Peggy Noonan is getting there. A few days ago she was still talking about “restoring trust.”
But the IRS scandal is about facts not trust. She has apparently figured that out.
Now she says “If it isn’t forced back into its cage now, and definitively, it will prowl the land hungrily forever.”
That’s progress.
But “forced back into its cage” is a metaphor. Peggy can’t bring herself to say what it must mean.
Let’s think out loud about what it must mean.
The IRS is staffed by unionized employees who are aligned with one political party. The IRS is about to be given sweeping new powers under the ACA. This entity cannot be forced into a cage. The incentives drive the conduct, and the incentives are destructive for the liberty of anyone who opposes the Democrats on anything. That is structural, it is not a matter of individual incompetence or malice.
The only solution is too radical for most people to consider: The existing IRS has to be shut down and replaced. The only way this limitless menace can be removed is if the existing IRS, the existing tax code, the existing storehouse of personal data on all Americans, and the capacity to destroy people’s lives at discretion are ended. A new simplified type of tax code and a new taxing authority to enforce it, staffed with a new workforce, is a massive proposal, but anything less won’t work.
The monster can’t be caged, it has to be eliminated.
BTW, this is Cook County on a galactic scale. We have seen the Black & White version of this movie in Chicago, the color version in Springfield and now this is the 3D IMAX version of the same horror story. Government power for partisan oppression is too normal to talk about here in Chicago. Fifty Democrat alderman and zero Republicans is too normal to mention. Democrat super-majorities in Springfield at the same time they are reducing the state to an international dunce is somehow the way things inevitably go.
We know where this is going. America is next.
But America is a big place, and the Chicago Way may not play well in the other 49 states.
I hope the rest of the country figures out what is happening.
Soon.
“This entity cannot be forced into a cage.”
The caged entity is on the Gadsen Flag at the top of page. However it’s awake and has been rattling. And Trod, Trod, Trod on. We’ll see.
Good Post.
It’s a bit late for Peggy and her well-connected circle of media nabobs to be figuring out what Obama really is. I had his number by the 2008 campaign, all the way in Texas and by virtute of reading a lot, and I have the blog archives to prove it. Sorry, Peggy; you did your bit in saddling us with this sweet-talking, smooth-moving came-from-nowhere cypher and his coterie of corruption. You are going to have to apologize a great deal more abjectly than this to have a scrap of credibility with me … ever.
I disagree strongly. I am glad to have Peggy Noonan back after her unaccountable period of apostasy. She found Obama handsome, smooth, she got a little swept off her feet … . These things happen … .
I don’t want abject apologies, I want allies. If everyone who supported Obama has to abase themselves to join us, then fewer will do it. Forget about the past. If people wake up, welcome them. Resist the fruitless urge to remind them they were wrong and you were right. It is a temporary and destructive buzz. Forego it. Welcome converts, don’t quibble about the lateness of the conversion.
I want millions of former Obama supporters on our side. Let’s make it as easy as possible.
I’ll let ’em back as useful allies, Lex – but I certainly won’t ever trust them again with anything important. They’ve already proved to me what their judgement is worth.
I don’t need to “trust” Peggy Noonan, I just want her on our side one day and one issue at a time. The same is true of everybody else who ever voted for or supported Obama.
I do need to have some degree of trust – now that mine in the establishment news media has been pretty comprehensively shattered over the last six years. There are degrees of consideration, I think – whenever I contemplate the establishment media, I would now be thinking, “Yeah, you’re with us on this issue, but given the appearance of the next smooth-talking, handsome guy with the perfect pants crease, will you go baaa-ing after them like a thirteen-year old Justin Bieber fan?”
By the grace of whatever media gods, or fickle finger of fortune, these people are at the very top of the mainstream media pile, for their expertise, connections, insight or whatever. Which based on the last few years is pretty shakey.
As I was about to say before my connection seemed to hiccup and cut off the previous comment, if we want to use them cynically – that’s just jake with me. Use them as they used their position. But I want it noted; these people were OK with throwing their support to a political cypher, just because he was all cool an’ stuff, and because they’re all inside the Beltway and stuff, they’re golden …
Well, they’re not. Their antics over the last few years, and their sniveling now just proves it. I’ll plead guilty to cherishing some of my grudges most lovingly. I’ve been boycotting Jane Fonda since forever.
ease up on peggy she is part of the
rulingruining classI am closer to SGT Mom’s position than to Lexington Green’s. There are some, who betrayed the country from the depths of what used to be our own side, who cannot be forgiven, or trusted not to really be working for the Enemy. Peggy Noonan chose her side. If she wants take a stand that now appears to be in opposition to the Enemy, more power to her so long as she is not given any information or position from which she can repeat the betrayal, AND she is kept out of knife insertion range from our backs. And political payback at our convenience is not ruled out if only as an object lesson to others.
