Since, to one’s immense horror (and the country’s great misfortune), the rogue, illegal government that currently occupies the WH and which has been corrupting, warping and shredding American institutions, and society, as much as it possibly can, has been pressing ahead like gangbusters—as though, in fact, those malefactors fear they will be found out and dealt with before they have a chance to wreak their destruction decisively and permanently.
Creating crises practically on a regular basis and thriving on them, one can only wonder what new Reichstag fire they will set next…
Hardly a surprise. No way are politicians, en masse going to commit political suicide. For they know, that there are no means by which a dependent public would accept an end to what they… ‘deserve’. The American experiment in Representative democracy has had its most serious flaw exposed, of which one man presciently spoke;
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.” Alexander Fraser Tytler ~ 1747 – 1813
Representative government, whose representatives are elected democratically, arguably merely extends the life of what is at base, a democracy.
Tytler’s assertion rests upon his observation that, “It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury”
The proof of his assertion is two facts; polls consistently show that Congress is held in the lowest of regard, yet most voters support their representative. As the reelection of incumbents in the 90th percentile consistently demonstrates.
It’s the other voter’s district representatives and State Senators who are the bums.
So, how do we, can we… remove the ability of the voters to vote themselves, through their representatives, largesse from the public treasury?
Maybe, just maybe, instead of voting for our representatives, we could each be voting for another voter’s district and Senatorial representative? Wouldn’t that remove narrow self interest and force say Georgia’s voters to consider what’s best for Massachusetts?
Of course, the danger there is the old “you wash my back and I’ll wash yours” syndrome. No substitute for honesty, no substitute for integrity. However since locks are for honest people, randomly rotate the cross voting among districts and states and make those announcements just before the primaries. The object being to remove the time needed for the unscrupulous to make deals. Set term limits. Create lawful standards for how much largesse one district or State can ‘award’ another.
We have to figure out a better way of plugging the holes that the Left has created in our Constitution.
Enforcement, regular fascist style and SS style too.
“…In a modern liberal democracy, every event requires a response, and every response requires a response and so on. The smallest pebble tossed into the water can potentially result in a flood. In this context it means government jumping in to mitigate the consequences of their fix for something else they broke. Inflation will get calls for more spending, which will get more inflation. The central banks will then try to redirect that inflation from goods to assets.
In other words, the shutdowns have created a dynamic of chaos that will take years to settle out, assuming no further shocks. The Biden administration is promising another meteor strike with their Build Back Better nonsense. You see, they broke everything and now see it as a chance to remake the world in their image. When crazy stupid people want to try to make the world, the only thing that can follow is chaos. We may be at the cusp of an age of unimaginable economic madness.
******This is a good example of something said by Will Durant. “Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for those are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.”******
In the fullness of time, after the West is a ruin of its own making, this age will be remembered as a gross and sustained violation of that sentiment. ******If over the last thirty years the people in charge had done nothing but entertain themselves with their toys, none of this would be happening.****** Instead, they kept trying to prove nature wrong and overturn the wisdom of ages. Reality does not take kindly to this amount of abuse, so there will be consequences.“
Bah, I was hoping for a few easy weeks at work.
This “shutdown” and “debt ceiling” theater happens every few years… if only there were a way it could actually shut down. Congress made these rules and can change them when it likes. When they don’t change the rules it’s because they are pretending to be responsible, like the “doc fix” they applied to Medicare every year starting in 1998 to negate its cost controls and finally abolished outright in 2015.
Frederick,
If the government shuts down due to an inability to print more money, would not ALL federal payments cease? No Social Security checks, no checks for ALL federal employees including military personnel. Medicare payments, etc. etc…
Zaphod quoted:
“Instead, they kept trying to prove nature wrong and overturn the wisdom of ages. Reality does not take kindly to this amount of abuse, so there will be consequences.“
Shorter version is, after Hubris comes Nemesis, always.
Geoffrey Britain – I’m not so sure. I’m worried that Biden is dumb enough to actually try the “mint a platinum coin” gambit and destroy the dollar. I suppose payments would continue in that case, but only in a very technical sense.
@Geoffrey:If the government shuts down due to an inability to print more money, would not ALL federal payments cease?
It never did. Last shutdown was 2018-2019. They had to prioritize what they paid for. Some payments stopped, and some didn’t.
