To the relevant political audience cause and effect in matters of public policy are matters of indifference. What really counts is who shows himself king of the hill. Things some conservatives would regard as shameful are paradoxically impressive to Hillary’s voter base precisely because she can carry it off with impunity.
Benghazi wasn’t a screen test for the part of Ronald Reagan. It was for Richard Daley.
In some environments it is not following the law that impresses, but the ability to slug a cop and have him rise from the pavement only to clean your shoes. Hillary showed beyond any shadow of a doubt that she could utter the most improbable nonsense and make it stick, able to shrug off the puny efforts by Congress to bring her to book. In a world where power is the coin of the realm, her immense fortune was on display. All too often conservatives think that the prize goes to the fittest. In truth it often goes to the most ruthless.
Not much to add to this. Watch the videos accompanying Fernandez’s post.
“… conservatives think that the prize goes to the fittest. In truth it often goes to the most ruthless.” I remember reading about a study of Glasgow teenage gangs. The boy who became leader typically wasn’t the biggest, or strongest, or cleverest, or the fastest runner; it was the boy who was most “mental” i.e. who most lacked inhibitions about being violent. Hitlery, like Slick Willie, seems to be entirely without inhibitions about lying.
We have allowed a thoroughly criminal organization to not only win elective offices, but continuously enlarge itself and the amounts of power and resources it can usurp for its own purposes, and now we’re supposed to be surprised that the rules of criminal street gangs readily apply to our political situation?
The progressive electorate has divided itself into two very clearly defined groups—deluded fools who actually believe the tripe they are handed on a daily basis is prime steak, and fully complicit criminals who know very well that “government service” has become an enormous scam based on the same principles as any common variety protection racket.
The ongoing political campaign is actually a careful factional war to see who will control the flow of graft and political payoffs. In both parties, there is an establishment group and a more radical group, although the characteristics of the different factions vary somewhat.
The progressive group fronted by the current regime is engaged in some low level conflict with the more establishment Clinton-led group that had been in control until the rival Chicago gang staged its coup in 2008.
It is no accident that the former Occupy Wall Street bunch have reappeared as the foot soldiers in the ongoing street wars being fought for control of the cities, and have morphed into the ironically named BLM.
I warned that when the Occupy gangs were travelling around the country staging demonstrations and protests that it was really a large organizing campaign for the street level gangs who would become more and more active as the next election cycle progressed, and that is exactly what has occurred.
The republicans are torn between their establishment group, which is clearly part of the “permanent governing coalition”, with little or no commitment to the alleged small government ideas that are supposed to be the foundation of the party, and the upstart Tea Party groups, which claim to believe in the concept of a smaller state.
The extraordinary vehemence with which the establishment group has attacked the tea party group is not only a political difference of opinion, but an obvious attempt by the governing coalition to maintain its prerogatives, which are being seriously threatened by a group that doesn’t believe that going along to get along is the only way to govern.
We are in a period in this country eerily similar to the 1860’s, and in the world very reminiscent of the 1930’s, in which rational processes have given way to increasingly emotional, irrational appeals to factional hatreds, and aggressively violent groups both within the country, and around the globe, are being tempted by the evident weakness and bankruptcy of the philosophical and moral bases of democratic governments theoretically based on respect for the rule of law, but which are increasingly, and obviously, operating purely from political expediency and economic cronyism.
I am very afraid that the next few election cycles will be increasingly violent and chaotic. Gang wars usually are.
If you think that is bad, look at Europe.
Also, there are several good examples of how the Establishment went after the conservatives. Twelve examples.
You are the optimist of the group, assuming that there will be more election cycles.
If not an “emergency”, then there is the Portuguese example of a few days ago.
If you will notice, I very precisely said election cycles, not elections. I would not be at all surprised that if the progs started to feel events slipping out of their control, they would attempt some manner of delaying elections in order to prevent defeat.
Two elements mitigate against the success of such a measure.
First, much of the potential enforcement arm of the Federal government would be offset by non-cooperation from state and local authorities; and, secondly, state and local elections are under the jurisdiction of the states, and could very well be held in spite of any federal declaration.
