You go into these tastefully-appointed homes in Crocus Hill and Highland Park, and, like a lot of comfy urban-but-not-too-urban neighborhoods full of college-educated middle-aged academics and non-profiteers and mid-to-upper-level government and institutional employees, the sense of their historical invincibility has been gone now for 2-3 years and nothing’s replaced it. And they felt invincible, like a historically-deterministic event, through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna achieve the utopia that their entire education said they would, and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to rote activism or Volvos or blind ideology or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or their posh education or anti-faith sentiment or anti-White-Republican-Male-Cliché sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Well played Merg. Well played.
You could have inserted “Volvos” instead of “Guns,” however.
*facepalm*.
I’m such an idiot sometimes.
I was recently in a beautiful old home on Summit Avenue, but the irony of an Obama supporter and presumed believer in global warming sharing a 7000 square foot masonry house with single pane windows was just delightful. Suffice it to say that I’m pretty sure his winter utility bills are bigger than my mortgage, and I could drive a lot of miles in my pickup without emitting as much carbon as he and his wife.
And I’d have warm toes, too.
bikebub…..as someone smart said about Global Warming…..I’ll believe we have a crisis when those that say we have a crisis start acting like we have a crisis.
See Algore’s home/compound (someone in Tenn leaked his electric to the public a few years back) and giant yacht (Mr Onasis would be envious).
Or those who rant about global warming, but sure like their vacation trips on jet aircraft. A Jefferson Lines bus would be much more eco-friendly.
People who support trillion dollar deficits demanding political action NOW to stop the Seychelles from slipping under the water in the year 2100? Please.
Any problem you face is easier if you have more wealth. That’s why people want to be rich. You control more resources. The problem they want to solve is only partially understood, and has a distant horizon, but will require the warming irrationalists to gain control of the world’s economic resources NOW. That would cripple economic growth — if it worked like they want it to work.
A century of 1% growth will grow an economy by ~150%. A century of 3% growth will grow an economy by 400%.
World GDP in 2000 was about $41 trillion. In 2100, at 1.5% growth, world GDP will be $62 trillion. At 3% growth it will be $162 trillion.
Current world GDP growth is about 3.5%, the lion’s share of it coming from the less developed countries that burn nasty coal, have lax environmental laws, and shamelessly exploit the labor of their people. Cruel world, ain’t it?
MBerg: Your condescending attitude is a big part of why large swathes of the country will never vote for a Tea Party candidate. Never assume your opponents are stupid. You grant them the opportunity to take the initiative merely by not being stupid. And it’s rude.
I assume you are being ironic, Emery. Obama won the election after his “bitter clingers” speech.
Emery
Please tell me you were shooting for irony.
I know at least one lib on Twitter didn’t get the joke. So if this wasn’t irony, click the link.
I can tell you’re a big fan of slogans and grievances.
The Tea Party is a reaction to the decreasing economic and political clout of Americans who, as a whole, are whiter, older, more rural, and less educated than the average. It embodies the amorphous and often conflicting complaints and desires of a group of Americans whose fortunes and importance are declining. They are going down with a fight. As the loudest minority group around, they are potent politically, although I suspect they have peaked. Their lingering effects will be with us for quite a while, though. Those effects will only truly leave us when a new movement for reform and better government displaces the tea party on the national political scene. For a historical parallel, look at how the Progressive movement (featuring Teddy Roosevelt, among others) eventually displaced the Populist movement, (featuring William Jennings Bryant, among others), which represented the interests of the disappearing American smallholder farmer. Their decline happened only after the Populists had thoroughly infiltrated the Democratic party, resulting in several mediocre Republican presidents (and several failed nominations for Bryant), and little legislative accomplishment at the turn of the 20th century.