Subotai Bahadur
Oh, I figured it out. Chicago way all the way. But no one listens. No one cares. Oh well, here come the times of chaos aand trouble the chinese see at the end of each dynasty…
Had Peggy Noonan been a lifelong Democrat who finally saw the light, you would not see the ire expressed here. Instead, the tone would be, “Welcome to the club.”
Peggy Noonan is not simply an Obama supporter who turned on him. She was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, for goodness sake! Her 2008 support of Obama was a repudiation of her previous politics. I do not buy the “I didn’t know any better” line from someone like her. There was plenty of evidence by 2008 that Obama was simply another Chicago Way politician. In 2007 the Chicago Tribune published “Obama Knows His Way around a Ballot,” which pointed out that Obama won his initial foray in to electoral politics- the Democratic Primary for a seat in the Illinois Legislature, by running unopposed. Obama had gotten all his opponents off the ballot. So much for giving voters a choice. So much for being above partisan politics, which was the myth that the Obama campaign tried to sell during the 2008 election. And Peggy Noonan is going to inform us she wasn’t aware of this- or that it was not of importance in her decision to support Obama?
Better to have Peggy Noonan on our side than not on our side, but she is damaged goods. Again, I would have a lot more respect for her had she been a lifelong Democrat who suddenly saw the light. Instead, she is twice a turncoat. One change is OK. but not two. Think Senator Spector.
I consider Peggy a friend. I’ll forgive her apostasy sans an apology or self-flagellation. Yes, it was obvious what he was. What was not obvious was that he wouldn’t pursue a Clintonian triangulation governing strategy. His purple America schtick actually campaigned as if that was the goal. Factor in that the alternative was John McCain and I forgive almost anyone for voting for our current President the first time.
Noonan’s world is over. She has been living in a delusion of her own design.
The Nietzschean transvaluation of all value has taken place. In the last hundred years the culture of the West has died and been replaced by socialism/fascism/communism/nazism, first at the top when the elite of West became Communist then gradually spreading to every facet of life.
Celebrate this new culture and revile the old now voluntarily, because soon that celebration will be required. The old, fair IRS which Noonan wishes to restore is fantasy, as dead as the Senate under Tiberius.
The prosecution and persecution of “conservatives” (a catch-all term for opponents—in whole or in part–of the new values) will continue because the majority of people in America want to see the old morality of liberty and Christianity annihilated. They want to see their morality regnant.
The fusion of the new morality and government is nearly total. They will not voluntarily restrain themselves in the use of their powers to enforce their good. Why should they? Should’t evil (racists, sexists, homophobes, gun owners, et.al.) be punished? Voltaire’s sentiment (“I will defend to the death…”) is not theirs. They prefer Mao, Lenin, Chavez, Castro, etc.
That is why presidential friend and professor Ayers wanted 25 million Americans dead and the remainder re-educated; that is why bakers are prosecuted for refusing to bake cakes for homosexual weddings; that is why Swindell labelled NRA members traitors and wants them physically destroyed; that is why the Constitution is now described as old, hard to understand, or obsolete; that is why activists invade and desecrate churches; that is why pedophillia is being normalized (freekate); that is why Watson, Richwine, Summers are fired for their dissent; that is why children are punished for talking about guns; that is why….
The future is medieval. Our descendants will be persecuted, not for spitting on the cross but for refusing to.
All of these things are of a unity: a new culture. Accept it now.
Or face the fate of the kulak.
* * *
As to Noonan, I’ll believe she recognizes her mistake and repents when she works to have Obamunism destroyed ten times as hard as she worked to put it in place. Until then, it’s all words; easy talk. She hasn’t even groveled.
She was a speechwriter Dan Rather! And when the time came to choose, to make a difference she choose the Rather-Obama axis. Hell is coming. And Noonan choose to speed its arrival. She has not yet unchosen it.
She should be sincere this time—it’s hard to tell with accomplished propagandists, she should never be welcomed, only used. Her only capacity now is as a tool.
Oddly I find myself in agreement with nearly all of the above – sans Erisguy’s “accept it”.
Bullshit. among other things the prime and non negotiable requirement for any Master is: Stronger. They’re not Stronger.
Accept it- Hell. It’s time to rid ourselves of these ruins.
I love “Ruining Class”. Perfect. stolen. thank you.
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Noonan is a pundit and climber, she went with the IN crowd. She can speak against him as she likes, but understand what she and her ilk are. If Stalin were IN as he was when he lived, as Mussolini was, as Hitler could have been, we’d have had guarded praise that could barely conceal the schoolgirl crush on POWER from Ms. Noonan. So Hi. Welcome. You’ll never be trusted.
