Justifying tyranny
Obama is attempting to rely on people’s ignorance about the makeup of our government, and why it’s structured the way it is, when he argues that he has every right to ignore a duly-passed law on immigration just because he happens to feel like it. And Eugene Robinson, one of Obama’s loyal Ministers of Propaganda, is relying on that ignorance of the public as well when he writes this column in favor of such action.
This is how the propagandists for tyranny argue:
Oh, please. All the melodramatic Republican outrage isn’t fooling anybody. The only reason President Obama has to act on immigration reform is that House Speaker John Boehner won’t.
I repeat: That’s the only reason. The issue could have been settled a year ago. It could be settled in an afternoon. The problem is that Boehner refuses to do his job, preferring instead to spend his time huffing and puffing in simulated indignation.
The rest of the piece is a discussion of how wonderful the Senate immigration bill was, and how the House should and would pass it if it came up for a vote. I don’t even think it would get past the new Senate, much less the new House. But of course Robinson ignores the fact that he’s wanting to push this through a lame duck Congress because time is about to run out.
At any rate, all of that is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter why the bill hasn’t come to a vote in the House. It doesn’t even matter that Harry Reid has done the same stalling thing to countless bills in the Senate since Republicans came to control the House. The point is that Congress is Congress and does what Congress does, and the president is a president and must stick to what presidents do.
The only one throwing the hissy fit is Obama. “I’ve run out of patience” is not a justification for tossing out the Constitution. Neither Obama nor Robinson has even tried to explain what the big rush is—but of course we know what the rush is. Obama had to postpone the action till after the 2014 election in hopes that we stupid Americans wouldn’t catch on to the game, and now he has to race to finish it before the new Congress is sworn in, because that would make it even more likely that they would defy him in some way. What he’s really hoping for is that his bullying of Congress will successfully intimidate them into passing the law before the next session begins, but it’s not going to happen. Even Republicans in the House aren’t that stupid (at least, I think they aren’t).
Robinson ends with this: ” If House Republicans won’t consider the national interest, Obama has no choice but to act.”
No choice. The Republicans made him do it, see?
That rang in me a distant, fading bell of recognition, and I realized it recalled the very first astoundingly awful thing I ever noticed Obama doing, back in June of 2008, when he broke his campaign finance pledge. Remember that? It wasn’t so much that he went back on his word; I could handle that if he acknowledged it and took responsibility. Instead, what did he do? Why, blamed Republicans, that what:
It’s not just that he reneged, either”“it’s how he reneged. Who’s to blame, according to Obama? Why, John McCain and the nasty Republicans, that’s who. James Joyner writes that this charge of Obama’s does take “a bit of gall.” I’d say it takes substantially more than a bit, as well as a heavy dose of the whining, blaming, audacity in which the holier-than-thou Obama tends to specialize:
“‘The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.’”
As they used to say in the schoolyard, takes one to know one. Actually, it’s Obama’s campaign that’s been doing virtually all of the latter, as Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP points out:
“Despite that claim, few Republican-leaning groups have weighed into the presidential contest so far. In fact, Obama allies such as MoveOn.org are the ones that have been spending money on advertising against McCain.”
But Obama doesn’t want to let a little thing like this fact get in the way of a good argument, or at least an argument that sounds good. And once again, he’s relying on the American people not to know or care””and, if the comments by his supporters are any indication, he could be right…
Note the occurrence of three themes back then that we’ve become very very used to in the six years since it happened. The first is the choice of the word “broken” to describe the system Obama’s aiming to flout. The second is the blaming of the opposition rather than taking responsibility for his own choice. The third is a lie about what that opposition is actually doing.
Back then, what Obama was proposing wasn’t unconstitutional, of course. What he’s proposing to do now is far, far worse. Back then, much of the MSM defended him, too. I remember understanding that it meant they were in his corner for the long haul, and would go far in abasing themselves on his behalf.