Conservatives and Republicans stick to the simplistic rhetoric, because a) simplistic rhetoric has a higher short term impact, and b) they don’t have a real plan for change. There is plenty of room for a plan for a better social safety net, one that has fewer poorly crafted incentives, one that isn’t run as much for the civil servants administering it as the general public. But in a society where families are smaller, children often have only one effective parent, and people live well into their 80s, there is no question that a social safety net is not only politically necessary, but economically necessary. So the Republicans need to provide a plan where Americans need not fear bankruptcy due to health care and elder care costs. Republicans need to provide a plan that aids Americans moving from one job to another, and from long-term unemployment to productive work. Republicans need to provide a plan to keep the elderly and children out of poverty. Republicans need to provide a plan to educate poor children well enough to grant them an opportunity for success.
When forced to provide those plans, many of them will look surprisingly similar to the status quo, or the Democrats’ plans. Admitting that their differences with their opponents are finite and bridgeable is key to silencing the radicals and moving beyond the party of NO. There is ample room for a party of reformers, a party of relatively low taxes and less government, a party of a new and better safety net. A party that ignores modern realities and suggests that the safety net of a century ago is sufficient is doomed.
So…you weren’t shooting for irony, then?
So…you weren’t shooting for irony, then?
Nope — as usual, he was shooting for sanctimony.
Constructive criticism.
It’s not constructive criticism, Emery. Your nostrums, delivered in your usual sanctimonious above-it-all style, amount to the following dubious advice — that the Republicans need to ignore the Tea Party, get with the program and try to come up with a different overarching big gubmint solution, because there’s simply no other way.
There’s nothing constructive about it; you’re just suggesting that big gubmint ought to buy the chicken a bouquet of carnations instead of roses before it starts schtupping it again.
When I look at Emery’s posts here, everything looks more hopeless. If better central planning by politicians is the only option, we are all screwed.
Allocating resources by government is the same thing as allocating resources by Alinsky tactics. Blunt force stupidity, waste, theft, reckless idealism, and selfishness.
Isn’t it nice that we can all come together in our use of broad caricatures, ignorant stereotypes, and over-generalizations.
Well, your view of the Tea Party was certainly a contribution!
Slogans and grievances, such as Hope and Change or This Is For Treyvon?
The Taxed Enough Already party is a reaction to Democrats proposing ever higher taxes to fund ever larger government programs to buy ever more votes with ever more free stuff, right down to such essential safety-net items as free cell phones (Maslow probably neglected to mention them as so obviously falling between “food” and “shelter”). We can’t afford the safety net we have now, much less expand it.
The historical example you cite is irrelevant. There was one country named “United States” where states could choose slavery: that country died in 1865 when the Confederate States split off, were invaded and conquered. There was a second country named “United States” with no slavery but limited federal government until 1965, when it was killed by The Great Society, immigration reform and unlimited debt. We’re living in the remnants of that third country now and I seriously doubt it’ll last until 2065.
The inevitable solution will be smaller, more responsive, less intrusive government that allows people the freedom to succeed or fail on their own efforts, supporting and supported by their own families. We know that’s the solution because it has always followed societal collapse. Whether we will need to suffer the chaos to return to it, or we can navigate our way back voluntarily, remains to be seen.
,
Emery wrote:
“The Tea Party is a reaction to the decreasing economic and political clout of Americans who, as a whole, are whiter, older, more rural, and less educated…”
1. The Obama Phone lady.
2. Drug gangs from Mexico.
3. Black people who insist on sagging their pants like prison homosexuals.
4. Black people who insist on calling each other racial epithets in public.
5. Black mobs attacking white people.
6. Detroit.
7. Atlanta.
8. Newark.
“…less educated…”
“Conservatives and Republicans stick to the simplistic rhetoric…”
1. Hope and Change.
2. Wearing a Trayvon hoodie(tm)
3. You’re a racist.
4. You’re sexist.
5. You’re a homophobe.
6. You’re a bigot.
7. Free, Free, Palestine.
8. No Justice, No Peace.
9. Zionism is Racism.
10. War Against Women.
“…simplistic rhetoric…”
Your generalizations are now redacted:
“The DFL is indicative of the increasing economic and political clout of Americans who, as a whole, are darker, more urban, and less educated…”
“Leftists and DFLers stick to the simplistic rhetoric…”
If you listen to Coffee an Markets religiously, they have got it nailed.
