PJM Political 6/13/09: Will Soft Despotism Mean Lights Out For The West?
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Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com for a snapshot of Washington — and beyond; this week, featuring a series of author interviews:
- Dr. Helen Smith interviews Toby Young, formerly of Vanity Fair and England’s The Evening Standard, and currently one of the judges on Bravo TV’s Top Chef program. He’s also the author of How To Lose Friends And Alienate People. Dr. Helen asks, “When did men become such weenies?”
- Ed Driscoll speaks with Prof. Robert P. Murphy of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the author of the new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide To the Great Depression.
- Prof. Paul A. Rahe of Hillsdale College discusses his new book, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect. (Sadly, this interview was heavily edited for time. Check the PJM Political homepage for a much more in-depth version.)
- Columnist to the World Mark Steyn explains how soft despotism is very much the law of the land in Canada as far as free speech or the lack thereof, as outlined in his new book, Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West, the follow-up to his best-selling America Alone.
- Produced by Ed Driscoll.
If you missed any recent edition of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives. And tune in to Pajamas Media’s PJTV.com channel for video coverage throughout the week.
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18 Comments
1. PJM Political 6/13/09: Will Soft Despotism Mean Lights Out For The West? | Secolul 21 ~ 21st Century:[...] reading here: PJM Political 6/13/09: Will Soft Despotism Mean Lights Out For The West? This entry is filed under America – Blogs, Pajamas Media. You can follow any responses to this [...]
Jun 13, 2009 - 5:39 am 2. Ed Driscoll » Will Soft Despotism Mean Lights Out For The West?:[...] Tune in here to listen to the show, and click here for my unedited half-hour interview with Paul Rahe. Filed under: Bobos In Paradise, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, Liberal Fascism, The Future and its Enemies, The Return of the Primitive [...]
Jun 13, 2009 - 8:48 am 3. heathermc:the soft despotism of our time: considered over the long term: humans have lived in tribes, ruled by an array of chiefs; we have lived as peasants, ruled by the Man on the Horse; and there was an interegnum, when we were ruled by elected representatives.
Now? This is the time of the Bureaucrat. We have not figured out a way to control a Bureaucracy, or to balance that power with individual or elected representatives. Theoretically, we have elected politicians doing that job. But in FACT, they will not or cannot control the remorseless and increasing power of a Bureaucracy.
China, for example, Back in the day, should have developed an industrial revolution… but did not because it was ruled by bureaucrats (ie, mandarins) who had their own priorities. Canada. The universities have from their beginning pumped out bureaucrats, and today, in Canada, the best jobs are in the various bureaucracies that batten upon a shrinking private sector.
Has anyone anywhere looked at this modern ‘progressive’ reality, and attempted to figure out a way to balance the power of a bureaucracy with another one? Politics is failing as we speak. The courts support regulators and therefore the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats themselves never ever have personal legal responsibility for their mistakes.
Seen from this perspective, of course universities and the media and the elites are ‘left wing’: left wing-ism is supportive of bureaucracy, because that is where the power and wealth lies.
I wonder how we will get out of this hole we are so vigorously digging for ourselves??
Jun 13, 2009 - 2:56 pm 4. William:I’m afraid the only way out of this situation is for a megadisaster to occur which the bureaucrats will be unable to handle and the people will execute a change. Unfortunately, countless lives and desparate living conditions will be the price.
Jun 13, 2009 - 5:24 pm 5. Eowyn:This is probably the last — well, maybe not — encouragement to stockpile food and water.
The only reason I say this is because you WILL NOT get ANY of the stuff I have spent hours and days saving, just because YOU ARE SUDDENLY FACED WITH SHORTAGE.
You should have thought about that long ago. Remember? Those who are less fortunate?
Me, and my guy, are prepared, and you are not.
When you come looking, hungry, scared, etc. — count on your values to feed you. I will not.
Me, and my guy, will help those who want to help themselves, Bible-wise.
But you parasites are on your own. Unless you choose to try and take what we’ve saved by force. And then, you’re history. Flotsam. Courtesy of Smith & Wesson, whomever.
You will NOT take my food by virtue of “YOUR NEED.”
Never.
Jun 13, 2009 - 5:58 pm 6. Eowyn:And, yeah — I’ll watch you starve.
I’ll HELP it happen.
Jun 13, 2009 - 6:28 pm 7. Meryl:5.6.Eowyn….I agree completely with your position and your expression of it.
However, there’s a little wrinkle: you won’t just have to be willing to “watch them starve”.
You will have to be willing to kill the ones who come for your food.
My older brother who probably qualifies as a “survivalist”, very comfortable with hunting, etc. and has had 3 different fully developed careers (including corporate world, Wyoming ranching, and 1 man sailing around the Pacific) said to me 25 years ago when Carter had pushed us to the edge, “If you’re not willing to kill to protect it, there’s no point in having a food stash.”
He decided that he was not willing to kill to protect his food stash.
I’m don’t think I am either.
That doesn’t change my politics or my perspective. Personal decision.
I know what I’m willing to die for and willing to kill for. Protecting my food stash doesn’t show up on either of those short lists.
Jun 13, 2009 - 8:26 pm 8. fred:Really good interviews. All of them. I especially liked Mark Steyn, but he now lives here in New Hampshire and I appreciate the fact that he really believes in our motto, “Live Free or Die,” whereas the burgeoning transplants from neighbor states don’t believe one word of it.
Jun 13, 2009 - 8:28 pm 9. Rashputin:William (4)
You’re an incurable optimist.
