Planning ahead: Obama and the suburbs
I’ve been one of many people who have long said that in an Obama second term, unconstrained by the need for re-election, Obama would be free to undertake the more radical parts of his agenda. And it won’t really matter all that much if Congress is controlled by Republicans, either, because he’s been refining ways to circumvent that process successfully, and has learned what works and what doesn’t fly.
And so it may be of interest to read Stanley Kurtz’s piece in the National Review on Obama’s plans to make the suburbs into a cash cow for the cities—spreading the wealth and all:
Obama is a longtime supporter of “regionalism,” the idea that the suburbs should be folded into the cities, merging schools, housing, transportation, and above all taxation. To this end, the president has already put programs in place designed to push the country toward a sweeping social transformation in a possible second term. The goal: income equalization via a massive redistribution of suburban tax money to the cities.
Obama’s plans to undercut the political and economic independence of America’s suburbs reach back decades. The community organizers who trained him in the mid-1980s blamed the plight of cities on taxpayer “flight” to suburbia. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Obama’s mentors at the Gamaliel Foundation (a community-organizing network Obama helped found) formally dedicated their efforts to the budding fight against suburban “sprawl.” From his positions on the boards of a couple of left-leaning Chicago foundations, Obama channeled substantial financial support to these efforts. On entering politics, he served as a dedicated ally of his mentors’ anti-suburban activism.
I recommend reading the whole thing; it sounds very plausible. Here’s another excerpt:
The ultimate goal of the movement led by Kruglik, Rusk, and Orfield is quite literally to abolish the suburbs. Knowing that this could never happen through outright annexation by nearby cities, they’ve developed ways to coax suburbs to slowly forfeit their independence.
One approach is to force suburban residents into densely packed cities by blocking development on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, and by discouraging driving with a blizzard of taxes, fees, and regulations. Step two is to move the poor out of cities by imposing low-income-housing quotas on development in middle-class suburbs. Step three is to export the controversial “regional tax-base sharing” scheme currently in place in the Minneapolis”“St. Paul area to the rest of the country. Under this program, a portion of suburban tax money flows into a common regional pot, which is then effectively redistributed to urban, and a few less well-off “inner-ring” suburban, municipalities.
The Obama administration, stocked with “regionalist” appointees, has been advancing this ambitious plan quietly for the past four years. Efforts to discourage driving and to press development into densely packed cities are justified by reference to fears of global warming. Leaders of the crusade against “sprawl” very consciously use environmental concerns as a cover for their redistributive schemes.
And this commenter makes a good point:
Once again we are reminded that we should have asked what candidate Obama meant when he promised to transform America, as I doubt this is what most Americans had in mind.
At this point, voters ought to know. But it doesn’t seem that enough of them are paying attention, even now.
off topic, but shows that Romney will receive Tea Party votes. Hot Air’s Dustin Suggins left D.C. to travel on a Tea Party bus in support of Ted Cruz. His second lesson learned:
Kansas Project 17 = Agenda 21
heck… not like some of us didnt know what he was or working for. he is just the latest most overt of the ilk over the past 70 years..
the point of the moving to cities and saving the environment is agenda 21… duh.
but how many here have read agenda 21 or these other things as to do so, would be to risk being called a crackpot…
if you move everyone to cities, nature is saves, the people are under control, etc.
so take some time to read that, and the wild lands report, and other stuff.
as this was in the works for decades, and Obama is just the camels nose under the tent. behind him and before him was a whole herd of camels who purposefully didn’t put their noses in so you would imagine something else was outside making all that noise and stink.
it requires movement to the cities (centralization and bottleneck resources and travel), state control, social equality, depopulation (admitting to the genocide) and so on.
Agenda 21 and Rural Depopulation
Population reduction (limiting the size of families), mandatory civilian national service for youth, the virtual elimination of private property ownership, government control of fishery and farm harvest, exclusion of humans from “wild areas”,the abolition of single family homes and fascist “public-private partnerships” are just a few of the worse.
eugenics, euthanasia, communism, end to the family, end to religion etc..