And so they did.
Immigration proponents are interested in increasing taxable assets to replace underperforming and liquidated assets, and to exploit democratic leverage. Obama is attempting to strike a balance between young and old, entitled and desperate, in order to secure financing of Obamacare, welfare state, etc. This is necessary to keep people of his lawn and generally agreeable. Second and third-world nations, including Mexico, are more than eager to outsource responsibility for their underperforming assets, and those assets that they cannot liquidate because of legal restrictions. Meanwhile, large minority of Americans are too stupid and bitter to realize the progress of a Dodo Dynasty.
All hail Emperor Obama!
By that logic, there’s really nothing stopping him from just declaring himself President for life, right?
Which is why one of my snarky monikers for Obola is . . . President Hissy Fit. I coined that during the government shutdown, when he closed scenery to the public (national parks and the WWII Museum on the Mall) in a fit of pique to punish We the People. I mean, how dare someone disagree with His Royal Majesty? If the Republicans had just agreed with him, he wouldn’t have had to do it. In doing that, President If You Like Your Plan is no different than a wife beater. (I love you so much. Why do you make me hit you?)
The DRAT (Displace, Replace, Abort, and Tax) Act is a reflection of latent hostility. The democratic deposition of his Democrat congress accelerated the expression of its symptoms. It seems that Narcissistic President will ignore the Lame Duck session and risk further exposure.
Usually, wannabe dictators take advantage of some actual social turmoil.
In Julius Obama’s case, the legislative branch simply does not agree with him about what needs to be enacted into law.
Therefore in order to get the social shaping power and results he wants Obama must engage in constitutional subversion and, speaking plainly, in a violation of his oath of office and effective treason; i.e., an overthrow of our form of government.
Now, this is of course perfectly ok with numerous leftists in this country. They have hated the basic law limitations imposed on their ability to do unto others, for as long as those constitutional limitations have been in place; and many if not most, are not shy about saying so.
What is funny about all of this that the election of one of their purest specimens to the Executive , and the control of both houses of the legislative merely whetted their appetites for escalated uncompromising conflict and more radical social – possibly bloodletting – revolution.
Obama will precipitate a constitutional crisis. It remains to be seen if Republicans have the moral courage to defend what is left of our way of life and government, or whether they figure self-government is already a lost cause and the best course is to hope the ride to Hades can be made as comfortable as possible for themselves and their children at least.
What’s the downside for Obama? No reelection worries. No fear of impeachment or government shutdown. Guaranteed $300k+ speech fees. If he wants it, a real possibility of gaining the UN Secretary job. If he makes amnesty stick, a permanent legacy on the left, as the man who brought the left, permanent one party control of America.
And if he’s assassinated (IMO an increasingly real possibility) he becomes a martyr for the left that arguably would exceed Lincoln. I don’t think Obama has a death wish but I do think that securing a legacy as the ‘most influential President ever’ is his primary motivation and if that takes martyrdom… well Insha’Allah (“if Allah wills”).
Craig,
What’s stopping Obama from declaring himself President for Life is that the US Military would not support his attempt at a coup. To get that support, he would first need a crisis severe enough that it would generate bi-partisan support for Obama declaring nationwide martial law for, ‘the duration of the national emergency’.
Then through constitutional precedent (Lincoln) he could legally suspend key provisions of the Constitution, while granting amnesty and citizenship to ALL the illegals. After a suitable period, he could then end martial law knowing that he now had the political leverage to amend the Constitution as he and the left desires.
No need for violence, no need for a coup. Simple and clean.
I hate the fact that the Republicans have taken impeachment off the table. And they do that because they know he is immune because of his race. That’s a fact.
The only – and I mean only – hope here is to get a federal judge to grant an injunction to prohibit the issuing of green cards, etc. It would the injunction would have to be after a hearing; not a TRO on affidavits.
