Victor Davis Hanson’s “Reckoning”
Just read it. It’s one of his best ever—and that’s saying a lot.
And then read this, which is closely connected. And realize the truth of Kundera’s words: for contemporary man reality is a continent visited less and less often.
To learn more about Victor David Hanson see him in this discussion hosted by the Hoover Institute, “In Defense of WWII:”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGw8eWT_a1Y
“If one runs up nearly a $2 trillion annual deficit, and then persists in such red-ink to the point of adding another $9 trillion, all to reach an aggregate $20 trillion national debt, there are not too many options.”
This is criminal incompetence, or an ideological left-wing strategy of sabotage for the purpose of consolidating state control thru demographic manipulation, or more likely, some combination… These people are too sophisticated and educated to not know exactly what they are doing. Like Dr. Hanson’s “neighbor”, the democrats are going to learn nothing of their own volition…
Yet there’s an unspoken assumption that at some point Obama will wise up and the question is when and how much damage will have been done. I wonder.
On the Middle East, for example, it seems to be that while he may one day realize Israel isn’t the obstacle to peace, he’s at least equally likely to have accomplished nothing and decide that it’s the Israelis who denied him his cherished role as the great peacemaker.
A bill passed with about two days of hearings that commits a trillion or so dollars of spending…why would anyone think this would lead to anything except disaster?
Hansen says:
“spoken to millions whose societies kill and maim tens of thousands in Gulags on a yearly basis”
Here Hansen is wrong…”societies” don’t “kill and maim tens of thousands in Gulags” — governments do. The Egyptian government among them. And these governments are propped up and kept in power with US aid — why? (The Egyptian government is the second largest recipient of US aid, next only to Israel.)
The real reason Obama’s rhetoric rings hollow (and, to be fair, Bush’s and other presidents’) rang hollow before him too) is that he talks about democracy while his own administration ((and, to be fair, Bush’s and other presidents’ before him) props up these repressive régimes.
As I recall, on one of the reasons Athens lost to Sparta in the Peloponessian war was they ran out of money. Also, at one battle they had much of Sparta’s finest trapped on a Island without much provisions- and had mercy on them.
Somehow I doubt it.
First I am becoming more & more convinced that this economic suicide run is deliberate. I agree with Alex B’s comment above.
Second, too much much hubris and not enough backbone to admit that they were wrong when it all comes collapsing down around their ears. They (Obama and his flunkies) will still blame Bush, republicans, those frightened people bitterly clinging to their guns & religion. Who just didn’t see it. Obama won’t ‘get it’ because he’s already ‘got it’, his vision of the world that is. After all, he has done nothing and on outright lies, sophistry, and denial coupled with vague promises of nothing in particular has ascended to the highest elected office in this country.
The cost will be steep indeed and we and our posterity will pay and pay dearly.
The real reason Obama’s rhetoric rings hollow (and, to be fair, Bush’s and other presidents’) rang hollow before him too) is that he talks about democracy while his own administration ((and, to be fair, Bush’s and other presidents’ before him) props up these repressive régimes.
Well, we overthrew a repressive regime in Iraq and everyone bitched piteously about that.
Do you support an invasion of Egypt? No? What then is to be done?
As VDH expressed so very well, repressive (and opressive) regimes can only be confronted by force, not diplomacy, not good feelings, not sanctions; force.
The alternative you suggest is to stop talking about democracy and start spreading it by force.
Palin foreground
Turkey slaughter background
Horrified gobbling
This poster on VDH’s website said it for me.
#51, Steve;
“This man is not naive. Uneducated, yes, but not naive.
He has a burning hatred, along with his wife, for Western Civilization, white people and free markets. He/they are Black Liberationists. It’s an ideology that is Marxist and has a black god that hates and demonizes whites. Does Louis Farakhan ring a bell?
Black Liberationists are part communist and part Islamic with a black white-hating Jesus thrown in to complete their orgy of hate.
This the president of the United States of America’s mindset.
This man didn’t even grow up in our country. I share a few values with the Left, but with Barack and Michelle I share none.”
BO won’t “come to his senses” because he’s NOT on our side. He’s a Marxist Muslim America-hater. Who also has a real hardcase against “typical white people.” Muslim because he was born one and educated one, and has now proclaimed, with breathtaking gall, that the United States is “one of the largest MUSLIM nations on the planet.”
After, BTW, denying that we are a “Christian nation”; which, by our heritage and by the numbers, we are.
The fox is guarding the henhouse, indeed.
If you read the string of comments on Hanson’s post, they’re complimentary all the way to where he says Obama may “come to his senses.”
Practically everyone disagrees strongly with this, because all of BO’s actions are in line with sabotaging the free market and our free society. The bugger is consistent about it. And all his life associates are Marxist, America-hating thugs. ALL of them.
It’s just unreal to me that this bastard is in the White House, and that so many American citizens were idiotic — or malign — enough to vote for him. What a nightmare.
Even Hanson had to start with the palavering, rather than using force. For the US, history starts over with each new administration, so Obama feels compelled to start out in nicey-nicey mode. However naive and neutered he may be, reality will soon bite, and, being the quick study that he is, Obama will shift into a more realistic mode.
Hopefully, this will happen before Obama does too much harm.
There is, of course, the theory that one should become a mature individual before one becomes President of the US. But that’s just a theory.
And there is the other theory, that Obama is maturely and deliberately anti-American, anti-Israeli, and so on. I am extremely skeptical of this.
It is disturbing enough that we need to speculate about Obama’s “real” intentions. A little more of that vaunted transparency would help us ascertain where he really stands. Obama’s strategically ambiguous rhetoric and the smokescreen of his MSM courtiers make it impossible to pin down what he is thinking.
Best solution is probably not to listen to what comes out of his mouth, but to watch what he does: policy decisions and appointments. His speeches (e.g. the Cairo speech and yesterday’s Normandy speech) and statements only need to be analyzed with an eye to decoding the effect he is trying to achieve with a particular audience.