You can read the 40 page official UN document Here http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/
Presidents George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, through Executive Orders, have signed onto Agenda 21. Although, the most of Agenda 21 is being implemented by county and town governments. International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) is the driving force behind the implementation at the local level
50 percent of the United States to be set aside as “wildlands”, where no human can enter. They want to move most of the rural population off the land and move them into cities while leaving the “wild areas” for animals. Now your probably saying, “this is is crazy, it will never really happen”.
your all still deciding whether what he appears to be is what he is, and they are proceeding on to the next thing to confuse you as your not catching up to them!!!!!!!!
just think… it started that far BEFORE
the fact they have had more than 20 years to work and fix and set things before your finding out…
translated: most of the people in the discussion are more than 20 years behind the programs and actions
[edited for length by n-n]
If they do this ( and I think they’ll try) it will ensure the end of the Democratic Party. There will be a level of defiance, deception, avoidance, rebellion, and utter disdain not seen in this country since the civil war era.
After which they collectivize the farms, put down the ensuing rebellion, and generate a famine that starves millions. Then the New Comintern infiltrates capitalist running dog Russia and China and the Wheel of Life goes round and round.
International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives
http://www.iclei.org/
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability is an association of over 1220 local government Members who are committed to sustainable development. Our Members come from 70 different countries and represent more than 569,885,000 people.
and is old and well established like cancer
ie. when the early warnings came, no one listened and so the immune syustem did not remove the cancer or even oppose it as somethig that exists… instead, the cancer was accepted and ran rampant.
now your seeing the RESULTS of all that, and like a iceberg, you cant see the 90% of it you havent followed for the past decades.
ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the ‘International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives’. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York.
a council is a soviet.
so its an international soviet.
and the soviets were international communists, ergo they sing the Internationale
so they are telling you what they are in the title, and the opposition (thats you) dont believe it and so you dont oppose it.
of someone tried to get you to stop agenda 21 back in the 1994 or so, you would have called him a crank or crackpot. same with feminism’s predictions, you would have said, what a chauvinist..
go ahead, search agenda 21 and conspiracy
you can read it…
http://metabunk.org/threads/363-Debunked-Agenda-21-ICLEI-Sovereignty-UN-Depopulation
Beck’s latest conspiracy theory aims to spark fears of UN’s Agenda 21
Agenda21 dubious intent – How to debunk or confirm conspiracies / conspiracy theories ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AAgenda_21#Agenda21_dubious_intent_-_How_to_debunk_or_confirm_conspiracies_.2F_conspiracy_theories_.3F
you figure it out, as i have known all this from the 70s… just after the sexual revolution and when they changed personnel offices to human resources, and history to social studies, and so on…
been waiting 40 years for people to catch up
the post above is from someone explaining how the bad parts of agenda 21 are conspiracy theories. just as the bad parts of feminism were, and that obama wasnt a socialst as thats racist, etc.
note, that every nasty thing they work on is protected that way.
The movie as good as it gets title, is a one liner that at some point is delivered in the movie to a room of people who are all waiting their turn to be mentally cured…
on the way out, to all of them waiting, he says”
What if this is as good as it gets?
what if all those people who claimed the end would be a certain way and were marginalized, called names, and so on, were right?
Then
what would all those things, that were accepted through the lie, then be?
what if the bad things that people say they are is the truth?
then what?
what if feminism is eugenics
palliative care is euthanasia
redistribution, rationing care, and all that is social engineering on the sly?
then what?
The Dems had better be careful this word does not get out to Blacks now that quite a few live in suburbs. They have worked very hard to get out of the city.
I haven’t read Kurtz’s article yet, but I heard him on Sean Hannity’s radio show during the drive home. He said that Obama has been stealthily laying the groundwork for this agenda during this term, and if he is re-elected he will go full-bore to impose it.
Kurtz said that he wrote his book because most people are unaware that this is going on, and he wants to bring it to public attention before the election.
And yes, Art, I’m definitely familiar with Agenda 21, but only because I get most of my information from the internet. Needless to say, the Enemedia is studiously avoiding any mention of it.