I am not hopeful that the lawsuit will be filed or that a DC judge would have the guts to do it.
Is there a perimeter around “I’ve run out of patience”? Or are there ‘fringes’ to “I’ve run out of patience” that may be stomped through? Does the dissolution of the border for which he hasn’t any use, extend to all boundaries? I’m sure it’s not so – Executive orders by way of Executive privilege only. Check your privilege Barry — you’re only half black and zero messiah.
Obama is the perpetual victim. The evil Republicans made him do it. Obama has been playing the victim card for as long I can recall.
Our saving grace, in my humble opinion, is that President Obama is both malevolent AND incompetent. (Or, in our Gentle Hostess’s formulation, he is both knave AND fool.)
He wants to make substantial changes in the system of how this country works, and he doesn’t like checks and balances standing in his way. (He has said this explicitly, more than once. His defenders will no doubt claim he was only joking.) Fortunately for us, he is as worldly in his implementation skills as an average college freshman (if that) — full of ideas to change the world, utterly clueless about why his ideas never worked out when others tried them.
Yes, he has done considerable damage. This includes damage to his own causes. His unforced errors are legion.
We must hope and pray that the Republican leadership is more competent than he is. That may be a bit of a long shot, but for now, it’s all we have.
Daniel in Brookline: “We must hope and pray that the Republican leadership is more competent than he is.”
Do more than hope and pray. Be an activist.
One of the interesting points the moderate Muslims made at the site Eric referred to the other day is that nations have the right to control their own borders.
Here is how the “moderate Muslims” presented Al-Baghdadi’s argument against nation states:
“In one of your speeches you said: ‘Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not for Iraqis54.’ In the same speech, you called on Muslims from across the globe to immigrate to lands under the control of the ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and the Levant. By doing so, you take the rights and resources of these countries and distribute them among people who are strangers to those lands, even though they are of the same religion.”
http://lettertobaghdadi.com/.
Their opposition to the right of nation states to exist and to control their own resources is another point of synergy between radical Islam and the Left. By deliberately erasing the borders of the USA Obama is doing to us exactly what Al-Baghdadi is doing to Syria and Iraq.
Neo pinpoints the major problem right at the start — it’s that “ignorance about the makeup of our government, and why it’s structured the way it is” that’s so very damaging to our system.
Maybe activists can start by urging that more emphasis be put on the study of Civics in our high schools. Because there’s a problem with that — from a 2012 study at Tufts University:
Here’s the link for that Tufts study.
The dems controlled both houses of congress in 2009 and 2010. Amnesty could have been passed in the same manner as ocare was foisted upon the American public. But now its those neanderthals in the House that are thawrting the will of dear leader so he is forced to rewrite our immigration laws? You do have to be pretty clueless to swallow dear leader’s ‘logic’ for usurping the prerogatives solely delegated to congress.
The irony is the first black president will hurt blacks by this action as latinos will out compete them for low wage jobs. Where is the black congressional caucus when blacks need them the most
Dear Eugene Robinson: The suckage-lippage marks affixed by you to His Infantile Majesty’s anal pore are duly noted, you insufferable Pinhead.
“Where is the black congressional caucus when blacks need them the most”
They don’t care anything about the blacks. It’s about the democrats retaining power by importing an economic underclass that will be beholding to and reliably vote for the democrats.
Putting aside for the moment Eugene Robinson’s partisan and racial motivation for defending Obama, he makes the same mistake that many other people make.
The federal govt was not set up by the founders to be a cooperative venture in which representatives casually agree to govern. It was established as a group of competing and adversarial factions (Congress, Presidency, Judiciary) which was to obstruct the growth of governance except on those rare occasions when it could come to agreement or compromise; i.e., a govt limited by obstruction with reluctant cooperation being the exception to the rule. The concept of enumerated federal powers comes from this exact same mindset. That is how tyranny is forestalled.