Good article by Hansen.
Obama’s courting of world opinion reminds me of the slightly weird guy in high school who gets a crush on the head cheerleader. No matter how nice he is to her – no matter how many times he carries her books to her locker or runs her errands she will never go out with him and she will laugh at him behind his back when talking to her friends.
The boy can’t blame the object of his affection for his frustration so he goes home and takes it out on his family.
Wow! Thanks.
Did Jimmy Carter ever wake up??????
Fred2,
You and I have a different read of Obama (o.k., “huxley,” I am going to try to refrain from calling him “Obonga”): I do not think the president will be altered by reality. Everyone, please do not forget that I spent ten years of my life (1977-87) on the Left. I know how these people think and how they filter reality. I’m not saying it is impossible; just that it is not highly probable. Therefore, it is possible he could change and I would welcome it. I want him to change. It’s just that I don’t think it will happen.
People at the University of Chicago, where Obama was an adjunct, part-time lecturer, said that he rarely would socialize with the faculty there. And when he did he would avoid the normal kinds of debate about the law and public policy that these hot houses encourage. Instead, he mainly stuck around the known neo-Marxist, post-modern members of the faculty. He isn’t comfortable with people outside of his worldview. He doesn’t want to hear what they have to say, especially if it contradicts his reality. This fits with behavior patterns I’ve observed first hand when I was an aspiring young academic revisionist Marxist. In fact, sometimes I practiced it myself. Over time, however, the doubts I had in my mind were opening fissures in the ideological edifice and constructs in my mind.
But I wasn’t a Red Diaper Baby. I grew up in a household of FDR-JFK Democrats across several generations. Therefore, I had an advantage over Obama when I was growing up.
Excellent point, Oblio. That’s one reason I usually shut off the TV or change the station (or change the channel on the radio) whenever I hear Obama start to speak. I was tired of the meaningless blather during the campaign, but now that he’s president, I don’t want to hear his lies praised as great rhetoric.
Some have suggested that things are deliberately being set up for economic collapse. I suspect as much myself. Don’t be suprised when it does that there will a bigger push for regional or even world currency. (Not that it would solve anything, but it would be an excuse) The long term goal is no borders- no national sovereignty- No U.S.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox admitted a while back that there had been talk of establishing a regional currency for North America- with the Bush Administration.
I don’t trust globalist- right or left. The right wing globalist play into the left’s hand by inadvertantly weaking National Sovereignty- even if they do not mean to.
I have really slow internet connection right now, but back when I had high speed, I saw a U-Tube video of the interview with Vincete Fox on the matter of the Amero.
If things are being deliberately set up for economic collapse, then we are talking treason and an impeachable offense. We are also talking about a solid reason for revolt/civil war. Obama and is minions have no right to do this to our people and the generations that come after us. Shredding the Constitution is a grave mistake. We will make him pay for it. We will make his policy and political elitist allies pay for it – with their lives if need be. I’m not kidding. These people who are trying to achieve these goals have no idea of the violence we can visit upon them for their betrayal.
He’s still in the “give the guy a chance” phase … the American people spoke; NO fascist civil war talk please.
I do not support an invasion of Egypt. What is to be done? Have the US stop giving the Egyptian government money.
(Currently, the US gives Egypt about $1 billion in aid each year, and Egypt is the second biggest recipient of US aid, right after Israel. This is happening under Obama just as it happened under Bush or Clinton).
There is NO justification for propping up repressive régimes with US money.
nyomythus: Give Obama a chance to ruin the country, when that’s how a person sees his actions?
The American people spoke, but what did they speak for? Most who voted for Obama could not have predicted what he’s doing now to our economy. Some of them are shocked.
The American people have a right to speak now, as well, against what they see as a radical course of action that will damage this country. The idea that if someone is elected he/she has a right to do anything he/she wants and not be criticized for it because “the American people spoke” when they elected that person is unacceptable.
I am very far from advocating civil war, and it is my perception that even those who speak of it are certainly not advocating it at the moment. But this “give the man a chance” business is an absurdity. He is moving very far very fast because he knows how very radical he is, and how difficult it will be to go back once he gets all his policies in place (think Hugo Chavez and what has happened to Venezuela). Obama knows time is of the essence, and he wants to do his work before the average American gets wind of what he’s doing. And he’s counting on people like you to say “give him a chance.” I think the chance has already been given.
Nyomythus,
I am not a fascist and neither are the people who think like me “fascists.” Study up on what fascism is. Go pick up Jonah Goldberg’s book, “Liberal Fascism,” and read it. Fascism is a form of collectivism, where the State essentially does things very similar to what the Leninists and Stalinists were doing in the Soviet Union.
Defenders of the Constitution and the Republic are not the fascists. The Founders of this nation did not, in fact, create a democracy because they knew that democracies can devolve into mob rule and take away rights and seize property with impunity. So, they set up a Constitutional Republic that put elections in as part of the process by which the will of the people is heard, but firewalls and apportionment of powers are set up to protect the natural rights of the people. In other words, they knew that the people could devolve into a mob that votes to give their rights over to political rulers.
The Communists and other totalitarians love democracy and the people’s vote, because they use it to gradually or sweepingly take power and then impose their ideology on an entire country. Hence, the wisdom of those “flawed” 18th century intellectuals!
Thanks for the link back to your ’05 column on imagology; Kundera gets at a very deep basis for sanity in the experience of simple physical and social events, most but not all in childhood.
Is it some inability to repress the obvious disparity of events in our adult lives from what common culture says they are, that causes some to say enough B.S.! ? Reality impinging?
Yet, as someone wrote, there is no more totalitarian place than a peasant village, for all its simple reality.
Give him a chance? Give him a pass is more like it.
