.
Another Cypher I guess.
Many people still have the same internal beliefs they just go along to get along.
Remember when Ron Paul asked Alan Greenspan if he still believed what was in his essay on gold? Greenspan answered he did. Greenspan knew what he was doing. He did it for himself. No getting plugged back in, just a ‘screw these idiots’ moment where they decide to take advantage.
That’s where Miller went. There’s no solid career path for a libertarian in mainstream television. There is one for neo-cons however. Social climbers do whatever they need to do to climb. The most successful ones have no internal principles, but those who can put their internal principles aside can do pretty well too.
Eric-
Agreed. I recall finding his ranting amusing when I was very young and he was still somewhat relevant. In recent years (decades?) he has been to the Red Team what Bill Maher is to the Blue: A former quasi-libertarian turned irritatingly myopic statist shill.
There was a time he used to be funny but now, as you say, he’s a statist step-n-fetchit.
One last point about the constitution: The Padelford decision clearly stated that the “private man” (common man) was NOT a party to the constitution and could not complain about any alleged breach. So, the word People in “We the People” does not refer to the common man since he was NOT a party to that compact.
I think “We the People” referred to the founders, and only the founders, since they supposedly, are the authors.
How would you get a couple of million adult Colonists (WE the People)together to create and ratify an enforceable constitution?
During the Karina evacuation there were by far fewer than 2,000,000 adults in the bumper to bumper traffic crawling along the ninety-five miles of I-10 from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. I spent fourteen hours in that line so naturally I wonder how it would be possible to get two million adults together in one place to create a Covenant between government and themselves.
tgsam
“Could the Constitution represent the daddy of all conspiracies?”
The Constitution is not perfect but there is more than enough limitation on the Fedgov for it to work in our favor. The ever-increasing problem is the growing lack of comprehension of the “Original Understanding” of the ratifiers and the lack of regard by Amerikans for the “contract” that created the Fedgov and strictly limited the evil side of the human nature of TPTB. ” A nation that expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never will be” Thomas Jefferson.
Bingo! Thank you Joe Fondren. It is a rare pleasure to encounter one who actually understands and has the guts to stand up for the truth.
Tinsley Grey Sammons
” Could the constitution represent the daddy of all conspiracies?”
It certainly could. The Constitutional convention was a coup, in that it overthrew the existing government under the Articles of Confederation and replaced that government with a federal government instead.
The delegates hadn’t been empowered by their states to overthrow the AoC, but that’s what happened. Congress, under a preposterous pretense, declared its independence from the states and the citizenry and simply established a new form of government more suitable to the conspirators who initiated the convention.
Yes. Gary North on LRC has said this.
Sounds like an interesting opinion by wordseller North. Can you recall the name of the particular piece?
Great answer E.P.! F’ em and the old frayed dog eared race card. Romney said the other day about a record being earned the jug eared fellow has a record now and it is failure. Reply wouldn’t work nothing happened when clicking, the browser is set on java off and paranoid mode so it might be a pebkac. [:-)
I think the “dat be rayciss an’ shit” screech has worn out its welcome. Fatigue has set in.
A healthy development.
Hell I AM a racist but an innocent Black defendant would be damned lucky to have me on the jury that would determine his fate.
The fact that I have a special affection for my own kind does not mean that I disrespect the unalienable rights of non-Whites.
Hopefully, for the sake of genuine justice, the long overplayed Race Card has shot its wad.
tgsam
You raise an important point, Tinsely.
There is a sea of difference between preferring not to associate with people of other-than-your race … and actively seeking to degrade or harm them (or anyone else). Most blacks prefer to live among other blacks – as is typical of most racial/ethnic groups. Like birds of a feather – and so on. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, either. What is wrong is adding coercion to the mix. Such as by making free association (and its essential corollary, the freedom not to associate) unlawful – as it is in the USSA. This legal precedent – established under the guise of “civil rights” – was one of the key turning points from a relatively free society to one very less free.
Excellent opinion. A keeper in fact.
tgsam
Hi Eric. I’m pretty much in agreement with you are saying here. Nobody should be forced to associate with anyone else; that is where the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went wrong: it violates the rights of property owners by requiring that they allow people on their premises whom they don’t want to do business with.
At the same time, I believe that when people say “the races should not mix” they are implying a willingness to use force to prevent such mixing, and that is equally wrong. That’s the kind of statement I have objected to in the past. Perhaps they don’t mean to imply that, but that is certainly the way it comes across.
To take it one step further, I will say that the statement “I don’t want to associate with blacks” is thoroughly collectivist, and therefore not even remotely libertarian. A person who thinks that way has every right to do so, and I would never question that right. But I do feel sorry for anyone who would pass up a chance to sit down with Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, or Will Grigg, just because they are black. On a more personal level, many black people that I have known have enriched my life (as you know, my fiancee is among them). Of course I avoid ghetto rats and those of the FSA persuasion. But those people simply do not represent all blacks. Those who avoid blacks just because of pigmentation are only hurting themselves, as they have every right to do.
If you disagree with anything I’ve said here, I can only propose that we agree to disagree. That will not diminish my respect for you or for the wonderful work you do on this site.
Hi Mike,
I agree with all you’ve written. The key thing is to leave force out of human interactions. If that is done, everything else takes care of itself naturally.
What the “civil rights” laws did was create a sense of entitlement based on race – and one result of that is – my opinion – the explosion of “ghetto culture” and the creation of the FSA.
When some people have special rights, everyone’s rights are diminished. When force rather than reason is the way people’s minds are changed, no minds are really changed. Instead, people learn to resent – and hate.
All this, of course, serves the interests of TPTB.
Eric you bring up an important lesson: the clever psychopaths often use this psychological ju-jitsu.
The “civil rights” movement apparently increased the civil rights of minorities–blacks in particular.
But it didn’t. It actually brought all of us under a government umbrella, which grants “civil” rights…and denigrates natural rights.
Had they merely enforced natural rights, there would have been no issue. But the government created the separation, then marched in to “fix” it–destroying the concept of innate rights and making them privileges granted by the State.
Once again it’s break your legs, give you a crutch, “See, without me you couldn’t walk.”
Exactly.
In a free society that respects individual rights, even “racism” solves itself. There are no laws forbidding business or personal interactions/associations. Some may prefer to self-segregate, but no one is compelled to. Most would choose free exchange when it seemed mutually desirable. Irrational avoidance has its own built-in punishments (example, a businessman who categorically refuses to do business with blacks loses business to his competitors who impose no such restrictions on their own trade).
As always, government interposition makes everything worse.
I think we do see eye to eye, Eric. Force, especially through the government, is the problem. If the civil rights legislation of the 1960s had simply invalidated state laws that mandated segregation, I think the 13th Amendment would have given the feds the proper authority to do that. But they went further and went after individual choices. That created a lot of resentment which still haunts us today.
Methyl, I can’t leave you out: excellent analysis.
Amen, Mike –
There are few things worse than being forced to deal with someone against your will. Let people associate freely – and they will do so because it is in their interests to do so. Forcing them to interact – not as individuals, but as group integers – only creates resentment, even hatred. It recreates the very things the “civil rights” movement (allegedly) sought to get rid of.
