The Crisis Of Constituencies

One of the defining features of post-Cold War America is that public policy no longer reflects public sentiment. Washington passes plenty of laws every year and spends plenty of money on various programs. State governments have also grown like a weed in their size and scope. Plenty is done in the name of the people, but precious little is favored by the majority of the people. Instead, public policy debates are about breaking down majority opposition in service to minority interests.

In theory, democracies should operate on the principle of majority rule. Fifty percent plus one carries the day on every issue. This is certainly true in the small scale, where a simple show of hands is enough to decide an issue. That does not scale up very well, so countries have representative bodies like parliaments and legislatures. Still, in a representative democracy, with some exceptions, the majority will should be reflected in public policy debates in the parliament or legislature.

Much of what vexes the current age is the sense by all factions that their interests are no longer represented. The Left is convinced that nefarious forces are preventing the majority from putting the Left into power. That may be delusional, but they believe it to be true, which is what matters. The Right, broadly defined to mean everyone not on the Left, believes their majority interests are ignored. There is no issue around which you can find a majority that thinks their interests are being served.

This paradox of democracy, where the majority is captured by shifting minorities, is not simply the product of hierarchy. The rich certainly wield power disproportionate to their numbers, but even the rich find their interests thwarted. For example, global business would love to have unlimited foreign workers, but they can’t seem to buy enough influence in Washington to get it. The same can be said for things like trade policy, regulatory policy and tax policy.

The truth is, much of what the majority would like on domestic policy is of little or no interest to the ruling oligarchs. For example, the roads in America look like what you see in the third world. Big transportation items like bridges, highways and tunnels have not been updated in half a century. The Silicon Valley oligarchs are not going to be harmed by better infrastructure. Wall Street would profit from new road building, but there is never a majority in Washington for it.

On the other hand, projects with no natural majority somehow get pushed through and linger on despite popular discontent. The big health care push in the Obama years had no popular support as passed. It became increasingly unpopular as the reality of it became a real thing for Americans. The Republican party promised to repeal or fix it for close to a decade, but nothing happened. There was always a majority in Congress opposed to whatever changes were proposed.

Health care is a great example of how minorities rule majorities. Every comma in the regulatory code has a dedicated constituency behind it. Their existence depends on the part of the code that created them, so they ferociously defend it. The millions of lines of regulatory code have thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of little bands guarding their bit of code from anything resembling reform. The only thing these tribes are sure to agree upon is that change is never good.

This is why both parties intuitively opposed Trump’s wall project. On the one hand, lots of those little constituencies feared it threatened their turf. If we had a really good barrier system like Israel, maybe we don’t need as many border agents. Maybe we don’t need as many bureaucrats in the illegal alien processing system. It may sound far-fetched, but every state has prison guard unions that lobby their state to pass laws, because more laws means more criminals, which means more prisons.

Then there is the fact that the wall would have created an army of new constituencies invested in the barrier system. All of those people would have become covetous of their new host and prepared to fight for their interests. Government is not a zero-sum game, but it is treated as such by the vested interests. A barrier system would mean new constituencies and that would mean every slice of pie got thinner. It’s why the only thing that gets done is that which serves existing constituencies.

It is why the Covid stuff could be permanent. In just six months new industries have sprung to life serving the demands of Covid regulations. Businesses have had to reorganize in order to operate under these regulations. They have already absorbed the costs of compliance. They have no incentive to go back to the old way. Of course, an army of “health and safety professionals” are rising up like a zombie army. They will fight tooth and claw to maintain this new environment.

There are many paradoxes to democracy, but one glaring one is that instead of breaking down into mob rule, it becomes minority rule. It is a form of the Pareto principle, where a small percentage account for a large percentage of politics, but the small percentage is always shifting and variable. Every issue has its own minority interest driving the bulk of the politics related to that issue. There never seems to be a majority in favor of ending that minority interest.

The sclerosis that we see in modern America seems to be immune from any effort to force through change. Look at the struggles Trump has had in removing troops from Afghanistan and Syria. The military industrial complex is a honeycomb of small interests accounting for the bulk of politics within that system. Whatever Trump does to try and get out of these quagmires, those interest unite into temporary coalitions to undermine the effort in order to protect their fiefdom.

Interestingly, this inability to reform due to a legion of petty interests blocking reform is similar to the situation in pre-revolutionary France. Collectively, the king and aristocracy had good reason to reform the nation’s finances and reform certain aspects of the French economy and society. Yet, there were always petty reasons to block necessary reform, so they kept drifting toward crisis. Eventually, of course, this inability to act in the interest of the majority sapped their legitimacy.

That may be the process America is in now. The Left, always looking to subvert order and continuity, is spoiled for choice when looking for dissatisfied factions. In a world where the only majority is one that sees its interest being ignored, the Left can always put together an angry mob to disrupt order. This ease with which they sow discord in society leads the rest of society to question the legitimacy of their government, which seems powerless against these disruptions.

Adding to that is the fact that the majority cannot put their finger on a single thing their government does for them, but is spoiled for choice when looking for things the government does in spite of them. To the natural majority, it seems as if the ruling class is deliberately avoiding that which should be easy. Their incompetence and sclerosis are increasingly seen as deliberate. Like France, we are drifting from general unhappiness to a crisis of legitimacy that is increasingly personalized.

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Paralax
Paralax
4 years ago

This country is an unworkable nightmare of competing interests. We’ve had to suffer higher food prices and a worse environment because Iowa farmers have an interest in keeping ethanol subsidies going. We have to pretend to hate Cuba due to the Cuban ex-pat vote in Florida. We are eternally subservient to several Middle Eastern nations due to their ethnic constituencies in this country; and other competing interest groups like the Iranians use their influence in Hollywood to attack Donald Trump in return for his belligerence. We are forced into hating the Russians because, among other reasons, ex-Soviet immigrants in our… Read more »

sentry
sentry
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

Great comment, agree with all of it, despite it being long

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

Good comment. A nice summary proving that whatever diversity may be, it is not a strength.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

Brilliant comment. I always have thought the United States’ involvement in World War I was one of the most disastrous decisions the nation ever made, and led to the hell on Earth that followed close on. You also have made me determined to learn more about pre-Chavez Venezuela. I know what the propaganda is but want to find the facts now.

tonaludatus
tonaludatus
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

I have been in Venezuela both before Chavez and after. I can tell you that it was a livable but crappy place before but then succeeded to turn into a huge latrine after… well perhaps excepting Angel Falls.

Last edited 4 years ago by tonaludatus
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

Also, I was wrong about abortion.

I didn’t know RGB was placed to effect Roe’s emanations from the penumbra, just as Kagan was placed to expand that industry to late term and partial birth.

The organ harvesters need a continuous fresh supply for our vampire lords.

Mary Sanger advocated family planning and was against abortion. I met a black man with 45 aunts and uncles, 20 by Grandpa’s first wife and 25 by the second.