Now, after I finish my post-work cocktail, I’l be off to Chick-fil-A for dinner.
So, basically, Obama & Co. are trying to see just how far they can move the ball ahead toward their Far Left goals using any means necessary–unethical, unconstitutional, illegal, it doesn’t matter–if we let them get away with it and they are unpunished, they’ve won.
So, for instance, if Obama is thrown out of office what–if anything–happens to all of the members of his sleazy crew who helped him move the ball?
What happens to ex-President Obama if his whole house of cards collapses, and we find out that he was never eligible to be President because he wasn’t a natural born citizen? What would happen to all of the officials who looked the other way, and certified that he was? What happens to the Czars? What happens to Cabinet members? What happens to all his people who looted the public treasury by setting up all of these crony capitalism deals that directed billions of dollars to Obama contributors and cronies–do they just walk away, unscathed? What happens to Holder and other high level Obama appointees who have apparently perjured themselves and lied to Congress, do they get off Scot free?
My guess is that a new Romney administration–beset by the usual sea of troubles–will not want the distraction and added burden of being seen as vindictive, carrying out a vendetta, or what will surely be characterized as purges/show trials of past office holders.
So, in all likelihood Obama & Co. will, indeed, walk away–Scot free–with whatever loot they can carry with them.
Making it obvious that, once in Federal Office, you can break the law and subvert and ignore the Constitution with impunity, and you will never be brought to justice.
Thus, greatly destabilizing and weakening our Republic and paving the way for even worse developments in the future.
Wolla Dalbo Says:
August 1st, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Exactly like the Bush 43 administration in 2001.
Agenda 21 is alive and well in my neck of the woods. Here it is called Envision Skagit County 2060. The key words in its plan are sustainability and preservation of open space. In other words, move everyone to the urban environments and reduce man’s activities on the land. Protecting the environment is held out as the major premise, but you can see the underlying idea is to gain control over everything and everybody. They are thinking long term. 2060 is 48 years from now. The local TEA Party is sounding the alarm, but it is going to be a long struggle. There are too many soft-headed, easy to fool people in this area.
Another Obama term would make it just that much more difficult to fight these domestic plotters. Taxation, Federal grants, and EPA rulings can overpower local concerns too easily. This is not a campaign between Romney and Obama. It is a campaign between Obama and the future freedom of the country. Romney will not be able roll it back even in two terms. But he can make a start. ABO – 2012!!
There are no individuals in a collective….
slightly off topic, but not by much. My daughters lead me to this video:
http://www.freemarketamerica.org/
We knew. He told Joe The Plumber and many of us read “spread the wealth around”. Actually, it’s suck up the wealth that’s around.
Chilling.
I knew that there was some skulduggery behind the push for rail, high density housing, etc., and this makes perfect sense.
I figured this out several years ago when local mayor, and prominent Clinton butt boy, Martin Chavez started whining and complaining about “urban sprawl”… in New Mexico? Really?
The goal is to put all the (disarmed) lumpen proletariat, that would be us folks, back into conveniently controlled cages, like lab rats so we aren’t such an insult to Mother Gaia.
Our elite betters would of course be exempt since the world is really theirs after all. We are just the dregs.
Finally back from Chick-fil-A.
Mission accomplished. I arrived at 7:20 and the line was out the door and snaking around the front of the building. The line of cars for the drive-thru was backed up on the road as far as I could see. There was a local TV news van in the parking lot, but I didn’t see any announcers or cameramen. They had probably done a spot for the evening news and were already finished.
I got into the building at 7:50 and was served around 8:05-8:10. I finished my meal at 8:30. Surprisingly there were always enough seats as the rate of people leaving roughly matched the rate of people arriving. As I left the end of the line was finally inside the building.
The employees were working their butts off but were good-natured about it. I haven’t seen lines and a crowd like that since my last Dead concert. Everybody was patient and in a festive mood.
I was seriously thinking of wearing my Gadsden t-shirt but decided not to. I reasoned that it was not a political rally but just a show of support for a private business by ordinary people. My instincts proved correct. I didn’t see any political messages, just an occasional American flag on a t-shirt.