All solutions from goverment to problems caused by government give government more power and more of our wealth.
Few properly examined the civil rights issue to understand the root cause problem. That problem was racists got a hold of the government’s monopoly on legal violence and used it to push their personal beliefs and agendas on everyone else.
Racism is a costly vice in a free society. Thus to be able to practice it, the state must force it upon those who do not wish to. Otherwise an unserved market is created that someone else can serve. Talent that is passed up can go to or become competition.
The free market doesn’t reward such behavior, thus the only way to practice it successfully for the long term is to force others into it. Only government can force others into it. Social pressure won’t overcome the desire for profit forever. Just look at baseball. Eventually the desire for profit won out.
Since the problem wasn’t accurately diagnosed, it wasn’t solved. Instead it got worse. (perhaps intentionally so)
At this point, I see intent – because 40-plus decades of stupid policies that have evil results cannot be accidental. Blacks have been turned (in general, not all of them or even most of them – just a lot of them) into deliberately dumbed-down, feral, entitlement-minded, quick-triggered (metaphorically and literally) children who are easily manipulated to the ends desired by the PTB. We now have an animalistic underclass in most cities – the product of a destroyed family structure, easy access to the worst sort of drugs (this is definitely by design in my opinion; here I am in absolute agreement with Farrakhan) and saturating cultural filth (cRap music, the “thug” lifestyle) and relentless, endless propaganda about all the evils of white people – who have done it all to them. The inevitable violence this spawns, in turn, helps to justify the police state – and (as you and Booth and Meth have observed) also scares the crap out of the white middle class – which in in its turn serves the same purpose (justifies the police state).
It has to be deliberate. This sort of stupidity – this level of evil – cannot be an accident.
I don’t understand how the election could matter in any regard. Both candidates are puppets and both will usher in a New World Order. The effect on the populace will be the same regardless of which faux bloated ego gets elected. The NWO goal is to completely subjugate a willing population. Dissenters will eventually face the possibility of feemaa camp re-education centers.
As a side note:
Is it possible that the American public has been deceived from the beginning? Do US citizens have recognized inalienable rights? I don’ think so! An old court decision that included a judge “spilling the beans”, so to speak, about the actual meaning of the constitution has caused me to reassess my beliefs. It’s the Padelford case from 1854. Here’s a link to the text of that decision. http://www.scribd.com/doc/14566693/Padelford-Fay-Co-vs-The-Mayor-and-Alderman-of-the-City-of-Savannah
The part that grabbed my attention is here:
Page 6
Constitutional Law 92 665
92 Constitutional Law92VI Enforcement of Constitutional Provisions92VI(A) Persons Entitled to Raise Constitutional Questions; Standing92VI(A)1 In General92k665 k. In General. Most Cited Cases(Formerly 92k42(2))
“No private person has a right to complain by suit in court on the ground of a breach of the United States constitution; for, though the constitution is a compact, he is not a party to it”
Page 45
………”The States are the parties to it. And they may complain.” ……..
Apparently wording in the constitution was meant to deceive the population, and that is the one area where it has succeeded. It has obviously failed in limiting the size and power of government. Could the constitution represent the daddy of all conspiracies?
It seems that government has never recognized the rights of individuals. Freedom in the US is measured by “civul rights”, which of course are privileges, which can be extended or withdrawn at the whim of legislative opinions or ecexutive order.
Returning to our constitutional roots seems to be very naive at this point.
Constitutional Law is not the Constitution.
It seems to me that Constitutional Law is more likely intended to deceive than is any part of the Constitution.
I do agree with Ayn Rand that the great flaw in the Constitution is the Commerce Clause [Claws]. Use of the Commerce Clause to justify the Drug War is intrinsically criminal and ought to be treated as such. Crushing that monster would surely be a most worthy Precedent.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
I’m glad you pointed that out Ive often thought that the Freemason forefathers and there elitist backers were up to the continuation of the revolution philosophy laid down by Francis Bacon and the Andrew Wiesop centuries ago.
The Freemasons are a very secretive group and their oath takes precedence over any other oath they may take, including the oath to the presidency of the USA. I’ve read that 14 known US presidents were masons. That’s 14 presidents honoring a foreign oath and agenda over their presidential oath.
One of my ex-friends became a Mason – and it was a bone of contention between us. It bugged me that he’d give his allegiance to a bunch of strangers/people he only barely knew vs. a friend of nearly 20 years’ standing. He tried to get me interested in joining – but I’m not into secret societies and wanted no part.
The “roots” Americans should return to are the Principles underpinning the unamendable Unanimous Declaration.
tgsam
Careful calling comrade dear leader the lightbringer messiah a chimp some might cry rayciss. Mittens will buy some time to stock up the bunker while chairman maobama will wipe it all out within the year. Either way we are screwed with a running start.
“Careful calling comrade dear leader the lightbringer messiah a chimp some might cry rayciss” …
That’s their problem – not mine!
I enjoyed this essay, Eric. I’m not sure, even on a micro scale, if it matters, but I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
One of the things I have come to find amazing, is that people never question the validity of voting itself. Democracy is one of the holy places for statists. The concept of voting is considered sacred for a host of emotional platitudes.
As what might be filed as a tangental spin-off, I wrote an essay today attacking the concept of voting from logical, philosophical, legal, common sense, and historical standpoints. If voting is to be done away with, then voting itself must be denouced, and localized problem solving must be championed in it’s stead. http://endlessunlimited.com/?p=315
Although, one could even argue that voting itself isn’t evil, but that forcing everyone into the results of the vote is the true evil. If only the people who voted for referendums, or presidents, were subjected to them, how many people would go vote? It’s almost laughable to consider. Similar to voluntary taxes. It strikes me as absurd how almost nobody would ever pledge to be held to a vote of even a small number of people in an arbitrary situation, yet we are all beholden to the outcome of a vote on things of the utmost consequence.
As an example.. if you were going to dinner with 8 people, you would simply work out how and where to go to dinner with the other 8 people. You’d have a big discussion, hash it out, and work out something that works, in some way, for everyone. Maybe it’s eating out, maybe it’s eating at somebody’s place, whatever. There would be a method of problem solving that is not institutionalized or violent. But then when it comes to who is going to command armies to slaughter people, it’s left to an abstract, fraudulent, insane vote between two shitty choices. Huh? There is no other situation in life where people go around agreeing to be legally bound to the outcome of votes that they don’t even want to cast.
Michael, the example you give illustrates the difference between a Parliamentary system of Government and the Presidential system practiced in the US. The founders avoided the parliamentary system because they preferred a tripartite form, which they believed to be more stable and less prone to corruption. They were very concerned I think about who would be watching the watchers and concluded the watchers would watch themselves, hence the proposed separation of power.
Had the separation of powers worked as designed they might have been right, but as our system of government has devolved it has made no difference in the end. We may as well have a royal family that controls the Judiciary and a Parliament that writes laws that might be enforced and negotiates taxes with the Crown.
Direct election of senators broke the system.