Ann,
As you probably know, the lack of emphasis in the study of Civics in our high schools is entirely intentional and, as long as the current teachers, administrators and school boards remain, the indoctrination will not just continue but deepen. As proof, look at ‘common core’.
T,
They know that and they are doing all they can to destroy the system the founders created. It’s not a case of ignorance, it’s a case of conscious animosity.
“For the left, it’s never about the issue, it’s always about the revolution” David Horowitz
They are all the enemy, every single one of them.
Robinson ends with this: “If House Republicans won’t consider the national interest, Obama has no choice but to act.”
So why didn’t Obama “consider the national interest” and get an immigration bill passed during his first two years in office, when the Demos controlled both chambers and had a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate?
Perhaps because he realized such a bill would not positively impact his electability in 2012/
There will be no attempt at impeachment; Obama made certain of that by picking Joe Biden as his VP. Nobody with any sense wants to see him behind the desk in the Oval Office.
And regarding this: “What’s stopping Obama from declaring himself President for Life is that the US Military would not support his attempt at a coup.” There is so much truth in this it’s not even remotely amusing. My eldest son is very circumspect in what he will say about the government. What he has repeatedly shared with me is that he and the rest of his USAF squadron have sworn their oath to the US Constitution, NOT the president, and that there is no love toward the current holder of that office.
“Let’s stay focused” he said to himself.
The problem is that this man is at base a simple enemy of constitutional government, and intends to use the Executive Office to wreck it, one way or another.
We need to think what we can do, in order to legislatively halt his acts of sabotage; and if that means “horror of horrors” bringing the Federal Government to a standstill for an indefinite period of time, then we have to ask ourselves what will have been lost, when to do nothing loses us everything important anyway?
What is more important: Grandma’s social security check, or your liberty in a republic governed by laws made by the representatives of the people under a set of validating rules?
Yeah, the consequences of pressing this may be ugly in the near term, but the consequences of not doing so will eventually be much uglier.
RandomThoughts Says:
November 19th, 2014 at 6:21 pm
That’s true, of course, but it’s recently occurred to me that perhaps part of the reason for his constant whipping up of black resentment and hatred ever since he took office, is that that is another form of impeachment insurance.
While not much might happen upon impeachment, if he were convicted and removed from office every city in the country would burn.
I’m looking for the Republican who will stand up tomorrow night and say ‘When I am elected president in 2016 I will repeal Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration as my first act in the White House’. That draws a clear line without reference to impeachment and would do a lot to blunt the actual impact of whatever Obama does. That person will get my vote and whatever financial support I can manage.
John,
You would force back into the shadows those who had eagerly stepped out of the dark to contribute their fair share? You would destroy children’s lives? What other explanation can there be but racism? For shame! Crawl back under the rock from which you came and count your sins.
No one is ‘illegal’! ALL are welcome who wish to contribute. America is not white but a rainbow of colors! America is not a ‘melting pot’ but a salad of flavors.
Lead, follow or get out of the way. Your day is done, a better way has been found.
That is the propaganda we face and reasoned rebuttal has little effect upon the tsunami of emotion to which the left appeals.
“For the left, it’s never about the issue, it’s always about [forwarding] the revolution.” David Horowitz
Owebama’s working on that angle, too. He’s had a purge ongoing of senior military people for years. The assumption is that they are not loyal to him but to their oath to the Constitution (and that ‘fight all enemies foreign and domestic’ bit).
That is the propaganda we face and reasoned rebuttal has little effect upon the tsunami of emotion to which the left appeals.
Reminds me of Senator Angus King, who turned around a discussion on Gruber’s statement about lack of transparency in the writing and passage of Obamacare and told the Fox News panel that they sounded like they didn’t want people to have health insurance and said “I don’t where you’re coming from … are you that cruel”?
So the plan for dealing with the tyrant is…?
I think it may have to come down to State Legislatures. That’s probably as it should be. The Central Government is abusive, corrupt, and tyrannical.