Sanger was right to be alarmed, but as a white woman, she gets the blame for an industry grown and run by another tribe.

Last edited 4 years ago by Alzaebo
Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

The Chavez note is interesting: a country whose democracy ran out of gas due to ultra-poor management matched up with unreasonable expectations. Chavez was criticized for commandeering the oil industry and then pumping all the money out and putting nothing back into it. This is rough analogy that match’s up to what America is currently doing to it’s currency, something that will only go into hyper-drive under single-party leftist rule. Likewise, there were lots of interviews with Venezuelans along the lines of “I keep voting for Chavez’s party, and also, unrelated, my life keeps getting worse”. And the analogy, unfortunately… Read more »

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

ex-Soviet immigrants in our press with an axe to grind tell us we have to.

Julia Ioffe and Olga Kazan are two of the most visible and horrific ex-Soviets and Millennial (((white))) women.

Horace
Horace
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

One of the few bits of Israeli hasbara which is not a lie is the assertion that there was no Palestinian people/nation in 1948. The various tribes that lived there had all the preconditions for national identity, shared religion(s), ethnicity, culture, etc, but it took a war waged against them where their enemy collectively defined them as an enemy nation to forge it into a reality.

The same process is happening in America.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

Blank slate theory will die, about the same time that hell breaks loose.

BadThinker
BadThinker
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

TL;DR: In a nation of lies, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

And another interesting side note, too.

DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was the Star Wars of its time. Everybody wants to larp as a stormtrooper.

The guys who lynched Leo Frank were a local vigilante group called the Sons of Mary.

There was no Klan, with its weird, made up arcana (“Grand Kleagle”), until the media made it a force powerful enough to take over the country’s majority party.

Another curtain, cast aside for a new curtain after its purpose was done.

Dennis Roe
Dennis Roe
Reply to  Paralax
4 years ago

You did a fancy dance around the jew problem, creators of disaster, for their benefit.

Peabody
Peabody
4 years ago

The thought of enough people on this planet willing to wear a face diaper in perpetuity because they got used to it is unbearable.

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Peabody
4 years ago

Heh. This morning, on my walk to work, I saw a duo of young lads with what I took to be three serious signs of the abrogation of personal responsibility: Face masks worn. Riding electric scooter, when capable of walking. Face masks were personalized. Point 1 tells me that in all likelihood you believe what you hear and don’t think too deeply about it. Point 2 tells me you now see no need to walk what is in all likelihood a short distance – tech will do it for me. Finally, point 3 tells me you revel in being told… Read more »

Forever Templar
Forever Templar
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

You don’t get out much, then. People have been using scooters forever, dude. Pretty ubiquitous in American small towns, not to mention most metro areas in east Asia. Lazy is just a part of human nature. The personalized faced diapers…I don’t know, if you have to where them, why not?

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
4 years ago

It is why the Covid stuff could be permanent. In just six months new industries have sprung to life serving the demands of Covid regulations. This was something I noticed early on, the most obvious case be that of masks. Throughout the Great Chinese Virus, I was in the office and got an interesting view on the comical measures the UK government had now forced upon business. First, we had the specially made signs, my goodness, how many covid signs must have been printed for this thing? Then the perspex screens that all offices were required to order. Another good… Read more »

whitney
Member
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

I don’t know how this made it into the New York Times but he’s calling it a techno medical despotism. Here is a quote

“His argument about the coronavirus runs along similar lines: The emergency declared by public-health experts replaces the discredited narrative of “national security experts” as a pretext for withdrawing rights and privacy from citizens. “Biosecurity” now serves as a reason for governments to rule in terms of “worst-case scenarios.” This means there is no level of cases or deaths below which locking down an entire nation of 60 million becomes unreasonable”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/opinion/sunday/giorgio-agamben-philosophy-coronavirus.html

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

I said, pretty early on, that all this COVID nonsense was never going away because the Karens enjoy it too much.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

It’ll go away because it has nothing on the post 9/11 hysteria, and even that is pretty much over 20 years on. This crap was unpopular from the start, and Karens are easy to resent. Might take a couple of years, but it won’t last.

Last edited 4 years ago by Paintersforms
MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

I’d love for you to be correct on that

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

Correct. The bright shiny object of Covid will be replaced in due time. The Karens are just the greatest reminder of how feminized society has become. Something else will cause them to retreat to the basement computer and chastise their neighbors for failing to obey the newest and latest admonitions from Big Brother.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

Coronageddon marches on because “America” is a nation of cowards. No manly and manful nation would ever put up with this bullshit.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

Correct. The bright shiny object of Covid will be replaced in due time.

Hell, flu season starts October 1st. Get ready for them to ramp up the flu vax propaganda to insane levels.

We will see multiple episodes of people being offered the choice of vax or unemployment. We may even see people being vaccinated at gunpoint.

Jack Charlton
Member
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

Meme is right on the big picture though. They’ll just engineer another virus to replace this one and keep things going. The media has been playing up this stuff for the past several years, but trying the scare the public with the flu never worked. Now, with Covid, they have a successful blueprint to follow.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Jack Charlton
4 years ago

That’s true. It’s always something and people are always dumb enough to fall for it.

Maus
Maus
Reply to  Jack Charlton
4 years ago

The cynic in me wonders when they go for the whole enchilada and bypass the deadlocked legislative process to enact the Green New Deal with biosecurity “measures” necessary to support the quest for human safety in the face of global climate change. It sometimes seems like the COVID response was little more than a proof of concept. In particular, it’s a lot more preoccupied with diminishing economic activity than with improving health outcomes.

miforest
Member
Reply to  Maus
4 years ago

you missed it! that was done in march. lets see…
air travel mostly eliminated check
motor trave reduced by 40% check
beef cows eliminated ongoing
wasteful tourism stopped check
people moved into communal housing
upcoming, after the foreclosures
they are building the worlds largest insect protien plant in canada right now.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/worlds-largest-cricket-processing-plant-coming-to-london-1.5655813

and no , you won’t have a choice.

Mikep
Mikep
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

My prediction is that before long something else will happen, and the media which lacks the ability to attend to two things at the same time will drop covid and it will be forgotten.

miforest
Member
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

I was there for the 9/11 stuff. we colosed down airports ONLY for a week , and it was over. Almost nobody stopped going to work outside DC or NYC . the (/11 panic was a squirt gun , covid lunacy is a water cannon of dysfunctional abuse

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  miforest
4 years ago

MSM had a near monopoly on info back then, the public was less conspiracy minded, W was 100% behind it, and tptb weren’t unified to destroy him.

My experience this time around has been completely different. There was a lot of hostility back then, I felt like a voice in the wilderness for a good 2 years even though I was in college, where you’d expect strong opposition. There’s been a large contingent questioning this thing from the beginning. Its hold on the public is weaker.