We have already taken some enormous chances with the stimulus package. The results so far are totally at odds with the projections the White House and the Democrats used to sell the deal.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/06/06/where-on-the-curve/
The Democrats sold the bill with the argument that it was better than doing nothing; but actual performance is worse than their projected result of doing nothing. I am perfectly willing to believe that the Democrats pull their economic projections out of their hat. There was a lot a comment here and in other places that the spending could not stimulate the economy in reality because the spending could not happen fast enough to make a difference.
Ozyripus: Peasant village totalitarian? Hardly.
Traditional, yes. Based on certain lines of authority, yes. In some cases cooperative. Shunning is often used to enforce social order.
But this is the definition of totalitarian.
After reading the link, I’m reminded of an old story about a man who wanted his dog’s tail docked to a fashionably short length.
Being the kind and considerate soul he was, and not wanting to cause any more pain to his beloved pet than was necessary, he did the obvious.
He had the tail shortened one inch at a time!
He must have been a leftwing academic….
If you gotta do something painful, go ahead and do it and get it over with. Piecemeal efforts only lead to a sense of encouragement for the opposition and protract the agony for all concerned – including the side that SHOULD ultimately lose.
See Arthur Koestler on the mentality of the closed system.
I’m afraid Obama himself has a fair amount of the mentality Koestler describes, and many of his core supporters have a whole lot of it.
neo, you’re probably right — I was just testing the waters with that one, stir up the emotion and you can get extra input, I’m critical of Obama.
Obama does not make sense unless you look for destruction.
I admit I am surprised that the legacy media are so chained to him, though. It is a given that they wanted so much for somebody like his brand to be successful – nay, transcendent – that they’ve put all their chips on a creature whose resume is so thin that under any reasonable investigation he would be a tough sell in most employment situations outside of academia or government.
Problem for Obama’s media enablers is is that they used to be businesses with a future. For the majority of them – and these are fading giants like NYT and the news weeklies – this is emphatically no longer the case. They began their existence where primacy depended on getting the word on what was happening in the world and getting it first and getting it right enough to be useful enough and valuable enough for people to pay for it.
Packaging and then scripting only came later, after the industry arrived at common, unspoken rules that made the business more a club than a competition.
But when the media adopted as SOP the practice of “narrative” reporting, their end was in sight.
Obama punched race, academia, uber liberal, and charisma notches on his political card. Or he would, had not the media snatched it out of his hand to do the job for him.
Mr. Obama has spent more money in the first quarter of his presidency than all the U.S. governments since World War 2. And he hasn’t even gotten to health care yet.
Obama is a rebel with a cause, and clearly doesn’t expect to be around (politically or otherwise0 for 2012. If Obama gets a quarter of his agenda on the books, his goal will have been achieved. Crushing debt, crushing taxation, regulatory burdens impossible to overcome by any business not paying graft…He’s surrounded by a bunch of Leftist goons leavened by a scattering of typical Democrat operatives just skimming off the cream. The whole shooting match is being shielded by a media too lazy and amoral to acknowledge even to themselves their complicity – their essential, game changing complicity – in the tragedy that is befallen what was once a great nation.
If anybody on the planet rates a “What have I done???” moment, it’s any random handful of bloviating cocktail party media rangers standing around any random legacy media water cooler.
Or they may get it looking down into a ditch. That’s not an uncommon end to useful idiots.
Forgive me, but I smiled when I wrote that.
Orange Says:
“There is NO justification for propping up repressive régimes with US money.”
Actually, I think President Carter started it as part of the deal to get them to make nice nice with Israel. Which as far as reasons to pay off a dictatorship go (re: to make peace with an ally)… its up there on the list (no, not for a ‘pipeline’ or for some econ payoff for ourselves).
neo-neocon Says:
“Ozyripus: Peasant village totalitarian? Hardly.”
I’ve heard people from US small towns (even small towns in places like NJ) say they are kind of oppressive. Everyone knows everything about you and what you’re doing. Everyone conforms a lot extra since no one wants to be the first to say the emperor has no clothes since they know everyone will know what they say and they don’t know what anyone thinks since no one talks… that kind of thing. Totalitarian might be hyperbolic for the US example, but over in parts of Europe where they don’t have the individualistic culture… I hear these stories about people surrounding people and telling them to go home and dress warmer or wear a hat… or whatever… stuff that people wouldn’t do here (for fear of getting punched out)… So, if people feel entitled to get into your business over your clothes… wonder about how it goes with more touchy / serious issues (I imagine it is worse).
My ideal would be more like a big ranch where I own a hundred acers in all directions / have to drive many miles to get to the town. 🙂
Ah, wishful thinking, is there anything it can’t do?
VD Hanson owned the farm. Obama don’t. And Obama’s got that guaranteed pension. There’s a lot of ruin in a nation and, therefore, I doubt Obama will have sleepless nights until, maybe, 10-20 years from now.
I stopped reading Hanson years ago. What’s your excuse?
In the cities they’re neurotic.
In the country they’re psychotic.
Great essay. Obama though will never come to his senses because it’s not his farm. It’s ours and he’s just the distant caretaker. After his 4-8 years, he returns to his priveledged taxpayer paid security.
Ah, I see CM already beat me to this point. But it’s worth repeating
It’s Better When You Wake Up Body-Snatched
[Victor Davis Hanson]
corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDVhZGM5NzMxNTBmNGM4Y2I3ZmM0ZGJmYzFlMDA0NGU=
Not sure if this is too far off track for this thread, but has anyone other than me given any consideration for the following:
Obonga originally went after CEO pay of companies that took the devil’s dollar, and therefore had to play by the devil’s rules.
Nobody really blinked as the CEO’s had gotten themselves into that position, after all.
Obonga has been making noises about regulating CEO pay of companies that did not take a federal bail out, and Timmy has made similar noises about industries outside of the auto and banking industries.
Obonga’s even wanting to put the federal finger into taxing employee benefits such as health care and life insurance as “income”.
Given the multi-trillion dollar defecit spending spree he’s undertaken, could it be he’s now seeing the writing on the wall, and realizes just how much of a b%tch inflation/hyperinflation is going to be?