Mike,
When the people are faced with a tyrannical government, and no branch of government stops the tyranny, then the Framers left it up to We the People to take care of business thanks to the 2nd Amendment. That is We the People’s ultimate check on tyrannical government.
We are fast approaching that point. And any civil war is being fomented by our Government.
Block grants to the border states…
Block grants to the LEOs that have to handle illegal aliens. Permit such costs to be back-charged to Uncle Obola.
Such bills would be entirely bi-partisan.
RickZ Says:
November 19th, 2014 at 10:10 pm
All the checks and balances are failing, and the Ruling Class answers to no law.
The crisis is rapidly approaching. Either we kill the tyrants, or we meekly accept our status as serfs.
RickZ,
Yes, more than a few of us here have mentioned it. However take hope: “A recent poll among government workers found that only 26 percent approve of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. And 20 percent of federal workers and troops surveyed think members of Congress are qualified to perform their oversight duties for national security.” That tells me that at most, 26% of our troops are leftists and/or useful idiots.
Ann,
“I don’t where you’re coming from … are you that cruel?” Senator Angus King
Rebuttal: ‘No but where you’re coming from is obvious enough, you’re advocating coercion in support of legalized theft.’
OK, no impeachment, we wait until 2016/7 to do something. How about some lawfare in the meanwhile (and after Jan 2017)?
Dems/the left have brutalized Repubs/center-right for years (well, really, anyone with whom they disagreed) with lawsuits, requests for injunctions, etc. over and over again.
I don’t understand why the Repubs/center-right-right don’t do the same thing. Does the left have all the ?good? lawyers?
“Running out of patience” didn’t Hitler use that term in a speech as an excuse for murdering assorted victims. “Improving on an “old, tired democracy” (Mussolini’s words) is the usual excuse for tyrannical action.
The real question is can he be stopped? My history is off but has the US ever faced a crisis where the President is dedicated to undermining and destroying the US? Obama is the greatest crisis in US history (even if the south succeeded a truncated US would have survived).
I wonder if anyone will recognize it as such.
It is important to understand what Robinson really is and what his motivations are. He is a “journalist” only in the loosest sense of the word. He is not attempting to report or editorialize per se, as both imply an underlying ethos of piquing curiosity, provoking reflection and furthering debate and discussion. No, his raison d’etre is to propagandize, but not so much to the masses but rather to angst ridden liberals. There are indeed a significant number of liberals who at least try to stay true to their principles, who are not leftists and harbor serious and sincere misgivings about the hard left. These individuals, while struggling to maintain their loyalty to Obama (“white guilt” plays a significant role here for the vast majority of them who are white), are troubled by many of his excessive executive actions. Many of them have probably at least casually read or heard (even second hand) Jonathan Turley. While they support amnesty, they are deeply worried about the precedent Obama’s action may set. They are reflective enough to realize if Bush had attempted such an action they would be outraged, red faced, screaming for impeachment at the top of their lungs. And they remain “liberal” in the broadest sense that they accept such accountability should be uniform.
But they crave assurances and rationalization. They can spin plenty of both in their own heads and commiserating in casual conversation. But that is not sufficient. They desperately need to see it in print, neatly laid out by a “professional”. Yes, yes…it IS all the Republicans fault. THEY are FORCING Obama to do this. By and large, the logic of an abused spouse rationalizing his or her abuser’s behavior.
There is, alas, a large market for Robinson’s ridiculous pablum in certain circles, circles I have mentioned in the past and anyone who lives and/or works amongst many educated, professional liberals has amply encountered. Alas…
Much rather have a dead martyr than a living asshole any day of the week.
There are a slew of excellent articles by Pat Cadell describing the corruption of the Obama MSM. Here is one
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/29/mainstream-media-threatening-our-country-future/
RickZ Says:
November 20th, 2014 at 6:35 am
Agree 100%.