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

Yes, I am surprised to see such an article in the NYT, I thought they were fully onboard with restricting freedoms saving people?

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

It is absurd. There is no other way to describe it. Sorry to waffle on about The Great Chinese Virus again, but if this is truly a threat that demands this sort of action, I am going to need to see people dropping like flies in the street. I don’t. Instead, all the fear-mongering appears to come from those little (and big) glowing screens into which people invest most of their time. But on a more serious note, this covid business is here to stay. Currently in force here in Blighty is a law that says no more than six… Read more »

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

Let me just hazard a guess: the six-person limit is not enforced in “South Asian” households, is it?

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

Generally speaking, it would most unwise of the police to intervene in the gathering of a community of minorities, when said minorities understand how to act as a community… and manipulate the system. As we all know, the ‘race card’ is one hell of a hand to play.

Mikep
Mikep
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

It’s my suspicion that a lot of the government’s response to covid is triggered by the “fact” that it appears to disproportionately target dark skinned minorities. In a desperate attempt not to seem racist, they are prepared to throw the entire economy under the bus.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

to be fair, the uk was already fukked before the wuhan flu hit. now it’s just another type of fukked.

what is spain doing that you allude to? honest question…

Last edited 4 years ago by Karl McHungus
OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

to be fair, the uk was already fukked before the wuhan flu hit. now it’s just another type of fukked. Fair enough. Although jumping from the frying pan and into the fire springs to mind. what is spain doing that you allude to? From my friend in Madrid, the crackdowns were some of the worst in Europe. Unlike England, where the regulations on mask wearing is meekly enforced, Pedro Sanchez was most aggressive in intimidating and fining Spaniards for not wearing the masks. Almost everyone in Madrid was expected to stay home and the police presence in the capital was… Read more »

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

too bad, i was looking forward to spending some time there (Spain) but it looks like they will be out of bounds for a couple of years.

gwithian
gwithian
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

I think you trust newspaper reports overly much. I live in a rural part of England and most of the covid rules are ignored by pretty much everyone. You can walk around without a mask in a store or meet in large groups and nothing happens. I haven’t seen a police car since February! We have lots of tourists down here at the moment and things seem pretty normal. UK has its problems to say the least but central London or Birmingham don’t represent the UK as a whole for covid or the other problems you are trying to allude… Read more »

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  gwithian
4 years ago

well, my wife is British, and I lived there for four years, so I get my news pretty directly 🙂 what i meant by “already fukked” was the hard core anti-British left that owns the place. and yes, my in-laws talk about the country side being better than the cities. but the NHS is a nightmare by anyone’s standards…

whitney
Member
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

Yeah my standard response when anyone brings up covid now is ” It’s not real. It’s been 6 months, if it were the danger promised we would both know a bunch of dead people at this point” Whoever I’m talking to always says the exact same thing and response “You dont think the virus is dangerous/exists?” It’s almost like a script. I have things I say they have things they say. But be prepared for people to tell you that 1 million people have died globally from it because we’re about to hit that number they tell us. My standard… Read more »

The Right Doctor
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

This would have been too stupid even to write before this year, but I can now foresee a new plague, a food-borne illness, forcing the government to mandate fasting 2–3 (non-consecutive) days a week.
It’ll be our permanent Ramadan and will make us all better citizens.

Mikep
Mikep
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

Sadly this is all too true. Over here in Blighty, when someone utters the curse, “This must never happen again”, the British population goes into a kind of hypnotic trance and can then be persuaded to do just about any crazy thing

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

grocery stores here in socal are already starting to roll back the covid nonsense. an outdoor mall over in anaheim flat out defied the government and had all kinds of people mingling around. the little eichmans who ramped all this up can either ramp them down again, or face a thoroughly radicalized and disobedient citizenry.

Lee
Lee
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

California is going to start the revolution against these tyrants
LOLOLOL
You are delusional. That asylum is mostly filled with drugged Leftists. I’m sure you are the exception.
What’s it like to live in a third world country?

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  Lee
4 years ago

It’s horrible

I am counting the days

God willing, I will have sold my home in Los Angeles and will be living in Blue Ridge Mountains by this time next year

Stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

Come on over, but please tell everyone else left behind in CA how much they’d hate it here. Have ’em watch Deliverance so they’ll know what hillbillys everyone still is.

miforest
Member
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

you will love my reletive when you get there

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  miforest
4 years ago

In east Tennessee you can get a killer place for under $250,000. And you can get a nice place for around $100,000. That’s the price of a sports car. Unbelievable.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Lee
4 years ago

it’s a nightmare that you never wake up from.

you might want to have someone else read and explain my original comment, as your reply is bizarre and nonsensical.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

 Another good one (and I don’t know if you have this in the US) was ‘public works’ for covid – roads being widened and new restrictions in place… because virus. In the seaside town of Worthing yesterday, I saw a ‘Covid pop-up cycle’ lane – bizarre. This hasn’t happened around me–yet–but it would be no surprise if it hasn’t elsewhere in the States. All major hospitals were repurposed to accomodate the expected onslaught of Covid cases that never materialized in the vast majority of places, though. Ironically, the fear of the virus has caused the public to avoid the reconfigured… Read more »

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

So in some ways Covid became the public health crisis that was feared, just not in the way expected. Yes. That is one benefit of the ‘pandemic’, when a true believer tells you how many lives have been lost ‘due to Covid’, you can truthfully respond with ‘I know’! Joking aside, that statement of yours above is echoed by almost everybody that I know. I have had first hand experience of being palmed off by doctors who would not attend their surgeries out of fear of the virus. I know a man whose cancer was left to destroy him because… Read more »

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

The wammin really love their new Covid Oversight Powers. Try getting around these Covidanistas and see the eruption that causes. And females in general seem to be more affected by the panic than men. I’m sick to death of the entire fiasco. We don’t deserve liberty if it means deference to these pathetic sheep.

Last edited 4 years ago by Epaminondas
Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

Many men’s lives are driven by the stupid things they tend to do. Many wymyn’s lives are driven by a form of madness. Two different things.

Mikep
Mikep
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

You should try telling them that the government advice on masks only applies to women, that’s what those two science blokes at the latest press briefing with the PM said. If they push back, just insist that the latest advice is for women to be masked in public.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
4 years ago

One of the defining features of post-Cold War America is that public policy no longer reflects public sentiment.  Lower-case republicanism always will mean some degree of divorce of public sentiment from actual policies. A total divorce, though, as you point out, is what we have now and can not stand forever. I’m not so certain we are yet in pre-revolutionary times, though. There truly is a lot of ruin in a nation. America more or less has become a failed state, but the world is littered with inoperable governments that seem impervious to improvement. As long as broken systems can… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by Jack Dobson
sentry
sentry
4 years ago

Every issue has its own minority interest driving the bulk of the politics related to that issue. There never seems to be a majority in favor of ending that minority interest.
Except for when white man acts on behalf of his own interests, that’s a privilege which needs to be stamped out for it negatively impacts the majority.