The strength of the Tea Party right now is much stronger at the state and local levels than at the federal. Defiant federalism by the states would be very popular anywhere outside the metro areas controlled by the democratic machines, and any civil disturbances in urban areas would simply repeat the previously seen self-destructive chaos that is always the net result.
There is some foolish talk about secession or civil conflict. Neither is necessary when the states have the right to refuse federal edicts which are clearly outside constitutional limits, and there is no enforcement mechanism of sufficient strength to require compliance against vigorous popular opposition.
The popular media are increasingly irrelevant, as the more open channels of the internet and radio/tv operations outside prog control have established themselves as viable alternatives.
>>We are in a period in this country eerily similar to the 1860’s, and in the world very reminiscent of the 1930’s
I agree with that. And I worry that neither Trump nor (obviously) Hillary are capable of leading us wisely through this. I also worry that young people are so thoroughly indoctrinated in leftism through their schools and TV they cannot sort this out.
” I also worry that young people are so thoroughly indoctrinated in leftism through their schools and TV they cannot sort this out.”
I think this “indoctrination” is very shallow. They are just ignorant,
I go back to this Belmont Club column
On the American side of the Atlantic, Rukmini Callimachi has a long piece in the New York Times describing how a “lonely” American girl was gradually converted to Islam by an ISIS interlocutor on the Internet. “Alex, a 23-year-old Sunday school teacher and babysitter, was trembling with excitement the day she told her Twitter followers that she had converted to Islam.”
The only Muslims she knew were those she had met online, and he encouraged her to keep it that way, arguing that Muslims are persecuted in the United States. She could be labeled a terrorist, he warned, and for now it was best for her to keep her conversion secret, even from her family.
He points out that the NY Times calls her “lonely” but she is rather, The other phrase for it is filling the emptied. ”She felt as if she finally had something to do,” Callimachi wrote.
The West is filled with millions of people like Alex, all of them waiting for Someone. They are the product of a multi-decade campaign to deliberately empty people of their culture; to actually make them ashamed of it. They were purposely drained of God, country, family like chickens so they could be stuffed with the latest narrative of the progressive meme machine. The Gramscian idea was to produce a blank slate upon which the Marxist narrative could be written.
A lot of these kids, and many are not kids anymore, are a “blank slate” and very shallow in their beliefs, whatever they are,
I suppose the adjective is “vacuous”, Mike?
Either that or “evacuated.”
“the ability to slug a cop and have him rise from the pavement only to clean your shoes.”
Then there is Dick Cheney, who got the guy he shot in the face, to apologize to him.
This goes nowhere and you are kinda ridiculous pursuing this nonsense.
“you are kinda ridiculous pursuing this nonsense.”
The concern troll is back from his spell at the local fast food emporium.
Dick Cheney is a hero of mine as he drives to spluttering impotence exactly the right people.
And, best of all, he could not care less.
“Dick Cheney is a hero of mine as he drives to spluttering impotence exactly the right people.”
I think he’s a joke, an American joke for sure. ;)
Re Dick Cheney, sorry Mike K, but you won’t get anywhere with the PenGuns of the world, it isn’t possible to reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into. I thought some of you might be interested in data from the recent Forbes 400 issue, both in terms of wealth and politics. Topping the list are Bill Gates at $76 billion net worth and Warren Buffett at $62 billion; there is another $50 billion plus in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Warren Buffett has pledged the vast majority of his fortune to that foundation. Both are outspoken Democrats, Bill apparently still believes in the global warming hoax and was a major backer of Common Core; Warren is a huge Hillary fan.
Larry Ellison at $47 billion is the top Republican, with Charles and David Koch each at $41 billion, although they are libertarian, not Republican. There is an interview in this issue with Charles Koch that can be found on Forbes’ web site for anyone interested. From that interview is the following:
“…As far as I am concerned, we could be completely open on everything. We have participants, donors to this (re Freedom Partners) who aren’t as comfortable with being public. And who can blame them? They don’t want to get the kind of abuse I get, the death threats I get. I had 153 death threats last year. Now al Qaeda has me on their hit list. So others don’t want that. They don’t want their names exposed.” Nice job Lefties/Democrats, you must be very proud of your efforts to vilify the Kochs, who aren’t even Republicans.
