One of the more abused words in the English language is the word “democracy” which has come to mean just about anything. Our politicians love talking about the glories of democracy, especially after they have won an election. When they lose, as we are seeing with the Left these days, well, it is an assault on democracy! The word has become a Western version of Juche, the North Korean state ideology. It is not a form of government, but a mystical spirit that is the essence of the people’s goodness.
For Progressives, democracy is one the of the primary abracadabra words in their book of incantations. Whatever they want, it is almost always decorated with the word democracy or some reference to it. It’s not that they have any respect for the will of the people; it is that they truly believe their whims and causes are imbued with the magic they associate with the word democracy. Democracy is what they call that supernatural force that guides history and carries the righteous to the promised land.
This article from the Progressive site Jacobin is a good example. America, of course, is not a democracy. It is a representative republic. In fact, what we have come to know as liberal democracy in the West is explicitly not democracy. Instead, Western nations employ various forms of representative government. The reason for that is experiments with democracy have been disastrous. It turns out that mob rule is not a great way to run a country. The usual result is a blood bath followed by a tyrant.
Of course, the Left is not all that interested in democracy as a form of government. For them, it is trolley they ride from where they are now to the place they wish to be. That place is where they have an iron grip on society. Naturally, while they are waiting for that trolley to take them to the promised land, they sing the glories of the trolley system they call democracy. If things don’t work out as planned, well, the system is not democratic and the proof of that is they lost. After all, the spiritual goodness of the people is on their side.
The linked article is interesting and entertaining for a number of reasons beyond the less than credible claims about the glories of democracy. What’s fascinating about it is what it reveals about the Left. The author, after detailing what he sees as the facts of the undemocratic outcome, falls back on the example of revolutionary France. Appropriately enough, for a site called the Jacobin, the author wants some sort of National Constituent Assembly, where the people can fashion a new constitution.
The National Constituent Assembly lasted two years and can only be viewed as a failure, as it led to the radicalization of the Paris mob and eventually The Reign of Terror. Roughly 16,000 people were sent to the guillotine and another 25,000 were hung, shot or beaten to death by mobs. All of these murders were done in the name of the people. After all, what is more democratic than murdering people in the name of the people? Most of those killed were in no way opposed to the revolution. They either got in the way or failed to do what the radicals expected.
Nowhere in that long piece does the author mention Maximilien Robespierre, Les Enragés (“the enraged ones”) or Madame Guillotine. He later celebrates the Marxist revolts of the 19th century and then the glories of the Bolshevik Revolution in the 20th century. No mention in those cases of the bloody outcomes. That would require either a reconsideration of the glories of radical democracy or the celebration of senseless murder by angry mobs. It’s better to just skip past those problems.
That’s the revealing bit in the piece. The Left has learned nothing from the past, even their own past. The Right is often accused of being captive to a romanticized past, but it is the Left that is trapped in a permanent time warp. The first radicals of the Left followed the logic of Rousseau to its natural conclusion, murdered a bunch of people and then gave way to a tyrant. They keep repeating this pattern without ever having learned from past results. The Bolsheviks, for example, looked to the Jacobins as examples.
Part of this is explained by the radical fixation on the future. The Left has always been blind to the past as they put all of their energy into reaching the glorious future. The bigger issue is that radicalism is an intellectual dead end. When the only acceptable answer to the natural inequality of man is more democracy, you eventually end up with pure democracy, but the same natural inequality. That leaves enforced equality as the logical next step. With coercion naturally comes political violence and then terror.
For those who believe that government can provide everything and create utopia, here is a quote from the man with more common sense than most, Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio:
“A ‘liberal paradise’ would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free comprehensive health care, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities and only law enforcement personnel have guns. And, believe it or not, such a liberal utopia does indeed exist. … It’s called prison.”
Our* Sheriff Joe was tossed out on his ear this past election cycle for a Liberal Wife Beater replacement courtesy of Soros’s money. Arizona also passed a law that went in to effect January 1st: $15.00 minimum wage. My son lives in the Phoenix area and kept me aware of the idiocy occurring in Arizona this election season.
Dan Kurt
* Sheriff Joe was an example of a real American law man.
” … IS” as he ain’t dead yet! He is an example of a real American law man, doing the hard work that the rest of society would rather not know about. I think President Trump will have great use for a man like Sheriff Joe.
