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"There's a real question at stake now. Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?" Mr. Voight tells Inside the Beltway.Left-wing bloggers are howling bloody murder over Voight's observative, but have any them -- including Alex Koppelman and Logan Murphy -- bothered to read F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom lately?
"We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true. If we permit Mr. Obama to take over all our industries, if we permit him to raise our taxes to support unconstitutional causes, then we will be in default. This great America will become a paralyzed nation."
Well, I have, and what I see is how by relentlessly pushing for the expansion of government and, just as relentlessly accusing all opponents of mala fides, the Obama administration is bringing us to this all-or-nothing crossroads on that slow road toward totalitarianism that Hayek discerned 65 years ago.
When advocates of limited government try to point this out, of course, the Left immediately screams, "What about Bush?" And who can say them nay?
Every Republican who voted for the Orwellian-named USA Patriot Act, every Republican who voted for No Child Left Behind and Medicare prescription drugs -- every Republican, in other words, who abandoned the limited-government principles of Reagan -- is at fault for having given the Left this opportunity. And I guarantee you, as soon as I publish this, I will be attacked by some Republican who considers it "unrealistic" or "impractical" to criticize, inter alia, NCLB.
Some of these soi-dissant conservatives don't give a damn about how big government is, as long as Republicans are in charge, which tends to make me suspect they view "conservatism" as a convenient synonym for "jobs for the boys."
If the Left's opponents do not resolve to stand firmly on the rock of limited government, they'll never be able to stand at all.
More conservative reaction from Don Surber, No Sheeples Here and Gay Patriot.
This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. I can not tell you how good it feels to hear someone else that I trust and respect as being well-grounded and firmly principled (that would be you, Stacy, I don't know Voight from Adam's cat) saying the same thing - that this is leading us a few steps further on the road to dissolution, collapse, and possibly (God forbid) outright war. It still looks a long way off to me, but at least I don't feel like I'm seeing mirages anymore. Let's get a change (heh) of direction while we can, eh folks? Oyster out.
ReplyDeleteTo claim America will have another civil war, via asking the question as if it's significant or even singular in, not its scope, but its possibility and therefore it's the most precient question to ask now, is kooky. Like me posting, drunk, without an editor (SMITTY - from The Hudsucker Proxy - Damnit, GET IN HERE!).
ReplyDeleteThe answer is no, America will not have other than a figurative civil war at this point in our history. Many of us learned from the last one, including Levon Helm.
To think a percentage of the American public would wage war against the military (aka The Government) is kooky. Or to claim the United States Military will disband soon, each member taking all the loot (weapons) they can with them in order to help their side win a civil war that Obama created, isn't well thought out.
Oh, yeah...well... Voigt was wrong about that treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence,so how can we trust anything else he says...?
ReplyDeleteI love it when you hit the Republican on the head, or was that nail. In some cases it seems they are they same thing. Too many people have been so well educated that all they think about is themselves, and many of those vote Reuplican because they think they can and should manipulate politics purely to their ends.
ReplyDeleteMy situation is such that, if the theory of socialism holds or even if I was simple enough to believe it, socialism is supposed to be my friend. There are many demographic reasons why I "should vote Democrat". Problem is, I have read history, in a serious manner. Ovens await in socialism, or is that just for (if it happens in our future) the rich and such, with the ill just being quietly 'silenced'.
I am independent now because Republicans either will not or cannot do the right thing. If they figure that out, give me a call. If not, I'll have my head in the (not so much sand as) bunker. I do have popcorn and lots of butter there though. And a peephole in case anyone wee-wee'ed off comes my way. *blammm... no more wee-wee... Weee!*
See: 1. "Read that book. Read this book," he says, gesturing toward the nearby table. I see something from Weight Watchers and a Harry Potter paperback—but the governor is referring to the "The Road to Serfdom" by Frederick Hayek and "The 5000 Year Leap" by W. Cleon Skousen. "Read Amity Shlaes's 'The Forgotten Man.' Amity's book is very eye-opening—scary—for me."
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2. Recently, Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio complained that the GOP is "being taken over by Southerners." Mr. Perry responds with a laugh. "He's a piece of work, isn't he? 'You Southerners!'" he points his finger in imitation. The political divide, the governor insists, is between "mushy, middle of the road" Republicans and clear, devoted fiscal and social conservatives, like himself and Sarah Palin.
On that last point, he states emphatically, "I love Sarah Palin, I love her positions, I think she was a good governor. . . . I want her to be engaged in this rebuilding of the Republican Party. . . . She is substantially more the face of this country than some other people who might want to be the face of the Republican Party. To me she's the face of America. I mean she's a hard worker, she didn't come from money, she didn't come from privilege, she just worked hard. . . . I have not seen another person who invigorated the Republican base [like she did] with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan in 1976—the speech he made at the Republican Convention. People were looking around and saying, 'we nominated the wrong dude.'"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574361014098225036.html
Fiscal Conservatism and the Soul of the GOP
The Texas governor on Arnold, Sarah, ObamaCare and the future of his party.
I certainly can say them nay. I'd say, "What about him? He's not in office anymore. Your guys have had the White House since January. They've had Congress since '07. If the best you can come back with is 'You guys do it too!'...you suck."
