161 Comments

1. Brock:

It’s only “Fire at Will” if you have a target. Otherwise it’s just noise and fury signifying nothing. Obama can’t return fire in kind because John McCain doesn’t hang out with Stormfront admins or Pat Buchanan.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:38 am 2. Lifeofthemind:

Obama’s dragging out the Keating 5 scandal will have three effects:
1. Really energize McCain to beat Obama publicly.
2. Expose the long term Democratic culture of corruption.
3. Really piss off everyone, especially in Ohio, who admires John Glenn.

This may prove to be a classic shot in the foot. Democrats used the Home Mortgage Industry for decades as a piggy bank. Twenty years ago Dennis Deconcini a Democrat and Senior Senator from Arizona brought along the Junior Senator to a meeting. Here is the money passage from the wiki on “Keating Five” and yes I know it is the unreliable wiki:

DeConcini began the meeting by saying, “We wanted to meet with you because we have determined that potential actions of yours could injure a constituent.”[13] McCain said, “One of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion. ACC [American Continental Corporation] is a big employer and important to the local economy. I wouldn’t want any special favors for them…. I don’t want any part of our conversation to be improper.” Glenn said, “To be blunt, you should charge them or get off their backs,” while DeConcini said, “What’s wrong with this if they’re willing to clean up their act? … It’s very unusual for us to have a company that could be put out of business by its regulators.”[7] The regulators then revealed that Lincoln was under criminal investigation on a variety of serious charges, at which point McCain severed all relations with Keating.[7] Glenn continued to help Keating after that revelation, by setting up a meeting with then-House Majority Leader Jim Wright, which turned out to be the only questionable thing Glenn did throughout the whole affair.[14]

So three corrupt Democrats self destruct for a felonious mortgage broker. On the way they try to drag in one clueless but respectable old Democrat and one Republican. The former sends the crook to talk to another politician and the Republican walks out of the trap and devotes the next 19 years to fighting the corruption. The Democrats learn nothing and repeat the entire exercise on a vastly larger scale.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:28 am 3. outa my league:

“It’s the stupidity, stupid.”

That, plus the nefarious scandles.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:32 am 4. outa my league:

Uh oh, stupid is as stupid does. Make that scandals.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:37 am 5. Right Wing Nut House » AYERS-OBAMA: THE VOTERS DON’T CARE:

[...] long can that go on? From Richard Fernandez’s site, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing in the Telegraph: During the past week, we have tipped over the [...]

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:46 am 6. j:

Fuld didn’t deserve that treatment. He screwed up through giant miscalculation but he doesn’t merit a violent oaf attacking him.

As far as the Dems go….They just continue to blame the GOP and because the Prez is so unpopular it registers with the people helped along with decent media cover for the Dems.

Here’s my humble opinion. The dems are ignoring one suitcase nuke in their midst which is the extremely low popularity of the congress. They will miscalculate even further if they get an increased majority which is basically a punishment to the GOP. Add hubris and increased confidence going into 2010 and the Dems could be totally trounced in the future election.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:47 am 7. Tamquam Leo Rugiens:

Many years ago I visited my sister who at that time still had a husband, four kids, 3 dogs (a Pekingese dam and two pups) and 22 cats (she was raising Persians). As we were sitting around the table chatting the elder boy, Little J, noticed that it was time for his favorite cartoon. So he jumped up, ran to the living room where he came to a halt before getting to the TV. “Look what the dog did!” he caroled. One of the pups had dropped a doggie bomb in front of the TV.

What followed next was amazing. Little J came back to the table and the whole family went insane. For the next 20 minutes (by the clock, I kept looking around for the cameras) they passed the blame hot potato. “It’s his fault!” “It’s her fault!” “It’s your fault!” Until they achieved unanimity minus one: with one, sing-song voice, “It’s Little J’s fault!” In the face of this united front he took it on, his head fell, his shoulders slumped and he was silent. As if he had wrung the dog out on the spot.

It wasn’t until blame was assigned that Little J’s Dad, Big J, got up to clean up the mess.

The natural tendency of humans is, when things don’t turn out as expected, to blame somebody. The life lesson for me was Blame And Responsibility Cannot Exist At The Same Place At The Same Time.

What we have here is a lot bigger than a doggie bomb, and the circling finger of blame will be the more frenzied because of it. Hopefully there are some adults in the room to stop the cycle of blame and evasion, take stock of the situation, roll up their sleeves and get about the business of cleaning up the mess. To be sure there are such, largely unknown and ignored. Don’t look to the MSM to find and highlight these people and their efforts. They too are complicit in the crisis we face, besides which, blame sells more papers.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:49 am 8. wretchard:

My sense is that there is a lot of energy out there that is looking for direction. It gets directed or misdirected in various ways. Guys get punched. People commit suicide. Journalists panic. And so on. Barack Obama can ride this wave of panic and energy into the White House. And so far he’s been better at harnessing hostility and anger than John McCain, who was given a golden opportunity to run against Congress but has so far been unwilling to get off the the statesman platform. This may stem from McCain’s desire to bring the country through the crisis in bipartisan shape. Obama, on the other hand, is aiming I think to be the Last Man Standing.

But events are pushing McCain into scorched earth territory. Maybe he now realizes that whatever happens there is no going back to the old order. Whether Washington is turned into ACORN central or the place simply falls apart in a big barroom brawl is yet to be determined by events. But I suspect that everyone — the politicians, the big media people, the old movers and shakers — they are headed for a smash. Some will survive, but the game will have changed. And the first order of the day is survive. There will be no prizes for second place.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:57 am 9. outa my league:

LOTHM,

I’m glad you posted the “money passage” on the Keating Five, as the details had gotten kind of murky for me.

The NYT will typically act as “safety valve” for Obama, leading in their story with a vague reference to the “non-role” played by Senator McCain at the time, and thus seeming to discredit the Obama version of the Keating Five story.

And in the remaining paragraphs, the NYT will manage to cast doubt upon and discredit their own “headline” thesis, and manage to slip in and twist the knife on McCain and the Republicans.

This is precisely how NYT “managed” the Obama-Ayers association story, although in reverse (at first seeming to verify McCain’s allegations, but then dismissing them) and manifests classic Pravda/CBS disinformation technique.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:09 am 10. hdgreene:

How do you get out of a death spiral? You take your hands off the controls.

I read one time of a pilot whose plane went into a death spiral — impossible to get out of, it was thought at the time. So he managed to bail out (tough enough to survive). His chute deploys and while he’s floating down he sees a plane flying towards him to check him out. Turns out it’s his plane and no one is flying it. It flies past him and into the side of the mountain.

Being crazy, the guy goes up and puts another plane in a death spiral and does the toughest thing imaginable — doesn’t touch the controls, but instead watches them. But the plane rights itself enough for him to take control.

Turns out you can’t fly your way out of the situation because you are always reacting late to what has already occurred — and your “control actions” actually reinforce the “chaos” of the decent.

So, to get out of the death spiral you should not try to take control. Instead, you move the control surfaces into a certain relationship to the direction of the spiral and keep them there until the “death spiral” stops.

So, who’s piloting this mess. Barney Frank?

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:16 am 11. Joe Buzz:

Yes, Barak will ride this wave of panic. The blame Bush meme has spread to the financial meltdown. “If he had dumped the money he spent on his illegal war into the financial problems we would still be living large.” Bad timing for the Republicans. Not enough time left to convince voters of the fact that Frank and Dodd blocked sub prime lending reform.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:27 am 12. gerryg:

wretchard: Your words are brilliantly chilling. As a victim of a guilt-ridden German upbringing, I am haunted by Gotterdammerung ghosts that will cleanse culture, purging all failures and guilt and sin. So I look forward to the coming political conflagration: I feel like Slim Pickens riding the bomb down to ground zero, yodeling wildly into the unknown.

Nothing will be the same – it’s about time!

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:33 am 13. Nomenklatura:

Obama’s response to McCain’s fire is a naval one, deployed when the enemy’s shots look likely to hit home: ‘make smoke’.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:35 am 14. Michael Hoskins:

See Spengler in today’s Atimes. He hits the nail, hard, often and dead center.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:59 am 15. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e36v2:

[...] (global) Fear and loathing? [...]

Oct 7, 2008 - 6:00 am 16. programmer:

I purchase gas last night. It was under $3.00 a gallon. The CEO of the company that I am currently engaged with (based in Houston), just stated that they were able to arrange funding with federal and local lending institutions to help rebuild after the devastation of the recent hurricane and are strongly committed to expanding the current system. Another firm that I develop for is rolling out a new marketing program based on high tech solutions to low tech problems. Business is fine. Credit is being extended. People are working. The dollar is increasing in value with respect to world currencies. But when I stick my head up above the sheltering hills of home and local business, I suffer cognitive dissonance. Is this the same world? So I sit back down and keep on programming.

As far as the anger and hate that is spiraling out of control, I sometimes think that the Code Duello should be reinstated. It might perhaps nudge us towards a more civil discourse. If a reporter or journalist knew that they might have to face an irate citizen across a duelling field, perhaps they would exercise more restraint in their spinning of the narrative.

The Wikipedia entry for Code Duello states in part:

…A morally-acceptable duel would start with the challenger issuing a traditional, public, personal grievance, based on an insult, directly to the single person who offended the challenger.

The challenged person had the choice of a public apology or other restitution, or choosing the weapons for the duel. The challenger would then propose a place for the “field of honour”. The challenged man had to either accept the site or propose an alternative. The location had to be a place where the opponents could duel without being arrested. It was common for the constables to set aside such places and times and spread the information, so “honest people can avoid unpatrolled places.”

At the field of honor, each side would bring a doctor and seconds. The seconds would try to reconcile the parties by acting as go-betweens to attempt to settle the dispute with an apology or restitution. If reconciliation succeeded, all parties considered the dispute to be honorably settled, and went home…

Seems reasonable to me.

