It is difficult to blame Marine Le Pen for the December [electoral] failure. A large portion of the Western world has lost the ability to think. She is learning that when you are a patriot in a world trying desperately to blot out certain things from its consciousness, you are only safe if you say nothing at all. I wonder if she's wondering if it's all worth it.[1]Notes
[1] "The Front National at a crossroads." By Tiberge, GalliaWatch, 1/21/16.
Bunny!
ReplyDeleteBoth these posts of yours are excellent. But I will now ramble and come back to your point, as is my wont.
I can recognize just from Fran's vocabulary and casual references that I'm not in the same league with him, but I was a programmer and "technologist involved with computers" for 35 years. I learned (and fell in love with) assembler programming because it was sorta like being in contact with the basic chemistry of what makes a whole body work.
Just by being SO close to what makes the addition of two numbers in a machine possible made me gain a new perspective on procedures, interactions and more. Since I was in my early 20's and also teaching the meta-programming of the computer product I was working on to secretaries and businessmen in the mid-70s - when computers were Greek - it just opened the petals of fractal thought even more.
BUT! . . .
I was an Avalon Hill board wargamer even before that. And I knew, without being able to explain why, when a system had been put together that "didn't work." For example, there is no way you can win Avalon Hill's "Midway" with the written rules, honest dice and a Japanese opponent who isn't drunk or not paying attention. The ship counters are beautiful. The commentary by Wade McClusky was compelling. And for a game of the early '60s to include the detail it did was unique. For it's time, it's a remarkable gaming and publishing accomplishment. But it's a no-win endeavor.
ReplyDeleteThere comes a point when you stop using far more analytical processes than your opponent. It doesn't matter that you've not only read the rules - you've pored over them with a flashlight under your covers when you were supposed to be asleep. You look at the great packaging, the full-color inserts, the voluminous background history. You've considered strategies, openings, counter-moves and options.
But when you come to realize it's either rigged or a fairy-tale, you just slam your hand down on the table and say, "WAIT! This CANNOT work the way it's set up!"
What we have is a narrative that declares that democracy (mob rule) is synonymous with freedom; that the narrow focus on the events of "NOW" and the feelings those events engender are somehow more meaningful than a perspective of what caused those events or where those feelings came from; and that a working society can be created by just constantly mainstreaming that narrative of events rather than understanding who we are, what we believe and why we believe it.
When barbarians are at the gate, you'd think it would be more than your old uncle or "right-wingers" that would be sounding tocsins. The fact that schools, media, politicians and popular entertainment were mouthing the same narrative should have been a clue.
So, instead of feeling uncomfortable that a government can now force you to buy health care or take your property to give to another;
instead of wondering if our government maneuvered weapons into the hands of Mexican drug lords and middle-eastern terrorists;
instead of wondering if Hillary lied about a video or her emails, or a vast right-wing conspiracy that accused her husband of wrong doing;
instead of getting upset that the internal revenue service, the environmental protection agency, the secret service and the national security agency have become political arms of the state;
instead of listening to the explicit reporting of the less than 10% of white on "others" crime rather than the hushed-up 85% of violent crimes perpetrated against whites by minorities and immigrants;
instead of wondering why an American president would go against the majority of his constituents' wishes and allow a rogue state to develop a fissionable arsenal, while enabling domestic and international entities to demean and undermine America and Israel;
instead of NOT allowing financial (supposedly capitalist, free market) entities such as Goldman Sachs to fail - as their loose and wildly speculative actions deserved, . . .
and holding monetary organizations (the federal reserve bank, the international monetary fund, and others) accountable for devaluation of the assets of Americans and others, worldwide;
instead of all that, we sit at our side of the table and just keep inviting the other person to play. Maybe they don't agree to the rules, or even agree with our premise of rules. Maybe we should should just walk away from the table and go play with the cat or have a sandwich.
But we never seem to slap our hand on the table and say, "This can't work, the way it's set up. It doesn't make sense. There's no way I can win or even survive with the way this is set up. So why should I play?"
Worse, we were playing the game in our house and with our mom providing the chips and soda. And now we can't even seem to ask the other guy to please leave.
That's an outstanding comment, Tim. Thanks for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteI've begun to get that same feeling that under the current rules the game just isn't winnable. Boehner's and McConnell's failure to launch after the last election just was maddening. We did our part and handed them the wherewithal but precisely nothing happened. Now the "conservatives" are mounting a full-court press on Trump but even if you accept their point that Trump's not a conservative, you just know that the "real" conservatives have accomplished exactly nothing. Not a damn thing has happened to reverse, let alone stall, the advance of socialism and the evisceration of the Constitution, unless you count generating a ton of position papers, manifestos, and talking points. Yup. America should be more conservative than it is. Got it. But Reagan increased spending and Bush '43 went for Medicare Part D. Never mind individual conservative objections of eloquence and logic sublime, the bottom line is that the conservative movement has accomplished jack diddly. Somewhere in there is your realization that everything is just designed with you as the chump under any and all circumstances.