Last edited 4 years ago by sentry
TomA
TomA
4 years ago

Yes, the system is broken and politics is often driven by the constituencies that whine the loudest. And corrupt politicians intentionally sow discord in order to rile the masses and then they buy votes by promising relief in the form of more government gravy at taxpayer expense. It’s a viscous cycle that cannot be broken either by voting or trying to talk some sense into the electorate. Nothing will change until most people get genuinely desperate and become motivated to take tangible action. That day may be coming sooner than you think.

whitney
Member
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

Yeah I think we have all been shocked that we have been able to shut down the globe and still there’s plenty of food and electricity and all the things that sustain us but of course now we’re about to enter winter.

sentry
sentry
Reply to  whitney
4 years ago

western world had excess of food(many fat hobos out there)
poor countries are starting to have food shortages, my guess is that it takes a while before it reaches first world.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

Great, so we go first.

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

As Z has stated, at this point the government’s only job is to perpetuate itself. Our collective will is the farthest thing from their mind

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

Prudent people always look like fools during the good times, right up until the first snow flakes are falling from the sky.
The good times have been around for so long that huge numbers of people think we just have permanent summer. We cannot even imagine a concept like winter. Not a single person alive hasn’t lived through the unprecedented expansion. Nearly all of the destruction of WWI was gone by WW2 and all of that destruction was gone in a few years.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

“You will not get the crowd to cry Hosanna until you ride into town on an ass.”
― Freidrich Neitzsche

Hun
Hun
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

I was in Berlin in 1989. Still a lot of WW2 destruction was visible there; Russia and most post-communist countries certainly experienced winter in 1990’s as did Argentina around 2001.
Perhaps you were talking about only people who spent their whole lives in rich western countries? In that case, I agree with you. Westeners have no idea.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  Hun
4 years ago

Yes, in rich western countries. I prepare only because I know history and it rhymes. As a matter of fact Trump’s policies are very…Juan Peron like. The currency crisis will come later.

Hun
Hun
Reply to  JR Wirth
4 years ago

Juan Peron had real power, though.

miforest
Member
Reply to  JR Wirth
4 years ago

Clinton was our Juan Peron

miforest
Member
Reply to  Hun
4 years ago

Argentina has never truly recovered . Very sad , it is a country of tremendous natural wealth and a proud history. a great firsthand account can be found here , and some great advice on living through it too. http://ferfal.blogspot.com/

Mis(ter)Anthrope
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

I don’t think anyone is going to take tangible action anytime soon. At least not successfully. Working class whites have no power whatsoever and most upper middle class whites are still too comfortable in their lifestyles to go all in on real change.

Sure, the ongoing nonsense is annoying as hell, but give up the good job, social status, nice house, 401k, and fancy cars? I don’t see it happening.

Drew
Drew
Reply to  Mis(ter)Anthrope
4 years ago

Of course it won’t happen. Working class whites simply aren’t worth rallying around. Sure, government policies screw them over, but poor whites make a lot of unforced errors, and a good number of them make a point of enrobing themselves in appalling political symbols, like swastikas and Confederate flags. Successful normies aren’t about to reform a political system to benefit social retards. Normies figure if they can succeed in the system, anyone can, and attribute the failure of working class whites to stupid decision-making on their end. There’s a lot of truth to it, even if current policies aren’t ideal.… Read more »

miforest
Member
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

I don’t know what world you live in , probably planet MSNBC, but welcome to earth. We will take you to our leader…

Last edited 4 years ago by forester
Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

Bizarre comment anywhere but particularly here. You are really blaming victims, and victims of an attempted genocide to boot. Offshoring, mass migration and endless warfare has casualties domestically, too. Do you think inner city blacks are responsible for their actions, too? Honest question.

Last edited 4 years ago by Jack Dobson
quandell
quandell
Member
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

I love the confederate flag. I think it stands for a much closer version of what the founders envisioned…

Big_Miss
Big_Miss
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

An Open Letter to Diversity Diversity insists that we whites are Nazis, the KKK, The Confederacy. We Whites are puzzled by these strange requests, indeed demands. They are demands, there is no other description. But I think at last we’ve heard you, and are at last considering these demands in context. That context would be 65 years of not just failure, but the common ruin of degeneracy and bankruptcy of all. So it is time we Whites rejected the bigotry of White expectations and accepted peoples as they are – and so proceed accordingly. So we hear you, Diversity. And… Read more »

Snowden
Snowden
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

I have to agree. Prole white people are incredibly immoral and sin like crazy. Their value system is if it feels good, do it. They don’t care about their children either. Nothing can be done to help them. Worse most of the middle class has adopted prole values. Hence they are disappearing into the prole class. Adopt prole values and you’ll become a prole, or your children will. I’ve seen so many middle class boomers pondering why their daughters are childless sluts or single moms and why their sons are mentally ill. It’s because you adopted prole values boomer. Worse… Read more »

Dennis Roe
Dennis Roe
Reply to  Drew
4 years ago

Fuck you, shit for brains.

Falcone
Falcone
4 years ago

I don’t see how we don’t have a crisis of legitimacy if someone like AOC or Kamala start telling whites how to behave They have no business being involved in my affairs, no relation to me, no commonality, nothing I understand they get their jollies by bossing me around, but there are a lot of me’s out there who aren’t going to listen. And then there’s the crisis of legitimacy. And then what happens if they need to send white boys to war and they have already been totally alienated? Maybe that’s the plan. Who knows. All I know is… Read more »

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

And then what happens if they need to send white boys to war and they have already been totally alienated? I think this would be worth expounding on at length. Whites are really the only ones who are capable of operating a military machine such as the one that used to drive the British Empire and now drives the American Empire. What does happen when whites refuse to fight for ‘their country’; and more tantalizingly for foreign powers, what happens when this is very common knowledge. There must be all sorts of logistical nightmares for any superpower to attempt an… Read more »

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

More boats playing crash-up-derby on the seas, more planes that can’t fly because there’s no one to fix them, or the parts they get from Jamal’s Chinese re-sale shop don’t work, etc. I’d imagine it’d go the way of the late Soviet military: impressive on paper, but folds the instant there’s any pressure.

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  OrangeFrog
4 years ago

My guess would be that Putin, for instance, has to know America’s military is becoming a joke. The Chinese too. Even in playing cards, Asians LOVE to take bold risks — even if they lose. I would not put it past them to launch a sneak attack on America or her allies. My son joined the Navy, and my nephew joined the Army. For my son, it was a way to give his life structure and discipline when he realized he hated college and dropped out, and my nephew after his girlfriend he was planning on marrying dumped him and… Read more »

sentry
sentry
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

sounds rapey, imagine having those fuckers deployed into a white country to “defend” whites from putin. Fuck that shit, Putin where you at? I’ll open the gates for you.