Is he taking pre-emptive measures to lay the groundwork for future wage and price controls as some idiotic way of trying to control hyperinflation?
Is he seeing all of those employee benefits as ripe pickings for new sources of revenue to at least attempt to cover the federal deficit monstrosity he’s creating?
After all, the health and life insurance benefits came about as a way originally to get around government mandated wage controls, which themselves were the federal response to inflation.
Or is it just me imagining things again? I think my tinfoil hat needs adjusting as this just CAN’T be reality!
I have to disagree with those who think the destruction of the economy is a secret aim of Obama or most other leftists. This conclusion underestimates the religious fervor with which they believe this will eventually work. Consider, for example, how many true believers still think that Cuba would be basically okay but for US trade sanctions, or thought Soviet communism was on the verge of breaking through and working, right up until the time the USSR collapsed. Even now, there are many who believe that some variant of this communist/socialist/managed society idea will work, if we can only get the right people in to run it, and if nefarious forces (kulaks, wreckers, Jews, conservatives, corporate interests) are prevented from ruining it.
The underlying idea to all this – that if we just get everyone a good education and health care, and prevent bigots and greedy people from oppressing folks, everything will start to turn out okay (and so will eventually pay for itself) – is enormously attractive to people, no matter how many individual examples of failure emerge. They believe in the depths of their being in the perfectability of human society. They scoff that they of course don’t expect people to be perfect, but the degree of improvement they foresee if all us yahoos just stop obstructing them amounts to the same thing.
I am toying with the idea of seeing communism, socialism, and managed semi-utopian societies as variants of some larger myth – different denominations of a more encompassing set of religious ideas. It would explain the persistence of the dream despite evidence. It would also explain why leftists resent being associated with communists and sneer at the very suggestion – it is as if you called a Presbyterian a Catholic, saying they were the same thing. Under a larger umbrella, they are much the same, but when referred to specifically, the differences come immediately to mind instead.
I’m working on this.
My main objection to a civil war/revolution is that we’d lose.
“My main objection to a civil war/revolution is that we’d lose.”
Defend that opinion. Tell us why. Make the case.
Is it my imagination, but would you have been a Tory or a Loyalist when Gen. Gage was sent here to dissolve colonial legislatures and disarm the population?
Gee, since when has a poorly equipped military force ever defeated a larger, more technologically advanced foe?
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the 1960’s, it’s that superior high tech firepower will always win!
(sarcasm off now…)
I hope you all know that it is more likely than not most of the U.S. military would side with the patriots, not a tyrant. Because if they go opposite it truly is lights out on the Republic, our civilization, and the rights of humanity, period. And then the darkness will be deep and long. Then, only a direct intervention by God would save us.
would you have been a Tory or a Loyalist…?
Well, truth to tell, I am ambivalent about the American Revolution but the country it made has turned out well…until fairly recently and is worth keeping.
But to your main question. I say we’d lose a civil war because 1) we lack the numbers. Most Americans belong to one of two plantations, Big Government or The Company. They are not fighters but contented ruminants. 2) We lack a region that’s “ours” –the South at least had that. America is a crazy quilt of reds and blues, and the blues happen to possess all the levers of power. 3) We have no civil institutions–political, cultural, social–around which we could unite and organize and raise an army. Again, the South had that advantage 4) As for the wherewithall to wage a war, factories, people to man them, money, an infrastructure, a functioning government, forget it. 5) To get a civil war off the ground you have to have your fightin’ words, that is to say, a phrase, a slogan, something that captures and magnifies the public sentiment and focuses minds on what this fight is about. We don’t even have that, and with the avenues of mass communication firmly in the hands of the other side, nobody would hear anyway. He who controls American Idol controls America. 6) Foreign powers kept out of our first civil war. This time they’d meddle, and not on behalf of the side fighting to keep America strong, great and free.
Scottie,
We didn’t actually lose militarily, but once we withdrew the Democrats like Kennedy pulled support on South Vietnam and failed to intervene against the North. But that’s for another thread…
I have to disagree with those who think the destruction of the economy is a secret aim of Obama or most other leftists. This conclusion underestimates the religious fervor with which they believe this will eventually work.
Then you have no concept of what sub clinical psychopathy can be like in your social group. The less socially adept tend not to grow out of the concept that everyone is like me and everyone else would choose like I do, etc.
The reason Hitlers, stalins, lenins, and others exist in the world is because of people like you and statements like that!!! All your wishing for is a clear shot, a lack of ambiguity ,and your idea is that no preponderance of incompetence can rise up to malice. But a sufficiently polished malice can be hidden in incompetence.
I think that there is something that hasn’t sufficiently sunk in here, and I hope fredhjr can help me on this. we constantly bring up the differences between different levels of believers, and constantly explain things. but its obvious no one is listening or learning thanks to their relativism and their lack of understanding coupled with their desire to talk in homogenous terms.
This conclusion underestimates the religious fervor with which they believe this will eventually work.
Whose religious feerver are you referering to? the useful idiots who cant piece together what is happening to them and so are raised to such furvor by fellow travelers? Or the fellow travelers who are halfway? Who know and realize it’s a lie, but that to them it’s a lie for a “good cause” and so they foment more? or is it the true belivers, who seem to be the most religoilus, but turns out they are religious the way a pedophile or other psychopath joins things because they understand the game and that the game allows them to have their utopia of sadism and pray without responsibility to the victims?
All your doing is saying that they are smart enough to find mental defectives who can be so extreme in therii beliefs that they will kill for them, yell for them, abandont their live for them, and that these peoplr create a false certainty that then can be used by the higher ups to foment more action in the material.
Even now, there are many who believe that some variant of this communist/socialist/managed society idea will work, if we can only get the right people in to run it, and if nefarious forces (kulaks, wreckers, Jews, conservatives, corporate interests) are prevented from ruining it.
And in your own explanation you show your refusal to learn the points. who gave them this belief? This is a collective, not a group of individuals who can discover their own path. Who controlled the message that created the history and false story that then moved the minds of people to move against themselves in favor of those who induced this state?