Regards
Jun 13, 2009 - 9:15 pm 10. James:Okay Eowyn, I think you’re going a bit batty. Maybe you need to put down your “Return of the King”. You’ll never have an opportunity to smite the Lord of the Nazgul. So stock-pile to your heart’s content, but remember that life is about living, not planning for the never-ending host of disasters to come.
Jun 13, 2009 - 9:22 pm 11. heathermc:“I’m afraid the only way out of this situation is for a megadisaster to occur which the bureaucrats will be unable to handle and the people will execute a change.”
The bureaucrat track record is one of failure, but (and here is the real disaster), not too much of a failure. As Paul Rahe notes, this is a ’soft’ despotism… it leeches away at peoples’ souls. Welfare is the most obvious example of what happens when people stop producing anything but government jobs: note that Gaza has been on welfare for some 3 generations; and then there are Canada’s “First Nations”, whose disintegration would in any other social system cause shame among even the rulers.
But Bureaucrats feel absolutely no shame because there is no individual responsibility felt or honoured within their ranks. Remember that the full horror of the Shoah comes from a not-fully-conscious knowledge that the killers were bureaucrats, with paperwork to fill out during the long days of slaughter.
And here there is the most terrible thing to know about a time of Bureaucracy: the system has no place for morality or kindness or any sort of nobility.
Jun 13, 2009 - 10:08 pm 12. Horace Wells:Eowyn:
Jun 13, 2009 - 10:33 pm 13. Sapwolf:you sound like a real decent humane sort. My worst fears about some sort of mega disasters would be that people of your ilk will probably fare the best.
Mark Steyn would be a dynamite press secretary for President Sarah Palin.
Jun 14, 2009 - 7:13 am 14. Born Conservative:Horace. YOUR “worst” fears..? “your ilk”…. Seriously?
Why is it, folks, that such rhetoric is considered somehow to be intellect? Despotism, soft, or otherwise, is all about a people being coddled (or coaxed/purchased) into ultimate submission. They may demonstrate otherwise, with defensive words of denial. Yet, there it is. Once it’s too late, when nothing can be done…. then they pretend energy for reversal. KNOWING all along that it would prove fruitless. One could say, “you don’t know that’s what is being thought” …. I say “bull”. The number of times I’ve heard people (after the fact, when they think there’d be no reprisal) openly admit how they knew all along what would probably happen.. is countless into practical infinity.
Remember – if it walks like a duck….. (?)
The BIGGEST issue of our time is getting the people to TAKE BACK our own Media. The Express ran right thru our own living rooms during the JFK assassination and went full bore into mind-bending frenzy in the mid-Sixties under LBJ. They haven’t looked back since. One can question: Was Edward R Murrow of the same grouping? It certainly didn’t seem that way. I know this, once he was gone, MSM going into propaganda mode was shifted into 2nd gear and the race for total control was on.
If a FREE people want to keep themselves “free”, they have a true duty to assure that the Information Media (News Orgs, Movies, Television, etc., etc) all have to have FREE PEOPLE in charge. In today’s age, this means we as adults MUST begin the trek back to our Declaration & Constitution words. We must be more interactive with advising our own kids to become freedom soldiers who will ultimately do the leg work that the Lefties did (to us) in the 60’s and 70’s. We must intervene in the Media Sector and inhabit that Industry, in reverse of what it has been since the middle of the last Century. Do any of you have that rapport with your own offspring? It is the only way to assure the march gains solid ground.
Conservatives and Free Thinkers HAVE TO STOP this mentality of “what they’re not going to do”.
I can literally ferret out a closet Leftist with very little conversation. They tend to sneer and smear; and they are all about “what they’re NOT going to do” …. you know, the old: It’s not my job, someone else should be doing that, mantra.
Another way to tell a true conservative from a liberal is to check their social behavior.
Ask yourselves: What is it that Liberals and Hollywood have in common?
Answer: Getting past High School
(this means the social habits they learn in those 4 years)
Humans are two things: Greedy & Lazy – and it’s very hard to get past this. FREEDOM has a way of erradicating these facts. That, and a real faith in the Christian Concepts this Country was founded on, to begin with.
Remember – if they need to sneer….? Who are you talking to?
Jun 14, 2009 - 7:13 am 15. Macko:I agree with born conservative. We have to call out the media to put an end to the bias. A well informed (factually informed) public is the only way to save this country. Too many people get their education from TV and the movies. How many times did you hear people quote something from michael moores mocumentaries. The liberal bias in the tv serials manifests itself in the viewers.
Hollywood and tv demonized Sen. McCarthy’s unamerican activities committee for going after actors and writers and although some innocents may have been ruined I believe McCarthy could see how the media could be used to promote political change. Just look at the MSM accomplishment sitting in the whitehouse.
Jun 14, 2009 - 9:02 am 16. Oxbay:Eowyn, et. al., there is an excellent series of books referred to as the Emberverse series by S. M. Stirling. These dystopian adventures flesh out what might occur if what Eowyn sketched came to pass. It won’t be pretty folks. But the books are great.
Jun 14, 2009 - 7:03 pm 17. Steynian 364 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] ON THE AIR: WILL SOFT DESPOTISM MEAN LIGHTS OUT FOR THE WEST? Mark and Paul Rahe talk to Ed Driscoll on Sirius [...]
Jun 16, 2009 - 7:24 pm 18. hangnail:#5&6 EOWYN: You dwell in areality that few comprehend! Oh that more were like you. Sadly, America is past her power curve, never to return to her heights of greatness. It’s time to lock & load. Remember, it doesn’t matter if you win or loose. What really counts is how many you take with you. Happy hunting & may you dwell in a (TRE) target rich environment!
Jun 17, 2009 - 7:14 am