ReplyDeleteThe Skousen is slightly worrying. Keep in mind Reagan's response to the John Birchers: They accept OUR agenda, not the other way around. I think it's best to be on the OUR side of the equation than the THEY side... although there is a case to be on neither side, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteStace, I lifted this for Libertarian Republican, without your permission. It was too good for me to wait for a response.
ReplyDeletePlease don't sue me.
I don't condone a civil war, not at this point. What Obama did not count on was opposition. He thinks he has a mandate to transform this country into some socialist progressive utopia, with him the farmer leading the flock, and the flock producing for the system. What he doesn't understand is that many of those that voted for him did so as a repudiation against bush and not a mandate to go down this road.
ReplyDeleteSo, while he expected us to rollover, I don't think he knows what quite to do about us not rolling over. How far will he push it, even at the risk of the democrat party in 2010 and his presidency in 2012? Does his agenda mean more than reality? The reality that people do not want socialism? Statism?
Civil war will only happen when he pushes his agenda beyond the political process and uses force of some sort. He will draw first blood.
Trotsky said revolution is impossible until it is inevitable. Something like that.
Bottom line is that most of us don't want what he is selling at any price, and we are starting to see him for the mountebank he is.
"Many of us learned from the last one, including Levon Helm."
ReplyDeleteUmmmmmmm, Anonymous? Not that I want to rain on your parade, but the Civil War was 150 years ago. And most people still haven't learned their lessons from the more recent wars
For example, it took serious problems in Iraq for the professional soldiers to back away from their old doctrine, as developed during the Cold War, and even that took blunt force trauma from senior leaders in some cases. It was not pretty to watch. All of that happened in the past 30 years.
So, the American citizens who are NOT professional soldiers have even LESS of a chance to "learn from history" from 150 years ago.
I wouldn't feel so confident about your "analysis", as it isn't. It's more like wishful thinking.
Don't get me wrong -- I want the believe the same thing. But I wouldn't bet on your post as being the way things will fall out.
"... these soi-dissant conservatives ...." That's it!
ReplyDelete"... I don't know Voight from Adam's cat ...." In the name of all that's gracious, it is later than I think. Don't know Jon Voight, yet! Not even in Heat? And when the day comes, son, it's Jon, not John, at least not usually, and he is an Academy Award winner and father of Angelina Jolie.
@The Right Guy, not to put too fine a point on this -- because your bottom line hits the truth -- but I think early on you give the character too little credit, thinking him ignorant, stupid, surprised, etc. I posit that he knew he would encounter opposition, expected it from the start, because he knew the depth of deformation he intended from the start and that it would not sell if fronted up front. Who, after all, says, "Yes, please come steal my life and then extinguish it, I am a miserable worm, a cracker?"
The race to put it all into place if not law is a tactical and a strategic necessity understood and planned from the start, in his case back in the 1980s.
He knew voters would vote for him just to repudiate President Bush and counted on their doing that. He knew they would not roll over when they discovered what he had in mind. Therefore the rush to get it done, before counterattack can be organized.
And you think he "will" have to draw first blood? Ruined lives, wasted time, worry unto death, arrested attention, elevated blood pressure, loss of jobs and homes, alienation of friends and communities, racial hatreds, dumbing down of children and electorates, siezing private entities, deliberate ruination through spending, grasping one's life in the palm of one's hand is not shed and shedding blood? You looking for red stuff to indicate "first blood?" That is the far effect only. The real blood, the spirit of life, is shed long before the red stuff flows. This guy is running that out in torrents! No need to wait for red stuff, by then it is too late.
The greatest threat to national security facing the country, IMO, at this juncture (besides obesity) is the delusion that this cat is stupid or inept or suprised by developments. He is not. He is cynical, confident, ruthless, violent and aggressive. He wants it all and "tut, were it farther off [he'll] pluck it down."
Nor has be "backed down" in face of opposition. He long has planned to meet and overwhelm that, counting in part on the electorate's delusion that he is young and neither smart nor experienced but has a good heart, in part on the quality and reach of his propaganda directorate and in part on the special powers of the executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, extortion and revenge, which we see on active deployment and will be seeing more.
His agenda does not mean MORE than reality. It IS reality so far as he is concerned, and nothing else matters because he and his associates have long since planned to deal with any possible defensive scenario. So he thinks and so he and they are confident.
If you want to war game this, start from those givens and others like them that you can see.
Your bottom line hits the truth, he IS a mountebank, but that assessment does not square with your former evaluations of his being stupid and surprised by opposition.
Mountebanks know their marks. Field commanders know their enemies. It should be assumed about both that they are as aware as they should be of their situation and making the decisions they should be making to reach their objective. Assumptions less respectful of an enemy are delusional and therefore suicidal.
David:
ReplyDeleteOne, people will suffer all you have said, but most of the time it will take real blood to lead to action.
As far as me not giving him credit, he is stupid or better put, he will be proven stupid if Americans rise up and repudiate him. I'll never count this snake oil salesman out at all, and I will never rest until he is the former president of the united states.
As far as his master plan goes, he and his lackeys will have to do more than they have to shove it down our throats and at such a time, I think the fuse will be lit.
Thanks for the reply.
@The Right Guy, and thanks for yours, I am in the line at your side! :-)
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