And the people who venerate him as a martyr will become known as “targets”.
Thats ok…
given the stuff in colleges and school
(you dont need permission to teach 5th graders how to have proper anal sex, you DO need permission to read huck finn)
they are just copying the Nazi period, from race games, to blood and soil (multiculturalism), to jew hate, to eugenics, etc.
Every day in every way they are more like the classical Nazi’s of last century… probably because their ideology is the SAME — the liberals are very foolish to think that same has to be identical rather than equivalent — this is equivalent to book burning / multiculturalism is equivalent to blood and soil / and feminism is eugenics as it has ALWAYS been! [and the sexualization of children is right out of the Bela Kuhn play book]
i said this would happen, as it was their stated plan decades before the election…
get ready, for i also pointed out that a big war is coming…
not ot mention that they have started using the term internment in relation to those camps that are too ambigiously displayed for us to accept what they are for…
now it makes a lot more sense as to why the various agencies in the US have purchased more bullets than needed to murder everyone in the countryh, and more bullets and firearms than the recent wars needed
Tonight, Obama crosses the Rubicon.
Amnesty for illegals throws Black America off the bus
[i guess they were too afraid to say they were put at the back of the bus]
http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/commentary/are-you-awake-black-america-obama-steals-your-future-with-illegal-alien-exec-order-30042/
With the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama will strip black Americans and their children of their economic civil rights and opportunities in favor of illegal alien immigrants.
Obama has decided to turn back the clock on black Americans’ hard-won rights by his planned executive order, set for 8 p.m., November 20.
According to the New York Times, Obama will use his executive authority to provide work permits for up to five million people who are in the United States illegally, which will shield them from deportation.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tens of thousands of black mothers and fathers in Obama’s hometown of Chicago and in other cities may be more than a little ticked off. They are in this country legally, struggling from generation to generation to get a decent education, affordable housing, quality health care, and jobs to support their families.
Obama is about to throw them off the bus.
Baraka Obama is ignoring the role he plays as occupying the Executive branch of our three-branch government.
His is not the job to WRITE, or, REWRITE legislation, which is what he is articulating in his telegraphed intentions to act.
He CANNOT (legally) change statute, which is what he is suggesting in his intentions to act. Should he follow through as he’s communicated, his actions essentially rewrite immigration legislation. NOT his job. NOT his role. NOT within his legal boundaries. Period.
Republicans have been telling us that they needed the Senate to do anything. Well now they have the Senate.
Are they going to tell us that they now need the Presidency? And if they get that what else will they need?
So after tonight’s speech the question will be what are Republicans going to do with the next two years.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. A lot of comments on blogs lately talk very tough but I’m not sure how meaningful that is.
Contact Speaker Boehner. It’s better than just venting on the innertubes.
http://www.speaker.gov/Contact/
Even better yet, contact the Whitehouse and your Senators and Representative.
Here’s where the info is to get the e-mail addresses and phone numbers:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/US-Congress.shtml#Contact_the_White_House
Here are the White House phone numbers:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Just do it!
I think I’ve told this story before, but this reminds me of when I was a kid in my last year of high school. The head of the English Department, Ms M- arranged a weekend ski trip and seminar for about 70 to a hundred students. All as a kind of educational experiment, I guess.
As it was co-ed, and this is way more than 30 years ago, we were carefully preselected, and she placed us on our honor, in writing, as far as promises of behavior went.
Arriving at the lodge, we were assigned single sex bunk rooms, 3 or four occupants per.
Now unfortunately it is true that I was innocently led into error in the girls dorm through the conspiracy of a couple of young women who assured me that they had obtained explicit, almost written, permission from Ms M- for me to be in their room, when in-walked a furious department head who apparently had granted them, and ergo me, no such exemption … but that is another story.