When senators were beholden to state governments corruption was used against itself.
A senator who is directly elected increases federal power because that is in his best interest. A senator who is chosen by some method by state government serves state power for if he does not he loses his senate seat. His interest is with the state, with that criminal gang, not the federal gang of presidents, judges, and representatives.
The end result is the various gangs fighting each other. The result of government infighting is more liberty. When senators became directly elected the fighting was over. It’s just one big federal gang.
Can I say how absolutely sick I am of hearing people talk about the Constitution? The pretense of “Constitutionality” (and the relative ignorance and comfort of the common American) is most of what holds the illusion of a free society together. In reality, the Constitution was only an expression of (what were thought of to be) Natural Rights. In practice, in current times, it is meaningless. It has been discarded by our leaders long ago, yet the constant lip service makes people believe that they still have something to gain by being invested in it. It’s one of the last circular onramps that gets people back driving on the fascist highway.
I base my political arguments on the UNAMENDABLE Unanimous Declaration. No Power that contravenes the principles underpinning the Unanimous Declaration can have Lawful Authority. Legal perhaps but Lawful, NEVER.
Lawful and Legal are not synonyms. There is an ethical element supporting Lawful that can be criminally absent in Legal. How many Legal Crimes will agents of government commit today?
Tinsley Grey Sammons
The Bill of Rights is my favorite addendum. In fact, it should have been the Constitution. It clearly delineates what the rights of the individual are – and strictly limits what organized force (government) may do to the individual.
It just needed to expanded upon some. Nonetheless, it nicely encapsulated most of the important precepts of natural law – and it is natural law that most people have forgotten. Or rejected.
I have been stewing on the idea that the destruction of our society coincides with the destruction of philosophy within our society.
You are right about natural law. It is forgotten, rejected, misunderstood, abused…. funny (and incredibly sad and disheartening) how you will never see laws of math or science put up to a vote, yet murder and theft is voted one way or another every week.
An empty headed fool.
Which one is? Zen recognizes 5 orders of blindness:
1) The blindness of the general run of ignorant people.
2) The evil blindness of the heretic.
3) The true blindness of the enlightened student. The worldly eye of such a person has become blind.
4) The blindness of those who stick to their realization and make much of their enlightenment.
5) The transcendent, or genuine, blindness that is the condition of Buddhas. This appears when one outgrows true blindness– that is, when one achieves maturity in Zen practice.
We are faced with a choice, which blind man will we choose?
Setcho’s Verse:
Two Shouts, three shouts;
The knowing one knows well;
If going hell-bent,
both are blind.
Who is blind? Fetch him!
Expose him to the world!
Which involves becoming a Self with an uppercase S? I’m convinced that the incomparable C.G. Jung got it right. The “Warlock of Zurich” is still the greatest of all psychologists dead or living.
His little-known masterpiece, THE UNDISCOVERED SELF (1957) remains an incomparable study.
tgsam
Selection is the key concept. Players and politicians are all paid by the owners. Romney is my president? The Dallas Cowboys are America’s team?Cox populi.
A worthy sport would be two teams competing to build a barn or metal communications tower. At least in the bandit run, some goods got delivered to Texarkana. A purpose is served.
Also…There has been a leak…Your owners have selected Obama 43% to Romney 40%
Having to select only one of possible two options is not a choice, it’s a dilemma.
This is a great web-site for both gearheads and libertarians. I’m a new poster, but I’ve been reading for quite awhile. You really need to try the Big Boy two-stroke-triples though, if you can lay your hands on one. Quite the ride 🙂 I rode the “Water Buffalo” (Suzuki GT750) and my buddy rode the Kaw and his front axle was always at ‘ear height’ when the light turned green – I ate more tires.
My only comment is to put the ending line in context “Apres eux, le deluge”. Good choice that one . . .
In Male Fide – Sic Semper Tyranis
Hi 3D,
Welcome! And, I hope very much to possess an H2 (or even a GT750)… the only reason I don’t have one right now is (drum roll) finances. It is no easy thing to find an H2 in any kind of viable condition for less than $5,000 – and that typically will buy you a bike that needs another $5,000 (at least) to be brought back to life! Road ready examples seem to be going for around $10,000. Restored/excellent condition ones, $15,000 or so. Their classic status – and the fact that relatively few survive (the majority having been used hard/thrown away back in the day) has made them expensive toys. Even the little triples are pricey – in terms of the parts you’ll need to put one back together. Guess how much you’ll spend on a rebuilt crank? Close to $1,000! I spent a year bringing back a $50 junker S1C to damn near “out of the crate” condition, mechanically and cosmetically. One quirk about all these bikes is that you’ll find out a goodly portion of the available NOS/repro parts supply is in the UK. The Brits love them some two strokes! But in America, there seems to be much less interest – outside of a few small circles of weirdos like us!
In the 1970s I owned and rode both a 350 and a 500 Kawasaki Triple.
Both were fun machines. I preferred the 350 for just screwing around town because it was light and could always be parked just about anywhere.
tgsam
From what I gather, the S3 400 was the most tractable of all the triples. It was more like the Suzuki triples in that it had some guts in the lower RPM range – and also wasn’t feral once wicked up.
I can tell you this much about the 250 (because I own one): Peaky little bitch with not much going on below 4,000. It is one of those bikes you have to work to maintain speed. Forget about leaving it in third or fourth and just motoring along. You have to bring up the revs and slip the clutch a good bit to launch it, too. But the sounds once under way… the sounds! Crackle.. snap… pop! A banshee scream at 8,000 – and you have to be careful to watch the tach because there is no rev limiter and the waspish little engine will spin faster and faster… until it explodes.
There is nothing like it. Not the fastest thing (maybe 100 or so, all out). But it’s a ride that will keep you awake!
Amen Eric & Tinsley! I was seriously on the hunt for an RD350B Yamaha. I found a few RD400’s (too “civilized”) & even fewer 350’s but they were either (a) too expensive, (b) in questionable / disassembled condition, or (c) had title problems. So a few weeks ago, I saw a 2005 Z1000 Kawi sitting in the Wally-World parking lot. I’d really wanted a Z1 or KZ900 back in the day (when I was terrorizing Ft. Walton Bch., FL on my RD) but was too poor to buy one. Since the Z1000 is the offspring of the Z1, I called the young man that owned this one and set up a meet. I rode it, it won my heart & bought it.
It is as agile (and nearly as light) as the RD, but with fuel injection, 32 bit ignition & 120HP at the rear wheel! We’re talking close to TZ750 numbers here out of a production street fighter (okay, not quite, but you don’t have to push start it & you can “legally” ride it on the road). It’s not only tractable & a nice handling machine around town, it poweful enough that I’ve only have balls enough to top it out in 3rd gear so far. It makes my old buddy Bill’s H2 with road race chambers (that I used to be privileged to ride back in ’79) look a lot less attractive to me now.
I still want to build another RD350B cafe racer; there’s nothing like a 2-stroke. But boys, I’ve found the Kawasaki of my dreams & I almost hate to say this, but it turns out that it ain’t an H2 anymore.