Utter BS, an example of a corrupt pig maybe. Do you live in Maricopa county? Read about his past in office, nothing but a money-grubbing glory hound. Don’t put this bastard on a pedestal, do your homework. I’m a freedom loving military vet conservative who calls a spade a spade.
I am up for researching Sammy but maybe you could enlighten us who don’t live in Maricopa Cty. Can you summarize your main points of dislike or contention with the Sheriff? I admit to only hearing about him primarily through Fox News and some other media but what I have heard that I appreciated was his handling of criminals with the hand of justice and not coddling them like regular prisons/jails do giving them all the free amenities that make 3 squares a day, and time to waste away (or not: maybe they become self taught attooorneys or just go… Read more »
I used to live in Maricopa country and keep close ties to the politicos there, so let me fill this in a bit for you. Joe and McCain represent two warring factions within the R party. McCain has always had the upper hand: he’s got the connections, the weak party apparatus, the lobbyists and the moneymen. Joe has had ordinary people as well as the power of the sheriff’s office, which isn’t inconsiderable. Joe knows dirt on McCain and his minions: McCain knows dirt on Joe and his minions. Since neither Joe nor McCain would retire if their nemesis was… Read more »
Same process in Nevada. Grassroots conservative Republicans at the center of the party were replaced by professional conservatives who are now losing generals to Democrats. Plus there are lots of Mexicans of course.
Mr KRK: Don’t have a clue where your Colo vantage point is, however Kimmi Lewis was just elected as a rep in district 64. She is incorruptible. She took on the army and Nature Conservancy over the Pinon Canyon expansion which happened to correlate to the “wildlands project”. Rancher, good mom and sharperthanarazor………….
Good to know that there’s one … of 65. Face it — Republicans in Colorado are pathetic. I just graphed the decline of the Republican Party v. population in four western states. 1. The Repubs here claim the influx of CA voters have liberalized their state, but as a percentage of the whole, CO has received the least number of Californians. So that’s not it. 2. What about hispanics? Could the republicans be losing ground because more Hispanics have been moving here compared to other states? Nope. Compared to NV and AZ, Colorado has far fewer Hispanics as a percentage… Read more »
Coupling that information, KRK, with the data on Republican gains throughout the country during the Obama years, it seems like some other explanation is a work in Colorado. If someone at the RNC was doing their job, Colorado would show up as an “outlier” and cause some serious inquisition of that State’s political leadership. Or, maybe I am being too analytical about this?
Isn’t the Phoenix area a major illegal alien and illegal drug corridor for the cartels? Opening this up with a Soros proxy sheriff and a having two bought and paid for open border putz senators seems strategic.
We had better understand there is an active war going on, it’s not just theoretical party politics.
Islamo-terrorists also allied with Soros and McCain(Syria). Treasonous Bastards.
Wierd- sounds almost like Saint Dubya and his AG buddy, J. Sutton, and their “death house” in Juarez (across the Rio from El Paso.)
The US is almost a democracy thanks to the 17th amendment. The senators might as well be elected nationally for all the money that comes from outside their respective home states. Repeal the 14A, 16A, and 17A. I know, but a man can dream.
re: “Repeal the 14A, 16A, and 17A.” Fred
Don’t forget to repeal #24 and of course #19. While you are at it also deep six #26.
Dan Kurt
But but, good intentions. Good intentions.
This is a pet project of mine — repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, that is. Interesting that it was put into place at the same time the Federal Reserve was set up. Also, the income tax.
“Almost a Demoncracy” ????? The USSA has been a hybrid Dictatorial Demoncracy since FDR.; some presidents being more dictatorial than others, but always with a persistent roaring feral demoncracy in DC.
Yes, and I think that the slope was rather slippery during the LBJ, Nixon and Obama presidencies.
You found a real piece of work in Lazare, Z. It’s amazing to me how many complete idiots there are in this world who talk through their asses. I looked at his books on Amazon and quickly saw that the NYT gave one a glowing review. It was something about the “frozen”constitution killing American democracy, published in 1997. He’s been riding this horse for a while. There was no comment section to the piece. If there was I would have asked him to give us his first draft of our new constitution. That would be fun to read.
