The New Deal Supreme Court's betrayal in distorting the Commerce Clause destroyed federalism (and hence the basic constitutional scheme) and ushered in the total state. Instead of state governments reasonably with reach of the voter, we got the federal leviathan where the voter, in dealing with the most accessible of his political masters, was but one of hundreds of thousands of each congressman's constituents. The bland, non-committal, evasive, gooey letters all of us "concerned citizens" has received from our congressional representatives tell us all we need to know about how indifferent they are to accountability to the voters and how they love half truths.
The passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 (or was it the 13th Amendment in 1916?) authorizing a national income tax was perhaps even more destructive as it provided the wherewithal for the federal government to buy off voters with the tax money provided by them and, more likely, others, thereby reducing the voter to the status of the family dog. The grateful recipient of the occasional milk bone while their betters enriched themselves at the public trough.
All of which "conservatives" considered it frightfully impolite to discuss.
In an excellent article today, Brett Stevens discusses modern political failure in part the responsibility of cowardly conservatives. Wonder no more about why the West "has been unable to respond to reality and chases dreams and illusions":
In particular, few will speak up — Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan being the most visible exceptions — to mention the logical fact that diversity cannot work, and that Leftist delight in it exists only because a Third World population is being imported to permanently skew the vote to the left. That the native population of the United States and Europe is being replaced is beyond what conservatives will discuss because they are unwilling to challenge the liberal Establishment.This brief excerpt doesn't do Mr. Steven's article justice. He really does provide an explanation for the conservatives' failure to think through our problems clearly and get any kind of traction in the battle with the totalitarian and nation-busting left. It's not all that complicated.The alternative right also speaks hard truths about democracy, namely that most people vote for short-term self-interest instead of what will maintain civilization, and that in groups people compromise on the lowest common denominator. Democracy does not work; the American Constitution was an attempt to limit it so that it would, but that quickly became overthrown. Now we live in a Leftist time and we are seeing the consequences of Leftism as our economies, environment and societies plunge downward into chaos, but mainstream conservatives have failed to do more than a token effort against it, collecting votes and money as The Opposition Party without opposing the core idea of liberalism — that all people are equal — at all.[1]
If the Trump phenomenon is a mystery to anyone still, this article will dispel the mists. The passage quoted above alone should do that.
American politics are just surreal, if you can consider the word "politics" to be a term signifying any kind of a contest between incompatible viewpoints battling for the favor of voters in the realm of ideas.
The politics of the entire West are surreal in point of fact. Police commanders escort hordes of invading Muslims along the country roads of Europe with no shame. It's just the most normal thing in the world for foreigners to stream unopposed into your country. Similarly quite normal is European navies acting as taxi services for invaders instead of an instrument to repel them.
Once admitted to a Western country, it's just taken as entirely normal, a given, something no reasonable person would question, that such persons can acquire the right to vote and bring in their extended family. The notion that if the foreigner wants to be with his family he should return home is just never even considered. An idea not even worthy of being called absurd.
Notes
[1] "The alternative Right rises." By Brett Stevens, Amerika, 1/21/16 (emphasis added).
7 comments:
Good points in this article. Also see Sam Francis 1996 essay commented upon by Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn and Pat Buchanan (most easily found at VDare). Let's hope that Trump is an ethical campaigner and not a typical Republican such as McConnell or Cornyn. The half-life of those guy's promises is about 2 minutes after their latest re-election.
I would posit that the bed wetting panic among the Mainstream Republicans is a pretty good indicator that The Donald is 't one of them. It's pretty plain that at some point in the future the only votes that matter will be expressed in terms of muzzle energy.
_Rev
Thank you, Andy. I loved Francis and was one of the earliest to start writing of true nature of government in America. Wasn't anarcho-tyranny his term?
The Republican stack arms after the last election brought home as never before that it was an irrelevancy to the Treason Class. Therefore it was necessary to start looking at alternative explanations, no matter how outlandish. The Norman Rockwell version is the one that proved to be what was really outlandish yet it looked as normal as 80 years of smoke and mirrors could make it.
Anon, Trump has turned on a light in a kitchen overrun with cockroaches. The NR volley against Trump reveals one such cockroach and it's just as interesting as all get out.
Agreed on fps, trajectory, and trigger control as being likely determinants of victory in The Big Showdown that seems to be in the offing. It's a shame that that's a possibility but the left has turned the country from a representative republic with high legitimacy into an unrepresentative oligarchy with rapidly diminishing legitimacy. The former left you alone and free to do as you wished. The latter is the opposite. Case in point: Obamacare. Lots of morons thought it is great and that "someone" will pay the freight. As the horrendous premiums and deductibles make themselves known, the oligarchy option has come knocking on a lot of doors in a big way. Ditto with demographic changes and the clarification that's occurring on the matter the coercion that's involved in "civil rights" and on the matter of black rejectionism. Government will continue to get more heavy handed and, however reluctantly, this will be noticed more and more. The question will be raised, Who the hell are we? and a great many people are not going to like the answers and the oligarchs will, I guarantee you, not give a damn ever.
Stevens comment that 'Democracy does not work' because it was 'overthrown' makes little sense. The failure, to one extent or another, of means does not invalidate the motive for democratic fairness. Shall we try a benevolent dictatorship as in days of yore?
As some philosopher should have said, "Man, get off your dead ass and work for your salvation."
On good authority I've been told that on the Second Coming, He's coming wearing steel-toed workbooks to kick butts, for starters.
Democracy works if We work at applying our democratic republic principles.
"The fault, dear Brutish, is not in our stars but in our lazy, apathetic selves, that we are complainers and Quislings."
Teach your children well.
Mr. Stevens, I think representative government is the way to go with pure democracy sidelined by protections of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. It is not so much that democracy is a means that has been degraded but rather than democracy has been unleashed. That much is explicitly affirmed by Stevens. I think there is no such thing as "democratic fairness" though there is certainly such a things as "fairness" or "equity." A significant part of our legal development and modern practice was devoted to defining equity and injecting it into the harsher more Procrustean approach of the law courts.
Moreover, the opposite of democracy is not tyranny necessarily but of constitutional guarantees of basic rights. Democrat fanatics are, in contrast, willing and able to use democratic means to commit crimes. Like theft.
I think Steven's is merely describing the situation where the constitutional guarantees have broken down. That was an inevitable result of our mad rush to effect the universal franchise. That's bad enough but it also has to be added to the mix that we have a minority within our borders that has proved to be hostile to our laws and our culture. The voting power these blacks have is always ready to support demagogues and subversives. A cursory study of the Congressional Black Caucus proves that the signature characteristic of its members is racial animus.
There are exceptions: LTC West, Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes, Walter Williams, Deroy Murdoch, Pastor Manning, Larry Elder, etc. Nonetheless, the country would benefit immeasurably by literacy tests, property tests, disqualification for welfare dependency, and hyper vigilance where voter registration and voter ID are concerned. To the extent we have none of these, Stevens is quite right. Democracy does not work and what we are seeing play out are the death throes of a once coherent and great culture and nation. There is no more stark evidence of that than the cities that have been destroyed as civilized habitat by the lowest common denominator.
Excuse me. Mr. Nelson.
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