What I am about to write will guarantee that I will never hold elective office. (That and the fact that such aspirations are mere velleities.)
Have you considered the potential value of a dictatorship? I know, I know, self-government is the cornerstone to our system, and it's a sacred aspect of our government, but let me make a quick pitch.
All governments are dictatorships, one just sometimes has trouble identifying precisely who the dictator is. In Nazi Germany the dictator was Hitler. In the nacent USSR it was Lenin, then Stalin, yet the Russian version of despotism differed. Hitler aspired for over a decade to ascend to ultimate power in Germany, believing that only he could save Germany from its republican government which gave away the store to France and England after WWI. Of course, revanchement and the abolition of all Jews were also important compenants of Hitler's rise to power. (The former being laudable, the latter pure evil.)
Lenin, on the other hand, would have never come to power had he claimed he wanted to be dictator. Instead, what he wanted was a dictatorship of the proletariat, represented by the Communist Party. Regardless of whether the bourgeois class was more numerous or powerful, the Communists technically saw the peasants as being "better" and therefore wanted them to be the dictators of their country, and all countries. (I believe it's debatable whether Stalin, the erstwhile seminarian, actually believed in Communism as much as he believed in power. Lenin, however, appears to me to have been a true believer.)
Lenin and Hitler both viewed the public masses as a group to be mobilized rather than a constituency to represent (I got that from a book I'm reading... a parallel biography of Stalin and Hitler. I can't remember the author's name at the moment, or I'd properly cite to him.)
The US has always been a dictatorship, but the identity of the dictator has changed over time. Originally, the dictator, if you will, consisted of property owners. They were fully vested in the system, and by and large viewed government's role as protecting their property and getting out of their way so they could make money. This dictatorship did many horrible things, most notably own people. However, that dictatorship also liberated those people, fathered the industrial revolution, fulfilled the manifest destiny, and presided over the greatest economic expansion in history.
Now, if you have a face and are 18 years old you can vote. Actually, you don't even have to have a face... At least I think you don't have to have a face, because that's the only explanation I can come up with as to why someone would oppose a voter ID requirement.
So, any person can vote. It doesn't matter whether you have the morals of Larry Flynt, the intellect of Sean Penn, or even whether you speak English. Think about that a minute. We live in a country where the difference between a winner and a loser could be a idiot pornographer who can't speak English. But that's not what I'm upset about.
Right now when the government issues bonds, the fed is printing money to purchase the bonds. That's not just a recipe for inflation, it's inflation flambe. And why are we just printing money? Why, because we need stimulus. This stimulus is in the form of giveaways to various interest groups: geographic, ethnic, and ideological. Need to organize a community and register fake voters? Give ACORN some cash. Need to kill more unborn children? Stimulate Planned Parenthood. Just print the money.
Of course, China won't let us just keep printing money, because when we do we instantly devalue their currency, which is pegged to the dollar, not to mention devalue their biggest asset: U.S. Treasuries.
Obviously, Obama is the man in charge of all this, but he's kowtowing to the real dictators: welfare recipients, unions who've driven their companies into the ground, and various minority communities. Why, the only reason Obama tapped Sonia Soto to be on the Court is because he can't get amnesty through the Congress this year. It's all one big catering job; attempts to placate constintuencies in the era of identity politics.
Well, I'd rather have Dick Cheney as a dictator than La Raza, Planned Parenthood, and ACORN, thank you very much. Frankly, I'd rather have Obama as dictator than that motley crew of interest groups. So there you go, I'm for a dictatorship, at least a different dictatorship than the one we already have.
Lastly, and this is way off topic, if it is so important to ensure the US has large auto companies, then why don't we just start a new one? Wouldn't that be cheaper than bailing out all the crappy companies in Detroit? Sheesh.
Have you considered the potential value of a dictatorship? I know, I know, self-government is the cornerstone to our system, and it's a sacred aspect of our government, but let me make a quick pitch.
All governments are dictatorships, one just sometimes has trouble identifying precisely who the dictator is. In Nazi Germany the dictator was Hitler. In the nacent USSR it was Lenin, then Stalin, yet the Russian version of despotism differed. Hitler aspired for over a decade to ascend to ultimate power in Germany, believing that only he could save Germany from its republican government which gave away the store to France and England after WWI. Of course, revanchement and the abolition of all Jews were also important compenants of Hitler's rise to power. (The former being laudable, the latter pure evil.)