I think it would be dangerous for either side to reopen the constitution in such a fundamental way, but I have some respect for a leftist who wants to actually do that. It’s a good deal more respectful of what a constitution is than just constantly warbling about how it’s a living tree and anything the courts do to it is legitimate, because tree.
Article V authorizes a constitutional convention but it doesn’t provide any groundrules, which means if a convention is called (it’s never happened) it would be chaos. If the idea is to go around the constitution then you’re talking violent revolution.
True on both counts. After I wrote I looked back and realized his call for a constituent assembly, although it could be taken as a call for an article 5 convention, isn’t necessarily that. It’s more like the sporadic European model of going back to the ‘constitutive power’ or ‘constituent power’ believed to reside in the sovereign people, and calling a new assembly based on that. That approach would be extra-constitutional or pre-constitutional with regard to the constitution of 1787-9. I’m not clear as to whether the founders or their opponents would actually be in favour of that notion –… Read more »
Seems like the left’s stranglehold on society has been broken; they are in the first stages of a historic rout from the public space. Once the nationalism gets going, they will be driven from the country entirely. They made a huge huge mistake with all the tantrums and rioting.
The murdering was all about confiscating wealth. It *always* is of course.
Big subject that doesn’t travel as easily as it would seem. I only skimmed the article, but once you understand that the author is a Marxist you know that he will adhere to what is called the classical interpretation of the FR influenced by G. Lefebvre and his acolytes. That interpretation was that the initial revolution was advanced by bourgeoisie elements, it was taken over by the proletariat in the middle, and then there was a Thermidorian reaction where moderate elements again took over, who then allowed the man on the white horse to rule when they couldn’t hold it… Read more »
Doc, thanks for the History lesson. Great stuff.
Your last paragraph is the perfect summary of the unstated goals of those who bandy around the word “Democracy” as a tool to lure many to their way of thinking. It is especially effective when the larger culture, corporations, etc., and the government gives credence to their claims by acting in very clearly “anti-democratic” deeds and methods.
Consider the recent passage by Obama and Congress of Senate Bill S.2943. And the move against freedom continues …
For one thing the leaders of the Jacobin “Mountain” and the Terrorists were a mixed bag but more or less lower-bourgeois as the classes stood at the time. A lot of provincials with training for the professions who could not have expected careers at Paris, let alone anywhere near Court, under the old regime. Even Robespierre, a lawyer. Yes, the Paris mob and its more working class leaders played a role, and sometimes drove events toward violence and against targets not always the same as the montagnards would have wanted. But the real power at the radical phase of the… Read more »
“Danton” of 1983 starring then-young Gerard Depardieu is an excellent film. Less powerfully acted, but anyone who can get a hold of the 1989 miniseries ‘la revolution francaise’/’The French Revolution’, it is also recommended. It was a commemorative film but covered a lot of ground and the actors were pretty good. Lovely set design too. There is a lot of coverage of the terror and the doings of the Committee of Public Safety and the National Convention. There is a lovely moment, as the whims of mob and convention alike have just turned, when Robespierre charges into the chamber and… Read more »
We’re having an election. There’s a lot of folks who SHOULDN’T vote. We need to verify their credentials. “Oh, you can’t do that, because Democracy!!!!!” Well, OK. Good thing we have a system to to balance that! “But THOSE people shouldn’t be allowed to vote differently than the polls, um THIS time!!!!!” Well, this is who’s involved. They’ve suffered threats, and attempts at vote intimidation. Vote’s in. “RUSSIANS!!!!!!” Sorry, Fake News. “Oh, well, NOW we want to verify the minutia of the voting credentials of the Electoral College!!!!!” (and displace more foreign “refugees”, to recently established “strategic” parts of the… Read more »
Obama has been doing this for some time. Bringing in loads of ME “immigrants” and then having them shipped off to all parts of the country basically establishing “cells” for their networks. Obama and his minions know where these “ticking time bombs” are located but interestingly no one knows who or where but the American taxpayer is footing the bill. That is where lots of the “trillion” dollar deficit is going; there and to the Muslim Brotherhood. Where is the media on any of this? There has to be a boat load of people, Americans, troops, LEO’s, transpo, even real… Read more »
This will be a big, big story when things play out the next few years. Willful blindness is an interesting thing.
