Every tick on this chart (total public debt) is a lie:
U.S. government bonds promise payment but, in the end, it will never happen. None of that debt will be paid for, unless it's by following generations, whose enthusiasm for the consumption preferences of their ancestors is not the stuff of legend.
The socialist paradigm is crumbling and the soaring public debt in all Western countries is simply the graphic evidence of the tragic Great Lie that overtook Western man since the dawn of the last century. Every tick on the graph of public debt above is proof of the Lie. The maneuverings over Greek debt to stave off operation of the iron laws of arithmetic (ILA), not to mention eternal truth,[1] should similarly be seen for what they are: utter desperation.
But there were plenty of warning signs for Krugman and the world. A big one was the self-proclaimed adherence to Marxism by the leaders of Syriza, the governing party in Greece. I am not writing as a knee-jerk conservative here. I am willing to admit that it is possible to hold many political and economic views without immediately qualifying for the Flat Earth Society, but Marxism does not fall within this range of the allowable.Mr. Barris should have said "imbecile, willingly self-deceptive, a liar, or a committed enemy of liberty." Other than that quibble, he states bedrock truth.There is no doctrine in the social sciences that has been more thoroughly debunked, in both theory and practice, than Marxism. It is not possible to be a true believer in Marx unless you are an imbecile or willingly self-deceptive. In either case, this does not make you an ideal negotiating partner, something to bear in mind when you are deciding where to place your sympathies in the battle between Greece and the troika.[2]
As the "flat earth" link in the quoted text above suggests, alas, humans are capable of focusing on single points of data and thereafter excluding all contrary evidence. The single data point in question in modern times is the cry of our victorious statists, "We are not heartless capitalists. We know how to take care of you and there is no downside whatsoever."
Subsidiary fascism is all the rage too and the left knows no caution.
Notes
[1] "For euen when wee were with you, this wee commanded you, that if any would not worke, neither should he eate." 2 Thessalonians 3:10, New Testament, KJV.
[2] "Destroying the Village to Save It – A Brief Post Mortem on Greece." By Roger Barris, Acting Man, 7/29/15.
[3] "The Red Terror in Russia 1918-1923." By Sergey Petrovich Melgounov, 1924 (?). An excerpt:
At Kertch the Bolshevists organised what they called "trips to Kuban," when the victims were taken out to sea, and drowned, and their terror-stricken wives and mothers flogged with [whips of horsehide] or, in a few cases, shot along with their sons or husbands. And for a long time bodies of such women, with babes still clasped to their breasts, could be seen lying outside the Jewish cemetery at Simferopol. At Yalta and Sevastopol stretcher patients were carried from the hospitals, and shot.Pp. 78-79.
See also "The Record of the Red Terror." By S. Melgunoff, Current History, 1927.
I know you don't get a lot of comments, Bunny.
ReplyDeleteMaybe because you quote others, maybe because it's obvious. I don't know.
Please keep posting.
I know this will seem like a non-sequitur, but I would like you to have a look at : http://www.ted.com/talks/aspen_baker_a_better_way_to_talk_about_abortion?language=en
ReplyDeleteThis - it seems to me - is the absolute definition of waving aside any primary definition of "right or wrong," or "good versus evil," and instead focusing on secondary or tertiary ideas of communication, healing, bonding or "moving forward"
She's saying that there's a significant problem with killing life versus a personal choice. But she spends the next 20 minutes focusing on the secondary idea of "talking about it," and, in doing so, she elevates the discussion itself as being more important than the original choice.
In the movie, "Independence Day," there's a scene on Air Force 1 where Jeff Goldblum's character hears that the National Security guy is advocating using nuclear weapons against the aliens. He goes whacko, essentially, saying, "No, you just can't do that, no matter what the reasons are."
He never gives his postulates - I assume because we're all supposed to know them at this point.
They use nukes in the movie and they don't work. Fine. But have you noticed that we're not supposed to question more and more of the narrative?
Underneath all that is one more thing. When I was a kid in the '50s, there was often a quick - not lengthily argued - mention of, "there oughta be a law," or, "what would a benevolent dictator do?"
Individuals hate tyranny. They imagine the consequences of it and see the downside. Societies seem to like it. They're afraid.
Thanks, furball. I would like to have more comments than I do as I greatly enjoy the give and take on ZeroHedge, Gates of Vienna, and The Unz Reader, for example. I figure I must be an acquired taste or, alternatively, that what I say would be wildly popular were primogeniture and trial by ordeal ever to make a comeback.
ReplyDeleteI had a dear older friend give me a copy of "The Gulag Archipelago" in 1974 and it literally transformed my thinking. Or, should I say, focused it enormously on the issue of totalitarian politics. Solzhenitsyn provided a startling context from which to view American constitutional law. I have found few people since who have quite my obsession with keeping his message alive in the West. Certainly not in any lawyers or bar associations who are oddly hors de combat on this.
I try to emphasize to progressives and others who recklessly toy with giving more power to government that you can support whatever policies you want -- your "there ought to be a law" idea -- but don't, don't, don't give an inch to the government in the hope it will implement what you yearn for without using the additional power you give it for the ends favored by unaccountable politicians and bureaucrats. And when I am one of 600,000 people "represented" by one Congressman, you can be sure he doesn't care a fig about what I think. ("Dear Postal Customer, Thank you for your fascinating letter on deficit spending and the open southern border . . . .")