There is simply too many taxes and too much inflation for people to take care of themselves. Now the government is running out of money.
That is what is going on.
Nixon – LBJ inflationist collectivism run by a bunch of math challenged whore -parasites.
We are doomed.
If you have 15 minutes, Chris Whalen is the smartest man in America http://bit.ly/1967SHY Must listen.
Save yourself. Get Chris Whalen’s book http://bit.ly/1cU8QCM
Well, if Emery thinks that Tea Partiers are less educated than average, he is flat-out wrong.
I think that he means to say that it is important to him that he consider himself better educated than the people he disagrees with.
Nachman, what are you 13? > I’ll give you credit for showing (unusual) restraint, by not invoking Godwin’s Law. ;^)
Joe Doakes: The members of th Tea Party used to be more important in the world, in their country, in their towns. They have discovered that they have lost their accustomed political, economic, and geo-political power, and they don’t like it. They do not, of course, have a solution, as there is none. This movement will pass as they die. Their children don’t understand what was lost, so object to this loss of status much less. It is possible to draw parallels to William Jennings Bryan and his Populist followers who resented the loss of status of rural smallholders in an industrializing America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though briefly popular, the Populists never won anything important, and were eventually displaced by the more forward-looking Progressives as the dominant force for change in America.
PM: The great fault in Tea Party and current conservative strategy in general is its backward-looking nature. History rarely moves backwards, and particularly not in the United States. This is because the past is, taken as a whole, not a desireable condition to aspire to, even if some elements of it are appealing.
The difficult mission of a conservative party which wishes to be constructive is to create new systems of government which deliver much of what people like about government now, while removing those parts which people don’t like, and which sap the strength of the country. People dislike the possibility that medical or elder care will drive them to bankruptcy; hence the appeal of universal health care coverage, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. How do we achieve that while still using market forces to hold costs down, letting people make most medical decisions for themselves, paying doctors and hospitals fairly but not excessively? How do we provide quality education to all while encouraging reform and innovation? How do we protect workers and the environment while minimizing the costs and the dampening effect on innovation of that regulation?
The Democratic party is allergic to addressing the flaws in the welfare state, as many of their coalition are the welfare state providers who fear its change (e.g. teachers’ unions, federal workers). The challenge for the Republican part is to make government smaller by making it better. Simply rolling back the gains of the social democratic policies of the last 70 years is a political non-starter. The public decided long ago that while they may dislike many aspects of their implementation, they very much like the comforts and safety that the welfare and regulatory state offer, and fear their removal.
It is hard to remember now, but the Republican party were the party of ideas (whether you liked them or not). That was the genesis of their success, and that is what they have lost.
great fault in Tea Party and current conservative strategy in general is its backward-looking nature
That’s a feature, not a bug.
The present flock of hamsters is unlikely to improve on the better ideas in our Constitution and our limited-government tradition.
Novelty for novelty’s sake – just to “have something new” – is at best pointless.
History rarely moves backwards
And intelligence rarely moves forward.
The success of Reagan and Thatcher was not a rolling back of the welfare state. They succeeded in changing the way the welfare state was delivered. They changed the structure of taxes (they did not reduce them) to encourage innovation and business. They de-regulated what did not need regulation (and went too far in some areas like finance). A return to the days of Reagan and Thatcher requires a return to the intellectual pursuit of new and better ways to deliver what is best about the regulatory and welfare state. The Tea Party wishes to stand athwart the path of history and cry NO! That caricature of Conservatism is and has always been a concession of incremental failure, as history will eventually move forward around obstacles, but never backwards.
The success of Reagan and Thatcher was that they broke the back of labor. No amount of innovation in business would have worked with strong unions. How successful would a $4000 Ipad be, Emery?
PM: The great fault in Tea Party and current conservative strategy in general is its backward-looking nature. History rarely moves backwards, and particularly not in the United States.