Last edited 4 years ago by sentry
Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

I find it hard to believe that non-whites in our military would defend white Americans. In fact, my guess is that if Hungary/ Poland/ etc form a pro-Christian (i.e. pro white) alliance, the US would be the first to demonize it and work tirelessly to destroy it. Crazy, but America may be the biggest impediment today to whites acting in their collective interest.

Judge Smails
Judge Smails
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

I read an article this past weekend that quoted AOC as saying that even if Biden wins that “there is no going back to brunch”. It seems that the Neiman Marxist smells blood in the water and is anxious to go full Venezuela right now.

BadThinker
BadThinker
4 years ago

Anyone old enough to remember the debates in the 80’s about the Department of Education? That money pit was going to be gone! Nope.

alabama native
alabama native
Reply to  BadThinker
4 years ago

I forget who it was, but someone once remarked that bureaucracy has never and will never willingly reduce itself. It has only ever been reduced through the process of collapse. Norquist was never able to drown government in the bathtub, and his ilk never recognized that the precious private sector was even more pernicious with its own bureaucracy and tyranny than the government. In other words, reform is impossible. Whatever one thinks of Trump, the wrenches he either deliberately or inadvertently throws into bureaucracy are the only way to render it brittle enough to eventually lead to its collapse. It… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by alabama native
sentry
sentry
Reply to  alabama native
4 years ago

I forget who it was, but someone once remarked that bureaucracy has never and will never willingly reduce itself
each regime brings their own lackeys, the bureaucracy eventually gets bloated. Those hired during former regimes usually work in public sector for life, they rarely go private cause they are human leeches.

Last edited 4 years ago by sentry
ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  BadThinker
4 years ago

Also see: “Head Start” program, after decades of objective data conclusively proving there are no lasting long term benefits, being infinitely funded by the “Party Of Science!”.

Maus
Maus
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

The benefit is patent. The mistake by Science was in identifying the beneficiary. It’s not the child, but the mommy, who receives free child care under the guise of an educational initiative so that she can throw her unencumbered self into that Grrrlpower career. Public education is an oxymoron and an institution that keeps growing despite having outlived whatever usefulness once justified its existence.

BadThinker
BadThinker
Reply to  ProZNoV
4 years ago

The modern Lysenkoists will never stop. They f**king love it!

Big_Miss
Big_Miss
Reply to  BadThinker
4 years ago

Poor Lysenko. All he did was say they had a new and better strain of grain…

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
4 years ago

That does not scale up very well, so countries have representative bodies like parliaments and legislatures. The issue of scale is a very important one. For me, I suspect it is up there with the issue of demographics. Closely coupled to it is the fact that there are now so many things on which one individual can have an opinion. It seems reasonable that I should have concerned about parking restrictions outside my property – but do I really have time to worry about what is happening to women in Syria? Or that it is the monsoon season on the… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
4 years ago

Things weren’t so crazy when the WASPs ran them. For all my criticism of the puritan ethic, have to admit it wasn’t so bad.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
4 years ago

And just as in pre-Revolutionary France, we are lead by someone great at inflaming the other side and piss-poor at delivering anything for his supporters.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

you don’t know shit about any period of history.

Last edited 4 years ago by Karl McHungus
3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

Your obvious trauma from your failed toilet training and tiny dick is not something that elicits sympathy.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  3g4me
4 years ago

how many other men’s genitals do think and talk about?

miforest
Member
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

Karl , I would crawl through broken glass just to have the satisfaction of inflicting orange man on these murderous bastards for another 4 years . but I have no delusions he can fix anything. the only real good I he will do is keep gun confiscation at bay for a few more years. and that’s not nothing.

Never Forgive
Never Forgive
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Whites in the US are truly a stateless and abandoned people. It’s impossible to keep track of the thousands of atrocities and state-sanctioned terrorist attacks committed against Whites just since Ahmaud Arbery got what he deserved—Jake Gardner and the Louisville BLM terrorist are merely the latest from just last weekend alone.

When we win, everyone who supported BLM will not be forgotten and will not be forgiven.

Last edited 4 years ago by Never Forgive
David Wright
Member
Reply to  Never Forgive
4 years ago

I don’t think this reckoning you are mentioning will ever happen. A million baby steps before that happens if ever.

woke mckinney
woke mckinney
Reply to  David Wright
4 years ago

On the bright side, a lot of white people like Matt Walsh who were busy exploring construction sites back in February have now opened their eyes to the reality that, yes, white people are under attack.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  woke mckinney
4 years ago

I’ve seen it in my personal life, and gun and ammunition sales indicate that’s not purely anecdotal. I’m a skeptic about whether those arms ever will be used, but the threat certainly is there. Let’s face something, though: blacks are totally expendable to TPTB, and could be eliminated from the face of the Earth before nightfall if enough people were so inclined, which they never will be but still. The primary problem is the White and Jewish communist terrorists. Their violent attacks on Whites really has been the catalyst behind the growing awareness, as has been the collaboration of state… Read more »

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

I sometimes think the government is trying to piss off whites through blacks so that the whites take care of the problem for them

miforest
Member
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

no, trumps base are the tiger, antifa is the goat, and somewhere out there the police/military are jim corbett.

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  woke mckinney
4 years ago

I have zero faith in the existing gun owners who posture about protecting freedom and watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants. They will never do anything.
Perhaps the newly armed, much less prone to boasting and posturing will be more effective?

Valley Lurker
Valley Lurker
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

I think most of the ammo & guns are being sold purely defensively. First it was the fear of Corona_chanarchy, then it gave way more to the very real fear of jogger & jogger supporting riots. Easier for most people to picture blasting away at some 110 lb white boy and his jogger than mounting anything beyond that.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Never Forgive
4 years ago

I suspect that West of the Hajnal Whites are in a period of punctuated evolution. Most of the bloodline lacks immunity to the twin viruses of Guilt and Karenism and thus will die out.

What survives will be much stronger, but will control very little.

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

It’s why people like us have to breed

and breed a lot

We need our genes out there or else the race is doomed

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

The dissident right definitely needs more kids! The future belongs to those who show up for it.

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

Yep, it’s not rocket science

They need to get busy

miforest
Member
Reply to  Falcone
4 years ago

yes, and it is the most fun and satisfaction you can get in this life.