Ahhh, 3D…vous parlez francais…”Apres eux, le deluge.” Tres bien. Good to see you. I’m not at all a gearhead, malheureursement, but have pretty much libertarian beliefs. Vive la liberte, eh?
One of the most telling bits of this article is not in the text but in the photo of Lenin. This is one of the most famous pics in political history. Not so much because of the dynamic pose of Comrade Lenin but because of that white area to fearless leader’s left. If you look closely you will see that the background building becomes a white blur. This white space is where Leon Trotsky was standing until a bit of revisionist tinkering took place. Just as Leon went down the rabbit hole, so have so many of our constitutional rights — and just as no one remembers that Leon was in this picture, so will the next generation not know about the Bill of Rights.
They ( the republicans and democrats) will drag this country and the world down economically in order to destroy the constitutional system and we will slip under the thumbs of the u.n./bankers. The u.s. Was too financially strong before. They had to drag it down to meld into the one world government. Destroy it’s sovereignty. Read the book ‘the planned destruction of america’. It’s happening now. May God help us!
Each party became an end in itself long ago. Both should be destroyed in detail by allowing each to die the natural death that each deserves.
Sadly, WE the People learned nothing at all from the Civil Rights Era, when like it or not, government was forced to respect and enforce the Law of the Land.
tgsam
300+million people in the US and we get the chance to vote between these two for the top job in Govt in our country?? This is the best we can do??
No wonder this country is in trouble….
The point is we don’t have a choice. We are like a condemned man offered the “choice” of lethal injection or the gas chamber….
You obviously do not understand voting. Nobody who would be up for election is the “best we can do”, because those people are long lost before they ever have the chance to be voted on. Anyone who can appeal to 120 million people (roughly the total amount that will probably vote) has to know enough talking points to pass a charade of an exam, but they also have to be able to be manipulated and bought by so many special interests, accessible to many lower-denominators, and broad enough to be acceptable to broad swaths of the population.
Mathematically, democracy CAN NOT produce good candidates. The best result you can hope for is mediocre (one who appeals to the majority), and the worse you can expect is….well….check your ballot.
*worst
Are you people serious or on drugs? Anarchy is what you are peddling or hoping for. If what you say is correct, you’ll be the first for the concentration camps, whining all the way. I hope you are wrong because I would not like to see you end up that way no matter how mentally disturbed you are.
So, Al… I’m “disturbed” for objecting to the vicious authoritarianism embodied by these two cretins? For daring to ask to be left in peace to live my life as I see fit – as opposed to being forced to live my life as others see fit?
It’s the world turn’d upside down….
Upside down indeed:
If buttercups buzz’d after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,
If the mamas sold their babies
To the gypsies for half a crown;
If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down.
ANARCHY
Words like anarchy suffer from the absence of a generally agreed upon understanding of their meaning.
Anarchy is a popular buzzword employed by persons on the profitable side of the Establishment Curtain, which is the major bifurcation in American Society that separates the privileged from the hoi polloi. It is used in response to expressions of disenchantment from persons on the non-favored side of the curtain, i.e., the private sector working folks who pay the bills. Those on the profitable side quite naturally prefer that the status quo be perpetuated indefinitely.
The very nature of Man is intolerant of anarchy. Thugs, opportunists, and even baboons will never allow a state of no rule to endure.
AFP p. 43
We’d like to be wrong too. Problem is, we become more right by the day.
That should scare you, for your own sake.
Anarchy is what you are peddling or hoping for.
Right! Not in the corrupted sense of the word (a bomb-throwing indiscriminate murderer), but in the true sense of the word, without an over-arching set of thugs trying to run our lives.
… you’ll be the first for the concentration camps, whining all the way.
At least we won’t be cowering in terror, kissing and licking the boot on our necks.
… how mentally disturbed you are.
I’d rather be “disturbed” than supinely accepting, and cheering, my own enslavement by government criminals, as you apparently are.
Did you get a governmental permit to type on this message board? Or did you just enter into the anarchy of the internet and conduct yourself in a peaceful, voluntary manner?
The internet is a perfect example of anarchy. You avoid the things you dislike. You go to the places you want to. ORGANIZATION and RULES grow spontaneously! People bear responsibility for their actions, at least in some part.
I’m guessing that the spontaneous, ANARCHIC order of the internet isn’t too crazy for you. If it is, maybe you should turn the computer off and go sit in a DMV.
Seriously Michael, what are your thoughts on the Drug War?
tgsam
I want to make a youtube video about it in the near future, but it’s essentially arbitrary, absurd, and nefarious. Why do you ask?
Isn’t interesting how not believing in the state is considered mental illness by so many? How if we take the state into our heart we will be saved from eternal damnation. Statements like Big Al’s above are so transparently religious.
Big Al is willing to save us savages if we just accept his god. Otherwise, it’s damnation for us.
Big Al,
Anarchy has two different definitions; we are talking about the formal one, derived from its Greek root words–“an” meaning “no”, and “arkhos” meaning “ruler” or “leader”.
Not lawlessness as is the common misconception.
Look at technology, computers, cell phones, and the internet in particular. Totally unregulated; I have no formal training and yet I’m a fairly high-level software engineer. There are no regulations on chip design, computer architecture, internet protocols, or cell phone innards*.
And yet, go to any Fry’s and you can buy motherboards, CPU’s, memory, hard drives, graphics cards, and power supplies from thousands of different manufacturers, go home, plug them all together, and it will work. The standards that made that possible arose spontaneously and voluntarily among the manufacturers. No violence. No laws, or regulations, or mandates.
Now boot up your new computer with your choice of dozens of Linux distros, or Windows, and connect it to the internet–which again, has grown almost completely organically. Surf the roughly 20 billion sites out there–again, totally unregulated.
All these are examples of Spontaneous order–anarchy in action, people voluntarily cooperating to build incredible things.
* cell phones are somewhat regulated; they have to be able to track you via GPS, and remotely turn on the microphone to listen to you even when the power is off. Look it up. They’re useful bugs.
As much as is sanely possible, I avoid the year of vapid blathering preceding presidential elections. If either candidate had repeatedly declared that he would do everything in a president’s power to restore respect for Unalienable Rights I would bother to vote. As it is, not even my natural feelings about race will cause me to bother to vote. Not even the likelihood of another four years with a president that looks like a jug eared monkey will cause me to vote.
tgsam
Facebook took this piece down. Crazy shit . . .
I’m not surprised. Facebook is not your friend. It’s data mining – and much worse besides.
Amen, amen!! In saecula saeculorum!
Follow the money. Google, Facebook, and Twitter are NSA/CIA joint ops. Google’s not even hiding it anymore. Zuckerman called his users “dumb fuckers”; the NSA is laughing their horned heads off, as billions of people submit high-quality face-shots for improved face-recognition and giving away their social networks for round-up time.
The PTB are desperate to neutralize the internet; they badly miscalculated how quickly it would threaten them.
It’s the Gutenberg press. The damage is done; too great a percentage of the serfs have lost faith in government. It’s a tipping point; the avalanche has started, but the damage the PTB will do in attempting to salvage their plans is difficult to estimate.