Going down the 400 list, the top 25 are worth roughly $809 billion combined, the next 25 about $338 billion, the next 50 $350 billion and the last 300, ranging from $1.7 to $5 billion, total just over $1 trillion. The total of the 400 is just over $2.5 trillion, and according to the latest Fed estimate/guess the total net worth of all U.S. citizens is roughly $81.5 trillion. For the top 25 there are bios which sometimes include their political beliefs. For those that could be determined, I counted 12 Democrats and 10 of those I considered “heavily involved/outspoken”. I tallied 7 in the Republican/Libertarian camp, with only 3, the two Koch Brothers and Shelden Adelson the ones in the “involved/outspoken” category. Six were “undetermined” including no. 4 Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
This group of 400 includes the most successful business people and capitalists in our society, yet I believe the majority are Democrats. Certainly, the greatest number of outspoken, “in the news” people of this group are Democrats. Perhaps there are more conservatives/Republicans than I think, but they prefer to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Regardless, it is difficult to move public opinion if the the conservative message isn’t offered.
One other comment regarding our nation’s youth. I just attended my 50th high school reunion, and it struck me that I don’t remember a single political word offered by any teacher all the way through high school. My wife, who attended Catholic school, said that she did, the nuns were big on JFK and the Dems. But my neighbors, who are 15 and 20 years younger, didn’t remember any political stuff either. Perhaps others here had different experiences, but I believe that although we are all pretty ignorant at that age, today’s kids are worse because they have so heavily indoctrinated. Their heads are full of Lefty propaganda and bogus history. I’m not convinced they’ll grow out of all that.
“I just attended my 50th high school reunion, and it struck me that I don’t remember a single political word offered by any teacher all the way through high school. My wife, who attended Catholic school, said that she did, the nuns were big on JFK and the Dems.”
My 50th medical school reunion is coming next June. I went to my 50th High school and grammar school reunions, both in Chicago.
The Irish Christian Brothers were not into politics but I do recall one Christian brother telling us it was a sin to kiss a girl you were not engaged to. I remember one gay brother that we all knew to avoid being alone with. The nuns loved Queen Mary and hated Elizabeth. That was what you got in Catholic school 70 years ago. Not politics.
PenGun amuses me and I tease him/her mostly. I have read quite a bit about Cheney and believe we are the poorer for never having had him as president. I feel the same way about Rumsfeld. Bush made the wisest decision of his career, in my opinion, asking Cheney to be his VP. Cheney did not want the job and it cost him a fortune. What is amusing is that Cheney occupied a position in the House of Representatives analogous to Paul Ryan at the time Bush asked him to be Sec Def, Nobody noticed how conservative he was.
I fear we are entering a time similar to Weimar Germany about 1930. People are very unhappy and the political leadership has been ineffectual or corrupt.
All too often conservatives think that the prize goes to the fittest. In truth it often goes to the most ruthless.
I think it would healthy for America if, after the election and a Republican is president, there is an accounting. These people, Hillary, Lerner, they should be tried for their crimes. Then jailed. For a long time. And lose their taxpayer funded pensions. Unless and until that happens the lawlessness will only get worse.
“I think it would healthy for America if, after the election and a Republican is president, there is an accounting. These people, Hillary, Lerner, they should be tried for their crimes. Then jailed. For a long time. And lose their taxpayer funded pensions. Unless and until that happens the lawlessness will only get worse.”
This is very funny.
There will be no accounting, nor useful change in the nation’s continuing slide into a statist autocracy, until the permanent ruling coalition is overthrown.
And I use the term “overthrown”, not “defeated in an election”, very deliberately.
The most telling moment of the debates was the audience reaction when Cruz called out the media types for their bias and double standards.