Six years ago, Venezuela banned private firearms ownership, via a piece of legislation that had to have sent a tingle down Linda Slocum, Erin Maye Quade, Jamie Becker-Finn and Dave Pinto’s spines. It was done to consolidate and reinforce the control of a government that, one might suspect in concept had to have sent a tingle down Linda Slocum, Erin Maye Quade, Jamie Becker-Finn and Dave Pinto’s spines.
Of course, we know the results; socialism degenerated “unexpectedly” into thugocracy (which, being “haves” in a socialist society, wouldn’t not send a tingle down Linda Slocum, Erin Maye Quade, Jamie Becker-Finn and Dave Pinto’s spines, necessarily – socialism is a wonderful thing for the kommissars).
And here we are today.
The left would like you to consider them separate events.
They are not.
Didn’t you also claim we were going to become Greece?
Well, we might have become Greece if Hilliary had been elected.
To the point, the murder rate has gone up about 50% since the gun ban. Now one can debate whether, in a nation that doesn’t have much money except for party elites, how many people could have afforded guns and how much that would have reduced crime, but the fact of the matter is that now, Venezuela as a nation has more murders per capita than Detroit, Gary, DC, Baltimore, St. Louis, and New Orleans ever did. I think they beat Gary and DC by a factor of about 50% vs. the worst ever recorded in this country.
Socialism kills.
Didn’t you also claim Brexit Yes vote would immediately throw UK back to the stone age?
The totalitarians learned the hard lesson that saying, “Let them eat cake” doesn’t turn out well. They realized that “Let them eat lead” is more repressive – as long as you can keep a monopoly on the lead.
That statement is no longer operative. It was made while The Light-Bringer was on the Rose Garden Throne, praise be upon him.
Since Russia tricked the deplorables into electing Literally Hitler to revive the economy and drain the swamp, the Glorious Plan to convert American into a Third World S******e has been temporarily delayed. Take heart, brave comrade, your leaders are working even now to subvert, obstruct, harass and undermine the duly elected government. Soon, we shall have enough ballot boxes in trunks of cars to win every election and then, the workers of the world will arise and march shoulder to shoulder to reclaim the halls of power!
When I heard Hillary’s speech in India, to Indians, I thought of this quote from Saruman in LOTR: “We have only to eliminate those who oppose us.”
It was as though she took John Edwards “Two Americas” speech and inverted it, except there was no theme theme of eliminating the gap between the two Americas & making them one. There was only justified hatred and contempt for the less wealthy and less dynamic America.
. . . and it looks like Trump has picked Larry Kudlow to be the new chief of the White House National Economic Council.
Kudlow has a weekly radio program out of Boston I sometimes listen to (WNTK, Saturdays). He is a sharp guy. Kudlow’s early endorsement of Trump was due to his concerns that globalism may add to GDP, but unrestrained globalism leads to political instability, and to a greater divide between the haves and have nots within a nation.
Somewhere I’ve got an old Krugman column where the Krugster says the same thing — that in national terms, free trade & open immigration increased the wealth all nations involved, but within each nation it could produce extreme economic dislocations, and these dislocations tended to favor the wealthy & disfavor the poor and middle class.
MP, got something against intended consequences?
I suppose that what the neo-liberals are doing is creating an oligarchy. That is the true natural state of human governance. Though I suppose “aristocracy” might be a better term for what they are building. No liberty, no economic independence, just the class of people that tells other people what to do, and the class of people who do as they are told.
First Things has an interesting article on the modern aristocracy, and how it differs from the old: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/04/the-ignoble-lie
Remember Kim Davis, the elected County Clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to SS couples? She was a poor, relatively uneducated hick. She dared to think that her moral sense was the equal of her betters. She got stomped by the full weight of the federal JD and herds of Harvard & Yale educated lawyers from the ACLU. The left applauded her destruction. They wanted her in jail.