Oct 7, 2008 - 6:28 am 17. NahnCee:

Are we gonna start pressing charges against the law-breakers? The finaglers, the thieves, the punchers-in-the-face? Seems to me we should.

Oct 7, 2008 - 6:31 am 18. Zim:

Steve Forbes called Jim Cramer “crazy” this morning. Forbes said you can’t time the market you just have to ride the tiger to its end. I agree with Forbes, there is no place in the market for hysterics right now.

I told my wife last night that in all the ways I imagined my life turning out, I never thought it would be living on a farm worrying over generators, water well pumps, canned goods and ammo.

Oct 7, 2008 - 6:47 am 19. Lifeofthemind:

James Hacker: When the chips are down, are you with me?

Bernard Wooley: Minister, it is my job to see to it that the chips stay up.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:04 am 20. Talnik:

Everyone is panicking = buying opportunity!!

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:14 am 21. Charles:

CNN Throws Obama Overboard on Ayers
This is from Anderson Cooper 360, but you might swear that you were listening to Rush Limbaugh tear Obama to shreds for flat out lying about his connection with Ayers. You are gonna love this.
http://patriotroom.com/?p=2858

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:16 am 22. Charles:

Fed to buy massive amounts of short-term debt
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081007/financial_meltdown.html?.&.pf=banking-budgeting

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:19 am 23. bobal:

Kenya has ‘detained’ Corsi, before a news conference.

This should scare the hell out of any thinking person.

Look to your guns.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:23 am 24. bobal:

Habu, what do you make of this, detaining Corsi?

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:28 am 25. Lifeofthemind:

The Clinton News Network moves.
The meeting between the Clintonistas and the Obamaniacs must have been fun.

I want the popcorn concession.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:36 am 26. starling:

That “Barackbook” page is a hoot.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:39 am 27. Mark:

You may remember the James Surowiecki book ‘Wisdom of Crowds,’ which asks why large groups of people are smarter than an elite few in solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, predicting the future, etc.

But the culture seems to be in a place—and has been in the past two elections—wherein the crowds are split 50-50.

It will be interesting to see whether the election breaks one way or another and whether the electoral decision does indeed express a certain kind of wisdom.

Every tragedy involves the audience in an experience of terror and pity and, ideally, a purging of these emotions and a resulting resolution/recognition/insight. Perhaps only the market can accomplish the purging of the body politic that the body seems to need. Only the market possesses what the ancients would call the might of the gods.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:41 am 28. RattlerGator:

Michael Hoskins, thanks for that great prompt to check out Spengler.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:45 am 29. ridgerunner:

Zim,
Cramer is crazy, but Forbes is wrong about timing the market. I do it every day.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:52 am 30. Staring In Disbelief:

Can anyone give me the link to this “Spengler” fella. Not on my list and I’m too busy to Google right now.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:15 am 31. Patriot Front:

I don’t think The Old Man can get too complicated now. What decides elections at this point can be written on the back of a stamp:

Bush = Sucks
Bush = Republican
Things suck now
Vote Democrat.

OR:

Obama = Weird
Obama = Taxes
Obama = Liberal
Vote McCain

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:32 am 32. Konyok:

Mark,

It is precisely those kinds of notions that brought me over here to the conservative *dark side.* The government should maintain order and let the people do their own thing.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:35 am 33. RWE:

It is interesting to see how the concept of Blame has evolved.

The Left simultaneously promoted the “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” philosophy, all joined in fellowship singing atop that hill, and also focused very heavily on Blame. But the Blame always, always had to go 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Criminals were the result of Society’s errors. Blame had to assigned on the basis of broader principles rather than actual evidence, and in both large and small ways.

Several years ago DNA analysis proved that a man had not sired a child whom he has been assigned to provide for in a paternity suit some years before. The court ruled that he would have to go ahead and provide child support because “somebody has to do it.” Some man was to Blame and he was the designated stuckee.

20 years before an outrage occurred at a university. The institution had to admit that a man who had been rejected for medical school years before would have been accepted had he been black. Upon his belated acceptance to the school, black protestors marched up and down carrying signs decrying this outrage. He was the designated stuckee and had somehow skated out of it.

The Designated Stuckee has been identified and per the Leftist tradition it is 180 degrees away from the real perpetrators. If I were McCain I would be asking myself if I wished to pull down the temple, do as much damage to the opposition as possible, so that even if they win it will be Phyrric. This is exactly what the Left has been doing for years, deliberately magnifying non-crimes to ensure that real ones are mixed up in that indistinguishable mass that breed so much national cynicism. Bill Ayres becomes the equivalent of Scooter Libbey in the national unconsciousness.

So do we now play by those rules? I say let’s try it.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:57 am 34. wretchard:

The Spengler link is here. He tries to explain why, in the midst of the global crisis, money is fleeing into the US from Europe and much of Asia.

What does America have that Asia doesn’t have? The answer is, Sarah Palin – not Sarah Palin the vice presidential candidate, but Sarah Palin the “hockey mom” turned small-town mayor and reforming Alaska governor. All the PhDs and MBAs in the world can’t make a capital market work, but ordinary people like Sarah Palin can. Laws depend on the will of the people to enforce them. It is the initiative of ordinary people that makes America’s political system the world’s most reliable.

America is the heir to a long tradition of Anglo-Saxon law that began with jury trial and the Magna Carta and continued through the English Revolution of the 17th century and the American Revolution of the 18th. Ordinary people like Palin are the bearers of this tradition.

In other words, Spengler is arguing that the world is intuitively trusting the American people to do what their own cultures can’t: reject despotism, reject doctrinaire ideology; reject snake oil. And if that — to the readers of this site at least — suggests rejecting the One, it also means rejecting what Jay Cost called the “Party of Banking”: the business-as-usual Republicans. It’s a pretty touching faith, and I’m unsure whether a population sedated with political correctness can muster the energy or acuity any more, but there it is: America even in its crisis represents the “last best hope” against storm beating on the windows of the world. BTW, the “windows on the world” was the name of a restaurant on the top floors of the World Trade Center.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:01 am 35. Charles:

The Banned SNL Skit Of Bush,Pelosi Press Conference–

http://patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:03 am 36. Dave:

I think that Charles Krauthammer put things into perspective when he proposed the return of the auto da fe. “Flames are so telegenic, you know.”

There is a darned good practical reason for that biblical passage which reads; “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord”. Seeking vengeance precludes one from practicing astute self-defense.

And our worst enemy now is envy. People who do not want to take care of themselves but wish to make others as poor as they currently are. I hear some of that almost every day.
Some of it is simple emotionalism, but some of it also reflects how the speaker always sees things.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:07 am 37. Eggplant:

Hdgreene said:

“Being crazy, the guy goes up and puts another plane in a death spiral and does the toughest thing imaginable — doesn’t touch the controls, but instead watches them. But the plane rights itself enough for him to take control.”

Sounds like the aircraft was well designed, i.e. statically stable.

Years ago, I was taking some flight instruction and the aircraft was bouncing all over the place. I complained to my instructor that the air was really rough. My instructor replied, “take your hands off the stick”. I did so and the aircraft immediately became dead still. My instructor commented that this was an example of “pilot induced turbulence” (I had the impression that this is a common mistake with novice pilots).

McCain and the Republican Party are airing the Messiah’s dirty laundry at about the right time. It takes about 1-2 weeks for new information to work past the MSM barrier. The general public has a memory span of about 2 weeks. McCain needs to keep flowing new scandal through the MSM from now until the election. He should make his main pitch in about a week.

Tonights debate will be very important. It’s in a format that McCain is good at. Both McCain and the Messiah will have their shills planted in the audience asking canned questions. The Messiah is more vulnerable to this mode of attack than McCain (should be interesting).

Of course, if the stock market goes into free-fall, this is all academic and the Messiah wins by default.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:44 am 38. NahnCee:

Interesting post on Pajamas Media this morning about European anti-Americanism, and how it’s getting worse in the face of the money crisis both there and here:

“The credit crunch has made bashing the United States de rigeur again on the continent.”

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/financial-crisis-sparks-anti-american-fervor-in-europe/

Somehow I just can’t get too worked up over hatred of Europe for America. After all, it’s not America that has the arsonist Muslim youth. It’s not America that’s dependent upon Russian gas / oil. And it’s not America that’s got a declining birth rate AND a burgeoning immigration rate.

I just hope that in the face of Europe’s hatred we can pull troops and other expensive toys out of there and focus on the folks who do like us and work to deserve our friendship.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:47 am 39. Ex-fetus:

“Add hubris and increased confidence going into 2010 and the Dems could be totally trounced in the future election.”

Assuming there are future elections. Just because America has always changed leaders by election is NO reason to think that America will Always change leaders through elections. One of life’s little tricks is that things always continue…. until they don’t. Very little warning most of the time.
America changes leaders by ballot because that is what the Constitution requires. America IS the Constitution. People ignore the constitution all the time for personal gain. The generic term is ‘criminal’. When a wanna-be President ‘wins’ election by ignoring the Constitutional requirements to hold office, he is a criminal. When you have a criminal sitting in the Oval office, there is no more Constitution and therefore no more America.
When you add in the distinct geographical nature of the Red, Blue divide and the absence of ANY attempt to compromise by either party, then you have the explosive mixture necessary to see a civil war.
I AM NOT advocating a civil war, I am just pointing out that the conditions are ripe for one. More ripe then they have been since 1860.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:32 am 40. Storm-Rider:

“And our worst enemy now is envy. People who do not want to take care of themselves but wish to make others as poor as they currently are. I hear some of that almost every day.”

“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln

“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:38 am 41. Pascal:

Wretchard, Konyok.

I’m relieved to see that envy is now being discussed by others here. Now, if only the GOP starts to make the case that the earlier attempts to appease the envious — by those who feared their threats — brought us here. Brought us to where exactly? Brought us to where those who are envious of power have threatened riots should Obama fail in his grasping at it.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:53 am 42. Konyok:

Ex-fetus,

Those are exactly the same kinds of arguments that the moonbats used against “selected, not elected” George Bush.