Bravo! What a screed. Give the sonofabitches both barrels Zman! Way to go, Yes Sir! That’s your rant and I for one are sticking to it with you. A fine and most proper statement of truth. Most excellent. Wow.
The leftists and the big-government types have subjected us to deracination and atomization; deracination — tearing us away from our roots, our family friends and communities; atomizing — making us into small insignificant individuals. All so we become utterly dependant upon the huge government to support us, supporting us financially, as well as supporting us emotionally, but only IF we agree with their political slant, and if we kow-tow to them in every way. They believe in a highly centralized totalitarian gov’t which micromanages every aspect of our public and personal lives. They are the antithesis of Freedom, the haters… Read more »
Word!
The Left isn’t blind to history – they are intentionally ignorant of anything that might disrupt their worldview. I was a history major 30 years ago and the rot had already started. Today, the study is worthless at most colleges and universities with the exception of rare places like Hillsdale or the military academies. When I cite examples of democracies going off the rails and ending in mass murder, progressives dismiss and ignore it as unrelated to their present pursuits. Their response to examples such as the Reign of Terror, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and all the rest is the equivalent… Read more »
Normal people assume that the Left operates as they do, under some sort of rational philosophy and long term survival strategy. They do nothing of the sort. They are a combination of primal scream and basically grabbing what they want when they want it. The rest of it is a facade, done to placate the rest of us and try to convince the rest of us that they, too, operate under some sort of ordinary philosophical playbook. I’m not buying what they have been selling. I believe that the realization of one’s own death and finite time on Earth is… Read more »
The problem is, bloodshed is a feature not a bug of the Leftist worldview. Marx and all his acolytes down to now spent about three sentences on the glorious communist future; they’ve written hundreds of thousands of pages rhapsodizing over the violence getting there will entail. I know, I know, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, but Lefties never get around to making any omelets, while breaking eggs with jackhammers….. which seems to indicate breaking eggs is the point. Which of course proves your point about them not learning form even their own history — Robespierre was… Read more »
Severin; You are right and you also make Z Man’s point about Leftist ignoring inconvenient history. Almost all violent Leftist uprisings over the last 200 years have been violently suppressed and given rise to authoritarian governments, yet the Marxists yearn for this anyway. For example, Marxists rose up in all the defeated powers’ Woodrow Wilson new states in 1918 – 1919. Only in Russia did they prevail. With an exception or two (Czechoslovakia ?) the rest became military dictatorships of one sort or another, sooner or later. Why_? The local military offered to end the Marxists’ bloodbaths and the rest… Read more »
Our soon-to-be-former President has been signaling he is not going graciously into a quiet retirement. Someone here yesterday,forgive me,I forget who,linked to 2 websites that cater to the BLM movement types. Reading the articles,and particularly the comments was an eye-opener. There are elements in our communities who are itching for a race war. the The hiring of Eric Holder by the CA legislature yesterday is setting the stage to keep blacks and latinos riled up against the “racist white oppressor Trump”. Take note of where young male “refugees” are being sent. Arizona is getting more than their fair share. Why?… Read more »
My take on it is that Western ‘democracy’ (at least in the UK, though this event may be longer in the States) last for about the length of time it takes to make an X on a ballot paper. After that, God knows what can take place but rest assured it is nothing to do with the ‘people’ in any shape or form. The Brexit vote more or less proved that for all time on this side of the pond: vote for it, it is promised no matter what and then… nothing will be done about it, apparently because the… Read more »
I stopped looking at the article once I saw the phrase, “Constituent Assembly.” I’m sure Daniel Lazare would be there with the Red Guards to make sure they bang their rifle butts on the floor every time some “bourgeois” speaker comes to the podium (referring here to the Russian version of the Constituent Assembly, not the French).
There are two things in the world that the only thing you can do with it is shoot it dead. 1. A full on Rabid Dog. 2. A full on rabid liberal. Act accordingly.
Tocqueville–Princes had turned violence into a physical thing but our democratic republics have made it into something as intellectual as the human will it intends to restrict. What concerns me in our democratic republics is not that mediocrity will become commonplace, but that it may be enforced.
There are no endings, there are only new beginnings. Every day we are one day closer to our progressive utopia. We, progressives are assuredly on the right side of history.