So much for the party of the little guy.
just the class of people that tells other people what to do, and the class of people who do as they are told
MP, I’m reading (or rather having read to me as an audio book) Liberal Fascism. You have described quite well the intended state to which the left is working. It seems to me tho’ that the latter class, those who are told what to do, comprises two groups, the largest being those would actually prefer things that way and mindlessly “do their part”. The rest are, well, deplorable malcontents who live with their guns and religion. Like many of the commenters here.
I have just reached the point where the book looks at the two dystopian novels of the last century, 1984 and Brave New World, and declares the latter to be a much better reflection of things as they are and where they are headed. This most recent kerfuffle with gun control is a prime example.
Two good companions to Liberal Fascism are Fred Siegel’s The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Undermined the Middle Class, and John Carey’s The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939.
Carey is a highly regarded figure in the British literary & academic world, but he did not dare to publish his book until his career was made. Carey shows that hatred for the common man is in the DNA of the Progressive Left. It goes all the way back to the roots of modernism.
Woolly wrote: ..”[Trump has picked Larry Kudlow to be the new chief of the White House National Economic Council.”
Perfect choice! Kudlow’s math has never added up. The perfect economist for working on the other side of the Looking Glass.
Thanks! Carey’s book sounds interesting. I like it when people have a perspective that transcends “last week”.
Emery, what’s your problem with the Trump economy, anyhow? Stock market too high? Unemployment too low?
Remember when Obama’s econ adviser, “labor economist” Alan Kreuger, predicted that with the 2009 stimulus package we would keep the unemployment rate under 8%, and GDP growth would be over 4% by 2011?
Hard to fuck up that badly. The reality with the stimulus was worse than Krueger predicted than reality with no stimulus whatsoever.
What did Krueger do after that epic fail?He crept back under his academic rock in Princeton, where I am sure he is considered a success.
This is how inexcusable the 2009 the stimulus package was.
In the after years, Obama’s CEA, made up of the best and brightest, admitted they had no idea what they were doing. They were taking on public debt when they did not have enough data to accurately predict the effect that the borrowing and spending would have on the economy.
Back on topic . . .
I guess that children’s crusade went off today. The “I’m too young to be allowed to have a gun, but I am mature to know who else shouldn’t have a gun” youths.
Funny their anger wasn’t directed at the highly paid professionals whose job it is to keep them safe. I suppose that is because these highly paid professionals were the same people who organized the walkouts.
It is truly bizarre for a Parkland survivor to point his finger at the NRA & law abiding gun runners rather than the bureaucrats & public servants whose incompetence allowed so many children to die, but hey, children aren’t known for their rationality.
Only a president who views everything through the lens of television could think Kudlow was suitable to be National Economic Advisor. Because he’s not an economist in any sense of the word, he just plays one on television.
Kudlow exhibits the same tactics as Trump himself. When you’re wrong; just lie. He knows it won’t matter.
So, you got nuthin’, Emery?
After I point out that Obama’s highly credentialed academic economist Alan Krueger proved to be a complete incompetent at forming & executing real-world economic policy, you point out that Kudlow is not an academic economist?
That’s not much of a riposte.
one of the Emerys mewled:
“When you’re wrong; just lie. He knows it won’t matter.”
How would that be different from SOP for Obama or Hillary?
Christopher Hitchen’s made a tidy bit of money on a book about the Clintons called No One Left To Lie To. His inspiration was being approached by Sydney Blumenthal to spread the lie that Monica was a “crazed Stalker” of Bill Clinton.
Blumenthal played a significant role in the Steele Dossier. He was the go between who handed salacious gossip to the state department, who then gave it to Steele to use in his dossier. See? That way Steele could say the info had the rep of the State Department, and not Blumenthal’s tattered reputation.
When Sydney Blumenthal testified before Ken Starr’s grand jury, the interview was secret — but when he came out from court, he told assembled journos that all of Ken Starr’s questions were sick sex questions about Bill Clinton. However, when congress released the transcript of the deposition (congress can do that), it turned out that none of the questions were about sex. Zero. Zilch. The questions were kind of technical things about dates and times of meetings he had attended, and who else was present.
Trump’s base problem is that he lies. He lies about big things, little things and then he lies about lying. I and much of the world do not believe a word that comes out of his mouth. And this will be his downfall.