Hmmmm ……

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:54 am 43. Pascal:

That should read – by those who feared their threats or exploited it –.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:56 am 44. Pascal:

Life;

Thanks for putting that 4:28 am together. Let me know if you put together more. I suspect efforts like yours may help me greatly to counter MisInfo with some family and neighbors.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:07 am 45. Pascal:

Wretchard @ 4:57am Maybe he now realizes that whatever happens there is no going back to the old order.

That will take seeing for it to be believed.

How many ways has the “progressive” wing of the GOP (with Bush at the top) and its backers helped prop up “the loyal opposition” Democrats over the last eight years? After all, the Dems can be counted on to push for government growth which conservatives.

I how I like your reference to “the old order.” With it you imply that McCain has done his part. So how about the following to condense the thought which follows from that.

How much of a Maverick has McCain been? Or if he truly was, then how much had he succumb to reverse psychology into pushing some really bone-headed legislation like McCain-Feingold McCain-Lieberman and McCain-Kennedy?

It seems to me the best answer is “We cannot be sure. But we can be sure that Obama would be much worse.”

That is one helluva situation to be in. Some will say it is a familiar one since Joe Six-pack over the last twenty years has always been driven to vote against rather than for some candidate.

Hence I’ve arrived at a meaning for this thread. Tora Tora Tora so it becomes clear who to vote against.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:37 am 46. buddy larsen:

second Pascal on that –thanks, LotM –helpful & EZ-to-use vital info.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:37 am 47. Pascal:

Oops again. Add the bracketed items to the second paragraph in my previous note.

After all, the Dems can be counted on to push for government growth (desired by backers of the “progressive” GOP) which conservatives [in their own party will try to block and use to attempt to regain control of the GOP].

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:40 am 48. RWE:

Relative to capital flowing toward the U.S dollar, brings to mind a cartoon I saw at SAC HQ back around 1980.

It showed a group of cartoon figures and one with Colonel’s eagles on his shoulders standing up and saying “We need a plan.”

The responses from the other figures ranged from “Why?” to “No we don’t!” to “When’s lunch?”

Then in the next frame a huge dragon came over the horizon, wearing four stars, and said “We need a plan.” And all the other cartoon figures responded with “Of course we do!” and “And about time, too!”

Pres. Bush said “We need a plan” and while few agreed on the plan they all knew we needed one, and in remarkably short order by DC standards one was devised, however flawed. It is not at all clear that the other places around the world have figured out they need a plan, or even if there is a dragon that can loom over the horizon to direct that one be developed.

Also, Rush Limbaugh said something insightful the other day. He pointed out that while Obama likes to decry how America has fallen down in the eyes of the world, how must the rest of the world look at the U.S. when it sold them bad securities based on the sexual desires of Barney Frank and the racist urgings of Maxine Waters? Nigerian oil found money opportunities must look pretty good to some overseas now.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:46 am 49. mika2k1:

A true multi-party proportionally representative democracy is the only thing that will cure this gamed system. There also need to be a radical devolution of federal powers.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:48 am 50. Benj:

@K – Keep thinking re that Dark Side. It’s showing up regularly at the Club, no? And isn’t Wretch’s suggestion that it’s Mac who’s refused to ride the anger pretty silly – He picked the pit bull w/ lipstick. I’m guessing you’ve heard re the audience responses to Palin’s recent speeches – “Kill Him” – “Terrorist” – and that lovely shout-out to the black journo – “Sit down boy!” – Of course it’s just one-offs. Most folks (on either side) aren’t mad. Still…

If you were to go to an Obama (or Biden) rally again, do you think you’d run into such Extremes. Might find find some snottiness and mucho beamishness and mebbe some creepy triumphalism, but brutalism ain’t encouraged by the hope-monger. Something – maybe even a LOT – to be said for playing it cool in interesting times…

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:53 am 51. Pascal:

mika, parliamentary governments tend to produce even more social programs. The gamed system comes from a lack of frank discussion on how top down the GOP has been run. Exposed to light it would have been tougher to pull off for it surely would have condensed opposition to it.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:56 am 52. mika2k1:

mika, parliamentary governments tend to produce even more social programs.
==

That’s false and simply not true.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:57 am 53. Pascal:

Egad. Europe is all parliamentary. Israel couldn’t be more socialistic and still functioning.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:59 am 54. mika2k1:

Israel couldn’t be more socialistic and still functioning.
==

Your info is highly outdated.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:02 pm 55. Pascal:

You imply that Israel and EU are now moving away from the mistake that *I think* their parliamentary system led them too. Okay, let’s forget that part and look at how the GOP was gamed and the Dems propped up by it.

That is the essence of the old order.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:06 pm 56. buddy larsen:

–beg to differ, Mika –Israel COULD be more socialist, and was, very much so, before Finance Minister Nethanyu’s major reform movement took over.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:15 pm 57. mika2k1:

Okay, let’s forget that part and look at how the GOP was gamed and the Dems propped up by it.
==

Corruption. The oligarchs own the two parties, which in turn own the political system. Any third party political competition is simply chocked off. My contention, the problem is brought about and exacerbated by the American political structure because it offers no natural defense against such machinations.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:16 pm 58. mika2k1:

choked off

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:18 pm 59. mika2k1:

Buddy,

Israel was basically a communist country in it’s infancy. The state was selling state owned industries already at the time of Begin. Before Bibi came along. And even when Bibi came along, that is already how many years ago?

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:22 pm 60. mika2k1:

its infancy

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:22 pm 61. Storm-Rider:

My ideas for fixing the Old Order:

1. Enforce the tenth amendment by breaking up all entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security into fifty state programs. Also make the Department of Education an advisory agency only – ban all state matching grants – let the states and the people educate their children without the socialist federal state.

2. Amend our Constitution with term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court, and provide Congress with 2/3 override power for all Supreme Court decisions – same Congressional power over Presidential veotes.

3. Cease federal funding of the ACLU and similar organizations.

4. Consider non-voting citizen status for those citizens who do not pay taxes.

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas Jefferson

“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.” Thomas Jefferson

“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.” –Thomas Jefferson

“A nation ceases to be republican…when the will of the majority ceases to be the law.” –Thomas Jefferson

“The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.” Thomas Jefferson

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” Thomas Jefferson

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:28 pm 62. Pascal:

Corruption increases with government size; which surely must be a corollary to Lord Acton’s conclusions on power.

The oligarchs also fund MinInfo with their ads which is key to supporting the party of failures and to undermining any conservative remaining in the other party. One of those parties needs to dissolve as did the Whigs so that a new one can arise. Perot showed it could that there is a following and that it could be pulled it off until he personally flashed yellow in July 1992.

And remember: every penny spent on ads at “Information Control” keeps it alive to war against all opposition to the old order.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:29 pm 63. Pascal:

Perot showed that there is a following for a new party, and that it might succeed. That is until he personally flashed yellow in July 1992. We need leaders but not one who IS the party.

And remember: every penny spent on ads at “Information Control” keeps it alive to war against all opposition to the old order.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:34 pm 64. Pascal:

Storm; your point four, all by itself, would demolish the Party of Failures.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:36 pm 65. Jay:

There is a LOT of hate among the far Left in the Dem party. The woman friend of one of my good friends here was knocked down by a group of O’s supporters at a Dem caucus. She is a Hillary supporter and was objecting to the way the Hillary ballots were getting trashed.
Plus there was a racial aspect to that event. She is white and the bullies were black.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:38 pm 66. peterike:

Benj: If you were to go to an Obama (or Biden) rally again, do you think you’d run into such Extremes. Might find find some snottiness and mucho beamishness and mebbe some creepy triumphalism, but brutalism ain’t encouraged by the hope-monger.

My goodness but that’s hilarious. Try walking into an Obama rally with a McCain button on, see how that goes.

Benj Benj Benj, your guy never won a single election honestly. He stole every one, including the primaries against Hillary with massive fraud in the caucuses (check out the video clips on wewillnotbesilenced2008.com and then come back and tell me how “above it” his most regal oneness is). And he’s busily working on stealing this one, with millions in illegal contributions and a posse of operatives ready to make a million dead people vote.

Obama is a cheap, two-bit punk with a slick tongue and a record of zero accomplishment, other than rather ruthlessly getting elected to higher office based on nothing at all. What a very modern thing he is.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:40 pm 67. Konyok:

Benj,

I sadly acknowledge the truth of what you say. I fear that BDS and ODS are merely symptoms of the same pathology.

However, I don’t need to go to an Obama/Biden rally to see the same. The back and forth on my local paper’s forum has become indigestible. Today’s bon mot is how John McCain’s treason in Hanoi (signing the confession under torture) is predicate of his thievery with the Keating 5. Increasingly, I’m seeing comments calling for re-education camps for conservatives. (Provocation? Perhaps, but the syntax convinces me.)

It’s all over the place. Everybody is nervous and scared.

(I put a couple of responses to you on the Crossed Paths thread … )

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:59 pm 68. Konyok:

mika,

You fundamentally misunderstand the American political system.

In theory, and sometimes in practice, power flows up from below. The elected representative is responsible to the constituents and has to run for office as an individual. (Hence the salience of Habu’s desire for an expanded Congress.)

In a proportional system the voter merely selects the desired party list and the parties distribute the seats between themselves according to the proportion of votes each receives. Yet another opportunity for corruption and back room deals.

I have seen the utter paralysis that proportional representation produces in Ukraine and Mexico.

Quite the contrary, we need more Sarah Palins and more federalism.

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:08 pm 69. Pascal:

Konyok +1

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:25 pm 70. Pascal:

your second, not your first since I don’t recall feeding any plants lately.

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:27 pm 71. mika2k1:

Konyok,

You rather vote for personality, and I’d rather vote for policy. A likable crook is still a crook. That’s what you got, a government full of crooks. They lie about who they are, what they represent, and who they represent.