The official main event of the evening was held in the main guest hall, a kind of extension off the large lobby; one of those vaulted ceiling exposed-beam atrium-like rooms with 3 fireplaces, and an open tier of walkways above the common area allowing access to guest room doors on the second level.
It was a planned political exercise; one in which “money” was handed out to all students more or less equally, and, with each student being assigned to a home group numbering seven or eight, I think it was.
I’m not sure what the “officially announced goal” of the game was, but superficially, it had something to do with making trades and accumulating value and becoming winners. There may have been some tangible items that could be purchased or accumulated, but I am not certain of that.
In any event, the teachers then gave us a set of rules about making further rules, basically implying that those rules could later be changed by the government we elected.
They stipulated that the provisional government was to be composed of two groups: one “randomly” appointed by the teachers as half of the proposed provisional government, and another which would be elected en masse, by a committee of the whole; and which, in conjunction with the appointed group would then further regularize elections, practices, and exchange rules. There were no other explicit rules that I recall.
The election arranged, “politicking” began, and two things immediately happened. The appointed group got another group they informally caucused with to give them all their money in return for the promise of being elevated to the governing council if the election plan succeeded. The next thing, was that they used all their pooled money to buy enough votes from the general population in the election to elevate their allies to the government.
Then together, the next thing they did, and this was amazing both for the rapidity with which it happened and the unapologetic boldness of the act itself, they decreed that all money would be confiscated and doled out by them at their pleasure.
It happened so fast, and their strategy, violating the usual moral sensibilities of what we would have thought to be every normal suburban kid there, so outrageous, that we could hardly process that it was happening.
There seemed to be no real motive for it other than a “pointless” will to power and domination.
And then they came to collect.
A couple of flunkies were sent to the various out-groups and began collecting. The situation in the lobby/hall became somewhat chaotic. A Spanish exchange student in my group came running to the rest of us and whispered that we should all give her our money, which in the general chaos we all did unnoticed. She promptly stuffed the script under a couch cushion, and sat quietly down.
When the flunkies came to us we all shrugged that we had no money; dramatically turning our pockets inside out and laughing. Great fun.
Then they saw her, and went over to her and told her to give up whatever she had. She sat there and showed that she had nothing in her ski pants pockets. Then, they demanded that she rise. She demurred. One of the flunkies seized her forearm and tried to yank her up. He found himself shoved onto the couch. She jumped up and came to me. I told her to give me the money. Another flunky came forward, and went flying back.
The girls in our group closed ranks and began defying the flunkies. Shouts and yelling and mobbing, and the teachers came rushing into the fray waving their arms in front of me and in my face, and telling everyone to stop, stop stop!
I don’t know if someone blew a whistle or not but the whole proceedings were called to an immediate halt.
What the official lesson was supposed to be I am not sure. I think, oddly enough and given that the arranging teacher was a liberal in those days, it was aimed at proving the necessity of meta-rules and constraints.
What it clearly showed was that taking steps back, hunkering down, and treating appropriative transgressions as if they could be worked around later (hiding money) didn’t work.
The power seekers, having no, or many fewer interior inhibitions in the first place, don’t stop with passing the transgressive law and gaining general compliance. They want to nail things down completely. They search house to house, driving their bodkins through your walls looking for hidden priests of the old faith; scrutinize everyone’s behavior for telltale behavioral deviations, and they settle for nothing less than holding the whole loaf.
However, we citizens are way better off in terms of leverage than those kids were in their rigged game. You do not necessarily have to initiate force against them when they begin. You can halt the official proceedings, clarify and restate the rules everyone of any intelligence implicitly recognizes, and through non-cooperation and officially led defiance bring the issue to a resolution: wherein if raw force is ultimately to be the arbitrator, it is they who will have first and clearly, overstepped.
If moral vermin are subverting your government in order to kill you, stop the government until matters are rectified, and the moral vermin are either ousted or put in their proper place as servants of the polity and executors of the valid law, rather than masters and sovereigns.