Do real people think these type thoughts?
Every day, in every way. There no business like your business. And Lord knows you cannot manage your life without the help of those more enlightened and wise than you or me. Heaven forbid you make a mistake, learn or find happiness with your choices. That just will not do. “We know better than you what is right for man because we created man, at least in our own minds. See, we think we are god.” And never, ever forget … “from each according to his abilities, to those according to their needs.” Even though these people are atheists for… Read more »
From each according to his gull-ability to those according to their greed.
I think them too, because I live in often daily terror that they are right.
I actually had a little bout of depression and anxiety AFTER Trump was elected, from reading progressive railings against him. Somehow, they still seem like they will win out and will soon enough have the permanent majority they need for that last mile’s run to the finish line.
Hope does not spring eternal. But sooner or later some barbarians will arise within or without to tear their utopia a new one. So there’s that.
Roughly 16,000 people were sent to the guillotine and another 25,000 were hung, shot or beaten to death by mobs.
“They said you was hung!”
“And they was right.”
Ha. I almost always us “hung” rather than “hanged” for that reason. It makes me laugh.
I’ve always thought that this ‘democracy’ vs. ‘republic’ way of viewing modern political systems is a red herring. “Democracy” simply means ‘rule by the people’, which signifies a system in which the governed have a role in determining who exercises public powers and how laws are made. This is opposed to systems of government in which either a single individual (‘monarchy’) or small groups of people (‘oligarch’) rule over everybody else. Leftists then decided to call it ‘anti-democratic’ if the democratic form of government didn’t give them the direct result that’s supposedly favored by the majority. In effect, this demands… Read more »
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on the dinner menu.
* * *
“Communism & Socialism are ideal societies reached only if men do what is necessary to attain them. Those who resist must be persuaded; if they cannot be persuaded, laws must be passed to restrain them; if that does not work, then coercion, if need be violence will inevitably have to be used—if necessary, terror, & slaughter.” –Derived from Isaiah Berlin
The track records of most communist regimes indicate the violence and deaths of great swathes of their countrymen was in fact the endgame,
Which is the message of the quote, it ALWAYS does.
I find it curious that articles recommending California and New York have more influence over Presidential elections seldom discuss what life is like in those states. They are obviously poorly run. California is a disgrace. So why would we want them to have more say over how the rest of the country is run?
I love the European touch of calling the Republicans “ultra right wing”. It is the Dems that have moved off into ultra territory. Repubs from the 60s would still fit in fine with the current party. Dems from the 60s would be Republicans.
Exactly, Its all about the Benjamin’s!! take the appropriation of Electoral College vote between Wyoming and California and apply the ratio of debt load per resident of each state and I’ll take Wyoming any day!!
It begs the question of who is going to be the left’s stormtroopers? The ghetto? Special snowflakes? Government bureaucrats?
I don’t find any of those particularly scary.
African mercs? I’ve been told we used lots of them for base defense in Iraq. So the contract boilerplate is out there as well as the recruiting networks, veteran mercs, and US shell companies.
I am not particularly afraid of Tercero Mundo mercs either, but they could cause a lot of damage in the short term, especially if officered by traitors.
I consider all the ME “immigrants” Barry is planting all over the country plus the BLM types to be threats. Give them the weapons and armament that various Gov. Departments have been stocking up on and they have the means to an end. I have not heard one peep from anyone about “defanging” these departments. Surely you don’t think the Fed employees of those departments would be the ones to actually use those weapons? No. They are being cached by Barry’s appointees (fellow Mooslims and Socialist minds) for use at the times and places of their choosing. Which makes it… Read more »
In WWII the japanese didn’t want to attack the US mainland Because the American citizenry were well armed. Well Guess what, they still are and if the snowflakes and the BLM etc want to push this stuff to the Nth degree the outcome will be bloody and they will lose. http://taxicabdepressions.com/?p=1193 Read this and remember it!!
Imagine lots of jobs for the benighted hardcore unemployables, prison convicts.
The left has always been very capable at self deception.