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:30 pm 72. Pascal:

mika;

Policy doesn’t spring from the brow of Zeus. Other sources remain problematic.

Were every pusher of legislation hooked up to ulterior motive machine there would have to be a Diogenes panel to weigh who registered the smallest wiggle on the meters.

It is not personality which should rule us — you can thank our MinInfo for making it appear that is all there is anymore — but character.

And remember: every penny spent on ads at “Information Control” keeps it alive to war against all opposition to the old order.

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:45 pm 73. someone:

Storm Rider I am with you but “4. Consider non-voting citizen status for those citizens who do not pay taxes.” is flawed.

I know what you’re trying to achieve and I agree with your intention. #4 will not work. Those not on the tax rolls now could simply be taxed $1. Instead, you need a property requirement for your idea to work.

I think it is less likely that someone in congress would grant someone property. They could easily grant a $1 tax and defeat your goal.

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:47 pm 74. Storm-Rider:

Someone,
Make rule number 4 non-voting status in federal elections for those citizens who pay less than x% in federal tax; same for state level elections. I would say 10% is a good number.

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:51 pm 75. mika2k1:

Policy doesn’t spring from the brow of Zeus. Other sources remain problematic.
==

Policy is what your party says it is. The public has a wide menu of choices. There’s no incentive to lie. But if a party breaks with policy, coalition partners break away and a parliamentary vote of “no confidence” ensues. If a grand conspiracy is in play and the public is deceived by a coalition of parties, there’s always another ready party to assume leadership as the crooks are voted out, their parties decimated.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:08 pm 76. cedarford:

Michael Hoskins:
See Spengler in today’s Atimes. He hits the nail, hard, often and dead center.

It is a tribute to Richard Fernandez that a couple of years ago, rumors were all over that the man running The Belmont Club WAS the shadowy Spengler..

=========================
Storm-Rider – Good suggestions, but keep in mind that America appears to be in complete political gridlock, with 60,000 professional lobbyists and 80,000 lawyers representing the Parties and special interest groups richly paid to block significant structural change demanded by the people.

The Constitution is Un-Amendable in the face of any organized political opposition. The last significant change in the face of opposition was in 1962, eliminating state poll taxes.

Besides Storm-Riders Constitutional changes, lets say we also desperately need a Presidential line item veto, and a Presidential succession plan if DC is nuked such that some surviving nutball like Maxine Waters or Ron Paul does not declare themselves the automatic Speaker, thus the new President…Or God help us, if, as been the case for 27 years with Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd, and Ted Stevens as the President Pro Tems – the 4th in line for sucession – the oldest Senator of the majority Party, got the Presidency.

Unfortunately, I don’t see anyway the USA can fundamentally reform and return power back to The People and away from the lawyers and Ruling Elites that set up the laws in bckrooms and courts that negated The People – without going to the one higher power than law. That would be Revolution – led by the military in a time of National Emergency. Not some cluster of Left-Wing armed terrorists or Rightwing militia types..

Only force can trump law and the control over all laws now by an unaccountable Ruling Elite. Only that will enable fundamental Constitutional fixes.

It would suck, because it would signal that the Republic and it’s institutions – which worked so well so long for The People – ultimately failed. And had to be fixed by Revolutionary means – then returned. But it had to be done twice before..when England’s Glorious Revolution and Triumph of Reason…was not enough, then with the Civil War that also used force and authoritarianism to repair some initial great flaws in the Constitution and Multi-Culti dispensations that had festered for 80 years.

Jefferson suggested that sporadic Revolutions were indispensible to “nourish with blood, the tree of liberty.” He planned, and HOPED, that the American Revolution would only be remembered as the 1st American Revolution. We have had two real revolutions. And 4 quasi-Revolutions where the country became authoritarian and the threat of force was held out to intimidate. Jacksonian Democracy, counter-Reconstructionism, The New Deal, finally the Civil Rights Era.

We need another one.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:12 pm 77. mika2k1:

Cedarford, you do realize that Jefferson is a Joo, and that all this talk of “revolution” and “government of the people for the people” is nothing but a Jooish commie propaganda against Jooish capitalists pigs.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:33 pm 78. slade:

Gingrich tried with his Contract with America. That failure left a vacuum where admission was free – accountability, responsibility, integrity, patriotism, knowledge, belief – not required.

Enter Obama stage left.

Nobody saw that coming either.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:35 pm 79. Konyok:

mika,

The less obvious part of a US legislator is constituent services. If a citizen has a dispute with a government agency, she can call her congressperson, who, if the grievance has merit, will apply pressure on her behalf. (Nothing clears the mind of a beaurocrat like a call from Congress.) Because the representatives have to stand for election as individuals, their reputation among constituents is all important to them. (This is also the basis of pork … )

Representatives in a proportional parliamentary system have no motivation to help their constituents, indeed, they was a disincentive because what they fear above all is the wrath of their party leaders. They don’t make waves.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:36 pm 80. mika2k1:

Konyok,

That’s a role delegated to the Presidnt and the Inspector General. At any rate, these types of complaints are mostly handled on a local municipal/regional level, not the federal.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:44 pm 81. OmegaPaladin:

Storm-Rider,

I can see why the tax idea looks good to you. It disenfranchises those who disagree with you. People who don’t make a certain amount of money are screwed. Lose your job? Lose your vote. I’ve been trying to get a full-time job for months. Why the hell should I lose the vote because I don’t make enough to pay taxes? Stay at home moms also lose the franchise.

Someone,
The property qualification is even more insane. Like we need more incentives for people to own houses they cannot afford. It makes more sense for people to rent at lower income levels and in large cities. Apparently, those people don’t deserve to vote.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:46 pm 82. Habu:

With regard to tonight’s debate and the Obama dump the Republicans are doing now. Personally I hope it works.

However, weeks ago when I heard the words from the TV that “John McCain has suspended his campaign” my visceral reaction was, well he’s lost the election. I do not know who advised that move or if it was maverick producing a maverick patty but it killed his momentum and I believe it was a dumb move because of one word that attracted my attention beyond the reason why…SUSPENDED…it was the word that jerked my head around and caused me to say “WTF?” The reason wasn’t sufficient to warrant the drama of that one word.

It was McCain’s Michael Dukakis debate moment when asked about his wife getting raped. It killed his campaign…..McCain is gonna need some darn powerful juju to retrieve his position

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:51 pm 83. whiskey:

Wretchard — the problem goes deeper.

Since 1945, the political consensus in the West has been to buy social peace domestically by the Welfare State. Using American money if none else was available to prop up the Welfare state.

That money has now run out.

In a long, deep, global Depression, neither Europe nor America can afford the Welfare State. Yet, electorally, nearly all governments depend on this network of patronage.

What are Muslims going to do in Europe with no Welfare? The inner urban core in America? How will Affirmative Action in the US and Europe work if there is a desperate effort by the overwhelmingly White working/middle class to fight for whatever jobs are available? How will soft-on-crime policies work when people can no longer flee bad areas? How will importing even MORE poor migrants with alien cultures work when everyone in the White majority is moving downwards in the socio-economic classes?

That is known, btw, as a pre-revolutionary condition: good times, rising expectations, followed by widespread downward living conditions and status.

Already, in Austria, the Neo-Nazis were elected to stop Islamization and control Welfare Spending for a swath of non-Austrian immigrants. In Italy, the Camorra in the South and the Lega Nord in the North, followed by elements of the Catholic Church, are filling governmental gaps or prompting the government to act.

The feminine nanny state — incapable of restraining violent thugs but focused on imprisoning middle class people for “racism” or not filling their wheelie bins with the correct garbage, is failing. Failing because there is not enough money to go around.

The post-War system of the Welfare state is dead — like the USSR in 1989, it ran out of money.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:54 pm 84. Konyok:

mika,

What Inspector General? This isn’t a Gogol novel, my friend

The US is a country of 300 million people, it’s impossible for the White House to process SO many various requests and complaints, and virtually zero motivation. On the other hand, a congressperson has about 600,000 constituents, so there are fewer requests per office. If a citizen is having trouble receiving Social Security benefits, or the US Forest Service is taking too much water from a stream running onto a citizen’s property, or the IRS is seizing his property for a contested tax claim, or the Immigration Service has refused his fiancee’s visa, or any of hundreds of such disputes, the citizen’s congressperson is the person to go to if the inspector general of the federal agency doesn’t help. Most congresspersons have two or three staff people who work on these issues full-time.

It helps that the representative owes his seat to the people and not to the party.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:08 pm 85. Habu:

cedarford,

I know you realize that one hundred well trained insurrectos could take this country down in a week. Simply taking down the power grid would cause chaos, panic, rioting, and certainly no guided revolution but rather a decent into anarchy.

With the number of trained mercenaries in this country that operation could be put together in a week. Do you think out of ten thousand mercenaries you could find one hundred who would participate? And what if their leadership makes a deal with Mexico to give then the US Southwest? Many will read this and think it impossible. Good luck.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:14 pm 86. mika2k1:

What Inspector General? This isn’t a Gogol novel, my friend
==

Konyok, as I said, there are many and varied mechanisms to handle these kinds of disputes. I hope your objection to multi-party proportionally representative democracy doesn’t wholly rely on this esoteric complaint. Cause that would make you look rather silly.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:23 pm 87. Doug:

ot
Federal Judge Orders Release of 17 Chinese Muslims –

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:27 pm 88. sigintel:

CFIT…controlled flight into terrain. The government agencies, congress, Clinton and Bush plus the armies of lawyers and lobbyists who populate K Street have successfully flown a working Republic with the worlds most powerful economic engine into a mountain while reading the instruments and holding the controls. We now will have to rely on State and local government to effectuate governance based on trust. Somebody once said that “all politics is local” Wall Street and Washington have lost the people trust and we the people deserve what we get…we put them in office, we loved the mortgage interest deductions, the business incentives (buy a Hummer and get a $50,000 tax deduction). Will the Republic that we love fail? Perhaps. Economically, the situation will stabilize only when the government lets the market bleed and the bad businesses fail…its Darwinian now folks, and the strongest will survive and the weak enslaved.