I think that you are mistaking a bullshitter for a liar, Emery. Bullshitters lie for effect. They really don’t care if you believe them.
Hillary is a whole other kind of liar. She lied about Benghazi. People died at Benghazi. Some poor Coptic Christian went to jail for her lie.
I and much of the world do not believe a word that comes out of his mouth.
Generalize much? The first clue you, as MP aptly put it, “got nuthin'”.
Can you ever, EVER, stay on topic? Or do you always, ALWAYS have to troll? But I am repeating myself.
” I and much of the world do not believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”
took your moral vanity pill this morning didn’t you?
My students implicitly side with Marx in believing that the less educated are likely to adopt “false consciousness.”
And therein lies a problem. Even though they find the myth repugnant, precious snowflakes already identify themselves with the elites.
MP, great read. Thank you for the link.
Woolly, under Trump, the US actually runs a huge surplus in the BS trade. So he’s sorta right about the stuff that matters to him.
I think I know why you have a problem with Trump, Emery. You don’t understand him.
I spent a chunk of the 1990-2000’s as City Attorney negotiating against real estate developers who wanted to plat residential subdivisions. They always assured the council the project would bring well-paid residents who’d contribute exorbitant taxes but use no city services. Great, what city wouldn’t want that? Oh, yeah, but the city needs to build the street. And install the water mains. And sewers. But we can’t afford to dedicate any land for a park or sidewalks or walking trails.
In my experience, real estate developers say whatever the listener needs to hear in order to sign onto the project. Once they get everybody committed, then they can work out the final details which might be nothing like the things the developer promised at the beginning. Doesn’t matter – we’re all committed to the deal so we’ll take what we can get.
Does that mean the developer has no morals? No pride? His word is worthless? That he lies? Maybe. It’s a well-known sales technique, not too different from what the car dealer does. Get ’em hooked on the car, sell them the payments, cash their down-payment check, sell the paper.
Trump is a real estate developer. He’s using that model to deal with politicians and journalists. They become flummoxed because they don’t understand it. As you don’t understand it, Emery.
Think of it this way: what could Kushner possibly have said that would bring Israeli and Arab officials to the White House? Answer: the possibility of a deal they all can live with. The specifics of that deal might be widely different for each of them, but they’re in the White House. They’re talking face-to-face. They’re sniffing at the bait. It might take a lot more schmoozing and bamboozling to get them to put ink on a page, but the reason they’re in the same room is . . . Trump.
JD, what was that “kaboom” I just heard? Oh, it was Shvonder-eTASS head exploding.
At some point it is likely that the tide will turn against gun rights supporters, but it is impossible to know when. The hard core of gun owners, mostly white, male, and suburban or rural, is relatively small and growing smaller. They are a vocal minority who will vote passionately on that one issue, but they depend for their broader strength on a much larger group of citizens for whom gun rights represent a bastion against which an over-reaching government must be forced to break. A movement made up of youngsters inspired by child victims might persuade those outside the core that gun regulation was simply a sensible safety move for children and schools, rather than ideological warfare against freedom. Of course, statistically, white children and school children in general are not a significant part of the problem of gun violence, but that doesn’t change the politics. Those white middle-aged and older gun owners mostly have children and grandchildren — that may be the soft underbelly of their movement. We’ll know in six months if this movement has any momentum.
The hard core of gun owners, mostly white, male, and suburban or rural, is relatively small and growing smaller.
Care to cite numbers you based this canard on, Shvonder-eTASS? Especially part about growing smaller? Or is just another crib from your talking points full of lies? This was a rhetorical question. Of course your masters are lying through your teeth. Carry on, troll.
The Justice Department under Barack Obama directed the FBI to drop more than 500,000 names of fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, acting FBI deputy director David Bowdich testified Wednesday. Fugitives from justice are barred from buying a firearm under federal law.
Is this part of you plan, Shvonder-eTASS? Must be ’cause it makes so much sense since your dear leader did it.
Turnover in this WH is considerably higher than in the adult film industry. Complete disaster.