I find it interesting that most people, including our supposedly knowledgeable and observant media and academia, do not see the correlation between those entities that seem “always” include the word “Democratic” or “American” in an effort to obfuscate their true mission. Or if they do see it, they fail to mention it for sake of their religion. The connotation is that if it is “Democratic” then it is pro-freedom, pro-liberty, pro-individual, and nothing could be further from the truth. Example: When the Democrat party renamed itself the “Democratic” party, to go along with their new gang color “BLUE.” Red was… Read more »
ABC introduced the color map and flipped the colors- Red was just a little too obvious…
Did the Democrats actually used to use the noun form as an adjective for their party, ie. “We are from the Democrat Party and we are here to help you”? That seems like a weird usage to have developed when “Democratic” would have normally been the correct adjective. As in, “We are Democrats, that is to say we are from the Democratic Party, and we are here to help you”.
Granted, in either case the response of those on the receiving end must be to flee into the hills and/or take up arms.
I’m convinced that public schools have not taught basic US Civics in over 30 years. The US Constitution defines a *federal* republic, in which states are sovereign entities which share power with a Federal government. The national popular vote for President is utterly irrelevant in a federal republic, as it should be. Moreover, the electoral college worked *exactly* as the founding fathers intended in the 2016 election, i.e., it prevented the populous states of California and New York from overwhelming the interests of the less populous states. I was taught this in seventh grade. The 2016 election was a disaster… Read more »
Look at the map, and particularly the highway system before you jettison California. First of all it would outflank Trump’s wall unless he decided to make a north hook and take the wall at least as far as the Columbia River. The Rot in California is only a more exaggerated example of the same rot running through Eugene, Portland, Tacoma and Seattle, and other White Californians not wanting to “move to Mexico” will head northward, with all their political baggage. Latinos will also move northward. Prepare to jettison the entire Western seaboard. Cut off like that, Hawaii would not last… Read more »
With all respect, that was precisely the point of my Ben Tre metaphor. We have to kill the Republic to save the Republic. Maps are important, but demographics is destiny. The Latino population surpassed the white population in 2014 and the Hispanic fertility rate is approximately twice the white fertility rate. The game is over in California–it is destined to become a melting pot of ethnic groups competing for political and economic resources. Recent events in California demonstrate that the Hispanic population in California already precludes any local or state cooperation on enforcing immigration laws. This effect will only become… Read more »
Seems to me the best bet is to let Trump to do some negotiating. Like he is currently doing with China on the issue of NorKo, there should be ways to bring California to heel (back into the fold) through negotiation without going all nuclear on their ass.
And don’t forget, even if they went, we still have liberal cesspools like NYC and Boston to deal with on the East Coast.
CA is a water and energy importer. Cut off their water supplies from the Colorado and they die. Same with energy.
If Trump really wanted to screw with CA all he has to do is favor other Western states for their water demands.
The only reason CA hasn’t imploded yet is because of the stock market keeping CALPERS from going boom and state revenue at sufficient levels to keep the charade going.
I’ve mentioned before the idea of intellectus thinking versus ratio thinking and how these relate somewhat to the dirt and cloud people Z has talked about. After writing my little screed earlier I picked up Burke RotRiF. In the part where he’s describibing social contract theory as a partnership between the living, the dead, and those not yet born he says: The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear assunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into… Read more »
Progressives lack in complex, multi-dimensional thinking. The concept of emergence, for example, is baffling to them. The idea that the whole is not the sum of the parts is viewed as an impossibility. Interestingly, creationists suffer from this as well.
Depends on what kind of creationist you’re talking about.
I’m thinking of the guys who say evolution is impossible because complexity cannot arise from simplicity. Ergo, complex organism cannot arise from simple organism.
While I won’t say categorically that evolution is “impossible” it just strikes me as awfully difficult to lean on as the basis for the origin of life. I base my sense of things primarily on entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that “all things tend towards chaos, deterioration, collapse.” (my paraphrase) You start with a simple organism and argue that complex organisms can therefore result, but I am still at the point of wondering just how that “very first” organism evolved and how did it survive long enough to have the intelligence, desire, or ability to replicate… Read more »
Purines and pyramidines, combining with carbon benzene rings, form self replicating units.
“Purines and pyrimidines…self replicaing units” . They are only self replicating with the proper organelles and enzymes facilitating that replication. DNA doesn’t reproduce itself in a biological vacuum. This all boils down to the problem of infinite regression that Aristotle talked about. At some point you have a point of irreducible complexity that requires a first mover.