It is a good argument and fits with the general game. Leftism doesn’t work ‘because it is constrained’ and/or if people couldn’t get out of paying / doing their fair share… so, for example, universal coverage in a state won’t work since people can get out of it… ergo it must be national ‘to work’… So; we got out of the blue cities and are not paying our share… eye roll… if we could only be forced back into them as jurisdictions.. plus it sports a racism angle (white flight and all)…
Of course; the end goal is not redistribution or taxation so much as control… but even many of the adherents to this program probably don’t realize that. Then again I get a free laugh whenever the left throws their own under the bus since they are no longer immediately valuable (hey Bill and Hill; how is it down there?). You thought we were a normal social movement??? Really?
“urban sprawl” in New Mexico. Snorfle.
I went to Chik-fil-A, and it was SMASHED with customers, and the line into the parking lot stretched down a major street, and the restaurant was doing a fabulous job of churning out sandwiches and flying customers through the line. It was, oddly enough, a memorable scene. I will always remember customers flying through the drive through and barely slowing as sacks of chicken came at them. And everybody was genuinely happy. Chickenstock.
LOL. Yep.
I haven’t seen lines and a crowd like that since my last Dead concert.–rickl
And that, my friends, is America!
Here’s a point probably missed: Could any gov’t agency have handled such an increase in volume?
LOL.
My wife went to the Chick-fil-A here in the People’s Republic, but came back: they’d run out of food.
Cue the Yamamoto quote. There may just be hope for this country after all. It’s a big extrapolation from chicken sandwiches to the direction of American history, but it does seem that a lot of decent people are fed up with the leftist scum attempting to take over the country.
Hurry November!
Arcade Fire- very hip.
But try this too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2r2BqYQMMA
Or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RNIZ_0qkpk
Artists just love tweaking suburbia while selling to the children of the same.
I love the quote from PJ O’Rourke: Cars didn’t shape our existence; cars let us escape with our lives. We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. Cars gave us our dragoons and hussars, lent us speed and mobility, let us scout the terrain and probe the enemy’s lines. And thanks to our cars, when we lost the cities we weren’t forced to surrender, we were able to retreat.
As physicsguy relates (and I think this is relevant to what Holmes shared) kids are seeing through things.
Great. I FINALLY get to the burbs, and get a really nice big house (with a great front yard, some of you may know the story) yes FINALLY I am OUT of the HELLISH CITY and they’re gonna take it all away. i tell ya, I’m always too late to the party. Well, this former lib is gonna fight to keep it, that’s all I’m saying. And I think it’s gonna be tough. But I’m looking’ for a fight.
Ulysses Julia Grant says:
“Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”
Occam’s Beard Says:
August 1st, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Chilling.
I knew that there was some skulduggery behind the push for rail, high density housing, etc., and this makes perfect sense.
I saw a comment on another article about this topic which said that even “Cash for Clunkers” tied into this plan.
How was that? Well, as you may recall, “Cash for Clunkers” required the destruction of the “clunkers,” effectively taking thousands and thousands of otherwise workable used cars out of the marketplace, and therefore placing more of a premium on the remaining used cars, putting them further out of reach of those at the bottom of the economic ladder, making those individuals more dependent on public transportation and government.
Egg nog, anyone?
“The key words in its plan are sustainability …”
Boy I hate that word. It has no real meaning; it is just a smarmy, pious front for an environmentalist/social engineering agenda.
Pseudo-scientist, hear me! You have caused death, poverty, and pain. You are weak and yielding. Now, have you had enough! Die strong. Die proud. Die and be born again!
Artfldgr: are the people behind Agenda 21 in any way related to the people behind the Georgia Guide-stones?
The people behind the Georgia Guide-stones are very vague about where the other 6,500,000 people go or what becomes of them.
That plan of Obama’s…
…. it’s called the State of New Jersey.
“As physicsguy relates (and I think this is relevant to what Holmes shared) kids are seeing through things.”