The essence of conservatism isn’t to look backward, it’s the idea that the future cannot be substantially different than the past. Command economies will work no better in the 21st century than they did in the 20th century. The “progressives” seize onto ideas first articulated in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. This is “forward looking”?
What PM said.
Conservatism isn’t about “looking” backward. It’s that proposed ways of “looking forward” are presumed flawed until proven otherwise. It’s usually a good assumption.
The Tea Party wishes to stand athwart the path of history and cry NO!
No. It stands in front of Leviathan and yells “back in your cage”.
There’s a huge difference.
MBerg: They shrank Leviathan by privatizing government owned assets, forcing them to be at least partially subject to market forces.
Emery: I was Bar Mitzvah’d some time ago. What is it with you guys? Condescension is regarded as a “valid counterargument” amongst the left – even for irony.
I included two examples of “simplistic rhetoric” used by the left, one of them declaring their wish to see Jews cleansed from Israel (G-d forbid). You must have missed it, along with the point of my comment.
Emery wrote:
“Simply rolling back the gains of the social democratic policies of the last 70 years is a political non-starter.”
And attempting to emulate European socialism is….what?
As a young man in the 80’s working his way up the technical profession in California, I was acutely aware that many of the people I was working with, and reporting to, came from China, Japan and India.
That didn’t bother me in the least, but it DID bother skulking leftists of Emery’s ilk. See, to the leftist relegating Caucasians to a minority isn’t necessarily a goal in and of itself. It’s a necessary to dragging the country toward a totalitarian state.
White people tended to lean conservative, so immigration became a tactic, but it had to be the right kind of immigrants. Asians (Including India), showed up educated and successful and had no need for the assistance of the Party of Scrubs. They rejected the ideology of equality of failure wholesale, and all too often became stalwart conservatives…especially Indians.
They relied upon themselves and their families.
THAT is why we see the welcoming of illiterate, unskilled Mexicanos and Somalis. It also accounts for the destruction of black families.
The “darkening of America” as orchestrated by Emery and his pals is the darkening cloud over American greatness. Lefties are just as happy to rule over piles of rubble as long as their penthouses stay above it.
People like Emery write about how conservatism is dead and has no ideas and just wants to go back to the past while at the same time promoting all the failed ideas of collectivism that have been tried repeatedly and have failed every time they’ve been tried over the last 100 years, then wonder why others note their lack of sense of irony.
They shrank Leviathan by privatizing government owned assets
Examples, please. There are plenty of examples of the gov’t taking over private entities/industries (GM, student loans, 1/6 of the nations economy, how much land between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coastal Range is owned or controlled by the feds, preventing private energy development, etc). I don’t remember the gov’t giving up or letting go of anything, even when Reagan was in office. It’s antithetical to the very nature of gov’t to release its assets, and there sure as hell hasn’t been anyone with the desire to do so, in a position to do so since before Kennedy.
Emery:
When you look at what politicians have to do to get elected and stay elected, when you look at the motives of an SEIU government employee and the self-preservation motives of the bureaucracy all funded at the point of a gun, I don’t see how you think your idea will work.
I think if there was more power at the state level as the founders intended, you would have a better shot at it. Plus stupidity couldn’t be bailed out by debt and Fed easy money; it would be punished instead.
Fed easy money and government interference (waste and misallocation of capital guided by rent seeking) get in the way of people helping themselves, so we get more of the same until it all collapses. This has been going on for 100 years. We are at the end of the line.
D.C. whores spend 40% of their time raising money, that is a fact.
The most frustrating thing about debating with Liberals is they rarely read history and draw the wrong conclusions when they do.
Every nation that tinkered with its money eventually collapsed. The United States has done it twice already and we’re headed for a third. The question isn’t whether, but when, and what will replace it?
When Rome fell, the free bread and circuses stopped. People went back to the old ways: family, self-reliance, industry, thrift, charity. When America falls . . . .
re: Every nation that tinkered with its money eventually collapsed.” http://bit.ly/1cIVPLw
Make up your own mind.