SGT Mom sorry – this is who the media has been all along. Sorry.
Peggy Noonan has a column in the WSJ. She has influence. She can speak for people who turned to Obama, lost their illusions and turned against him. We want millions of such people. The GOP led by McCain stood for nothing. If you failed to see what Obama really was at the time, not voting at all, of making a protest vote for Obama was a path taken by lots of decent people. I don’t even know what it means to “no longer trust” a columnist and author. What they write is either good and believable or it isn’t.
The main interest to this episode is this: Many people are in a similar situation to her. They supported Obama. Their pride is mixed up with the decision. Their social and professional comfort are mixed up with the decision. To change, and to say so, will be hard for many such people. We want them to decide to make that change. Noonan is, I hope, a straw in the wind on this.
” So much for being above partisan politics, which was the myth that the Obama campaign tried to sell during the 2008 election”
He also ran virtually unopposed for the most part in the 2004 senate race. He forced the Republican candidate out when his campaign obtained his divorce records and leaked them to the press – sealed documents related to the custody battle over his young son. They set the standard for dirty tactics that year.
It wasn’t just Noonan though.
There were a lot of “Obamacons” then.
Remember George Will?
That one really hurt.
Christopher Buckley
Even Ann Coulter was threatening to vote for Hillary.
The world was kind of turning upside down in the second half of 2008 and it showed in the election.
Can’t help but wonder if Sarah Palin had made it (remember Peggy’s excoriating her?) – would she have been better than Obama?
Most certainly.
Peggy loves to swoon. If Obama gives her an opening she will be right back in his lap again.
A friend of mine was also a speech writer for Reagan, as well as two ther Republican presidents. His opinion of Noonan as a speech writer was not flattering, shall we say. She was, and probably still is, an “in-crowd” wannabe. Maybe nice to have you on our side now but don’t turn your back on her.
Sure welcome them back.
What for?
Of what use are these welcome back types for actually solving the problem?
Yes welcome back Peg, until the wind changes again.
The only use for these people is to put them in the neutral bloc. Including the Voters Lex. Our problems and solutions have moved beyond elections. And President McCain or President Romney would have at best pro-longed the reckoning. We should be grateful to Obama for putting the choice in sharper relief.
I liked Noonan’s style, but she isn’t grounded. I understand that – I’m not always grounded, but it doesn’t make for wisdom. When the election came nearer and nearer in 2008 I kept hearing echoes from the 70’s – and, of course, the 70’s echoed a lot of earlier thinking, say from the 30’s. We’ve spent almost a century pretending that certain beliefs, despite all the proof to the contrary, were those of “idealists” – even the right would far too often give lip service to that view. Well, if you want to consider idealism’s consequences the democide of the 20th century and the 100 million dead, I guess you can. But it is up to the Noonan’s of the world who have columns to point the results out clearly and often. There’s Duranty and then there are the many others, including people like me that hung around liberal arts departments long enough to generally want to avoid confrontation, etc. Noonan is like that. She wasn’t sufficiently immersed in the terrors that come when someone of Ayers’ vision can calmly accept a quarter of a million deaths of those who needed to be eliminated to lead to the great homogeneous (and obedient) utopia. I’m not saying she had anything but good intentions, but she had swallowed enough Kool-Aid to not see Palin for what she was and not see Obama for what he was. For that you can fault our culture, the way history has been taught, the American obsession with introspection that magnifies our own flaws and therefore loses proportion. And you can fault a society that made any conservative feel self-conscious and an outsider. Fixing ourselves is a good thing; thinking that because we need fixing others don’t have a worse solution is, well, understandable but stupid.
In part we’re talking about two different things. As a practical and political matter, you’re right Lex. If Noonan is sincere in her belief of Obamunism’s failures, then she is an ally of the free. And she can fight beside me.
However, what she did is so appalling, that should Obamunism be as bad as I think it is no action she can take can remove her stain. At best her belief in the normalcy of Obama is comparable to FDR’s friendship with Uncle Joe, or Chamberlein believing that Hitler was a ordinary politician.
“What for?”
Their votes.
“… what she did is so appalling …”
Agreed.
But I want millions of Obama voters who made an appalling decision to change their minds and change their votes.
If Noonan’s reconversion helps some of them to do that, good.
This thread reminded me of the fact that Colin Powell has been awfully quiet.
And a few others.
I see your point Lex but also since the damage has been done all they can possible “help” with is solidifying a majority to oppose the damage in 2016. And unless the Senate changes along with the Presidency they can oppose all they want, and it will make no difference.
I find it hard to forgive these beltway “pundits” for what they did to Sarah Palin. But it would be unwise to fight with them.
Let them do whatever they want and if they ultimately help next time – well, good.