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The YIKYB Family
For Your Health
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THOUGHT I WAS GONE???11 years ago
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The WSJ Law Blog: 2006-20177 years ago
Contributors
# of faces melted
7 comments:
I've never been one to say "history repeats itself', but this current historical setting is eerily similar to that of Europe in the 1940's, in which the entire continent -- to varying degrees, of course -- moved too far to the left, economically -- socialist democracy was, according to many, the "next big thing" -- causing many of the marquee European nations to go bankrupt. There's no question in my mind that this is happening to America right now (due to the economic policies of both Bush and Obama).
I'm all for energy conservation and environmental protection, but Schmek -- who I find annoying -- is on the money with the watermelon analogy: this is apart of a larger scheme to transform America into a welfare state that'll inevitably bankrupt the country. Yet this government is so ideologically committed that they won't yield to some semblance of pragmatism.
--HW
What amazes me is how someone as seemingly opinionated as yourself can't put together a logical, coherent sentence.
I don't know where you've studied European history, but countries such as France and Britain never went communist (they converted their liberal democracies to socialist ones -- socialism = reformist, communism = revolutionary -- and went bankrupt).
Socialism and communism aren't the same, which is a silly assumption you're making, Chuggins (yet they share many of the same intellectual roots in Vico, Marx, etc.).
Contrary to what CNN is telling you, America is heading down the road towards a becoming European socialist/welfare state that we've already seen fail in the 20th century (if you believe this is a scare tactic, it's time to go back to the history of the last 100 years).
Already -- and we're only 6 months into his presidency; try to conceptualize a trajectory of where this is going -- Obama has already outspent the war in Iraq (maybe even Iraq and Afghanistan, combined -- I'll have to check). Like Bush, Obama is equally reckless (and within the administration itself is the same type of greedy behavior you condemn).
--HW
The crux of the Socialist shift in America -- which I'm not speculating about anymore....it's happening -- as represented by the Global Warming craze, is whether or not we want our lives wrapped around efficiency. All reasonable societies have to be somewhat efficient -- e.g., eliminate wastefulness, take care of the environment, etc.; but there comes a point in which hyper-efficient societies (i.e., Stalinist Russia during crash industrialization) associate human freedom with material wastefulness. I find some merit in the "green movement" -- ironic, though, that it's being championed by one of the biggest wasters in Obama -- but historically speaking, societies that are primarily concerned with efficiency restrict freedom. A great science-fiction book on this is Yevgeny Zamyatin's "WE" (which inspired Orwell's "1984")
Moreover -- and this is something many people I talk with can't grasp -- regulation in the financial marketplace has always, historically speaking, coincided with a regulation of the marketplace of ideas. Marx saw everything as eminating from the infrastructure -- i.e., the economy or means of production -- including the culture system. So logically, ANY TIME the financial market is seriously regulated, free thought is as well. If not, I openly challenge anyone to cite a concrete historical example.
Ultimately these aren't scare tactics but just a forwarning that people like Al Franken -- whose election is an absolute disgrace -- don't understand.
--HW
sorry bud.. although you cite many facts.. all of your main points are very subjective and questionable at best. free thought is what founded this country. don't try and speak of problems like global warming and then compare them to science fiction books b/c they are labeled science fiction for a reason. oh yeah, i forgot the lack of regulation has worked wonderfully for the economy recently... it's also funny that people like you assume someone with a certain opinion would gain all of his/her information from CNN. that alone makes you ignorant. HISTORY DOES NOT DICTATE THE FUTURE. sling your shit somewhere else.
P, you're right, free thought was vital to the foundation of this country -- and the American forefathers/European Enlightenment heirs understood that capitalism, love it or leave it, is most compatible with a society that fosters it. Historically speaking, societies that regulate the economic market always regulate the market of ideas in some form or another; if you understood Marx, you'd understand why. Besides, because Orwell's "1984" is fiction, does that make it irrelevant to political discourse?
I brought up Zamyatin's "WE" because it's a science-fiction satire of Stalinism, in which peoples' lives are subjected to government planning of the utmost extreme (under one of the guises of "efficiency"). Like I've said, hard planning often leads to a society in which all sorts of freedoms are deemed inefficient; so therefore peoples' freedoms are radically reduced.
P, as lame as Glenn Beck is, I'm wondering whether or not you understand the watermelon prop at all.
--HW
you probably think wounded war veterans are a bunch of moochers. if you want to remain ideologically sound hw, then i'm sure you're against governmental assistance to a war widow with three children. (which, in a public forum you would squirm around this question while in reality you bash programs like welfare i'm sure.)
as if obama is really changing the status quo that much. he was elected with the same big money that elected bush. stop trying to act you're adjunct at yale already.
with politicians it's the same shit in different piles. bottom line, obama is CLEARLY the brightest and most capable president since fdr or eisenhower..
and wow, if you are honesetly telling me to put more faith in norm colemen than al franken than never post on this site again. norm coleman is the EPITOMY of a politcal fucking joke. a thoughtless hack. a fake toothed piece of scum.
Chuggins. the clear difference between you and I -- and frankly every other poster on this blog -- is I don't care about being "ideologically sound".
Obama was never a qualified candidate -- which is what "capable" implies -- and I wouldn't put stock into him (or frankly anyone) because he's deemed "bright" (especially if, as you implied, he's a puppet to powerful financial interests). Lenin and Hitler were "bright", too. What does that have to do with anything? Should we then assume that because he's intelligent that everything he says and does is intelligent, too? This is just empty rhetoric to me. If he was so brilliant and could think on his feet, why the staged press-conferences town hall forums in which nearly all the questions are screened/known in advance?
Ultimately, like I've said, Obama is bringing us down a path which we already saw fail in 20th century Europe (P, contrary to what you say, studying history isn't a fruitless endeavor: Europe has had many more authentic and organic socialist/communist experiments than America; so therefore it becomes the best paradigm for those movements/philosophies). Most scholars/historians, looking back on the 20th century, agree that liberal democracy, coupled with capitalism, won; socialism and communism both lost.
Yet many within the American left believe the E.U. -- which those European nations formed in the post-war period because they couldn't survive, economically, on their own -- is on the up and up; so therefore America should aspire to be like it (even though, in reality, it's still a markedly frail continent on so many levels). These are the people running our country: Marxist/postmodernists that continue to sell themselves as vanguards of something NEW (which is what "progressive" connotes), when in fact -- and this is the problem with an uninformed electorate, left and right, that doesn't know history -- nearly everything they represent has been seen before (in 20th century Europe).
Chuggins, this goes beyond welfare PROGRAMS to the welfare STATE (which aren't the same; so the military assistance question is trivial). That's the issue at hand.
--HW
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