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:32 pm 89. Storm-Rider:

OmegaPaladin: “I can see why the tax idea looks good to you. It disenfranchises those who disagree with you. People who don’t make a certain amount of money are screwed. Lose your job? Lose your vote.”

This would provide another incentive to be creative and to work for a living; not only do you get a paycheck, you also get to vote. As it stands the socialist welfare state suppresses creativity from those it unjustly taxes and those who it unjustly benefits. People should want to work, pay taxes and vote – formula for American liberty.

Limit the welfare state for those with disabling medical conditions; and temproary – say six months – support for the able-bodied unemployed.

What we have now is becoming the enemy of human creativity and the enemy of human liberty.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:04 pm 90. RWE:

In case y’all have not heard, Barney Frank has announced that attempts by White People to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac constituted a racist plot against blacks.

Sure am glad he cleared that up.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:09 pm 91. cedarford:

mika2k1:
Cedarford, you do realize that Jefferson is a Joo, and that all this talk of “revolution” and “government of the people for the people” is nothing but a Jooish commie propaganda against Jooish capitalists pigs.

Mika –
Rather than seek to antagonize majorities with endless insults, perhaps Jews should devote more of their time to winning friends and influencing people – rather than grasping for disproportionate wealth and power by any means necessary and sticking your noses in everyone else’s business and trying to force them to Jewish Progressives, or Neocon’s, will.

Saying Jefferson or MLK or Lincoln were Joooos tends to piss others off.

A quick refresher of Dale Carnagie’s book might not be a bad idea as the culpable from Wall Street are brought to public hearing after hearing on who wrecked the global economy and who led others to ruin while getting rich themselves. As you know, and should fear, a disproportionate number of the culpable will be not be mainstream Christians ..same as in other great Wall Street scandals – or the financial meltdowns in Europe that hit in the 19th and early 20th Century..

Best to work on the charm and the “deep, deep sorrow” act rather than arrive at those Hearings and blame the average American for being stupid, backward, and bigoted…

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:13 pm 92. mika2k1:

Rather than seek to antagonize majorities with endless insults
==

What majority are you?

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:20 pm 93. Tarnsman:

Habu, I think the US Army and especially the USMC would have a few things to say about your scenario. There is a reason not all our armed forces are overseas. Then you have all the ex-military cilivians, not to mention most of the population of rural America with their guns. Order would be restored in short order and a can of serious whoop ass would be opened on Mexico. In the first Mexican-American War we allowed them to keep their country, minus some real estate. The second time around…..

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:22 pm 94. Konyok:

No, Mika.

This point is merely an example of the relationship between directly elected representatives and their constituents that does not exist with party appointed representatives.

I works for us.

We don’t like metric, either …

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:24 pm 95. Konyok:

One hundred?

Jeez, why didn’t we just send those guys to take down Saddam and save ourselves a lot of time and trouble.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:27 pm 96. Habu:

Tarnsman,
WARNING: I believe Wrethcard has blocked me from his site unless there was simply a glitch. When I come to the site in the regular fashion I am bocked at the “Smell the Coffee” thread. This thread and all subsequent threads do not appear. I don’t know if it’s man made of if he has decided he no longer wants my input.

Tarnsman,
I have no doubt most would not want my scenario. I don’t want my scenario ,I’m simply pointing out that it is possible.

If the cabal of actors would be covert, use human couriers , just like OBL and at the appointed time simple execute taking down the grid, other things simply cascade from their as they filter back into the population or head south, perhaps to the waiting arms of Hugo Chavez.
Now you’re correct in the first Mex-Am War we allowed them to keep their country but a few things have changed. They will have Hugo, they will have every LA and other Mex-Am gang on their side and as I said the objective isn’t a takeove, the objective is to create chaos and weaken the US. We are, after all, becoming very low hanging fruit. Heck half the population wants Obama to be President and more socialism ,not less. If you include the LA gangs, who will assault the jails to free there compadres and the gunstores to arms themselves even more you’ve goy chaos brother, big time.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:40 pm 97. fred:

I’m not one of those people who one could say that I would anoint President Bush for sainthood. But he simply does not deserve to blamed for any of this. The vitriol and hatred for this man even exceeds my recollection of the hatred shown towards Richard Nixon. Overwhelmingly, it is not deserved. Perhaps the one thing I would severely criticize George Bush for is the fact that he would not publicly take on his critics. He let the wolves circle for most of the eight years of his presidency, and now the wolfpack is in for the kill.

I am ashamed of my country and most of its citizens, that they would succumb to the venal stupidity of scapegoating when they truly do not know the real nuts and bolts of why the housing bubble, energy prices, and the sub prime mortgage market are driving the economy into recession.

That they would freely choose to put a socialist into the office that George Bush now occupies is mindbending. That they would opt to surrender to our enemies and be happy with defeat simply beggars belief. I only hope that our people are not so stupid that they will not learn from the next four years. If they don’t, this country is pretty much finished as a great one with a unique heritage. It will be over. Finis.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:41 pm 98. Aristide:

Judge Urbina was appointed to the United States District Court in July 1994 (Clinton).

This is the judge that just ordered the release of the 17 Chinese Muslim from Gitmo.

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:54 pm 99. mika2k1:

Cedarford,

I’m a little puzzled. Which Jews should seek to be friends with which group?

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:57 pm 100. mika2k1:

We don’t like metric, either
==

@#$% So now you’re on Cedarford’s side?!

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:59 pm 101. Habu:

Mr. Fernandez,

Are you blocking my access to your site?

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:59 pm 102. Alexis:

It would not surprise me if the present economic crisis were engineered by George Soros as an “October Surprise” to help get Senator Obama elected to the Presidency.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:03 pm 103. Zim:

The US is not New Orleans, many of us can take care of ourselves and our own for a long time without “the grid” and not fall into anarchy.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:04 pm 104. Habu:

cedarford

There is little use in posing anything to mika. He’s hard wired to be obnoxious and ill mannered. I find it best simply to ignore him, but I will say it is easy to say and hard to do when he continues to issue insult after insult .

He craves attention and his method usually get’s him what he wants.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:06 pm 105. Habu:

Zim,

How many can do that? We live in a country where everything runs off of electricity. People in hospital would quicly die. Since ou store use computers to track inventory any market would immediately be looted and not restocked for days. No 911. No water, No sewage treatment. What would happen in a city like LA without power for three or four days? Think the bad hombres will just sit back or will it be Christmas in the suburbs taking what they want?

We can’t even stop drugs by the ton or illegals by the truckload.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:13 pm 106. Konyok:

I just finished peeling and seeding half a bushel of truly fine roasted chiles poblanos. Soon I’ll be enjoying some nice chiles rellenos in walnut sauce with pomegranate seeds, accompanied by a tasty Georgian seperavi rose, as I await my orders from the commandatura Bolivariana ….

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:18 pm 107. Konyok:

fred,

Let that little donkey get in front of the cart, OK? Don’t be ashamed of our people, the fat lady ain’t sung yet.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:21 pm 108. Habu:

Konyok:
One hundred?
Jeez, why didn’t we just send those guys to take down Saddam and save ourselves a lot of time and trouble.
***************

We sent tens of thousands who were former military spec ops, The Olive Group, Blackwater to Iraq. I could name a hundred outfits. They’re out of Iraq for the most part but they still have skills for hire.

Several years ago the NE US ecperienced a blackout resulting from some defective part. The balckout lasted, I beleieve, more than a day and there were no bad guys with a plan to create chaos.

So think what a simple plan with national grid down implications would have. Grid goes down. Four guys in a boat with c4 blow up a refinery and an offshore rig. Hell, a zodiac with some Muslin crazies almost sunk the USS Cole. A few burning tracktor trailer trucks blocking the 405 at vital spots in LA and I guarantee gridlock.

Yeah, a hundred well trained guys coud do it, just say’n.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:26 pm 109. Konyok:

Habu,

I didn’t at first understand your initial post, I thought that you were ADVOCATING such black ops.

It got me to thinking on a tangent. I think that maybe a part of the public’s disenchantment with OIF stems from an unrealistic expectation of special ops capabilities. (They seen it in the movies, dontcha know … )

It’s a hard job and I salute those that keep us safe.

As to this present notion, I agree. We are terribly vulnerable. All it took was 19 guys with box cutters to reduce us to jelly the last time.
That said, we have our ears on now and it would be real tricky for coordinate 100 foreign nationals for a wide spread, complex operations. Forget the gang bangers, they’re, well gang bangers …

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:34 pm 110. Konyok:

mika,

Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks.
It’s the American way, mate!

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:37 pm 111. wretchard:

Habu,

When emotions are running high the posts get a little forceful. I have to moderate the site and know I will offend people. My only defense is I do so very sparingly. All I can claim is good faith and hope for your patience and understanding.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:52 pm 112. Doug:

Olbermann’s Special Comment Scorches Palin for Slandering Obama

Olbermann argues that words = bombs, and 2 appearances by a preacher = Obama’s 20 years w/Wright.

Oct 7, 2008 - 6:51 pm 113. mika2k1:

Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks.
==

Konyok,

Resistance is futile. To the metrics you’ll be assimilated.

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:44 pm 114. Habu:

wretchard

Was that a yes or no? If you are barring me could you point out the offending post?

Oct 7, 2008 - 7:51 pm 115. Habu:

W,
You hope for my patience and understanding, yet there was no example of my putative forcefullness. I would also point out that without citing what I have done it makes your decision look capricious.
I assure you, you have many other choices to make.
Understanding and patient? That sir is risible when you hold all the cards, shuffle the deck,deal them, and then without allowing the player to look at his hand declare it a loser and banish him for bad play.