Same thing in 2013 and in 1995-1996.
The government shutdown theater is just rules that Congress makes that they can alter in any way at any time.
The media counts on our not remembering what happened all the other times… maybe don’t fall for their doom-mongering?
@Geoffrey: I checked, and Neo posted on the last shutdown, and you even commented.
Not picking on you. It’s just Gell-Mann amnesia. We’re none of us here teenagers, we lived through a bunch of these, and the sky didn’t fall, nobody made platinum $1 trillion coins. Few people were even inconvenienced by it.
All that happens is that the government has to prioritize what it actually pays for (like everyone else) and Congress may have to make special rules for the duration.
Mark Levin pointed out that the US treasury takes in about $320 billion in tax revenue every month, of which about $40 billion goes to service the debt. If the government “defaults”, that money will still be coming in and going out-nothing will radically change. The Dems want the panic as cover to raise the debt ceiling, so they can spend outrageously more without running afoul of budget ‘rules.’ (Not that the ‘rules’ ever stopped them…).
Frederick,
You’re right I’d forgotten. A refusal to raise the debt limit simply means they have to prioritize spending within that limit as Congress can’t continue to borrow from the future. Let’s do it!
I may have mentioned this before, but if we used $B as the sole metric* for federal spending levels, we might have a greater appreciation of how much debt we (or our posterity) are “taking on”. Thus $3.4T becomes $3400 B, or approximately 4 times the DOD budget, or SS payouts, or Medicare, etc. The economy at $22T becomes $22,000 B, the current national debt is about $28,000 B, etc.
I fear using small numbers like 1.5 and 3.4 gives too many of us (or at least too many of our fellow citizens) a false psychological feeling that the budget is not “really all that large” and is manageable.
Unfortunately the malignant (and incompetent) media are more oriented to misinforming their customers than educating them, when they deign to provide any real information at all.
*Not that any of us here have any real understanding of $1B as $1000M either.
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Not much.
Government’s been shut down since Jan 20.
Two-edged sword.
“Government’s been shut down since Jan 20.”
Alas, no.
“Legitimate government”? Yes, absolutely.
Since, to one’s immense horror (and the country’s great misfortune), the rogue, illegal government that currently occupies the WH and which has been corrupting, warping and shredding American institutions, and society, as much as it possibly can, has been pressing ahead like gangbusters—as though, in fact, those malefactors fear they will be found out and dealt with before they have a chance to wreak their destruction decisively and permanently.
Creating crises practically on a regular basis and thriving on them, one can only wonder what new Reichstag fire they will set next…
Hardly a surprise. No way are politicians, en masse going to commit political suicide. For they know, that there are no means by which a dependent public would accept an end to what they… ‘deserve’. The American experiment in Representative democracy has had its most serious flaw exposed, of which one man presciently spoke;
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.” Alexander Fraser Tytler ~ 1747 – 1813
Representative government, whose representatives are elected democratically, arguably merely extends the life of what is at base, a democracy.
Tytler’s assertion rests upon his observation that, “It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury”
The proof of his assertion is two facts; polls consistently show that Congress is held in the lowest of regard, yet most voters support their representative. As the reelection of incumbents in the 90th percentile consistently demonstrates.
It’s the other voter’s district representatives and State Senators who are the bums.
So, how do we, can we… remove the ability of the voters to vote themselves, through their representatives, largesse from the public treasury?
Maybe, just maybe, instead of voting for our representatives, we could each be voting for another voter’s district and Senatorial representative? Wouldn’t that remove narrow self interest and force say Georgia’s voters to consider what’s best for Massachusetts?
Of course, the danger there is the old “you wash my back and I’ll wash yours” syndrome. No substitute for honesty, no substitute for integrity. However since locks are for honest people, randomly rotate the cross voting among districts and states and make those announcements just before the primaries. The object being to remove the time needed for the unscrupulous to make deals. Set term limits. Create lawful standards for how much largesse one district or State can ‘award’ another.
We have to figure out a better way of plugging the holes that the Left has created in our Constitution.