Your describing the sales techniques of the fellow travelers and true believers, not actually talking about any real state of mind that exists. That is, these staets are induced, and that says someone else is planning them.
They believe in the depths of their being in the perfectability of human society.
Actually they don’t. they have had to have a hell of a lot of broken information to brek their thinkngs and get them to feel falsely by spinning a situation to suit their natural biology (which they deny they have).
They are just not good at working out the IMPLIES. That’s all. they used to rely on conservative voices to tell them what will happen later. and their cause and effect machinery has bene fouled by everything that they could think of fouling it with. sex ed, false arguments (nature nuruter), and all manner of stuff I could list.
I am toying with the idea of seeing communism, socialism, and managed semi-utopian societies as variants of some larger myth – different denominations of a more encompassing set of religious ideas.
And here we go again… the propaganda that tries to put marxiszm on the same natural footing as capitalism shines through. They are INDUCED by some very wealthy people who know they are lucky not competent. That they pay authors to write, and own the papers. Care to tell me who owns the times, and many others? why is such a paper still privately owned in such a society? because that’s the easier way to color its outputs.
Your treatise will explain nothing since its starts from a false premise.
That this is one of the great alternatives, but the ONLY people who have fomented such are the ones who create this for their own ends.
That is, without th rest of the history, your like everyone else trying to create a false organic explanation to replace the ignorance and quell the dissonance that bothers you so much!
Meanwhile you will end up using so many of their false ideas to explain it that it too would end up being doubly a waste.
They are induced myths that ride on sociali ignorance.
But slaves weren’t known for how well their masters educated them, were they?
Ahh, Neo, I’m glad to see you likening Obonga to Chavez, recalling my ’08-early ’09 posts, Obama=Chavez.
FredHjr: I have learned to pray for knowledge of God’s will for us, and for the power to carry it out. That means a great deal to me; it truly sustains me. It is ultimately up to us, not for God to part the Red Sea or otherwise directly intervene. His creation of the Universe and us gave us the wherewithal to do either right or wrong. That choice is left to us alone.
From my discussions with retired USA officers, I am not encouraged about the military taking sides. The best we can perhaps hope for is they stay on the sideline. I am in my golden years (harrumph), but in the past year have expanded beyond owning just shotguns.
SCottie.. thats a false story…
because economic pullout does not equal failure of technology or combat teams.
superior high tech power can always win when the people using it arent hamstrung. for instance, how long would the vietnam war gone on if on day 10, we nuked hanoi?
when a superior force or person hamstrings themselves to be ‘fair’ and they are taken advantage of during that, dont think they lost because of the fire power.
we would lose a civil war, because we have too many open borders and there is a huge amoint of cached weaponry and such here in the US. that is. most of the firepower that we see in raides is stockpiled, nto used. but in a civil conflic,t those stock piles would come out. crips and bloods would use the weapons indiscriminately.
many other states would activate their people, and connect to see if they could influence or change otucomes for themselves.
ths happened in the american civil war, one only has to know th history of using cartridge bullets over what the south was using to know this.
and as far as the military siding with the people. its irrelevent. the first thign that militaries have is the ability to deny the wrong side within them weaponry. and the military has many means in which such a divisio of force cant happen. the guys up top for 30 years ahve been chosen by their ability NOT to go agaisnt this and their ability to shoto americans. (some questionaires were given to pilots on such and its how they were promoted. refusal to attack your own was a career dead choice).
As for the retired military officers who would stay out of it, or maybe intervene in favor of The Government… there is a growing movement called The Oath Keepers. Enlisted and officers do not make their oath to POTUS. They make it to the Constitution of the United States of America and to defend THE PEOPLE.
And I disagree with Artfldgr about who owns the weapons. The gangs don’t control it nor do they have the numbers. In a rebellion, the gangs and their allies are dead meat. That’s not me exaggerating; it’s fact. Most of the military, I believe, would help us.
We don’t need factories for a sustained conflict. It would not be a long conflict. The government would fall quickly (assuming most of the military would help to topple it). It would be expensive and very costly in blood for foreign powers to land troops here to sustain the socialist government.
Again, the deal maker is the U.S. military. I don’t believe they would remain neutral. The likely scenario would be well more than half supporting the people, with the balance functioning as a Praetorian Guard.
The Big Government and The Corporation parties are not warrior clans. Most of them are not fighters. And they can’t hire enough guns to do their bidding, given the conditions that could prevail in the future if this nightmare scenario were to come to pass.
The Liberals and Leftists would lose this fight big time. If we were approaching such a crisis, I believe most of them would flee overseas like rats from a ship taking on water. The ones who do not get out are dead men and women walking.
But I believe the more likely scenario is that politically they will lose a lot in 2010 and 2012. Furthermore, I think the Democrats will be out of power for generations to come after this debacle they are presiding over. The beginning of the end for the collectivists is happening. Look at the elections in Europe and in Lebanon. In the U.K. the socialists are in big, big trouble (the Labour Party). Here in the U.S. the conservatives are still building and groping for the ground to stand on. But the opposition is building.
Please note, before anyone castigates me regarding an understanding of history, that in past discussions I’ve always maintained that the US won militarily in Vietnam.
I’ve also noted before that the actual defeat lay in the democrats betraying our allies in the early 1970’s.
Think in terms of sarcasm regarding that last post….
Having said that, it is also true that lower tech militaries/militias have quite often come out the better after combatting “normal” military organizations.
It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
If you have a group that is willing to fight to the last man, then you don’t really have victory until the last man willing to fight is either dead or in prison.
IF there were to be another Civil war, the big question as was noted is what will the military do?
You will have your quislings who will jump at career advancement and attempt to quash any rebellion against authority, and have no conscience in the process.
You will also have many (way too many for my taste, after years of knowing many retired military) that will automatically assume that the government is to be obeyed at all costs and the proper place for a “civie” is to suck it up and do what he’s told – after all, that’s what they have to do in the military.