Is that the act of a wise man?

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:12 pm 116. peterike:

Debate over. Obama blood-free. McCain over.

After they make Benj the “Minister of Internet Freedom” I don’t think Belmont will be around much longer. Enjoy it now guys!

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:30 pm 117. JFSanders:

Alexis gets the gold star!

And as for the EOTWAWKI scenarios. All I got to say is: A country boy can survive. All he needs is what Obama says we cling to. Guns and Religion.

Remember Victory gardens?

Oh and if we as a country were smart we would write in Ron Paul. Just to piss em off.

Jim

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:32 pm 118. Habu:

W,

Finally allow me to apologize for what I’m supposed to be apologizing for, whatever it was.
It was not my purpose to do whatever it was I did and I will marshal my patience and understanding in reflecting upon that which I should have patience for and understanding about.
In doing so I hope you will find a way to forgive me and allow me to continuing contributing to the full spectrum of your excellent blog. I fully believe your blog is diverse enough to handle a Habu.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:41 pm 119. Habu:

I too believe that we as a nation would prevail in a terrorist attack. I am personally very happy that we have Homeland Security people gaming these things, but as Democrats, Republicans and Independents say. We have to be right 100% of the time; they only have to get it right once.

So everyone should know that these scenarios are right out of the big book of bad guys and dolls and are not advocacy for them, just a bit of what was known as consciousness raising in the 1960’s. We must remain vigilant.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:52 pm 120. Habu:

Konyok:
I truly appreciate you seeing my post in the light I intended it to be in. Apparently my writing and communication skills could use some work.

Yes, we are still very vulnerable and will remain so until the twelfth of never. I think it is important for the average citizen to give matters such as how will I get drinking water, and how much food do we have, and how the heck do we get out of here more than just casual thought.

We don’t want to take any more casualties than we have to. All the experts say it will happen again. For seven years our front line has done a hugely tremendous job. I’m willing to bet my favorite sneakers that we don’t know of the hundreds of attempts that have been made, and stopped. And if they need to listen in on my phone calls to protect our country I’ll let one of ‘em move in and answer the phone.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:17 pm 121. buckets:

As long as we’re talking about changing voting requirements, let’s talk Robert A. Heinlein and “Starship Troopers.” (the novel, not the worthless movie)

I don’t mean to point out minor gaps in Wretchard et al.’s encyclopedic knowledge, but I am always looking for a discussion about Heinlein and his ideas about citizenship. For those BCers who haven’t read “Starship Troopers,” Heinlein proposes a system of government where the franchise is limited to those who have, in some way or another, served their nation. While this usually means military service, an individual who couldn’t cut it in the military may still prove their dedication to community over self and earn the right to vote and run for office.

I’ve put some serious thought into this, and I have never come up with a better way of ensuring a better voter and a better class of politician. Heinlein is dismissed as a fascist, but really was a free-speech loving libertarian with ideas way ahead of his time.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:18 pm 122. Ben Franklin:

I think what we are seeing now is the natural result of a whole generation coming of age who have never known want and who have never been through difficult economic times. The last real disastrous presidency was Carter’s. If a person doesn’t become politically aware until they are twenty or so then there are a LOT of people out there who have no memory of what happens when you have a leftwing government in power. They are so busy thinking up ways to spend other people’s money on non-starters like sub-prime loans and solar panels that they can’t conceive of the fact that resources are finite and the market isn’t robust enough a vessel to sail on forever no matter how many barnacles they attach to its hull.

These same people have also never had any forceful advocates or role models on the right to look up to like a Reagan and they have been programmed by the media 24/7 to look to the government for the solutions to all of their problems. They have no concept of liberty or of a free market. They are not educated in the basics of the economic and social theories on which their country is founded even though many have advanced degrees from supposedly prestigious institutions. How could such bad things happen to THEM! They are Ivy Leaguers who hold all of the fashionable views. Shouldn’t that be enough to protect them from want?

We are going to have to learn a whole lot of lessons all over again the hard way. If we are lucky, we will avoid the type of market interference that caused and extended the Great Depression. If we are not, we will end up with socialized healthcare, with the government buying everyone’s mortgages and with our children forced into Obama’s involuntary servitude program of community service. All of this in a never ending and fruitless attempt to right the last domino that fell by pushing three more over.

There is currently NO ONE of any stature or with any power advocating for freedom from the tyranny that is coming. McCain might nominate better judges but can anyone truthfully say he will be better on any of the economic issues?

The last thing I would add is this. Obama is going to regret ever running for president if he wins. He has accomplished nothing and stood for nothing his entire life. He fails to vote on many issues and even doesn’t require his committee to meet. He is lazy and effete and entitled just like the generation that produced him (my generation). The people whom he surrounds himself with, and receives advice from, are of uniformly low intellect and character and he will fail when pressed because deep down he is… nothing.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:30 pm 123. fred:

Habu,

I have zero confidence in President Obama to defend us or our allies. He has nothing but contempt for the military and for the warrior mentality. I consider him a worthless, narcissistic personality-disordered individual whose good fortune it was to be running for office right at the time that the American people have devolved into dumbasses.

I know Konyok will bring me up short on my prediction of the election outcome. Yes, a miracle could still happen, but it would seem the sheeple tonight gravitate towards the one with faux gravitas. McCain did not perform especially well even though I thought he was more substantive than Obama. But at this point if McCain could not deliver a knockout blow, given him being behind in the polls and falling back in just about all the battleground states, it doesn’t look good.

My greatest concern, Konyok, is Obama’s statements that he wants ballistic missile defense gone. And McCain won’t challenge him on that. Obama has a very strange grasp of the world. Even when I was a Leftist I had no illusions about there being bad actors and state sponsors of terrorism – and this was back in the late seventies and on through the eighties. I was often at loggerheads with other Leftists about Palestinian terrorism unleashed on Israel (I defended the Jews and the others defended the terrorists). These people really don’t get it, probably because of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thinking.

I have a couple of friends who live here in NH but work for companies based in Ohio and Michigan. Those states are economic basket cases because they do all the wrong things when it comes to economic development. AND THEY DON’T SEEM TO GET IT! And now they are going for more tax increasing and spending, thinking that’s how you get out of the economic doldrums. ARE THESE PEOPLE IDIOTS?

Every country AND EVERY STATE WITHIN THIS COUNTRY where socialism has been tried, it’s been a failure. But the dolts keep thinking that it will work if only we get the right people doing it…

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:36 pm 124. NahnCee:

Habu, if you don’t like the way Wretchard runs his blog, I’m pretty sure the door’s open and you could leave. He’s not being paid for it, he owes you diddley-squat personally, and your harassing guilt trips are ungraceful.

Man up and shut up … or leave.

(I’m noticing these little tantrums seem to happen in the shank of the evening, and I’m wondering if they are fueled by substances other than moonbeams. If so, too bad, so sad … but still ungracious.)

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:44 pm 125. Dave:

Buckets: “Shines the name, Shines the name”.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:52 pm 126. peterike:

What Ben Franklin said. Out-standing.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:16 pm 127. Dave:

Buckets:

Anything about this Obama character that reminds you of “Nehemiah Scudder”?

Seems to me somebody thinks we should all be required to shout OBAMAHU AKBAR! five times a day.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:20 pm 128. Dave:

Fred: Underlying things are those who want socialism not in spite of its failures
but because of those failures.

This is the identical mentality to demanding an end to Ballistic Missle Defense because it would work.

It is also identical to worshipping a failed society at the behest of a sock puppet deity.

Am I saying that the Obama base wants the terrorists to win because they themselves would be doomed? I am.

It is the gotterdamerung they seek. Any theological works along this line?

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:28 pm 129. Habu:

NahnCee,

Perhaps you can enlighten me on my initial offense?

I fully realise the blog is his, the door opens and he doesn’t owe me diddley-squat. It is simply a curiosity that I committed an error of which I have no knowledge. If I am to change my behavior wouldn’t it be reasonable for me to know which particular behavior needs mending? I am a human and I make errors of judgement and emotion but that leaves a very broad field when I would hope my shortcomings measure under a dozen. But even then, which dozen?

You mentioned harassing guilt trips. OK . In what manner have I done so? I do not believe for example that I have assumed the role of W and invited a contributor to leave the site as you are now doing. It is what you’re doing ,and I am sure he is capable of handling the job. Did he assign you as his spokesperson? If not you are usurping his power and prerogative.

If I have been ungracious that is an egregious offense and one not to be admired. I say truthfully that I rarely intentionally try to be a meany. Am I sharp tongued on occasion, absolutely.
Also Nahncee, I do not drink, smoke dope, snort coke or have any of what are commonly referred to as vices.

I will ignore the man up or shut up for I don’t think that is the real you. I have found you a delight to read.

Now I would expect not to be able to access this site at all in the future and be left to guess at my offense. Such is life. Good health to all.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:29 pm 130. Dave:

Ben Franklin: Outstanding paper sir.

I presume that Amos helped you with it.
But I won’t tell anybody. I’ll be quiet
as a mouse.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:33 pm 131. Bob Murphy:

@Habu
I’m with NahnCee on this one.
A lot of your entries have substance and intelligence behind them but others are vitriolic and you gratuitously bait the guy that provides the playpen and some fine grist for the mill.
You’re not paying him. He is not an employee. This playpen is his playpen, not yours.
I think his input has been utterly benign.
He puts up with a lot more than I would.
Benj is the only one who has been more abusive of Wretchard’s hospitality than you.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:36 pm 132. Dave:

Final post for the PM:

One piece of good news. Historically, Las Vegas NV has voted Democrat but not by enough margins to overcome the rest of the state.

That was expected to change, dramatically. However, the FBI just raided the LV ACORN offices and hauled off an impressive load
of phony voter registrations, etc.

Guess our 5 electoral votes are not so wrapped up after all. Looks as though some civic-minded citizens got the ball rolling with their own efforts. Well done

Final post for this PM: One piece of good news. FBI raided the Las Vegas NV office of ACORN and hauled off an impressive load of phony voter registrations etc.