B123
B123
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Ya I take a look at the majority of whites around me, and quite frankly I don’t see them surviving. White libs don’t get depressed easily but they are naive, racially suicidal and soft. There are plenty of conservative whites, especially in rural areas, and while they’re not self hating they seem prone to despair and drug abuse. There is also the sense of “fairness”, the rule of law, and individualism that is hurting whites. Apparently i have all the traits to not despair as well as not be self hating. I just seem to be of a different breed… Read more »

tarstarkas
tarstarkas
Reply to  B123
4 years ago

You should certainly sign a prenup, but if you are a woman, which by your comment I am guessing you are, you’re biggest enemy in this is yourself. Women initiate the vast majority of divorces and the most common reason given was dissatisfaction. Get married, have lots of babies and remember, it’s not about you. If you do these things you will die and old woman surrounded by your children and grandchildren who all adore you. When my mother was sick and dying, one single co-worker visited her in the hospital after 30 years of her life. But there was… Read more »

miforest
Member
Reply to  tarstarkas
4 years ago

ease up tarst, those days are over. the sexes will be needing each other to get through this now . the excess cash for the taking in divorce court is long gone.

ExPraliteMonk
ExPraliteMonk
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Most of the bloodline lacks immunity to the twin viruses of Guilt and Karenism and thus will die out.

You’d be surprised at how quickly the thought of imminent torture and death awakens the meek and mild-mannered.

Last edited 4 years ago by ExPraliteMonk
3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Never Forgive
4 years ago

I’m of the Arnaud Amaury school.

Maus
Maus
Reply to  3g4me
4 years ago

Indeed. And you don’t see too many Albigensians running around these days Burning, Looting and Murdering Beziers. You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, and a good Frenchman like Amaury knew that.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  3g4me
4 years ago

In case my reference is unclear, “Kill them all. God will know his own.”

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Never Forgive
4 years ago

People may have reason to regret putting those Burn, Loot, Murder signs in their yards…

Rwc1963
Rwc1963
4 years ago

The DoD and Senate opposes withdraw for several reasons. 1) Jobs program for contracting firms 2) Combat theaters = promotions for officers. Today we have more 4 star generals than at the height of WWII yet with a Army that is 1/10th the size. 3) DoD contractors via campaign contributions dictate foreign policy and troop deployments. IOW it is in the best interests of contractors to keep the wars going and they handsomly reward generals and senators who support such wars. Look for example how Mattis became a multimillionaire in a few years after retiring. You don’t get rich like… Read more »

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Rwc1963
4 years ago

Yep, and look at how many politcos go on the boards of defense companies, cashing in on their security clearances and influence peddling.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Rwc1963
4 years ago

OrangeFrog may have found the solution, then.

No white military, no petrodollar Empire.

We can’t strike or boycott the IRS, but we can strike against joining the military.

Last edited 4 years ago by Alzaebo
Vizzini
4 years ago

There are very few areas left in which the US has any majorities whose interests to serve. I was going to think up a couple, but then exceptions kept cropping up. Roads: In the abstract, roads are a pretty egalitarian good. Roads and bridges benefit everyone. But once you start getting specific, the infighting begins: fix my neighborhood’s roads before those other peoples’ roads. Widen the bridge/interstate in my city, not that other city. Police: Before the current age, you could get widespread agreement that police were a public good. Having someone out there to arrest criminals was something people… Read more »

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

In regards to “ROADS”: if those in power on the left or the right truly feared the growing influence of the dread Zman, they’d just repave his damn street and he’d go away. 🙂

Which, of course, is about as likely as a white male being the first person to step on Mars. Ending racism…totally doable! Paving streets….you’re delirious!

tonaludatus
tonaludatus
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

James Carville the Philosopher: “Why does the dog lick his dick? Because he can. Why don’t we balance the budget? Because we can’t.”

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

Then there’s the “don’t kill the job” Public Sector Unions who are disincentivized to provide value for taxpayer money. This would probably be less common if there were a higher level of social cohesion and civic-mindedness.

sentry
sentry
4 years ago

Big transportation items like bridges, highways and tunnels have not been updated in half a century. The Silicon Valley oligarchs are not going to be harmed by better infrastructure.
Some think there’s a conspiracy to turn western world into an agrarian society. That elites intentionally permit the infrastructure to crumble.
I know many will dismiss it, thinking that’s crazy, but is it more insane than bringing millions of africans & muslims into white countries?

Last edited 4 years ago by sentry
Judge Smails
Judge Smails
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

I have personal recollection of crumbling infrastructure being a campaign issue since the 70’s and here we are nearly 50 years and untold trillions of dollars wasted later and the problem has still not been addressed.

Last edited 4 years ago by Judge Smails
abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Judge Smails
4 years ago

US society is inherently corrupt, always has been. This makes a dressing complex problems more expensive and difficult if it can be done at all.
The social “tax” is the same reason that Mexico could never do a moon shot. There are enough Mexicans with a high IQ and done with older tech it would be quite affordable. Problem is the social model doesn’t allow for it.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

Well, there was something called the Morgenthau plan IIRC after WWII to turn Germany into an agrarian backwater. Although it didn’t get any legs, for a brief period it was still a thing for a select few. So no, it’s not crazy to believe our rulers don’t have our best interests in mind. And it fits right in with importing aforesaid millions of dim voters into the country.

sentry
sentry
Reply to  Tom K
4 years ago

i just googled morgenthau, he’s a jew ofc, now I buy into this hypothesis even more.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

I was just looking at it on Wikipedia. Seems it was largely written by Harry Dexter White who was a big cheese in the FDR administration. Let’s not get into his background. Might get into the same hot water as Newt on Fox.

Last edited 4 years ago by Tom K
MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Tom K
4 years ago

The same Harry Dexter White leapt to his death when his connection to Soviet Communism was uncovered

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Did he now. Despite the name, Harry wasn’t a WASP.

Last edited 4 years ago by Alzaebo
Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

Nee’ Harold David Weisman, I presume.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
4 years ago

Weit, per Wikipedia.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

Good buddies with Alger Hiss, he was

Forever Templar
Forever Templar
Reply to  Tom K
4 years ago

Yes, he was a Jew. Get over it.

Horace
Horace
Reply to  Tom K
4 years ago

I was just going to mention Morgenthau. Glad to see others aware. America at the beginning of the Cold War was still ruled (the real power, not just the meat puppets in Congress angling for a bag of cash) by Christian real-Americans who decided that West Germany needed to be re-industrialized to act as a bulwark against Communism. Secretary (((Morgenthau))) had to be fired because he disobeyed a direct presidential order to back down from his plan. Assimilation is a lie. We haven’t assimilated the Irish and Jews we got during the 1880-1920 immigration surge. It is ludicrous to think… Read more »

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  Horace
4 years ago

Thanks for the snip of Horace. Dating myself, but my great-grandfather was a private in the War of Northern Aggression. He wrote in his diary (which I deciphered) “lost Horace today in the woods.” Seemed like an unusual comment. Were the woods that deep dark and dangerous? But he spoke 7 languages, one of them Latin so I guess he meant he lost his copy of Horace.

Last edited 4 years ago by Tom K
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Tom K
4 years ago

It means they won’t need us much longer. The bus has almost reached its destination.