Lenin, on the other hand, would have never come to power had he claimed he wanted to be dictator. Instead, what he wanted was a dictatorship of the proletariat, represented by the Communist Party. Regardless of whether the bourgeois class was more numerous or powerful, the Communists technically saw the peasants as being "better" and therefore wanted them to be the dictators of their country, and all countries. (I believe it's debatable whether Stalin, the erstwhile seminarian, actually believed in Communism as much as he believed in power. Lenin, however, appears to me to have been a true believer.)
Lenin and Hitler both viewed the public masses as a group to be mobilized rather than a constituency to represent (I got that from a book I'm reading... a parallel biography of Stalin and Hitler. I can't remember the author's name at the moment, or I'd properly cite to him.)
The US has always been a dictatorship, but the identity of the dictator has changed over time. Originally, the dictator, if you will, consisted of property owners. They were fully vested in the system, and by and large viewed government's role as protecting their property and getting out of their way so they could make money. This dictatorship did many horrible things, most notably own people. However, that dictatorship also liberated those people, fathered the industrial revolution, fulfilled the manifest destiny, and presided over the greatest economic expansion in history.
Now, if you have a face and are 18 years old you can vote. Actually, you don't even have to have a face... At least I think you don't have to have a face, because that's the only explanation I can come up with as to why someone would oppose a voter ID requirement.
So, any person can vote. It doesn't matter whether you have the morals of Larry Flynt, the intellect of Sean Penn, or even whether you speak English. Think about that a minute. We live in a country where the difference between a winner and a loser could be a idiot pornographer who can't speak English. But that's not what I'm upset about.
Right now when the government issues bonds, the fed is printing money to purchase the bonds. That's not just a recipe for inflation, it's inflation flambe. And why are we just printing money? Why, because we need stimulus. This stimulus is in the form of giveaways to various interest groups: geographic, ethnic, and ideological. Need to organize a community and register fake voters? Give ACORN some cash. Need to kill more unborn children? Stimulate Planned Parenthood. Just print the money.
Of course, China won't let us just keep printing money, because when we do we instantly devalue their currency, which is pegged to the dollar, not to mention devalue their biggest asset: U.S. Treasuries.
Obviously, Obama is the man in charge of all this, but he's kowtowing to the real dictators: welfare recipients, unions who've driven their companies into the ground, and various minority communities. Why, the only reason Obama tapped Sonia Soto to be on the Court is because he can't get amnesty through the Congress this year. It's all one big catering job; attempts to placate constintuencies in the era of identity politics.
Well, I'd rather have Dick Cheney as a dictator than La Raza, Planned Parenthood, and ACORN, thank you very much. Frankly, I'd rather have Obama as dictator than that motley crew of interest groups. So there you go, I'm for a dictatorship, at least a different dictatorship than the one we already have.
Lastly, and this is way off topic, if it is so important to ensure the US has large auto companies, then why don't we just start a new one? Wouldn't that be cheaper than bailing out all the crappy companies in Detroit? Sheesh.
Comments
Although I would not call our current system a dictatorship, I do agree with your observations. The country seems to have been cut up and sold off by special interest groups (corporate, union, ethnic and even "lifestyle"). It sort of reminds me of Jimmy Stewart saying "Don't you see what's happening here, Potters not selling; he's buying". I hope though that much of this is a reaction; the other necessary stroke of the pendulum that may eventually bring us us to some reasonable balance, but I doubt it. Maybe someday it will be a big deal when an under-qualified straight white male is nominated to the supreme court by a Chinese president in a reactionary appeasement to a special interest group. Maybe someday autoworkers really will need a union to get a fair deal out of their Indian companies. Maybe someday the sweat shops will be in our borders, our currency will be backed by someone else's and we will all gripe about their excess, their obesity, the lifestyles they finance at our expense and yet still exceed their means; how their corporations are so greedy, their government so arrogant and corrupt and their people so pampered and apathetic that they must soon devour themselves when nothing else is left. If the pendulum swings there, how will we rebuild our industry and wealth? How will we view our fellow Americans, their rights and obligations? I hope with worthy ideas and balance.