Historically, LV votes Democrat but not by enough margins to offset the rest of the state. This year, it was expected that the LV margins would increase dramatically.

Not necessarily so now. Looks like some civic-minded citizens got the ball rolling on this one. Well done!

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:42 pm 133. cedarford:

Habu – as Democrats, Republicans and Independents say. We have to be right 100% of the time; they only have to get it right once.

Habu, I’m sorry, but since every US government official down to a local cop calling him or herself a “anti-terror hero” started spouting that brainless phrase off in 2003, I am continually awestruck at the arrogance and the vapidity and the dishonest appeal of “perfect safety” as possible with “perfect heroes” like Dubya keeping us all safe. Otherwise, they also said “The terrorists will have won!”

It’s a stupid slogan. We are at war with an intelligent, adaptive foe. They are pretty good at killing people. We will likely have minor to medium civilian casualties, and we are losing our ability to borrow 80-170 billion a year just to save a small number of lives when we need the funds put elsewhere after 8 years of Bush II disaster.

We are not perfect 100% of the time. Certainly not the DC idiots of the last 8 years, the local “1st Responder” or hero cop out banging some housewife.
We lose soldiers every day to them and likely will lose more civilians. It’s war.

The origin of the original phrase was by the IRA Provo terrorists. They were wrong. They were lucky several times and British soldiers and cops were less than perfect and hundreds of “precious” civilians died…The Provos lost the war. The criteria for victory and defeat was not “being lucky once”.

From the Belfast Telegraph It has become one of the great clichés of the presidential election, yet nobody seems to know that they are quoting the IRA.

It’s a phrase the American public has heard so many times this year it’s like an election year mantra.

It comes from the IRA’s Brighton bombing statement 20 years ago this month, in which it lamented not killing Margaret Thatcher.

“Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.”

The phrase re-emerged on a huge scale after 9/11, as terrorism experts were drafted in to conference after conference to explain why America needed to be better prepared for terrorist attack.

It was gradually picked up by the Bush administration and spread across the political spectrum, President Bush used it in the first debate with John Kerry, when advocated a renewal of the Patriot Act:

“The enemy only has to get lucky once, we must be right 100% of the time,” he said, paraphrasing the IRA’s spokesman, P O’Neill.

It is also a favourite of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who used it many, many times this year. In February 2005, he admitted he had no idea where it came from.

“This is a poor quote from somebody, and I forgot who said it, but somebody once said that “a defender has to be right every time, and an attacker, a terrorist, only has to be lucky once in a while.”

Of course we know how Bush II and his dear amigo Rummy fared on the matter of being “right, 100% of the time”.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:43 pm 134. trangbang68:

Agreed on Ben Franklin’s comments. I guess I’m turning into the Rock n’ Roll reference library
but I couldn’t help thinking about the line from Quicksilver Messenger Service song, “Whatcha gonna do about me?” …”I feel like a stranger in the land where I was born…”
I really do,different mindset than what I’ve known. I was sitting in a VA clinic in Tucson today and two old couples, one at least WW2 age, the other maybe Korea or Viet Nam commenting about voting for Obama. I’m thinking if McCain can’t get that group who can he get?
Probably going to get pretty interesting. I can’t say I read it in detail but Habu’s 100 man scenario is nice Brad Thor or Vince Flynn fodder, but we’ll be living under martial law before something like that really shakes down.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:47 pm 135. Habu:

Fred,

I fear it is our fate to suffer an Obama Presidency. The calamity that awaits us is the Congress in tow and the Supreme Court distorted into a law MAKING body.

But can we fault Obama? He reached for the brass ring and through a series of good fortunes, lies, obfucations, and probably totally illegal acts is going to control this nation.

It is an historical irony of the first order that after defeating on the battlefields of WWII the type of person Obama is and the philosophy he represents that we are going to suffer under a socialist, when socialism has proved a failure everywhere when compared with our republic.

Mr. McCain looked feeble tonight. The Hanoi Hilton’s shadow hung heavy in his movement and Obama, to many , looked like the future.

Fred it’s been good sharing ideas with you but I believe I’m a dead duck around here come sunrise..fight the good fight and stay healthy.
Best,
Habu

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:50 pm 136. Alexis:

Benj:

I think there was a major shift in tenor at the Belmont Club between the morning of September 27 and September 29.

Richard Fernandez made the mistake of creating an open thread asking who won the Obama-McCain debate. It was a mistake because it triggered a deluge of Obama supporters who flooded this forum with some particularly divisive remarks. If the enthusiasm shown by Obama supporters on that debate thread is any indication of what is happening throughout our nation, the very enthusiasm of this year’s political campaign is doing long-term damage to our social fabric.

One Obama supporter (Sickofit) wrote:

I am disgusted by the way this country is going and it will never change sadly until all the christians, support our troops and other foreign war fanatics, and tax cut for the rich people are DEAD.

Another Obama supporter named K.L. Deas-Reay had this to say:

DOWN WITH ALL THE IGNORANT WHITE CARNIVAL TRASH..

(K.L. Deas-Reay resides in Rock Hill, South Carolina and also referred to Hillary Clinton’s campaign as “Clinton klux Clan” at the Boston Globe earlier this year.)

As regrettable as many polarizing statements made by some posters at the Belmont Club may be, let’s not whitewash the nastiness of statements made here by Obama supporters. Perhaps they took Senator Obama’s call for them to “get into their faces” a bit too far. The Belmont Club feels different after September 29, quite different. It feels as though there’s more of a siege mentality on this site that hadn’t been here before, and much of the blame goes to the rage of certain Obama supporters.

I’ve got news for you. There are bigots who oppose Barack Obama. Here’s some more news. There are bigots who support Barack Obama. I tend the bigots on each side tend to cancel each other out. Unfortunately, there appears to be a recent fashion emerging in the last year to use the word “bigot” with a meaning that doesn’t correspond to any known meaning in the dictionary, namely using the word “bigot” to refer to any and all people who oppose the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Let’s hope the word “bigot” doesn’t become a code word for a victim of a future witch hunt analogous to the word “Communist” in the era of Joseph McCarthy.

I think the open thread of September 27 put people at the Belmont Club on notice. Add to that the very symbolism of the Obama logo with a rising sun that looks curiously like an eye looking right back at us, and the effect has not been to win hearts and minds.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:57 pm 137. Habu:

Bob Murphy:

Well Bob you and Nahncee give sound and fury a great name.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:02 pm 138. Eggplant:

Fred said:

“I’m not one of those people who one could say that I would anoint President Bush for sainthood. But he simply does not deserve to blamed for any of this. The vitriol and hatred for this man even exceeds my recollection of the hatred shown towards Richard Nixon. Overwhelmingly, it is not deserved.”

I agree

“I am ashamed of my country and most of its citizens, that they would succumb to the venal stupidity of scapegoating when they truly do not know the real nuts and bolts of why the housing bubble, energy prices, and the sub prime mortgage market are driving the economy into recession.”

Too true…

“That they would freely choose to put a socialist into the office that George Bush now occupies is mindbending. That they would opt to surrender to our enemies and be happy with defeat simply beggars belief.”

Yeah, a socialist is going to fix our economy. Tell me another one…

“I only hope that our people are not so stupid that they will not learn from the next four years.”

The media made them that stupid. When it serves the MSM’s interests, they’ll do it again. This election was John McCain versus the MSM. The MSM won.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:05 pm 139. Alexis:

Barack Obama endorsed Richard Daley in the 2007 election for Mayor of Chicago. Why? If “change” truly means something different from politics as usual, wouldn’t Barack Obama be challenging the Chicago machine? Does Barack Obama’s endorsement of Richard Daley imply that he plans to use Chicago machine politics as the principal model for how he plans to conduct himself as the President of the United States?

Given how the Obama campaign itself talks about how the past is prologue, the question of how much the cultural norms of Chicago politics have affected Barack Obama is a legitimate question to ask. It is also a legitimate question to ask about what effects that Chicago’s political culture might have on America’s national politics and its international relations during an Obama presidency.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:16 pm 140. whiskey:

Cedarford still does not get it.

Pakistani, and Iranian, and to a lesser extent North Korean nukes change everything.

What is NYC worth? Around 3-10 million people (depending on the type of nuke, follow-on attacks, etc.)

For that, one needs everything. Cops on the beat, and deterrence abroad based on a variety of military forces. Not just to generals and presidents, but tribal peoples. Who hold the keys to nukes. Nuclear proliferation = gravest danger to America in generations. Since deterrence is much, much harder.

Cedarford would save a few hundred billion and lose NYC. And or DC.

But what the heck, unicorns and rainbows will protect us. From hard men used to killing to advance, who now have nukes.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:16 pm 141. Alexis:

In my post to Benj about “bigots”, that was, “I think the bigots on each side tend to cancel each other out.”

Yes, I am capable of making mistakes. Ooops.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:19 pm 142. Pascal:

Alexis; don’t let it bother you. I think I did that 3 times on this thread. Whatever the shortcomings of the two BC blogspot sites, they had preview and the ability to erase a comment when errors got past the preview. Maybe sometime soon PJs media will deign to offer that here.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:51 pm 143. whiskey:

Alexis — Obama’s coalition, white yuppies who hate white working class, the hip/cool people, are not very numerous and don’t demand much in the way of direct money. They do demand things (Global Warming) that are very, very expensive.

Blacks are going to demand reparations. Will Obama go along with a tax on white people to give money to Will Smith? Guaranteed, the Chicago experience suggests.

Mexicans will demand immediate citizenship, Affirmative Action goodies. Colliding directly with the White Working class demanding preference for themselves in economic hard times.