Now, if only our already elected governors and representatives could show the same moral courage and determination in the face of “immoral authority” that run of the mill activists do, we would be well on our way.
Is every elected Republican official such a personal coward as to be afraid of an open political confrontation, and maybe of a threatened or attempted arrest? It all would be, really, no more than the social equivalent of a Senate filibuster.
That said, most senators don’t have the stomach to actually engage in one either.
We know some do. And if they do what they were appointed to do in this election, we won’t have to go into the streets instead.
Barack Obama: Gun Salesman of the Century!
All types of ammo is in short supply, selling out whenever some hits the shelves.
Tough talk? I don’t think so.
Why do you think Owebama has gone after the 2nd Amendment so hard? He can’t control those bitter clingers and their weapons.
“Obama is the greatest crisis in US history (even if the south succeeded a truncated US would have survived).
I wonder if anyone will recognize it as such.” Bob from Virginia
Everyone who voted for Romney recognizes it as such and probably all of those who didn’t vote as well.
Obama could do nothing without the support of elected democrats and they wouldn’t be there to support him if not for the foolhardiness of half of America.
Obama and the hard core left is engineering not just a constitutional crisis but multiple crises on both the domestic and foreign fronts.
DNW has the right of it, “The power seekers, having no, or many fewer interior inhibitions in the first place, don’t stop with passing the transgressive law and gaining general compliance. They want to nail things down completely.”
All of the ‘issues’ on the left are political cover for the rubes, to give the hard core left the political leverage needed to gradually seize all power.
“Professional liberals [today’s Marxist/’Progressives’] are too arrogant to compromise. In my experience, they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.” – Harry S Truman, from a 1970 interview
“For the left, it’s never about the issue, it’s always about the revolution. The goal of every progressive scheme is to take away individual freedom so that everybody can be made to do what’s good for them.
The goal of progressives is to control individual lives.
Lenin didn’t start out by saying — or even thinking — let’s kill 40 million people. The slogan of his party was “Bread, Land and Peace.” That’s what they were about.
But their plans required remaking human beings. And the only way you can accomplish that is by means of a totalitarian state.
Everything the Democrats do is an attack on individual freedom and laying the groundwork for a one-party totalitarian state, though they would deny it if you confronted them.
I am waiting for Republicans to wake up. [But] I’ll believe it when I see it.
The reason for my skepticism is the nature of the Republican Party, which is first of all a party of small business people. If you run a business, you are conflict-averse. You want customers; you don’t want fights. In contrast, if you’re a missionary, and believe that the world is in control of evil corporations and evil Republicans, you’re always looking for a fight. That’s the real problem we face. And I hope we can overcome it.” David Horowitz
Evil people always pretend to be good and always accuse those who oppose them of the very things of which they themselves are guilty. Democrats have long accused Republicans of being controlled by evil, conservatives have finally begun to see that the hard core left is evil because they are entirely willing to employ evil to compel their idea of ‘good’.
Thanks for the reminder. I did.
Yes, unfortunately
Not very I hope. It’s easy to get yourself worked up. It’s not as easy to go to political meetings, hand out flyers, be elected as a precinct delegate, write letters as JJ says, and encourage elected officials to stand up to pressure, by ensuring them we have their backs.
The left knows this. Their elected officials are willing to go to jail; our rank and file won’t talk back to their own relatives: but will, sometimes, talk menace.
How self-defeating in terms of activism, as many here have already stated.
Sorry: I changed thought in midstream ..
either, “assuring them”; or, “ensuring we”
Thanks for taking action, DNW.
Artfldgr Says:
November 20th, 2014 at 11:08 am
Amnesty for illegals throws Black America off the bus.
&&&
Are my eyes fooling me?
The picture heading the article shows apparent Palestinian flags — and nothing but — in the back ground as the invaders jump double fencing.
No Latin American nation has a flag remotely like it.
Didn’t that catch your eye?