The whole agenda 21 scheme reminds me of the population control regions in The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins may have done more to undo the educational brainwashing of the younger folk by producing her trilogy than all the conservative complaining has done in ten years.
She was smart enough to write the books at a middle school level, yet it’s a compelling read and the main points are not missed at all by the 11-18 year olds. The kids loved the movie, but most of my daughter’s friends and her read the entire trilogy BEFORE seeing the movie.
Obama has no experience of small towns, suburbs, or neighborhoods. Like most of his other positions, this was just the wisdom he received from his dysfunctional family and various mentors. He once said he found suburbs boring. That’s becaue he has no fond memories of playing baseball in the backyard or having his father teach him how to run the lawnmower and grill hamburgers. That is also why he is so bad at understandind what makes people happy. Occupying a bank’s reception area to push for loans is not the same as having your mom bake brownies for a cookout birthday party or having your dad build you a treehouse. Obama has retreated into a world of abstract fantasies in which he is the all knowing saviour. He will make us all suffer to achieve his fantasies.
In my home town of Rochester, the Democratic party was trying to do the same thing. They lost pretty handily. It is based on the meme that the reason that the people in the poor section of the cities do poorly is because of a lack of resources. Of course, the city build a brand new soccer stadium in a high crime neighborhood, so nobody wanted to go, and the city bought a fast ferry to Toronto that no Canadians wanted to ride because of the crime in Rochester. I am certain that it is about power, just like Tamany Hall in NYC, but it does sound good to the people who don’t have much since they are told over and over again that it isn’t their fault, it is the fault of the people who are keeping them down. Wasn’t that the main thesis of the you didn’t built it speach?
Personally, I feel that there are many cultures in the US, and there is a big difference between the cultures in the city and the suburbs, but in the name of multiculturalism the suburban culture must be destroyed.
Gary Rosen Says:
August 2nd, 2012 at 1:46 am
“The key words in its plan are sustainability …”
Boy I hate that word. It has no real meaning; it is just a smarmy, pious front for an environmentalist/social engineering agenda.
That is definitely the truth! I work at a university, and I’ll never forget one time I had to sit through a long presentation all about “sustainability” where one of the presenter’s main points was that the university should serve as a tool to convert people to his enviro-socialist utopian vision. It was horrible.
A short while later, I stumbled upon this quote from the Green Party platform of 2004: “”Foremost, the Green Party stands for community-based economics and regional trade. We believe that the only model of true economic security is for a community and area to be largely (not entirely) self-sufficient in the production of its necessities. Through foreign trade, they can then export that which is extra, and that which they could afford to lose should environmental disasters, social unrest in their trading partners’ countries, or other disruptions disturb the flow of their trade.””
This is amazing. I’ve never heard of Agenda 21 until last night when I couldn’t sleep and started looking into the connection between the Catholic church and the UN. I read extensively on Agenda 21. Why was I looking at that relationship? Because I went to a “Social Justice” class last night (1st of 3 nights) to get the primer on what exactly Catholic social teaching is. Out the gate, the definition for “What is a human right?” was presented as the UN definition. When I asked why the UN rather than the bible or catechism…well, that was just the beginning. Pretty sure, Brother Lawrence didn’t appreciate my contributions to the evening. This is helping me understand why I recoil at the term “social justice”. What a distortion of justice!
The outpouring of support for Chick-fil-A, while in itself a minor event, gives me some hope that there are still sufficient numbers of sensible people out there who aren’t willing to give in to the Agenda 21 crowd. We shall see come November and beyond.
physics guy said: “The whole agenda 21 scheme reminds me of the population control regions in The Hunger Games.”
Bingo! The theme of over-reaching, all powerful government run by a favored elite that those books contain is a powerful message. Kids love the books. (So did I, by the by.) If we can show them the connection to the ambitions of Agenda 21 they will, hopefully, be better ready to oppose such naked power grabs.
physicsguy Says:
“The whole agenda 21 scheme reminds me of the population control regions in The Hunger Games.”