We really are living through another 1500’s. All our decadent, degraded, depraved Leo X’s are enacting their libidinous death-throes.
Apparently, Fuckbook pulled a copy of my article that someone had posted. Of course, had it been a snarlin’ gnarlin’ for Obama, I have no doubt it would still be up…
I’ve not yet had anything censored by facebook. Maybe those who can see it aren’t complainers.
I think the whole spying thing via google and facebook is overblown. Face photo? You got a driver’s license? Well they got your face photo already. It’s digital and in their database. Where you work? They got that through the taxes. Where you live? DL, tax records. Birthday? They got that too.
Now maybe they want to know our political views… Well they can read that here. With their NSA hubs they know who each of us are regardless of the name we use if they want to know. Just follow the packets back. I suppose some could take measures to make that more difficult.
Oh and the friend’s list? Neighbor’s relatives, school, work? All in the government records already.
Facebook and google data is far noisier than the data they already have and had long before either existed. Now one could argue that these self entered systems are more organized than anyone has ever done with the government data, but if they were really interested they would use their own data.
People make facebook accounts for their role playing characters. People lie online. Most of what these sites gather is noise, fantasy and bullshit. People with elevenity billion ‘friends’ and such that muddies the water of who actually associates with who. They’d be better off putting their data into a single database and querying against that.
Facebook is just another pump and dump server in a closet operation. At some point people will move on and it will die like myspace and friendster before it. I just wish I could go forward with such a thing myself… damn morals keep getting in the way. 🙂
Brent is absolutely right. The majority of people doing the spying on social network sites are us on each other. The government already has all the data they want from us, so anything else is just a bonus.
First of all, Eric Peters, you are the MAN!
Yes, Obama MUST win so he can be Hooverized! Otherwise, what you said happens. The “free market” gets blamed for the sins of the fascists and we get a Chavez in 2016…if, as Doug Casey likes to say, we’re still having elections by then.
How is it that the Republicans who truly believe in smaller government, but will vote for Mittens anywaym can’t understand this? Can’t they see one move ahead on the chessboard? This is one election you really really want the GOP to lose guys, even if you loathe the Democrats as much as I do. I want to see Obama and his kind take all the blame. I want to see them castigated and cast out in 2014 and 2016, not to reappear for a generation, like the Republicans after Hoover. Gotta hang the meltdown on Opuppet.
Thanks, Falling – and welcome on board!
Eric, if Romney wins, the entire old liberal/Libertarian movement, along with the Republicans/Conservatives, will be blamed for the utterly unavoidable economic collapse, and there will be no coming back from this, as the general educational level of the populace is as close to nil as it ever has been. Please note that I am not talking about attainment of HS diplomas, advanced degrees, etc. There is a huge element of the population that is more degreed than ever, and far less educated (because they were taught by Marxists in hiding, and occasionally not in hiding, such as Herbert Marcuse). As a result, they are much more prone to propaganda. They make up much of the (increasingly geezer) yuppie population, as well as Gen X.
While I fully admit that it is decidedly dangerous to advocate a second term for Obama, as we have no idea of what further insults to the Constitution via executive orders may bring, I rather doubt that he will go fully into the dictatorship route; he would need all elements of the government and society coordinated behind him, as Hitler did, in a country not unlike ours, i.e., Germany (Russia was totally different and never experienced democracy, let alone the Renaissance–unless one belonged to the upper aristocracy). I posit that this is simply impossible; the country is already terrifically divided, but on a two party basis still. Hitler was a minority candidate, allied with other parties (similar to Mussolini and other European heads with parliamentary systems). Unless we adopt the latter, a real dictatorship cannot happen.
“Eric, if Romney wins, the entire old liberal/Libertarian movement, along with the Republicans/Conservatives, will be blamed for the utterly unavoidable economic collapse, and there will be no coming back from this…”
Good. God.
Do you really think we’re within four years of collapse?? 🙁
I never thought of THAT angle before either. You people on this site continually keep changing my train of thought. -.-‘
I think it’s entirely possible we’ve got much less than four years….
Jim Rogers and Doug Casey would agree with you there, Eric. Both are saying it will be next year or 2014, though both will tell you that predicting timing is iffy at best. We all know that collapse is inevitable, but will it happen 2, 5, or 10 years from now?
If Rogers and Casey are right, I hope Obama wins this election. Romney is — very much incorrectly — viewed as an advocate of the free market. If the crash happens on his watch, the cause of economic freedom may well be dead in this country. Either way, the crash is already baked into the cake. It will happen whether Rosencrantz or Guildenstern is elected.
And you think that you will end up with more freedom and wealth if Obama is President during the collapse? By the time of the collapse Obama will have put millions more on the dole, dependent on government and no longer even thinking about taking care of themselves…maybe even they should act on the hatred of anyone who has anything as President Obama has been saying. And, Obama will be coming to take your guns, he doesn’t think you should have them because they would allow you to protect the stuff you have … the stuff Obama thinks you got illegimately. I don’t see a President Obama working to do anything to protect the wealth, health, or safety of any group that is not one of his constituencies / supporters … no different from his bailout of GM.
“And you think that you will end up with more freedom and wealth if Obama is President during the collapse?”
No, of course not. But the same applies to Mittens. That’s precisely the point: It just doesn’t matter.
Except that if the “conservative” is in when the collapse happens, the idiot masses will be all the more easily convinced that it was “not enough government” that led to the collapse.
Hi Mike,
Yup. I’m not an economist, just a low-rent philosophizing gearhead… but my Spider Sense tells me we are close because it will not take much to push things over the edge. One black swan event – be it a contrived “terrrr” attack, a freak event of nature or sudden collapse of the NYSE will do it. And the dominoes will fall quickly at that point because of the nature of society and the (unfortunately) millions of Clovers who comprise it. There will be wild panic, chaos and violence – which will be the overture for the imposition of an outright police state. The masses will beg for it. It will “keep them safe.”
Our only hope is that it won’t be able to sustain itself for very long. In which case, some of us may be be able to ride it out.
Godspeed to all.
@Mike:
Oh dear god, I just had the nightmarish thought of debating with my Obama-voting ambulance-chasing lawyer cousin….”You don’t understand, it’s not the free market’s fault, Romney’s not free market…”
They are so far removed from reality at this point, it would take the equivalent of 60 hours of (good) college credit to even understand basic economics.
The delusions are so entrenched now that what they have is the OPPOSITE of an education.
This is not an accident–every economics program has endowments, apprenticeships, fellowships, lectures, and materials from the Federal Reserve. It pays for economic illiteracy. The last thing they want is Austrianism creeping in anywhere; game over for them.
Mike,
Just look at the results of Sandy.
Police (in NJ & NY) had to be stationed at fuel stations because there were fights breaking out over getting fuel.
People (are getting/are) angry at still not having heat or electricity.
I do not think it would take much to put any society in chaos. Cutting off of electric/heat/fuel can be enough to get a large number of people angry. One will just need to be there to direct the mob in the “right” direction.