Make up your own mind #2 http://bit.ly/1dKD0fq
STATISM HAS BEEN TRIED. IT DOESN’T WORK.
This program is not helping the poor. It is another program liberals can throw out to convince supporters to vote for them because of what they can “give” them as well as one more financial perk they can reward their crony capitalist buddies with.
So what has Johnson’s Great Society done for America?
It has institutionalized poverty. It has created ghettos. It has allowed for a permanent government poverty class. For the left, which wants to destroy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they have found they don’t need dictatorship, all they need is the welfare state.
Either the Great Society was designed to end poverty or it was designed to create a permanent base of Democrat voters. It has failed in one objective and succeeded in the latter.
For both of those reasons, the welfare state of the Great Society should be abolished as soon as possible.
http://bit.ly/1aaTCwh
The problem with disparaging conservatives as somehow against progress is that it is a lie. The constitution gave every free man legal rights that the government could not void. This was a very rare thing in human history. Of course, the ‘progressives’ hate the constitution because it limits the power of government.
For most of human history the lives and labor of most of the people have been at the disposal of a powerful ruling class consisting of between 5% and 20% of the population of a country. Liberals want to bring this back, with themselves as a new aristocracy, though they prefer to use the term ‘meritocracy’. Of course they decide what merit is and how it is measured.
If you’re going to make these numerous long-winded comments, would you at least make a real point or suggest something constructive? Is it really necessary to point out that letting one group of people remove the suffrage of another because of what the first group judges to be the poor political judgment of the second is not a recipe for a healthy democracy? Having to skip past all of your many lengthy comments every week is becoming really tiresome.
What the Hell was the point of your last comment, Emery? Who is talking about taking away a group of people’s suffrage?
Emery;
The problem is, 99% of the time you can’t fix the problems caused by government force, centralization, and monetary force with more of the same. A) It’s unworkable B) they are all too dumb and corrupt to resist profiting off of being dumb and corrupt.
We are doomed.
TFS: At issue is the fact that the economic surplus of the US economy has been divvied up by those who purchase self-serving laws, and when compounded by an economic downturn and massive government debt, the extraction of this surplus by these players has left America in grave danger. This (America) is a country where reasonable things are not done if there are opportunities to broker opportunity on behalf of those who can afford to pay to get the laws they want through re-election funds funneled to and spent on behalf of America’s corrupt congress. If one follows the money-trail behind the mess one can easily understand why the mess exists, and why there are ongoing efforts to make it messier, more complex, and less equitable.
http://www.opensecrets.org/influence/
Emery rightly points out that people buy politicians to secure political advantage. And the more areas of life government controls, the more opportunities for corruption, which makes for poor public policy.
Further, Emery confidently asserts the way to provide people with better access to affordable health care, retirement money, a social safety net, higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes, less debt, fairer taxes and all in a package that the 49% who don’t pay for anything will accept at the polling booth is not to roll back government to a smaller size, that’s just standing around yelling Stop.
Therefore, Emery argues for bigger and more intrusive government, which provides more opportunities for corruption, which leads to worse public policy.
Truly, Emery, your ability to believe impossible things is astounding.
I actually think that Romney Ryan was the best shot to undo the 100 years of corrupt “collectivism” and central planning.
Looking at the Fed balance sheet, the debt, and the demographics etc. etc. NOW I’d have to conclude that…
We are doomed.
QUOTE: Once you choose to cede essentially unlimited powers to the central state, all decisions after that are made in service of the state. The idea that the state can be limited to helping the needy is illusory.
http://bit.ly/K2KZZU
We are doomed.
EmeryTheUSAHater blurted – “History rarely moves backwards”
But it sure like to repeat itself, no? If you do not learn from it, of course. How is that search going for examples of successful Soci@list societies?
Joe Doakes: We should just pay everybody not to work and thus achieve permanent and total economic prosperity.
Why am I the only person to think of these things? ;^)