I was just thinking about that this morning… I wonder if it was intentional.
expat Says:
“He once said he found suburbs boring.”
Me too. Which is why I want to raise my kid in one.
On a recent conference call with potential donors, President Obama said: “If things continue as they have so far, I’ll be the first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his reelection campaign.”
and for
SharonW
go look for Ratzingers essay on social justice. its one chapter in his book, not worth buying the book. but your going to have a hard time finding it, since the pushing of social justice, they have geneated so much that its hard to find these key documents. but you can if you try
then take some time to realize WHY social justice makes your skin crawl. read “social justice” newsletter and the history of Father Coughlin…
this one is easier to find
Liberation Theology by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
what your going to find is that the priests like the one you mention, parallel the patriarchs of the russian orthodox church.
these priests are accepting the idea that jesus was a marxist… reforming the document of individual responsiblity, and all that to one of collective.
that way, when they load you into an over, it all seems ok… after all your just a sacrifice to repay past injustices done by someone else in the past not related to you.
http://popebenedictxvi.blogspot.com/
Section 8 housing has been moving poor people out to the suburbs for years. Fannie Mae is still in operation. Most big cities are part of multi-county regional transportation authorities. Port authorities and regional planning boards. Water authorities that must abide by EPA mandates. How many city school systems are actually funded by the state legislature and/or controlled by federal judges. Not to mention No Child Left Behind. There’s less and less local control. The bureaucratic and governmental infrastructure for this agenda is certainly in place.
Artfldgr, thanks for the links. I’ve printed out a few to read. Nazi Germany is exactly what I brought up in posing the question that if we lived at that time would Brother Lawrence prefer I defer to the community and let all responsibility rest there or act as an individual?
SharonW:
See also Ann Barnhardt. She’ll give you an earful about Marxist influence in the Catholic Church. Brother Lawrence sounds exactly like the kind of cleric she’s talking about.
http://barnhardt.biz/index.cfm (It’s impossible to link to individual posts on her site. You’ll just have to scroll down and search for them.)
Full disclosure: She’s a convert to Catholicism; I’ve never been a Catholic.
SharonW,
I am sorry to say that i have no idea what Brother Lawrence would do then. maybe what you say, maybe not. maybe say what you say, then clue you in on not covering both sides.
The Concordat was signed on July 20, 1933. It basically was an agreement between Hitler and the see, you don’t bother us, we wont bother you…
but historically speaking, prior to the 1930 vote, people didnt much vote for hitler. the results are like day and night from the prior electoin, and womens votes surged (mens didnt change as drastically from prior elections), and their greater numbers had a bigger effect.
but note that since that was the case, prior to his assertion of powers, there was not a general following of him. its different here in the US in that the slower rate has allowed lots of the things that would come after back then. that is, a lot are slowly put in by argument or ignoring the public, where in Germany then, such were done at a faster rate after the state had sudden power, not incremental power where they slowly make it larger testing the edges as they go.
so back then you may have found him changed after the elections and some months had passed… when before he was different.. where in today’s slow move, the priest could be second generation and incrementally more along the line as he grew up in society as a regular person before entering the priesthood… (the Vatican is the only country with a birth rate of zero. its also the only country that is inside another country… (i think))
On January 24, 1934 Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg as the state’s official philosopher. Church officials were perturbed – the indication was that Hitler was officially espousing the anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and neopagan ideas presented in Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century. Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli directed the Holy Office to place Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century on the Index of Forbidden books on February 7, 1934.
so the left saying hitler was christian, and so on, depends on when you were looking at him. if you look before 34, you may think so. after, well that might be a different story.
to tell you the truth… if you look at the wiki to get an idea, you will see that its a VERY complicated story…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany
I think this should spark a grassroots movement to force the US Government to relinquish the bulk of the land they own in the west. In many western states they are the major land owner and access to the land we all supposedly own is becoming ever more restrictive. I don’t think the US manages the land any better than the states could in most cases. Think of the reductions to the federal bureaucracy.
My Progressive city is well down the slope to regionalism. Discussions of moving more power out of municipalities and into our (unelected) regional board are not uncommon.