Hi Don. No, I wasn’t saying that the crash will be less severe with Obama in office. My point goes to where the blame will be placed. Since Romney is mistakenly believed to be a free market person, the free market will be blamed if he is president. That will reduce the chances for ever regaining any degree of economic freedom.
I understand that the “conservative” (?) will be blamed for the crash when it happens just as Bush was blamed when the worthless mortgages crashed which was the inevitiable result of liberal policies of injecting government into banking.
My point was whether the crash is used as an opportunity to improve the situation of the American people or simply to increase the power of the government / politicians.
We may not agree on this, but I do not believe that Romney intends to do harm, I believe that Obama’s actions, taking advantage of the crisis, will be ones that I consider harm, taking our freedoms and wealth, destroying our currency, weakening our military. Obama may actually believe that is good for America, to me that would only mean he is as ignorant of history and human nature as he is of ecomics.
I understand that if you are killed or bankrupted, it matters little to you if someone intended to do it or did unintentionally. But, I think Romney understands ecomonics and the things that I think most of us want are likely to fare much better with a Romney as President. I guess the question is barely worth debating at this point as some of the polls are already closed … and the future will be what it will be.
Hi Don,
It was The Chimp more than anyone who is responsible for the housing crash – because it was The Chimp who helped create the speculative real estate bubble. Remember the “ownership” society? The push to extend loans to “disadvantaged minorities”? All The Chimp’s work.
The Chimp, more than any other modern president,put this country on the road to ruin – and authoritarianism. Obama would have been inconceivable without The Chimp having laid the groundwork for him.
Republicans and “conservatives” who continue to make excuses for The Chimp – and support neo-Chimps like Romney and McSame – are still utterly in the Matrix and without a clue.
Today’s results may help wake them up.
I’m actually concerned about the next few weeks.
I tend to agree–I can’t believe it, but I’m wishing for an Obama win.
The barely-awake “conservatives”, who are figuring out that government is a criminal mafioso cabal, will go right back into sleepy-time if Romney wins…
…and the same agenda will march forward, albeit not as quickly under Romney.
Again I quote Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope”–this is by design, every four years we can “throw the bums out”–while those who control the agenda from far behind the scenes remain in-place, in-control, and on top of the plans.
We are sitting on a powder-keg. An Obama second term will lead to either outright revolt, or (and this is my hope) a dramatic surge of nullification and perhaps, please, secession movements.
The former will be hellish. The latter may be our only peaceful way out.
I’m considering emigrating again; I want to fight it, but I don’t want my kids growing up in a hellish dystopia that makes “Dark Angel”, “Equilibrium”, “Blade Runner”, “1984”, and “Minority Report” look childishly naive.
Personally Methyl, I’m too old for this shit. I’m looking for a peaceful exit from the nightmare myself so I’m hoping for a USSR style breakup and I think it’s a real possibility given the financial situation in the US.
Would Japan back Kalifornia in a secession? I think it might. What about Washington? Oregon? A few years of making a living selling toothpaste, razor blades and Bic lighters would be a small price to pay compared with a bloody revolt.
How old are you?
I’m 43, and I’m fighting my own anxiety at a possibly massive life-change. Every fiber of my soul and mind are screaming “Get out Get Out GET OUT!!”
But sheer inertia reminds me how comfortable our concrete-and-steel house that we built still is, how great our neighbors are, how close my sister and parents are…
Yet those things will scarcely comfort us in a max-security prison.
Try to imagine: stasi on nearly every corner. Getting in the habit of keeping your eyes averted and your shoulders hunched around DHS goons and cops…instead of glaring at them defiantly as I do now, while they still can’t (quite) beat and jail me totally randomly. Yes–selling razor blades/toilet paper/tampons/bics. Armed goons bashing your door in and confiscating your guns, your stored food, and ransacking the house because you’re a “hoarder” and a “terrrist”. Gold and silver sales illegal; they won’t confiscate it–they don’t need the money, they can print it. They’ll just make it illegal to use or to sell.
Your 20 acres in the country? “Inspected” for “health, safety, and environmental regulations”–i.e. that potato patch you’re growing? Illegal. Chickens? Unsanitary. Fish pond? Ah, komrade, you’ve run afoul of our wetland protection laws–you’ll have to fill it in.
Vitamins? Are you kidding? Slaves don’t get vitamins! You’ll need a prescription for that…and you’ll get the ones we approve of–so no more high-dose selenium, iodine, B17 (apricot kernels, making cancer extinct), D3, B12…you fucking American scum, we’ll tell you what you get!
It’s at this stage in failing civilizations that the pencil-necked, skinny-armed, pot-bellied little pedophiles; the high-and-tight buzzcut wannabe SEALs; the fat and frustrated high school bully; the has-been alcoholic ex-college athlete; the grotesquely obese busybody childless harpy woman…they all come out to play, because the floodgates are open and it’s hunting season on all that is beautiful, noble, creative, honorable, productive, kind, and sweet.
It reminds me of the ghouls witches and goblins gathered around the stone table to sacrifice Aslan in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Warddrobe”.
I’m not religious. But I’m starting to wonder, as I sense the depths of evil beginning to spew forth like an erupting abscess on this earth.
I’m 55. I fell off a horse driving cattle in Wyoming a few years ago and my right leg doesn’t work right anymore.
I’m too old for this shit. I understand your vision and your anxiety.
No joke. It is liberating to be awake to this all, but frustrating and depressing to be so alone on almost every stance. I’m to the point where I don’t like talking to people much anymore, because I cannot be myself without severe consequences AND small talk makes my brain hurt. I’d rather keep to myself. This includes family. All the better, because none of them like talking to me anyhow… out of fear that I will try to awaken them (I’m pretty consistent with this… LOL). The level of apathy and dependence in this country is absolutely astounding. Part of me wants to get some passports and move my family far, far away from here. But I fear that we are not safe anywhere in the world anymore. It’s going to take a Sandy on a national scale for people to wake up, and by then it will be too late.
Adopting Clinton drawl…
Ana, I feel your pain.
It can be terribly frustrating. My own mom and dad–who were SO awake in the 70’s and 80’s, they even hosted some luminaries from the freedom movement in their house. Guys like Gary North, John Whitehead, and Joel Skousen…
…and today, they send me emails extolling Romney’s and Ryan’s many virtues.
Sadly they’re Cypher; they took the red pill but it became too much for them.
I can’t understand the mental gymnastics they engaged to re-enter denial…and then deny they’re denying.
re: moving: Sure. The NWO’s is everywhere…but there are plenty of places where the police are less well-armed and funded, where the control grid is 1/100 as entrenched, and where people generally have a “screw-you” attitude to government…or at least recognize it’s corrupt. I’m thinking again of Chile.
Amoricons by and large still think “their” government is a Good Thing.
Election day is coming up very soon now.
As best I can tell, the media – the powers-that-be behind the media – are pushing Romney forward, just as they pushed Obama ahead four years ago. How do they “push” one candidate over another? It’s very subtle. Sort of programming by visual stimuli. Whenever they show photos of the two leading candidates (and of course NEVER showing or even mentioning Ron Paul), the photo of the one they are pushing shows just a bit more of an affable friendliness than the other. The other looks just a bit more serious or hostile. Basically the photo of one candidate is always a little nicer than of the other. Boy, they REALLY pushed Obama in 2008. Even for the Democratic selection. Obama was always smiling versus Hilary Clinton who looked like she was in constant PMS.