While I’m paraphrasing, I’m not making up this argument as I’ve actually heard it before.
You’ll have those that believe in The One enough that no atrocities are beyond the pale if it means continued power for Him.
Then you have those who don’t care, and will simply do what they’re told, be it right or wrong, going along to get along.
Finally, you’ll have those who are conscientious, and take their oath to the US Constitution seriously, and will push back against all of the other groups.
How much fight is in that last particular dog is the big question, and can they neutralize the military enough to allow the civilian population to duke it out and get it over with?
Don’t underestimate the importance of continued supply to the military either. The big munition in demand in a civil war is going to be that old standby, the bullet.
Bombs and planes and nuclear subs are nice, but not very effective against a target embedded within a supportive population. It requires a man going in with a gun to get the guerilla, and once he steps out into the open he’s vulnerable.
There would be no “safe havens” to retreat to, and as the war progressed manufacturing capacity would diminish for a variety of reasons – which could interestingly enough lead to a shortage of basic ammunition while having warehouses of massive bombs and artillery that aren’t very useful.
You also have the fact that the soldiers would not be in a foreign land, they would be on US soil, and thereby not just themselves but their families would be at risk.
While a pilot may hypothetically say he would be willing to drop a bomb on a civilian population inside the US, the matter may be entirely different if it’s his hometown and he knows he has family in that crowd.
Then there is the matter of retribution against those close to service personnel. They may be safe inside their base, but can they bring in every member of their family on to base and to safety as well?
How long could they maintain that kind of situation before supplies ran low, and how long would it be before desertions made military organization unstable?
I don’t infer that US servicemen and women are cowards and would desert for no good reason, but at the same time I would not find it unusual for a private to simply leave his post to go home and protect his wife and kids if the situation deteriorated enough.
Then there is the final number to crunch.
How many in the civilian population own weapons vs. how many combat troops are in the US military?
If you do research, you will find it’s a very lopsided number, even if only a few percent of the overall total decide to shoot.
Look at it another way, consider how much of the US military is tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan (two places you can’t just yank troops out of and ship back to fight within the US) – and those places are nowhere near as large as the continental US.
The military would have to be much larger to exercise the same level of population control in the US as they do in Iraq.
What happens if you do pull troops and ships back to the US for a Civil war? You now have foreign US interests vulnerable, making convincing arguments to re-establish troops in those far off locations.
Troops which would not be available for a home grown conflict.
One final note.
Someone noted that the US no longer really identifies regionally. I would suggest that individual get out of the cities and travel the countrysides 50 – 100 miles out of the urban areas.
The attitudes they find may be surprising.
Artfl, We may disagree about this less than you think.
I think you have taking the exact reverse of my meaning, at least in part. I certainly don’t recognise my meaning in your explanation of my statements. The last thing you will ever catch me doing is putting communism in a comparison with capitalism as just another doctrine on equal footing.
There are not many left in Eastern Europe who will say that communism works, but there are plenty who will still sign on to an essentially communist set of government programs. They want their grannies and their babies taken care of, and they think it is just correct somehow that the government do it. My reading of Sozhenitsyn suggests that many political prisoners, even in the Gulag, still believed that some version of marxism was an ideal worth striving for. While many in the Soviet government were merely cynical opportunists, ready to become anti-communists in a moment if they saw a better chance, the bureaucracy was suffused with elites who believed that if they could just crack down on hoarders, or revisionists, or saboteurs, the USSR would prevail. It was just all these rotten people who wouldn’t turn into the New Man as quickly as predicted.
Elie Wiesel describes many European acquaintances, including secular Jews, who found the break with communism difficult even after Stalinism was exposed. The leftist professors, artists, and social services workers I know are more like believers in a different religion than they are like mafiosi.
I agree that there are plenty, at home and abroad, of conscienceless opportunists who are simply riding leftism as their version of the main chance. (If Ted Kennedy had come from Wyoming, he would have comfortably become conservative to get elected.) These do cynically sell the masses whatever they think will turn the trick. But here’s the point of that: they do have to sell to the masses, or they have no power. Also, what they sell seems to need this moral/religious imitation included, or no one buys.
Ultimately, I think this religious aspect makes progressives more dangerous than mere sociopaths.
Scottie,
I know a lot of active military guys. Almost (not all) hate Obama. They don’t like the direction the country is going in, and would frown on certain things happening, imposed by the government or by outside governments through the U.N.
I DO realize that some are going to stay with and fight for the socialists in a rebellion. But most are going to support, if the cause is clearly patriotic and for the right reasons, the rebellion.
So, aside from opportunists, who is going to defend the socialists except the socialists and their allies, some of the people on the Soft Left? And of those people, realistically, how many of them are armed, know how to shoot, know how to fight, understand tactics, have military discipline, and are WILLING TO GO TO THE WALL FOR THEIR BELIEFS?
In many of the conflicts where armies of the socialists have been engaged in battle, it is the political officers who really enforce discipline and dedication to the mission. They put pistols and machine guns to the backs of their troops to make sure they do their duty.
Truthfully, as I reminisce about my days on the Left more than twenty years ago, I don’t know a single one of them who would be a man and pick up the rifle and fight. Not a one. I rarely met a Leftist who was even a military veteran. I was one of the few who were veterans.
I just cannot see the folks from the Ivies and the other liberal establishments organizing military resistance to a rebellion. Instead, I see them pissing their pants and getting out of Dodge. The government will try to order the military to put it down, and most will refuse the order and go over to the other side. When that happens, expect to see the president, his or her cabinet, and the rest of the political leadership heading for the airports to get out of the country. These people will not stand and fight. They will only fight if they think they have the upper hand, but once it’s obvious they have few cards to play they are out of here.
Among the people, who are going to be the partisans fighting for the socialist ideal? We, on the other hand, have a lot to fight for and we have seen how, down through the more than two centuries of this nation’s history, the blood of patriots made possible the greatness and prosperity of this country. We know there is a price to be paid for freedom.