Knowing that I once spent some time in the business world, an academic colleague asked me, in all apparent sincerity, to explain where the money comes from when you buy a share at $3 and sell it at $5. Did that $2 just materialize, he asked sarcastically, since of course all educated people know that this $2 is really the big capitalist expropriation Marx was talking about. The guy had a PhD, a mortgage, kids in school, etc. I’m sure his IQ was plenty high, but oh lord how ideology had enstupidated him. And **these** are the geniuses who want… Read more »
The Dems have wholeheartedly signed on to capturing that magical $2. They do it through public pensions, and they crassly argue for their political favorites by stating that their people are good for the stock market and the others are bad for the market. They think the magic $2 is what drives the rest of us, too, not understanding that many of us have cognizance of how the $2 is generated over the long term, and how one truly positions oneself to capture the $2 (hint, it’s not solely about showing up in the morning). They do live simply, in… Read more »
Interesting comments, TPD. Just yesterday, I sat down with a cup of tea and Crane Brinton. I was reading his book that compares the four revolutions (Russian, French, British and American), the title of which escapes me now. As an intellectual historian, Crane is committed to the notion that all revolutions have similar, findable causes, though he’s not so blinded by his own presuppositions to avoid the obvious differences between them. What struck me, as I read, was how top-down was his analysis. In France, he believes intellectuals and “leaders” ran that revolution like CEOs — ordinary people were merely… Read more »
Trump is a leader, but. He was led by the lights left on for two generations by ordinary people, and by some extraordinary people who saw what he was up to and believed it could be done. There are some in the Alt-Right, like Brett Stevens, who cannot be moved from the idea that society must be organized by 130 plus IQ elites, and that society crumbles when those elites become consumed with the bad habits of the proles–which includes the 120’s. I would hazard to guess that most in the Alt-Right see that the other way around. At any… Read more »
Yes. One issue I toying with, now, is the tension between: 1) leaders who re-present the people, that is, are average v. 2) leaders who are a cut above (IQ or whatever) the people. I tend to think that in good times, it is imperative to have elected “leaders” who think and act like those they’re supposedly re-presenting; in difficult times, such as now, we may actually need leaders who are a cut above those supposedly being led. Which is why I’m so concerned about the horrible — just mind-bogglingly dull, if that makes sense — low-level elected representatives. All… Read more »
Sorry to get to this so late. Anatomy of Revolution. Good book in a general sense. I think it’s the first (only?) attempt at looking at all four simultaneously. The main thing is the question about leadership and how this developed. There was no absolute leadership in the FR in the beginning. There were key events that occurred leading up to the crisis in the Estates General but no single person or group seems to be the driver of these events. No historian has been able to document any conspiracy. Forces were in play, and individuals had desires met by… Read more »
Quote from the article:
“Rather than a one-off affair, Trump’s victory is thus a sign of things to come.”
The Left sees eight years of trump and United States becoming a one party state for a generation. The article is basically giving excuse to BLM type violent protests in the future.
There is very little rational thought in this . Some people are just most comfortable being in opposition, screaming from outside.
First serious #BLM protest has happened in Chicago. Video is on Facebook.
I remember reading a book in the early 90s warning about the trend of lawmaking by pure referrendum, as has become popular in the US, particularly in California. Pure democracy is unrestrained amplification.
Its Saturday so i read Daniel Lazare’s article. I have a healthy distrust for the intellectual simply because they tend to be grossly irresponsible for their prognostications when things don’t work. Based on that premise, if this were the 1780″s i would not be too upset that Daniel would most likely have a date with Madame Guillotine. it appears by the tone of his other writings that his heros like trotsky and lenin and all things socialist must be getting him dates at various universities, probably with armpit haired dimwit women to realize he couldn’t change a tire or hunt… Read more »
More Pol Pot in 2017!
For Canada, that’s the reality. Thankfully, for now, the bloodbath is only on the balance sheets.
Maybe Trump will knock some sense of reality into the Zman’s favorite liberal democratic politician:
https://youtu.be/J_Q49Wt2fZ8
I’d like to ask teapartydoc to expand on a previous comment about the French Revolution.
He mentioned that the people who led France to crisis were the same ones who ran the Terror.