Automation provides a plenty for an elite few with lucky, desperate Chinese techs, Mexican maintenance, and Afromuslim enforcers ridden hard.

Last edited 4 years ago by Alzaebo
Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

well, without a mass customer base, what do you need automation for?

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

They (whoever it is) want to be left alone too?

Either that or the inter-dimensional-beings-are-tricking-humanity-into-terraforming-Earth-so-they-can-colonize-it hypothesis is true 🙂

Last edited 4 years ago by Paintersforms
abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

Not really. The Elite need someone to lord over. More importantly the situation is getting very dire everywhere, From experience, large projects, sustaining projects are becoming harder and harder to do right or at all in many cases. In some sense the foundational people required to keep the tech alive have either died off with a quality replacement , gone Galt or adapted the world they live in, one where you grab every dollar you can and do no more than is mandated. Cities are being abandoned in real time. This makes complexity far too costly and is a major… Read more »

Big_Miss
Big_Miss
Reply to  sentry
4 years ago

It’s the Morgenthau plan applied to America, as Germany wasn’t handy. That’s the Conspiracy.

Tykebomb
Tykebomb
4 years ago

Nothing lasts forever. Democracy is supposed to be the forever government. Thus, its innate contradiction is that its a lid on a pot that cannot be reformed. It can only explode.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Tykebomb
4 years ago

Democracy is supposed to be the forever government.” you might want to read Plato for the authoritative take on the subject.

Dinothedoxie
Dinothedoxie
4 years ago

One of the irresolvable problems with representative democracy is that politicians win office by promising to do something about some issue. They might win re-election once for fixing the problem, but the voters gratitude quickly fades as some new problem is brought to the fore. Which means that politicians don’t have an incentive to actually fix anything, to resolve an issue. Instead they want issues to exist in perpetuity. Abortion is the perfect example – it might even be the issue that led to this paradigm – both sides have been using it to win office for decades – generations… Read more »

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Dinothedoxie
4 years ago

On immigration, it appears the Democrat hierarchy does not truly want to swamp the country, but to only allow in enough illegals to insure permanent Democrat majorities. Allow in too many, and they risk getting replaced by more AOCs. They think they are just at that equilibrium now, which will be tested in November.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  DLS
4 years ago

uhm, care to provide some background to this? biden is saying let in everyone (and give them medical care)

DLS
DLS
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

The background is the Dems said the same thing when they controlled the presidency, the house, and 60 filibuster proof votes in the senate. They could have legalized 40 million illegals. They did nothing.

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

What “Biden says” is unlikely to be remembered even by Biden a second after he says it.

Dinothedoxie
Dinothedoxie
4 years ago

Every comma in the regulatory code has a dedicated constituency behind it. Their existence depends on the part of the code that created them, so they ferociously defend it. The millions of lines of regulatory code have thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of little bands guarding their bit of code from anything resembling reform. The only thing these tribes are sure to agree upon is that change is never good.” The near immortality of government programs and the concentrated benefits-diffused costs that drive them has been a part of normie con criticism of government for generations. One that’s kinda fallen… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by Dinothedoxie
Stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
Reply to  Dinothedoxie
4 years ago

Not to worry, in the category of a solution in search of a problem, they’ll migrate to the Y3K commsion .

CompscI
CompscI
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

CETA was a great program. My old boss in the garage got all his tools from it. Seems, the trainees after a 6 month course got a chit from CETA to go to Sears and outfit themselves with all the finest Craftsmen Tools. In that manner they could apply for work in the car repair industry.

Those tools would be obtained and loaded into their pickups and from there they went from garage to garage “selling” them for cash at discount, big discount. 😉

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

The summer I packed fish, a bunch of my fellow fish-packers were hired as part of CETA. I was a teenager but I was making what seemed to me a fortune. ~ $15+/hr. (Now the fish packers are all illegals and make less than min. wage.)

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
4 years ago

> Interestingly, this inability to reform due to a legion of petty interests blocking reform is similar to the situation in pre-revolutionary France. Collectively, the king and aristocracy had good reason to reform the nation’s finances and reform certain aspects of the French economy and society. Yet, there were always petty reasons to block necessary reform, so they kept drifting toward crisis. Eventually, of course, this inability to act in the interest of the majority sapped their legitimacy. One of my buddies explained to me that governments getting incessantly stymied from meaningful change is a feature, not a bug of… Read more »

brunob
brunob
Reply to  Chet Rollins
4 years ago

the feature you describe used to be touted as a desirable feature, as it prevented the passions of the moment from overwhelming necessary institutions, traditions or cultural mores. that was in the days when we had institutions worth preserving. the real art of subversion was to realize the trajectory of valuing those parts of America that make it great had to be changed. that change started in public schools, in courts, in media, and all the other things we’ve seen corrupted. America still exists in the people, but it has become a battle between those that still love this country… Read more »

Niborant
Niborant
4 years ago

“Après moi le déluge” – but who is going to be the ‘moi’? And will there be a deluge?

Last edited 4 years ago by Niborant
G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
4 years ago

As long as the 401 k balance keeps growing, the social security check cashes, and the vibrants get their welfare payments. Oh I forgot, the shooting range stays open.
We march on with our system.
The longer I observe our system the more I think it could go on for awhile yet.
In the age of non scarcity the peasants chomp down on plenty of pizza and junk food and nobody has to be hungry today as in pre revolutionary France. We also got plenty of legal drugs and junk media to entertain us while Versailles parties on.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
4 years ago

This is all true, and when this era closes historians will marvel at how long it was able to linger. We started out with quite a big, quite a full trough. We’re going through the seed corn now.

Stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
Reply to  JR Wirth
4 years ago

Having grown up in #2 dent corn country – the seed corn analogy is a good one.

Dinothedoxie
Dinothedoxie
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
4 years ago

Video games, drugs and welfare are the modern day “bread and circuses”.

Allen
4 years ago

Most of the petty tyrannies imposed by health and safety functionaries, to name just one group, are just a manifestation of the objective of dumb people trying to feel good about themselves.

If you can’t come up with a good idea for something that people will want, come up with a bad one and force people to take it. The outcome for the person with the idea is the same.

Last edited 4 years ago by Allen
Vizzini
4 years ago

How can I be represented by a government that has this flesh puppet posing as Speaker of the House?

https://twitter.com/Not_the_Bee/status/1308048894522257409

I feel as if I am in an actual dystopian sci-fi movie.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

I saw that yesterday and thought the same thing. The country is on autopilot in hands of people who lost their minds. Business as usual until a sudden coming crisis.

Stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
4 years ago

…”Their incompetence and sclerosis are increasingly seen as deliberate…”
That’s likely because they actually are, in fact, both imcompetent and sclerotic.