My bet is on our side having the big fight in the dog. It has always been so. During the American Revolution only about a third of the population supported the rebellion. About a third was loyal to Great Britain. And about a third wanted no part of the fight.
But we are a long way from this scenario. There is a long political fight to get stuck into before we draw weapons. And I have to remind the guys I’m in conversation with that we are also a long way away from open rebellion because we have no organization, logistics, medical infrastructure, intelligence gathering, etc. There is a LOT that goes into military affairs. I actually counsel against being hot-headed. Primarily do the political fight, but also begin planning and preparation for the worst if it should come to that.
We have to network with potential allies, while working with them politically to see if we can avert disaster.
When you read the history and the letters of the men who founded this country, you will be amazed at their forebearance and their courage. They were willing to endure a lot before they finally went to war. There were years of both political agitation and supplication before we got to the boiling point of no return.
Great comment, Fred.
There doesn’t have to be a fight, you know.
But if Obamaism isn’t soundly, undeniably, and legally rejected in the 2010 elections, all bets are off.
In what *&^%$# universe would citizens in a constitutional republic stand by while a partisan organization whose very existence was publicly acknowledged as a vehicle for election fraud was made recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars of public money.
Was then elevated to the status of a defacto government agency.
And then given control of the 2010 census.
This afternoon Ginsburg stayed the Chrysler deal.
It’s a small step, but it may be the first public official standing up for the Constitution.
We can only hope.
We must defeat the Washington culture in 2010. I don’t particularly care which party returns as majority. I just want the incumbents gone. All of them.
I’d rather the system worked, in other words. Our Constitution was crafted by men who feared the failure of citizenship more than any foreign threat. They were absolutely correct. But elections do still matter, at least they do outside of Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, and sanctuary cities…
… but give the Won two years and give ACORN two hundred million and suddenly and correctly voting may not matter much at all.
In recent years I have become more aware of just how challenging an experiment in self-governance our Constitutional Republic is. In order for it to work – and, by the way, for capitalism to work as well – we need to have a citizenry that is reasonably virtuous, educated, and energetic.
As some of you know, I work in the investments business. I have had the good fortune to meet and know some truly fine people. Every now and then I have the misfortune of meeting someone who I think is creepy (even if they hide it well). I can only imagine how such a person treats his or her employees and underlings, let alone other people in their lives. We have arrived at this moment of crisis because enough people have been hurt by some very bad people in their work lives. Taken advantage of and mistreated. I’m not rejecting the profit motive. You cannot have successful companies without a drive to garner sales and earnings. We hope that people do it honestly and with flair and creativity. But it isn’t always that way. However, business failure is a fact of life in our system. It’s actually healthy. However, in order to keep things moving along you have to have an environment in which risk-taking is rewarded. Anyway, I digress. For it all to ultimately work well, we need to be people who, besides being hard-driven achievers, also understand that we have a responsibility to our fellow human beings. Call it enlightened self-interest. Whatever…
As we become more rotten and corrupt human beings we feed the anger and resentment – some of it legit – of people who have been cast off and pushed aside. So, capitalism and our Republic need people who cultivate virtue. Its opposite destroys the body politic and our economy. Then, along come demagogic Marxist hucksters who prey upon people’s misery. This is, in part, what Obonga has done.
I am hoping that if we survive this very difficult period ahead in our nation’s young history that we come out of it with some important lessons learned. I realize what I am about to suggest may not be popular with some people, but it’s inescapable: the pillars of this society are education and religion. You cannot avoid it. If you do things that harm or diminish them, you harm our Republic and our economy.
We can blame Obonga all we want for this developing mess, but ultimately we are to blame for being in this kind of condition where our judgment is so impaired. This is a wake up call to the nation.
Fred, a contemporary of the Founders left us this marvelously balanced observation:
Gibbon, a pillar of the Enlightenment, understood that religion plays an essential function in ordering society, without needing to debate the merits of any particular religion.
The points regarding the military are all well thought out – but there are a few things that would/should still be addressed.
First, what if the military didn’t stand down? What are the ramifications? It’s always a mistake to assume things.
Second, what happens in any kind of post-civil war era?
Yes, I agree most of the wealthy left will run with their tails between their legs – but there are vast numbers who won’t have the financial wherewithall to do the same.
You can usually find them serving coffee in small coffee shops while looking down their noses at anyone they consider less intellectual than themselves.
Anyway, the point is there was a very good reason the American Revolution and the French Revolution ended up so differently.
Anyone actually wanting a revolution/civil war – and I’m not accusing anyone here of that – should be very careful what they wish for.
Third, yes the Founding Fathers did spend many years laying the groundwork for the American Revolution.
When it came, all othe options had been exhausted. They had made both a legal and a moral case for their cause, denying that high ground to the British. And they had the organization, will, manpower, and strategy to achieve indepedence.
I don’t really see the same thing going on now, except for those who are banking up food and ammo as a “just in case” approach if things start to go really badly.
What I would love to see is some sort of political “Constitutional Restoration” movement begin forcefully pushing the federal government back into the framework under which it was created.
While some call for a flat tax or a repeal of the income tax amendment, I think the same can be accomplished simply by adopting an amendment that specifies exactly what the interstate commerce clause refers to.
It’s known as the clause the ate the Constitution for good reason.
Limit the interstate commerce clause to what clearly IS interstate commerce, and many of the federal government’s activities would have to be severely curtailed as blatant overstepping of bounds.
If the case can be successfully made that the government should NOT be doing a certain activity because it is unsupported by this amendment, then by all means that federal agency should be shut down and there is no reason to spend money on it.
If the money can not be justified to spend on it, then that money can then be deducted from the annual budget – which of course would mean resisting efforts to simply re-allocate it elsewhere.
You can’t rely on the courts to pull back on this subject, as they’ve already spent decades ruling otherwise.