Now, it is my basic contention that both Obama and Romney are members of the SAME secret brotherhood and essentially have the SAME agenda. One pretends to be Democrat, the other pretends to be Republican.
One of the main barriers to the totalitarian control of America (today America, tomorrow the world!) has always been gun ownership by American citizens. Constitutional Rights. And I think, as counter-intuitive as this might sound, the next initiative in the direction of gun control, registration and confiscation might BEST be done by a (so-called) “Republican” President. Well, ya know, Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State, has been promoting the “U.N. Small Arms Treaty.” You know, get the United Nations to pass some gun control act and thus bypass and avoid U.S. Constitutional issues. Now, just like the Sith Lord in Star Wars “reluctantly” accepted total control of the empire, a Republican president may be able to make a good guise of “reluctantly accepting the U.N. Treaty because… blah-blah-blah… we Americans should be part of the World…” or some such justification. I believe a Republican could get away with this because “it’s so counter to everything he values and believes in…” unlike a Democratic president who would incur immediate suspicion.
So, this is what I predict: Romney as President, followed in a few months by his (cough) “reluctant” acceptance of the – unconstitutional – U.N. Small Arms Treaty. Yet one more important step to the totalitarian control of America. Probably as important as ObamaCare – wherein the government will be the paymaster for the medical profession, and of course, the person who pays the wages DICTATES what the “employee” must do. And of course the employee-doctor will be empowered and encouraged to control the medications of the citizenry. Anybody seen the movie “Equilibrium?”
One thing to keep in mind. Healthy and strong slaves are a helluva lot more trouble to control than are sickly and weak slaves. Yes, one cannot get as much production out of sickly and weak slaves but the ease of controlling them far offsets that single detrimental factor. And make no mistake, the powers-that-be behind the pharmaceutical industry – the drug and vaccine makers – really don’t give a rat’s ass about your health! They just want consumers for their products.
How the media behaved in the primaries again with regards to Ron Paul should tell everyone all that they need to know.
Who the hell reports results by skipping places? A media that is aiming to change future results and create a perception.
Had to take wife and friend to early vote. Took 1.25 hours. 2 of 8 machines were not in use because they were reserved 4 handicapped. Gave them big helping of shit 4 that. Voted Libertarian for 4 candidates available, left the rest blank
Cattle pen fenced lines. Slack faced silent soviets. Mooo.
Bright spot was kid with bluetooth taking sales calls. He asked a cattleboss how you could vote for Ron Paul, I couldn’t hear the response tho.
I can no longer think of a reason to vote.
It is absolutely pointless. A waste of time.
The counting is rigged. The vast majority don’t even think. Most of the choices are well controlled.
I have abstained from more ‘elections’ than I have voted in. This year I will abstain from voting entirely. Sure I could go to over to the school and be one of the two people from the precinct to vote for “Gary Johnson”, but what’s the point? Obama is going to get all the electoral votes and I am not even all that convinced of Johnson’s libertarian conversion. Although he’s more convincing than Barr, who gave me no choice but write in Ron Paul.
Pointless. I’ll stay home.
I came up with one reason to vote: To say something to the Mittens Snugglers (Or Obama Lovers) who will no doubt be be peddling their respective Dear Leaders at the school. Something like: “So, you want me to vote for the left-wing socialist authoritarian rather than the right wing fascist authoritarian”?
I absolutely agree. With the Clinton Curtis testimony having been public knowledge now for quite some time, I’m amazed at how many people still think that their vote counts.
TDV had a great image that I wish I could post here, but since I cannot, I will just type it…
Remember, remember
this sixth of November
Your votes fan the embers
of fascist offenders
Both lying pretenders
are bailout defenders
Death-by-drone senders
and liberty enders.
In my opinion… even voting third party offers legitimacy to this corrupt system, because third party candidates are simply not heard and will not get elected.
I’m opting out. This was a great read. I shall pass it along.
I agree with you about there being no reason to vote. Completely rigged. Today when asked by a co-worker if I voted, I told him, “Yes I wrote my own name in on everything, from President to Senator and on down the line.” He laughed and asked, “Really?”. “Yes”, I told him. I explained I knew how better to run my life and affairs than some multimillionaires whom I have never met & have never met me. He laughed again, and then the conversation turned to the price of first-run movies and concessions at the local theaters.
RP was treated with open contempt and disrespect. Ironic, huh? The one candidate who objected to all the violence and meanness… treated the most meanly by the media. RP: A decent man. Perhaps the last decent man who will ever run for the office.
Precisely. And that fact gives a target and a little muscle for voting away from the statist quo that’s offered and expected. Many libertarians are eschewing voting this election, but when did the process become completely unusable? For starters, there are local voting questions. Here in MD, there is a big casino question, which I’ve been approaching from a property rights/Anti-revenue perspective. (In short, I don’t support a casino if I’m prohibited from running a game in my home or business. I don’t like a room that milks the poor to empower the state further through revenue.) So local voting matters.
For national voting, I do agree that the situation is a pretty good combination of stale, inbred, and perhaps even rigged. Still, one can express their political will (however feebly) against the false choices presented. This seems like an impetes to vote in and of itself. Its like being given a rubber gun and told to shoot, while hearing the laughing from the guy that gave it to you. Well, at least you can wing the gun at him.
Those that use the power of the ballot box to take what they have not earned by the sweat of their own brow will have no compunction about dispensing with the rule of law and resorting to violence. In politics as in baseball (at least according to Leo Durocher), “nice guys finish last”.
Every four years, we are offered a choice. We can choose between the party of Money and Power or the party of Power and Money.
Periodically, we get a change of pace – we shift from the fist punching us in the face to the foot that kicks us in the ass for a few years. Nothing will change until enough people figure out that they’re both parts of the same body, and even then it will have to be a change that is beyond the ability of those with money and power to control it.
Barack O’Bangme or Mitt Ram-me – what’s the difference? The US is finished. I’m sort-of hoping for Ram-me because the value of the Dollar will probably be greater. That’s all I give a shit about.
Do you believe that voting would be allowed if it actually made a difference? Remember Stalin’s dictum: not he that votes is what counts, it’s he that COUNTS the vote is what matters.
@MikePizzo–well said. Post-collapse, hell, intra-collapse, this core of liberty-minded folks forming at sites like this will have a Golden Moment when we can explain the REAL problem. :It’s not the retarded left-right false paradigm, kids, it’s collectivism vs. individualism, it’s totalitarianism vs. liberty”
Eric–as frightening as it is, I almost hope for an Obama win. Because if Romney wins, it will be sleepy-time for the conservatives and quasi-libertarians again. That slumbering giant in America’s (World Council of Churches-subverted) churches will go right back deeper into their trances…
…and the Elite Agenda will march forward as it has for 100 years.
Slighly more slowly. They’ve rushed things a bit, and factions in the Elite recognize it; Brezinski pointed it out to them at a CFR meeting a while back.