Muslims are literally fouling swimming pools and subway seats in Germany but there's no reaction. Where there should be fury, there is . . . nothing, ennui, acceptance, surrender.
I've mentioned many times the Chinese idea of the loss of the mandate of Heaven. The dynasty just winds down because a thousand million commoners just spontaneously decided that it just ... wasn't ... working any more. Push the noodle time for the emperor. In addition to the spontaneous meltdown idea is the more proactive passive resistance approach. That would be the slapping the table you mention. Trump supporters are on that path and it won't end with a possible failure on his part. It's the most inchoate, diffuse, uncoordinated, simple strategy imaginable and it will work in time.
There's also the scenario where the economy splutters because of accumulated unwisdom of the beautiful people. This is very much a "just in time" economy and three days of no trucks rolling into L.A. or Stockton and you're looking at one giant reset that won't be at all dependent on any new theoretical insights.
As others have said before me, "The System" simply will not permit any corrections that run counter to how the elites - globalists, Federal Reserve, CFR, etc. - want it to run. The Republican Party played "Let's Pretend" until the Tea Party started making inroads, at which point the "conservative"/mainstream Republicans took their gloves off and simply began openly giving the Democrats and Obama everything they asked for. The people who thought replacing Boehner with Ryan would make a difference shouldn't be allowed out of doors without a nanny.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to think that replacing Obama with Trump - if he does mean everything he says and has the best interests of the country at heart - will make a significant difference, but he would more likely end up powerless. Congress will refuse to support him, the Supremes will rule against him, the three-letter agencies will ignore him, and the media will denigrate him worse than they did Bush II.
The only way I think change might come is if he _is_ elected and we start stringing up members of Congress and bureaucrats who refuse to do what those who elected them want them to do, e.g. repeal Obamacare. Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Feinstein, Boxer, McConnell, etc., would need to be made examples of for refusing to honor their oaths of office. But that will never happen.
I wish I could believe some miracle would end the self-perpetuating control that The System exhibits over what goes on with our government in this country (and in others, like Syria, Iraq, etc.), but I'm fresh out of wishful thinking.
Does the President not have the power to transfer, if not to fire, employees of the Executive Branch? He could discover a crying need for new IRS offices in Columbus and Westhope, ND, for example.
ReplyDeleteReg, "shouldn't be allowed out of doors without a nanny" is choice!
ReplyDeleteGod bless Trump for pointing out the elephant of open borders and sellout leaders. Who knows whether he'll be good for his word. Mr. Turner posted a comment on a later post of mine that linked to a collection of straight-out liberal Democrat beliefs. Pretty stark.
Still, it's a mistake for anyone to look for politicians or "politics" to significantly change things in a matter of months or years. Reagan didn't make much of a dent in the liberal insanity so we're probably looking at the tectonic forces at work. Mark Steyn's now-10-year-old article in the WSJ on demographics is a good example of taking the long view. I wish people would wake up by new millions each day but it's just a few hundred here and there it distresses me to see.
Zhou En-lai was asked about the effects of the French Revolution and he said it's still too early to tell. That's probably the gold standard of what things to get worked up over. So, I'll go for Trump and hope that the anti-immigrant position can get a tiny bit of traction.
Daniel, I used to be in the federal bureaucracy but I don't know much about that aspect of federal personnel law. I suspect that punitive transfers have been addressed in court cases. But I'm just guessing.
ReplyDeleteI know J. Edgar used to delight in sending agents in disfavor to Fargo and such places but I think the agents agree to move at the pleasure of the Director.
Col,
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, I will gladly vote for Trump if he can do better than how the Republican mainstream refused to count any votes for Paul. I'd love to see Trump get the nomination. I think he has a better chance than even Cruz of at least pointing us back in the right direction. But the inertia exhibited by the political system - especially as taken over and perverted by the Left - makes me believe it is going to take more than votes and words to change anything. What McConnell and the rest did with all of the advantages we handed them seems proof of that.
Besides, it gives me an atavistic thrill to imagine naming so many lampposts for the traitors to the American people and the American way, which actually existed once, but does no more. Seeing them actually pay a price, suffer the consequences for what they have been doing to us all these years would be sweet. To hoist the Jolly Roger, as Mencken would have had it.
The ship of state has many barnacles and that's just a fact of life. There is the example of Alexander at the Gordian Knot and there's no legal reason why a Jolly Roger Congress and president could start out in January with a law that reads: "All legislation enacted since 1932 is hereby repealed except legislation pertaining to national defense, social security, and Medicare."
ReplyDeleteSalutary provisions repealed in this Procrustean approach can be re-enacted in an a process that does not permit omnibus legislation.
Just a thought. The alternative is to say we're HELPLESS because previous Congresses all did the right thing and if Congress acts its work can never be undone.