Hell, you can’t even freely grow your own garden for personal food production, as the federal government obtained a ruling that even THAT impacts interstate commerce!
Think about that.
Something as simple and basic as putting a seed in the ground in order to feed your family is subject to federal restrictions.
How crazy is that?
It took decades and layers of court rulings to get to where we are now, and it will take many years to undo the damage.
FredHjr,
While I think you’re a little sanguine about the outcome of a civil war in America, I really like your last post. The schoolroom to inculcate citizenship; the pulpit to strengthen it; and, if I may add, the gallows to maintain quality control.
Scottie,
I am already a member of an organization that is founded for the purpose of Constitutional restoration.
I am also in favor of the flat tax. There are other countries that do it and it works. Years ago I was not in favor of the flat tax, but having since read some very good papers about it I have changed my mind. In fact, it seems to be a habit of mine in recent years – changing my mind.
Am most definitely not in favor of proscribing “the wealthy.” But I am definitely in favor of proscribing certain people whose influence has been very destructive. I would not, however, attack the President, however odious his or her role had been. Most definitely he or she would be removed from office, but I would strongly command that not a hair on his or her head be touched. Others I would not be so solicitous for their safety.
But let us all hope that, beginning in November of 2010, we begin to throw the bums out of office. I might add that there are not a lot of Republicans who I would want re-elected. And for 2012 these are the names I like to run for POTUS: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, and Rudi Giuliani.
I know Newt has his detractors, but he seems to have really changed his life. And sincerely, I might add, although some Southerners will not like the fact that he is a convert to Catholicism. But the man is very bright, knows history, knows law, and seems to have not wavered in his conservatism. Sarah Palin is also very bright. I like her a lot too. All of the people I have suggested are, in terms of depth of knowledge, are way far ahead of BarryO. An emptier suit there never was to hold the office he holds.
FredHjr,
I can in large part agree with your views in the immediately preceeding post, with the exception of Giuliani.
I wouldn’t want him anywhere near the Oval Office.
Being a Southerner myself, I have no problem with Gingrich being Catholic as long as he doesn’t place the Pope’s directives above those of the US Constitution and the people. In the modern era, I don’t honestly think that’s a major issue anymore.
I actually think a Palin/Gingrich ticket would be a powerful force.
My understanding is Gingrich is something of a free thinker, politically speaking, and is good at the big idea thing but terrible at implementation and drove his republican collegues crazy when he was Speaker.
Palin, on the other hand, seems to be a solid executive, knows how to make things work, and seems more of a “Salt of the Earth” kind of person.
What little she may not have experience in, Gingrich can be a close advisor for, and I think she will always remember who she is and who put her in office.
Jindal I think is a good man, but I have a suspicion his personality could get overwhelmed by the DC establishment.
“And they had the organization, will, manpower, and strategy to achieve indepedence.”
Actually, about all the founders had was will, and a vision. Ask the soldiers at Valley Forge about organization. Ask Washington about his continual lack of manpower. Ask the Continental Congress about the ever changing strategy. Our independence is greatly due to the British being more incompetent than us at the time, and luck ( providence? ).
http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Miracle-American-Victory-Independence/dp/0195181212
To regain power, we will need those things mentioned above. We will not be able to rely on our opponents’ incompetence.
Lee,
I think they had more on the ball that you give them credit for, and the British were not as incompetent as you may be portraying.
Research each of the Founding Fathers, and you’ll find they were deeply involved in various movements many years before the first shot was fired.
Of course they didn’t have a complete overall strategy, as nobody had ever done what they were in the process of doing and were having to figure it out as they went – but they were developing strategy over those years.
Regarding organization, just consider what happened at Lexington and Concord. Militia – organized and numerous – fought the British troops under the direction of their officers.
You mentioned Valley Forge. Did you know that the US Army considers Valley Forge critical to the creation of the modern US Army? It was at Valley Forge that Washington’s army actually WAS organized with the help of individuals such as Lafeyette.
Regarding manpower, only about 1/3 of the population was behind the independence movement, and of that 1/3 you have to remember that not every single one would be a soldier. You’d have wives and children and elderly also supporting the movement, but not really useful in a combat role.
So they did have manpower, just not a lot of it.
But you did hit on an important component of their victory, perhaps more important than the rest.
They had the will to win.
Sometimes, that’s enough when you have little of anything else.
‘…just consider what happened at Lexington and Concord. Militia – organized and numerous – fought the British troops under the direction of their officers.”
Of course, in this instance, the various militia groups had been forewarned that the British were planning such a move on the American arsenal, and planned counter measures for days. Now name any other revolutionary battle where such organfization existed.
Even after Valley Forge, American soldiers marched hungry, threadbare and shoeless. Ammunition was almost always scarce; rarely, if ever, could the Continentals consider fighting for more than a day in any encounter. Trenton, Saratoga, even the seige at Yorktown were all ad hoc encounters to take advantage of flawed dispositions by the British. Even then, things never went as planned.
“So they did have manpower, just not a lot of it.”
Where manpower is needed is at the point of contact with the enemy. Only twice were the Continentals able to outnumber the British. At Saratoga, Burgoyne’s army depleted through illness and attrition, while Gates gathered recruits and reinforcements from Washington. At Yorktown, Greene and Washington combined their armies to trap Cornwallis. Even then, they needed French naval assistance to prevent British reinforcment from the sea.
“Did you know that the US Army considers Valley Forge critical to the creation of the modern US Army?”
Sure. It should be a lesson for any one: “How not to run an army”. We were just discussing D-Day. Much of it’s success were the disasters of Dieppe and Anzio, and the lessons learned afterward. People learn from other peoples’ mistakes.
The point is, we look back on their success and bestow an almost superhuman quality to the founding fathers, when in fact most of the time they were reacting, sometimes terribly, to circumstances beyond their control. And the outcome was still in doubt up to Yorktown. The British threw in the towel.
“They had the will to win.”
I hope Republicans do, too. Because it’s an uphill battle all the way.