In the Great Depression, Unions fought hard against any rights for Blacks, because White workers were threatened, with literally starvation. Even a part time job could be the difference between starving and surviving. We don’t face that … yet though I am sure Obama will do his best. But AA is not something that can survive a downturn, prolonged, without serious damage. Worse than the 1970’s battles, forgotten now, over busing working class White kids to Ghetto schools to get beat up, or busing in Blacks from Ghetto schools to beat up White kids in South Boston.

Then there are the gun bans. Obama is for it, we know it, and it will as it moves forward, cost him the white votes in working class, hunting states. Along with long-term, all Dems. You’ll see Governors and legislatures openly defying the Federal Gun Ban. It would be very popular in AK, AL, AR, MT, WY, WV, etc.

Then there is Gay Marriage. Obama is for it, has no clue as to what that will do, nationally, since Chicago is not America. Again legislatures and Governors openly defying Gay Marriage.

He’s never run budgets, and Pelosi, Reid, running their own show, will be a political disaster since it will create the mother of all political battles to keep things people want: military spending/procurement which jobs depend on … vs Welfare handouts.

A shrinking pie means someone always loses — and Obama has no skills whatsoever to manage that fight. If he does not go full Chavez, by 2010 he’ll be impeached, though not convicted in the Senate. The political fight will be that bad.

Oct 8, 2008 - 12:01 am 144. Karen:

Watched the debate. Won’t change a thing.

It seems not that long ago that support for Obama ran up against the marveling protest: “But nobody knows anything about him!” Well, plenty has since come to light about him, yet he suffers no damage. The country seems hell-bent on following him to the edge of the cliff. I try to think of all the reasons I’ve read attempting to explain this dumb devotion and all the various reasons that’ve run through my own mind, but at this moment, the only thing I can think of is 2 Thessalonians 2:11:

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they shall believe a lie…”

What was that cause? They refused to love the truth.

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:42 am 145. Bob Murphy:

Nicely put, Karen.

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:49 am 146. outa my league:

Some excellent and astute commentary tonight on this thread concerning the evils of socialism. I particularly appreciated the contributions from Ben Franklin and Fred. But, alas, the gloom & doom concerning the inevitability of an Obama victory in Nov. is palpable and nigh universal.

It looks like I’m the last man standing who believes that Bilary’s sabotage, Sarah’s folksy moxie, and the Grace of the Almighty will turn the tide against the Slick Pretender.

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:55 am 147. Towering Barbarian:

Outa My League,
Not quite the only one. There is still a few weeks left in which we can win this one. ^_^

A few things to remember:

1. Concern is a good goad to action but despair is a paralytic poison. If we hypnotize ourselves into believing its over then we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just remember that still opportunities to make use of provided we don’t give way to feelings of doom! We must make sure to get out and vote and get those on our side to get out and vote as well. ^_~

2. Polls are superstition! Expecially the ones Old Media is using. Truth be said, I would argue that in some cases they are out and out fiction designed to boost the morale of the faithful and bring dismay those whom Old Media disdains. But the secret is, they hypnotize themselves into believing their own fiction too. And in that lies our opportunities since by ingesting fiction in place of data they sometimes set themselves up for unpleasent surprises. Don’t be surprised to find that we had a strong and silent majority this year without realizing it. But once again, the only way to make use of this is to get off our duffs and keep working!

3. This will be a source of despair for 2 years if we lose but for now we can take comfort in the fact that the Left is composed of some very stupid people from bottom to top. This translates to the fact that they *will* make some blatent mistakes above and beyond the call of even normal human stupidity. Old Media can’t bury all these mistakes. If we stay energetic and alert there is no reason we can’t shine some light upon the libs that will allow the general public to see them as the cockroaches that they are and reject them with scorn. But once again this requires that we work hard and do our best! Can we do it? Yes we can! ^O^

What Clausewitz described as “the fog of war” applies to elections as well. We cannot know what will or will not be important unless we get in there and find out for ourselves but we can count upon the fact that the situation is still fluid and able to be turned in our favor so long as we are of good heart! ^_~

Oct 8, 2008 - 2:52 am 148. Storm-Rider:

American Socialists should pay attention to those who have suffered under the heel of unjust government power which does not derive from the consent of the governed. It’s all there – it’s all happened before.

“There is, first of all, the profound experience of Russia, the significance of which we are only now beginning to understand. The question therefore arises: will this experience be sufficient? Is it sufficient for the entire world and especially for the West? Indeed, is it sufficient for Russia? Shall we be able to comprehend its meaning? Or is mankind destined to pass through this experience on an immeasurably larger scale? There is no doubt that if the ideals of Utopia are realized universally, mankind, even in the barracks of the universal City of the Sun, shall find the strength to regain its freedom and to preserve God’s image and likeness–human individuality–once it has glanced into the yawning abyss. But will even that experience be sufficient? For it seems just as certain that the freedom of will granted to man and to mankind is absolute, that it includes the freedom to make the ultimate choice–between life and death.” Igor Shafarevich

“World socialism as a whole, and all the figures associated with it, are shrouded in legend; its contradictions are forgotten or concealed; it does not respond to arguments but continually ignores them–all this stems from the mist of irrationality that surrounds socialism and from its instinctive aversion to scientific analysis…. The doctrines of socialism seethe with contradictions, its theories are at constant odds with its practice, yet due to a powerful instinct–also laid bare by Shafarevich–these contradictions do not in the least hinder the unending propaganda of socialism. Indeed, no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach…. The author also convincingly demonstrates the diametrical opposition between the concepts of man held by religion and by socialism. Socialism seeks to reduce human personality to its most primitive levels and to extinguish the highest, most complex, and “God-like” aspects of human individuality. And even equality itself, that powerful appeal and great promise of socialists throughout the ages, turns out to signify not equality of rights, of opportunities, and of external conditions, but equality qua identity, equality seen as the movement of variety toward uniformity…. It could probably be said that the majority of states in the history of mankind have been “socialist.” But it is also true that these were in no sense periods or places of human happiness or creativity.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn

http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html

Oct 8, 2008 - 5:42 am 149. slade:

I think what we are seeing now is the natural result of a whole generation coming of age who have never known want and who have never been through difficult economic times. – Ben Franklin

Can’t go there for two reasons. First, the real calumny is the intersection of aggressive social programs with funny shadow securitization. Second, we hear this “going straight to hell because we have sinned in seven different ways” every twenty years or so. Neither the technical fix(es) nor the endurance to get through the next two to ten years will benefit from the apocalyptic mea culpa.

I’m sorry the Republican Party sunk so deep into cynicism and corruption that they decided to sit out this election.

Oct 8, 2008 - 7:02 am 150. Dave:

Storm-Rider: AS I said to Fred earlier, the real problem are those people who embrace socialism not in spite of its failures, but because of them.

They are possessed, I tell you, possessed.

Oct 8, 2008 - 8:33 am 151. 3Case:

One must always remember when watching Jim Cramer, and I do, that he is a Democrat uber-partisan of the not-quite-tingly-feeling-up-my-leg school.

Oct 8, 2008 - 8:56 am 152. buddy larsen:

Cramer continually calls the Dems “Bolsheviks” –in a jokey way, of course –but if he’s one of ‘em, he sure has a peculiar way of showing it –

Oct 8, 2008 - 10:23 am 153. Storm-Rider:

What is Socialism?

I believe it can be distilled down into its essence, which our founding fathers understood from their experience with Rightist Monarchy; and which they anticipated with Leftist Ideology.

Socialism is any form of human government, Left or Right, which does not rule with the informed consent of the governed. Socialism is elite minority rule over the majority – against its will.

Oct 8, 2008 - 10:58 am 154. buddy larsen:

“Social” ist vs –what –”anti” socialist?

Hmm, antisocialism is sort of ‘wrong’ isn’t it? Even a mental disorder, right?

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:16 am 155. Storm-Rider:

The Declaration of Independence is an anti-Socialist document full of anti-Socialist ideas regarding human government. Our founding fathers were anti-Socialists.

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:23 am 156. Karen:

I find no rational, earthly explanation for Obama’s popularity that completely satisfies; thus, the Bible passage quoted above. Another one that keeps coming to mind: the Tower of Babel – destroyed, lest nothing they could imagine would be deemed impossible of attainment. Forget reality; dream your impossible dreams… then, the deluge?

Gloomy though I am, I’ve not lost all hope. I’m still going to the polls to vote, no matter what. Towering Barbarian gave a good pep talk, especially with the reminder of the uncertain trustworthiness of opinion polls. If enough Americans still have their heads screwed on straight, we’ll get through this.

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:00 pm 157. Don Meaker:

What would you say about a system that fails when ever it is tried? That turned victorious England into the a gloomy welfare state? That takes a nation with the resources of Mexico (OIL) and drives the hard working Mexicans out of the country? The
socialism that ruined the Ukraine, the bread basket of Europe, and turned it into an importer of grain.

Quite a system you have there. IF you like it, I recommend you go where they have it. Please don’t bring it here.

Oct 8, 2008 - 8:53 pm 158. buddy larsen:

Problem is, it works fine for the leaders and the secret police. Ask Castro.

Oct 8, 2008 - 9:00 pm 159. Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » The “New Party”, the Ayers connection, and what matters:

[...] have more links on that, while Gateway Pundit looks into Obama’s days at Occidental College. Richard Fernandez links [...]

Oct 9, 2008 - 5:49 am 160. Charles:

after the coordinated rate cuts yesterday
cramer all but take depression off the table

Oct 9, 2008 - 5:55 am 161. Fletcher Christian:

Storm-Rider: I sort of agree with you. Only sort of, because I think that in the present-day USA (or UK, to be fair; I’m a Brit) such consent is to a large degree impossible.

Why? Because the vast majority of the population is appallingly ill-educated, and therefore by no fault of their own incapable of understanding the issues. Which is by design, and suits the ruling elite just fine; the rich and/or well-connected will always make sure that their kids get a decent education.

If you want to heal politics, mend the education system first. You’ll have a hard time doing it, and it will take decades.

Oct 9, 2008 - 3:53 pm

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