Will a Romney win give us a little more time to wake people up, albeit with less sense of urgency thus at a lower rate of reaction? Reactions double in speed with every ten degrees of temperature increase–and brother, right now the water is HOT! A Romney term will turn down the heat.
But another Obama term? The machinery of absolute power is in place “legally”. But will they try to use it? Because if they go “hot”, it will be Hell.
I can’t call it. All I can say with confidence is: sooner or later, it will go hot. God help us all.
Well said to all comments,Thank you Peter for another well articulated piece. Nobody is commenting though on how complicent
That the other two branches have contributed to loss of liberty? I mean. Look at all that has ben done, and where were
any libertarian voices in the house, senate, and that thing called “supreme court???Why??-OHHH- That’s why,There isn’t any.
So does it really matter who wears the “Kings”clothes?
For the first time, our opinions are in complete alignment.
I however, see a tiny ray of optimism within the inevitably bleak election results.
Either way, economic and geopolitical disaster loom. The Demopublican facade will be revealed as responsible….and totally inept. It will be replaced.
It is true that such chaotic conditions often lead to the emergence of Hitler type leaders. But it doesn’t necessarily have to go that way.
When the Powers That Be (soon to be the Powers That Were,) get swept away. We may have a brief, golden moment of opportunity to begin to rebuild a free America.
Let us make our plans to seize that opportunity.
“…so also “conservatives” will euphemism, apologize for and otherwise sweep under the rug precisely the same (and worse) deeds when it is their Chimp performing them…”
I used to think the biggest threat in times of economic distress would be gangs and an uprising of the underclass. Then, I realized that the biggest organized crime outfit here in the U.S. is governments at all levels.
I think the biggest — and sole — impediment to the complete takeover of America by militarized government is our armed citizenry.
So, while I wrote in Ron Paul on my absentee ballot (a repeat of my ’08 vote), I hope that Obama wins. That way, the militias and hunters and ‘Constitutionalists’ will remain awake, alert, and armed. Since many of these folks are slavish fans of Fox News, I am afraid that in the case of a Romney win, many of them would mistakenly ‘stand down,’ just as they did during GWB’s presidency.
P.S. — for 25 years, I was one of those right-wingers, and voted for GWB twice. I awakened economically in ’04 and politically in ’07.
It does not matter. If Mittens is chosen by the system, by the powers that be, team right will stand down. If Barry is the chosen one, then team left will stand down. The result is the same, 47% or so of the population stands down.
Remember the antiwar, pro-individual rights team left of the Chimp era? The moment Barry took office spying on americans, searches, gropings, no fly lists, and so forth became acceptable. All the Chimps programs became acceptable. A necessary cost to get what they wanted. Their team in charge.
Meanwhile team R became more libertarian minded in their spew. Something they never did when Chimp was in office. The team out of power is always more libertarian minded in their spew of words. They have to be. Once they become chosen they forget about it. Fast. The public at large accepts it because they can’t remember what happened two days ago. They don’t work from facts, they feel. They feel something is so and thus it is.
The rioting underclass is the power of the government. The FSA, this underclass is there to threaten the middle class, to make the middle class need government. But what does government do? It takes from the middle class and bribes the underclass into serving it.
To retain power the government must keep down and keep mentally captive the middle class. The middle class is always the threat to the ruling class. The lower class is a primary tool in keeping the ruling class’s power.
If the FSA is turned loose then it’s a police state that will make the USSR, East Germany, and North Korean look like little league. The masses will not only demand it, but cheer for it. The ruling class knows it. It just may not know how to put the FSA back into the bottle once the middle class is fully looted.
Er, no. Classically (in both the literal and figurative senses of the term), the middle class is the primary tool in keeping the ruling class’s power. It is “middle” in the sense of being between; it is only U.S. usage that takes it to mean being middle because it is intermediate on the scale of wealth rather than getting intermediate wealth from being intermediate in the power structure, because the U.S.A. simply doesn’t use the classical approaches (there are quite a number of variants in other times and places). The nearest analogue in U.S. practice is probably the fact that its armed forces, like those of other countries, rely on there being an intermediate group – the N.C.O.s.
“The nearest analogue in U.S. practice is probably the fact that its armed forces, like those of other countries, rely on there being an intermediate group – the N.C.O.s.”…
Ummmmm, this is a non-sequitur. Military structure doesn’t apply to the structure of society, or even resemble the structure of any free society. Our vanishing middle class has never had any authority over the FSA types who dominate the underclass.
The middle class is indeed a threat to any elite rule, being independent of means in comparison to the dependent lower classes. A middle class is less easily swayed by the fallacious reasoning and rhetoric of would-be rulers.
BrentP is reasoning correctly. You seem to have lost the thread, and wandered off topic. Try again.
It is not a military structure. The middle class is manipulated into fearing the underclass to empower the ruling class. Ultimately the ruling class seeks to destroy the middle class. The ruling class wants them and everyone else struggling to survive. With no time or wealth to discuss or act towards upsetting the ruling class.
The middle class, especially the upper middle class, people who often are working their way up are the threat to the ruling class. That’s why regulation, taxation, environmentalism, police state action, and so forth targets their upward mobility, their influence, and so forth. To push them back down into the lower classes.
Ever wonder why these ‘tax the rich’ proposals are aimed at people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? It’s about knee-capping upward mobility. It’s not tax the billionaires. It’s tax the guy on the next block over with the bigger house.
Every totalitarian system aims to eliminate the middle class.
It really doesn’t matter. The pres is chosen by electoral college not popular vote…and some of they may “vote their conscience” instead of going with their state’s popular vote. The game is rigged folks, in the words of George Carlin…bohner’s teleprompter proved that, and when we didn’t rise over that, I realised it has to get much worse ere we do. My father came over here from Cork in 1921 to get away from this crap and here we are again…with the same people doing it to us. Hopefully the internet will speed up the process but with as many ppl voting third party I’ve seen on the internet and it not being registered, I’m thinking the bohner option yet again. They run the club and we ain’t in it. Til the club is picked up. They want a controlled one world govt. at all costs. How much will we take until we stop them? Many of us vs. few of them, and we know them by name.
Timothy, it’s a popular misconception that the “popular vote” has no effect and the Electoral College does all the heavy lifting in a national Presidential election; that’s not the case.
The Electoral Collage is made up of House and Senate members. There are 538 members, 435 from Congress, 100 from the Senate and 3 from the District of Columbia.
Electors vote their State in what is generally a winner take all fashion. For example California has 55 electors (2 Senators, the balance Congress-critters). When California’s popular vote is complete, all 55 electors are obligated to vote for whoever won the simple majority of California’s vote. Wyoming has 3 electors (2 Senators and a Congress-critter) who vote together based on the popular vote results in that state.
Although it’s unusual for an Elector to not vote according to the popular vote for their State, it isn’t a rules violation and it has happened in the past. I’d get a real kick out of seeing what Nancy Pelosi would do if California turned Red on her 🙂 That might be a hoot!
Electoral Collage. Now that was a Freudian slip if I’ve ever made one…