Who were they? Political professional class, the bureaucrats, opportunistic apparatchniks?
Political professionals in some areas with some of the more charismatic former apparatchiks. They saw opportunity to sow a revolution and take some power, overthrowing Louis and Marie Antoinette, who were fairly mild in the monarch status compared to some of the past.
The whole mess of the French Revolution started with the drought, IMO, and just went to shit from there. There’s no one real, solid, underlying philosophy to the whole thing. Robespierre emerges as the face as of the late revolution, as he was, but you had the Girondists, you had the noble Mirabeau (in the pay of Austria IIRC), and various other constitutional-monarchists, republicans, etc. There were crazy broads marching on Versailles. Heck, early in the revolution people were setting the King up as a sort of first-citizen, a hero of French liberty. What the entire period is marked by… Read more »
Pretty good summary. You definitely captured the difficulty of pinning discrete sets of consistent motives on any given actor or group, and the sheer power of contingency and circumstance under which everybody was acting. I yield to the temptation as much as anyone, but it’s hard to really take entirely seriously the idea of Robespierre as a forerunner of Marxist revolution. He was more complicated than that and his apparent philosophy looked more like violent extremist centrism with a Deist cult attached. And even then he was mostly just dancing tiptoe across the surface of a volcano trying not to… Read more »
The answer is not a short one, but a study is well worth the time, I think. I recommend Mike Duncan’s “Revolutions” podcast. The French Revolution will take you many episodes and many hours, but you won’t be shortchanged.
For radical leftists, “democracy” means everyone is equal not only in law but in everything. (Of course, various “protected classes” need affirmative action to be equal.) The trouble is that in real life people differ in aptitudes, and this keeps the self-styled progressives in a permanent state of agitation that can easily build into hatred and persecution. The obstinate refusal of reality to conform to the ideology must never be allowed to lead to recognition of the actual human condition. It must always be blamed on the ruling class, reactionaries, racists, white privilege beneficiaries, or whatever the devil du jour… Read more »
I don’t often read Robert Lindsay because my sympathy and taste levels don’t much overlap… But he is a realist alt-leftist on some race and gender and world history issues and I have some time for his thinking. He has lately been at pains to stress that the alt-left as he understands it is still of the left, and quite vehemently so. A series on which kind of fascist Trump is, the Latin American fascism of Trump, the need for all such people to ultimately get a ‘taste’ of their own violence, and so forth. He might have a point… Read more »
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Great post – as always. But it leads to more complex issues. – How to “undo” the existing calamity – which extends back countless generations in one form or another. – Understanding the massive population issues (what – now 7 billion?) – The technology issues, transportation, food, lifestyle… i.e., the problems of modernization without contemplation… – The economic issues (trade, monetary units, value of life… contribution to society…) – And of course, the “conglomerates” of the world which have in essence “centralized” everything we do to their own benefit. I’m leaving out many others (like education ~ indoctrination). But what… Read more »
Yep, there are indeed many issues of which you named just a few. What I cannot fathom, however, and I say this as a Christian, that I do not see how a world inhabited by so many, in their own lands, with free will of their own, with a brain/mind/intelligence whatever level that might be, should be “our” problem. Of course, problems in their situation can spill over into our world but I believe that natural processes have been circumvented by the “do-gooder” NGO type organizations that supposedly function to help these same people. Instead of providing good nourishment, living… Read more »
R versus K breeding strategy. Nurture v flooding the zone.
Our success, surplus, is our undoing.
Overflow in the petri dish.
R’s outbreeding k’s.
Note that the producer nations responded quit overpopulating.
Nature’s balance often means mass dieoffs- or new frontier: oceans, arctics, space.
I’m with Lets here. First, if the 250 year experiment in enlightened secular rule politics of various shades teaches anything, it is that there is no fixing the human condition by human means. And the beauty of our Constitution is that it doesn’t try to do so. Second, given the above, the least bad political idea for us, then and now, is that tending our own garden our own way ought to be our first priority. Third, given the unfixable condition of human depravity, there will be those who will want to steal our produce or rip up our garden… Read more »
We prevent the overbreeders from culling themselves. Its a crazy cat lady strategy.
They see our glittering, emptying cities and hunger to take what they can not build.