Enforcement, regular fascist style and SS style too.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/395827.php
Not unrelated:
Everything is Broken
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=25224
“…In a modern liberal democracy, every event requires a response, and every response requires a response and so on. The smallest pebble tossed into the water can potentially result in a flood. In this context it means government jumping in to mitigate the consequences of their fix for something else they broke. Inflation will get calls for more spending, which will get more inflation. The central banks will then try to redirect that inflation from goods to assets.
In other words, the shutdowns have created a dynamic of chaos that will take years to settle out, assuming no further shocks. The Biden administration is promising another meteor strike with their Build Back Better nonsense. You see, they broke everything and now see it as a chance to remake the world in their image. When crazy stupid people want to try to make the world, the only thing that can follow is chaos. We may be at the cusp of an age of unimaginable economic madness.
******This is a good example of something said by Will Durant. “Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for those are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.”******
In the fullness of time, after the West is a ruin of its own making, this age will be remembered as a gross and sustained violation of that sentiment. ******If over the last thirty years the people in charge had done nothing but entertain themselves with their toys, none of this would be happening.****** Instead, they kept trying to prove nature wrong and overturn the wisdom of ages. Reality does not take kindly to this amount of abuse, so there will be consequences.“
Bah, I was hoping for a few easy weeks at work.
This “shutdown” and “debt ceiling” theater happens every few years… if only there were a way it could actually shut down. Congress made these rules and can change them when it likes. When they don’t change the rules it’s because they are pretending to be responsible, like the “doc fix” they applied to Medicare every year starting in 1998 to negate its cost controls and finally abolished outright in 2015.
Frederick,
If the government shuts down due to an inability to print more money, would not ALL federal payments cease? No Social Security checks, no checks for ALL federal employees including military personnel. Medicare payments, etc. etc…
Zaphod quoted:
“Instead, they kept trying to prove nature wrong and overturn the wisdom of ages. Reality does not take kindly to this amount of abuse, so there will be consequences.“
Shorter version is, after Hubris comes Nemesis, always.
Geoffrey Britain – I’m not so sure. I’m worried that Biden is dumb enough to actually try the “mint a platinum coin” gambit and destroy the dollar. I suppose payments would continue in that case, but only in a very technical sense.
@Geoffrey:If the government shuts down due to an inability to print more money, would not ALL federal payments cease?
It never did. Last shutdown was 2018-2019. They had to prioritize what they paid for. Some payments stopped, and some didn’t.
Same thing in 2013 and in 1995-1996.
The government shutdown theater is just rules that Congress makes that they can alter in any way at any time.
The media counts on our not remembering what happened all the other times… maybe don’t fall for their doom-mongering?
@Geoffrey: I checked, and Neo posted on the last shutdown, and you even commented.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/12/27/the-government-shutdown/#comments
Not picking on you. It’s just Gell-Mann amnesia. We’re none of us here teenagers, we lived through a bunch of these, and the sky didn’t fall, nobody made platinum $1 trillion coins. Few people were even inconvenienced by it.
All that happens is that the government has to prioritize what it actually pays for (like everyone else) and Congress may have to make special rules for the duration.
Mark Levin pointed out that the US treasury takes in about $320 billion in tax revenue every month, of which about $40 billion goes to service the debt. If the government “defaults”, that money will still be coming in and going out-nothing will radically change. The Dems want the panic as cover to raise the debt ceiling, so they can spend outrageously more without running afoul of budget ‘rules.’ (Not that the ‘rules’ ever stopped them…).
Frederick,
You’re right I’d forgotten. A refusal to raise the debt limit simply means they have to prioritize spending within that limit as Congress can’t continue to borrow from the future. Let’s do it!
I may have mentioned this before, but if we used $B as the sole metric* for federal spending levels, we might have a greater appreciation of how much debt we (or our posterity) are “taking on”. Thus $3.4T becomes $3400 B, or approximately 4 times the DOD budget, or SS payouts, or Medicare, etc. The economy at $22T becomes $22,000 B, the current national debt is about $28,000 B, etc.
I fear using small numbers like 1.5 and 3.4 gives too many of us (or at least too many of our fellow citizens) a false psychological feeling that the budget is not “really all that large” and is manageable.
Unfortunately the malignant (and incompetent) media are more oriented to misinforming their customers than educating them, when they deign to provide any real information at all.
*Not that any of us here have any real understanding of $1B as $1000M either.