Last edited 4 years ago by Stranger in a strange land
Maus
Maus
Reply to  Stranger in a strange land
4 years ago

While there are a few smart, competent bureaucrats, the fact is that government is the employer of last resort for legions of below average people. Collecting a government check for having spawned children isn’t the only form of welfare, just the most obvious. Remember that the next time you see a Caltrans crew standing around idly at the side of interminable-by-design road construction projects or have to deal with Twaneeshqua at the DMV.

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Maus
4 years ago

There are cities where the mob gained power and ultimately took over government, giving out jobs in exchange for bribes & loyalty. The late “Mumbles” Menino in Boston started as a literal bag man, worked his way up to coat holder and driver, and ultimately mayor for life. Just as the Founders envisioned /s.

Panopticon
Panopticon
4 years ago

Democracy isn’t democratic, strange to say.

Falcone
Falcone
Reply to  Panopticon
4 years ago

And our democratically elected government does everything it can to undermine democracy

As with Bernie. How can someone who is opposed to our system of government be running in the first place? It’s something like hiring a guy to coach your football team and he instead makes them into basketball players

Big_Miss
Big_Miss
4 years ago

The biggest and most overlooked story of the 21st century is The_Vote is beginning to count again. This is the cause of the panic among the elites. After nearly a century of voting not mattering, the vote began to matter in 2016. No one planned it, no one planned for it, many regret it, but elite incompetence has unwittingly undermined their own sham elections. By shock after shock, by endless scandal and rampant lawlessness – democracy returned.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
4 years ago

As our problems get out of control the budget itself is getting out of control. Government on all levels has grown far beyond our ability to sustain it. You can’t tell me that we won’t have major civil conflict when we reach the point where the pie has to be shrunk by 50% to keep it going. We’ve never, never had to deal with a shrinking pie. It’s always grown. We just have more people that ever divvying it up. Many of those people will be thrown out of the game.

miforest
Member
4 years ago

having experience in politics i saw this lockdown disaster coming . Telling normies ” they will never give up this power if we let them lock this all down” was a waste of time. The left now loves the mask of obedience & solitary confinement so much they worship them. I see people wearing masks walking alone outdoors, & disallowing family visits because of ” the virus” . Add in people who are just terrified this is AIDS/Ebola/black plague combined, We will have to live this way until the Peoples republican army arrives to cleanse the continent for their use.… Read more »

Last edited 4 years ago by forester
miforest
Member
Reply to  miforest
4 years ago

i just notice I wrote “peoples republican army” . I meant “Peoples liberation army” ie the Chinese communist army .

Johnny
Johnny
4 years ago

Zman we need you on that Cotto Gottfried show again soon. I so enjoyed your chat with Paul and always good to hear you speak on the issues of the day. Election time is coming up soon and with RBG’s death it just seems the right time to hear you in more interviews commenting on Political things.

Maus
Maus
4 years ago

The story of politics in a democracy is the drive to arrive at, then remain, within a snout’s reach of the feeding trough filled with Other Peoples’ Money. Too many useless eaters who would die in obscure irrelevance without that trough. No one debates the relative utility of road repair versus a NASA mission to Mars or any other policy. They all just clamor indiscriminately for ever more feed

Higgs Boson
4 years ago

Minority rule is the muse that inspires artists that wield the evolutionary airbrush. Demographics are quietly being reshaped with genetic trickery.

diconez
diconez
4 years ago

it’s democracy in effect really. for all the sins of the king and the nobles, at least their hierarchy was both natural and meant to take care of their subjects, lest they get replaced by other dynasty. when democracy arrived to break up that order, it meant for the new bourgeois ruling class a constant fear of being the next one with their head off, so therefore lobbying appeared amidst all the factions in the newly created government so as to permanently keep themselves there. in the US, the amount of factions multiplies even more as do the demographic groups… Read more »

KeepTheChange
KeepTheChange
4 years ago

Seems that this country is well on its way to becoming another Brazil. I haven’t studied this … just a gut feeling.

KeepTheChange
KeepTheChange
4 years ago

From my knothole, the media, which is the Democratic Party, sets the agenda for the benefit of women, gays, and minorities. The blue team and the red team read their lines in the script and we slowly drift leftward. Cultural Marxism in action. Everyone you see on tv is part of the cast.

abprosper
abprosper
4 years ago

About 40% of the US GDP is government these days. That’s a problem. The bigger issue is though if you could cut spending , would the private sector pick up the slack? Given their mania for outsourcing and cheap labor, I doubt it. BORING ECONOMIC DISCUSSION BELOW Also of that 40% only 3.4% of that is military spending (as of 2019) and at most you can only safely lower that maybe to 2.4% or so. The rest at the Federal level is old age pensions and health care along with assorted spending. Basically you can’t cut your way out of… Read more »

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
4 years ago

the federal government is dying. this is a good thing. same process is taking place all over the world. how happy is the average chinese citizen (with the CCP)? young people (under 40) the world over really do think the same way (for better or worse) and are not following the old script. once china implodes, most of the nastiness here will dry up.

Outdoorspro
Outdoorspro
Reply to  Karl McHungus
4 years ago

I see no evidence that the federal government is dying. Quite the opposite, in fact. Like a cancer, it is growing and thriving, and spreading. Now, it may eventually kill its host (us), but not before it consumes everything.

Karl McHungus
Karl McHungus
Reply to  Outdoorspro
4 years ago

Like a cancer” self negating statement on your part

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  Outdoorspro
4 years ago

Pretty sure those seeking federal office now are using the Clintons/Obamas as a template for massive personal wealth as the empire breaks up.

Many billionaires were created in the crack up the the USSR, after all. There is a lot of ruin in a nation, but not an infinite amount. It’s best to get in while there’s still something to steal.

Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
Member
4 years ago

The DR has a blind spot when it comes to Islam. Bringing the troops home only makes sense if the moslems get kicked out. Otherwise, instead of fighting them over there, you will be fighting them here.

Jack Dobson
Jack Dobson
Reply to  Glenfilthie
4 years ago

Since we allegedly started to “fight them over there,” a jihadi caucus has formed in the Congress. Muslim immigration increased after 9/11. We won’t even fight them here.

Disengage now.

Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
Member
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

I agree IF you throw the ones living here out…

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Jack Dobson
4 years ago

And it could happen. LOL, who am I kidding? US foreign policy has been outsourced to the Likud Party since before the Iraq War. They even had their own cut- out in the Pentagon known as The Office of Special Plans where they (along with the PNAC crowd) cherry picked, fabricated, and promoted the “evidience” that would cause us to go to war with Iraq.

miforest
Member
Reply to  Glenfilthie
4 years ago

hey glen, 2002 called and they want their slogan back. tell me exactly how laying waste to iraq and syria and lybia and Afghanistan DIDN’T lead to millions of refugees flooding Europe. also how does that work exactly to keep them there? look at Minneapolis. when we started ” fighting them there ” Minneapolis was a nice moderate upper midwest legacy American city. now look at it. illian omar and the people who elected her were not deterred by “fighting them there”