This ties into one of my major impressions of Chickenstock. Out next civil war is getting ever closer. Gay rights are currently on the front lines, but the deeper question(s) are about the same as those in our last Civil War.
Under what conditions can men consent to be governed? Is there an inherent right to secede from any gov’t determined to be injust?
Lincoln was correct in concluding that secession for the purpose of continuing slavery was immoral. But his solution set the stage for the inescapable Massive Administrative State.
The attendees of Chickenstock are parallel to secessionists. And the regionalists will decide that such self-determination is immoral and must be crushed.
Foremost, the Green Party stands for community-based economics and regional trade. ….Through foreign trade, they can then export that which is extra…
So what the Greens are essentially advocating is a return to a Bronze Age agricultural community that engages in subsistence farming and takes any crops that are left over to the market or the port to barter for what they don’t have. I wonder how many of them actually comprehend what all that would entail. It’s like Thoreau, who, when living in the “wilderness” of Walden Pond, still sent his clothes out to be laundered. Living in the wild is great when you have civilization to fall back on. Otherwise, not so much.
What GP said above. Stalin’s forced collectivization.
Waltj: I don’t normally go so far as to describe what the “sustainability” crowd wants as a “return to the Bronze Age,” instead, I say that they want us all to emulate the lifestyle of Chinese peasants of 100 years ago–which may essentially be the same thing.
I manage an office that designs and builds for high-end residential construction in Los Angeles. Ten years ago I could put together a bill for our clients that included reimbursements for permits in about 40 minutes. In the last 3 years, it takes me 10 hours per bill, due to the absolute confusion of succession and the absurd number now required. I’m convinced that if required to do so, the employees at B & S would not be able to account for the costs, etc. The supervisors have sat down with the city officials (building & safety & fire, etc) and no one can fully explain the requirements or wants to take responsibility for a final verdict. One project in Malibu after a year of drawings, meetings and permit payments almost didn’t get built (which would have meant no income for our office and the subcontractors we hire) because of a requirement from the fire department about the owners having to install a fire hydrant due to a dimension from their property (would have cost the client a minimum of $250,000). At our cost we hired a specialist to look into it and it turns out that the city official who worked on the drawing didn’t actually go out and measure, just put an errant figure in. Actual figure…problem solved, the project went forth. Last year a client remodeled their kitchen in Beverly Hills, $4,000 for permits. The wheels are off the cart!!!
waltj: Half of the Green Party’s 10 Key Values fit pretty well with limited government individualism. I plan to stress that half when I run for my City Council next year.
Of course, the actual Green platform aims to support those values in autocratic, individuality-crushing ways. It’s another variant of “rich peoples’ leftism”, that claims to care about the poor and the earth, but in meatspace leads to suffering and exploitation.
Foxmarks: good luck in your city council race. Not surprisingly as a regular on this site, I’m all for limited government individualism. But you’re right, the Greens are very much interested in dictating to people how they should run their lives to (in their view) save Mother Gaia. My experience with US Greenies is limited, but I saw their Australian counterparts at close range when I lived Down Under, and the dictatorial impulse is strong in them. And, in reality, they don’t give a rat’s ass about the poor, no matter how much they may say they do.
Artfldgr Says:
August 2nd, 2012 at 8:40 pm
“(the Vatican is the only country with a birth rate of zero. its also the only country that is inside another country… (i think))”
–Swaziland. Monaco (arguably). Then there is San Marino, completely enclosed by the very same country Vatican City is.
This is my 1st ever hearing of this. Scranton, Pa is re-instituting a commuter tax. This will make farmers like me, who saw lands turn into suburbia revert back? Since people fled high taxes, why leave I guess?
Regional police, fire etc..sounded like good conservative ideas. The economy of scale. Buy police cars buy the dozen, not 1 or 2 per borough every few years. No more speedtrap villages. No more corrupt magistrates.
So this is like the school bussing I barely remember in ’70s Boston..only HUGER?
Now I’m scared. As a Man, father, parental caregiver… that is hard for me to admit. SHIT!
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