In fact, I can probably count on one hand the number of people who in my adult life have even mentioned the word "constitution." So, in this context, I'm not particularly surprised by any lack of comments, though there's always the (remote) possibility that I'm tendentious and boring as hell. That Porretto guy talks about looking for a new house or what he eats for breakfast and gets tons of comments so there may be stylistic problems that I have in addition to being a one-note ukelele on the track record of communism. :-)
I listened to part of what Aspen Baker said and agree with her that it's possible to frame the debate in such a way as to defuse emotion and add different dimensions. Perhaps this is a variant of the approach of the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi or Chuang Tzu (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zhuangzi) who tried to jolt people with startling insights to, I suppose, get them to step out of their, um, paradigm. For example, he asked am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that I'm a man.
Baker seems to be selling relativism. As in, let's not discuss the merits of the issues but embrace that we can actually "talk" about difficult issues and that we can gain insight into the issues in a non-confrontational way by telling each other "stories." I think you have the same reaction, if I'm not mistaken.
Solzhenitsyn also warned us to live not by lies, and lies are not known or resisted by "stories" or "narrative." The difficulty we face now is that the lie has become the prime directive for the left. Absolute crap is peddled as ambrosia by the left and in the course of all this we're surrendering our liberties, embracing third-world savagery like a $5,000 hooker, and giving away our country to foreigners.
Debbie Whatsername-Shorts was asked what is the difference between Democrats and socialists and she twisted and turned like a eel to avoid that question and endeavored to provide an answer to a question that was never asked, namely, what is the difference between a Democrats and Republicans? This v. high official isn't going to be anyone who gives a fig about Baker's way of expanding anyone's understanding and empathy. These people are vicious, bleeping liars and wannabe totalitarians. You go after people like that with a crowbar (figurative).
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ReplyDeleteThat said there is room for trying the Zhuang Zi approach with people of good will. The problem is every bit as much now, as then, trying to get people to change their frame of reference. The cultural Marxists and other progressives/communists have done much to discredit America, white people, capitalism, and limited government so our work is cut out for us. I have personally seen how, in one particular case, I was able to open up the frame of reference by posing a basic question about what are our most important problems rather than trying to argue that immigration is a huge problem, etc. Enlisting others in identifying the issues seemed thus to be a useful approach and I am sure there are others. It's worth doing. If it's onesies and twosies, well, so be it.
Thus, I figure it's a bit of doing the Lord's work in trying to provide vivid examples of how things have worked in totalitarian countries and how reckless we are in how we approach spending, foreign military adventure, demonization of Russia, race, the Islamic threat, immigration, sovereignty, rule of law, the nature of citizenship, judicial tyranny, etc. I do wonder if I'd be happier growing tomatoes in my basement or pulling a travel trailer around till I croak but then that probably wouldn't be me.
Yes, individuals dislike tyranny though I wish they'd act like it more. And governments love it. I'm afraid inertia and self interest favor government when it's all said and done. But the coming economic spasms will clarify a lot of issues. What Solzhenitsyn called the "pitiless crowbar of events." Coming soon to a theater near you.
Enjoyed reading that. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you did!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to enlarge just a bit on how so many conservatives - people who would gladly spit in the eye of those who are currently forcing this country toward full-on communism - come out with that "there ought to be a law" tripe. Just a few days ago, a friend was talking about a chemical bomber crew responding to a fire that took lives in California refused to go there and drop fire-retardent because someone was operating a drone (of some sort - he said it was a small radio-controlled type) in the vicinity. He sided with the Forest Service, saying he agreed with their refusal to respond (even though, as a pilot myself, I informed him the danger from such a toy was less than from a hawk or eagle, and certainly less with a prop-driven aircraft than if it had been a fan-jet). He said there ought to be a law against flying those damned drones.
ReplyDeleteAbout a year ago, another very conservative friend was talking about hunting licenses, and how the laws prevented poaching. When I discussed the fact that men should have a right to hunt and feed their families without having to ask "the King" for permission, he said that there was nothing in the Constitution that said we had a right to hunt. At that point, I told him I had to stop talking about it before I totally lost it. I thought he had a better grasp of the Constitution and why it was written than that. He insisted we should continue to discuss the issue, so I asked him if the Constitution gave him permission to make love to his wife. It was his turn to stop talking, with a rather p.o.'ed expression on his face. I informed him that the Constitution was never written to give _us_ permission to exercise our rights, but was written to limit the _government's_ power and ability to act. It surprised the heck out of me, as he is a fairly intelligent man, but somehow he developed the notion that government has more rights than we do.
Scary, isn't it? Especially knowing how misleading teachers are these days when they even bother to _mention_ the Constitution to their students. After all, those evil, old white men who wrote that worthless piece of parchment kept slaves, so whatever they wrote just has to be wrong. And Mao is their favorite philosopher (yes, I know it wasn't a teacher who said that - but it might as well have been ;-)
Fred Reed had a good piece a few years back about how people lived in relative isolation in frontier times. As population density increased people wanted more and more rules. E.g., zoning laws and home owners association rules about what color to paint your door. Anyway, I don't think people care much for liberty. Few in my acquaintance articulate their love for it in so many words. Mostly it's an inchoate dislike of being ordered around by authority figures or their bridling at the perceived censoriousness of bluestockings and kill joys. "No one can tell me not to get a tattoo!"
ReplyDeleteThe same applies to what is in, underlies, or preceded the Constitution. Most of us are good little citizens who think that it's about getting permission to do or say.
It is scary. I forget which candidate yesterday was ecstatic about homosexual marriage and attending such an event. He said now that the Supreme Court has spoken it's settled, as though the Court majority was anything but a bunch of whores for whatever abomination the left has on its to do list at any one time.
We are completely adrift and the people demand none of the protections of law and custom. Mao and the Khmer Rouge are just romantic abstractions to most.