My Test Blog

Memo For File XXXI

Quoth our 32nd President, our "A Little Dab (o'Socialism)'ll Do Ya" President, the guy who locked up all the Japanese-American citizens -- lemme repeat that, citizens -- in camps simply because of the blood in their veins. The guy who prepared America for the modern world by, of all things, transforming it into a collectivist utopia; God only knows how good things could have been if it was a supply-sider carrying us across that critical bridge. We learn of this via some starry-eyed left-wing douchenozzle, via the much more venerable Fetching Jen.

President Roosevelt argues that his hybrid-socialist revolution is simply a continuation of the American Revolution; it's the natural next-step. In fact, I think the douchenozzle hit the nail on the head here: "Our Founding Fathers had either not anticipated that need when they wrote our Constitution, or else they had felt that our fledgling country was not yet ready for that concept. But as FDR pointed out in his speech, many things had changed since then."

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own Government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution-all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital-all undreamed of by the fathers-the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor-these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age-other people's money-these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities. [emphasis mine]

Now if you're sharp, you can already see the circuitous route that is being set up. Till the soil for small measure of gains decreed by men in distant cities; have a revolution to declare your independence; exploit your opportunity to the fullest by starting a business and employing several of your peers; make a profit and incur capital gains. Then...after the natural next-step revolution, the socialist upheaval -- once again, see the measure of your gains decreed by men in distant cities.

Roosevelt says the circle has to do with the industrial revolution. We've exchanged one tyrant for another -- the magnate. It's ironic that what he's set up here, is a situation where the government becomes the new tyrant..."small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities." How is the minimum wage determined? How is the marginal income tax rate determined? How is the capital gains tax rate determined? Who decides if we have a death tax or not?

Cyclical. Roosevelt agrees with me on this...we simply disagree as to how it's cyclical -- who the modern George III and House of Commons really is.

Quoth Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell, writing as "Emmanuel Goldstein" in Nineteen Eighty-Four...about which we learn via me.

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibnum, however far it is pushed one way or the other.
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The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim...is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.
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Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High.
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Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. [emphasis mine]

I see a connection.

We're All Such Independent Thinkers IV

From One Good Move: Katie Couric interviews Michael J. Fox.

Double-irony. Michael J. Fox says he couldn't give a damn about pity and just thinks he's got a right to air his opinion like anybody else. "Just have a discussion about it, and see what happens." Great idea. And yet the whole point of the interview is that if somebody is suffering, you've got to let them have the last word or else you are a COCK.

Actually, that's Limbaugh's position too. We aren't really having a free and open discussion, we're just pretending to do that. The new rule is that Mr. Fox has to have the last word, end of story. Make it happen, you are a Cool Person^TM. Keep it from happening, by voicing a contrary opinion, you're a cock.

The other irony is that while the argument "these cells aren't going to become a person anyway" is logically valid, and thus a good point, whether it is the end of the issue or not is a matter of personal belief. Well, now. It's just awfully tough for me to comprehend the idea that as taxpayers, we have a right to stop a huge marble cross or Star of David or Crescent or statue of Buddha from being erected in our state's Supreme Courts, simply because it contradicts our personal beliefs...but taxpayers have nothing to say about it when government is doing something they see as tantamount to murder. I'm not talking about something that can be proven to be murder, or something that can be proven not to be murder. Just something that's up to one's personal belief. I don't see how this rule pertains to the cross-in-the-capitol situation, and not the embryonic stem cell situation.

The only other thing I'd have to say, and this is probably a bigger concern to me than those other two, is: If we're going to "have a discussion about it and see what happens" let's have a discussion about things that are true. There's no such thing as a "embryonic stem cell research ban." Oh, and to the best knowledge I have about the situation, Limbaugh hasn't prevented anyone from speaking out with viewpoints contrary to his. Ever.

Update 10/28/06: As is usually the case, what I find interesting about this is not so much what has happened, and not even what is being said about it, but how these things are being said.

There's something about the extreme left wing. They have so much to say about how things are and what should be done about those things. And it seems some among them can't ever tell you any of it, without instructing you on what to think. Ever. How you should come to think the thing they want you to think, seems to be beyond their capacity. It seems the concept of "skepticism" is something completely foreign to them, and they're completely, utterly, unprepared for it.

Rush Limbaugh may not be this country's most disgusting human being, but he surely ranks among the top 10.

You're undoubtedly familiar with his latest outrageousness - claiming that Michael J. Fox was really faking those Parkinson's disease palsied shakes when he cut campaign ads for candidates who, like Wisconsin's Jim Doyle, favor embryonic stem cell research.

Fox, who came down with Parkinson's about 15 years ago and was forced to essentially retire from his acting career, thus became the latest victim of the well-honed Republican attack machine made famous by the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential election.

Limbaugh, with his audience of like-minded flame-throwers, is a key player in the well-organized cabal that uses innuendo and, more times than not, outright lies to savage anyone who dares to disagree with the right-wingers who long ago took the Republican Party hostage.

In a response to charges by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, Michael J. Fox defended his appearance in recent political campaign ads, saying he was neither acting nor off his medication for Parkinson's disease.

You have to hand it to them - they're very clever.

Although few of them ever served in the military themselves, they've been able to turn war heroes into cowards. Just ask Democrat Max Cleland or even Republican John McCain - one lost his legs and an arm because of an enemy grenade, the other was a prisoner of war for more than five years - who were targeted by a well-organized campaign that started with Karl Rove in the White House and was spread by Limbaugh and his right-wing imitators on talk radio.

And, of course, there was John Kerry, a decorated and wounded Vietnam War veteran, who was made out to be a wimp by a propaganda machine whose favorite candidate hadn't even shown up for National Guard drills.

This year they've characterized an Illinois congressional candidate, Tammy Duckworth, an Army pilot who lost both legs in Iraq, as a "cut and runner."

So Michael J. Fox is only the latest to be the target of the cruel attacks that have nothing to do with the issues, but everything to do with planting seeds of doubt and fueling the whispering campaigns.

Limbaugh, of course, always tries to leave himself a way out.

"If this was not an act," he said of the Fox ad, "then I apologize." All of which is nothing more than a joke, of course, since to raise the issue at all accomplishes the mission.

The pity of it all is that all too many Americans fall for these tactics of character assassination. It will never end until the people stand up and say "enough." [emphasis mine]

I have to chuckle at that implied litmus test involving service in the military. I don't remember things being that way at all in 1996...the year a Republican "decorated and wounded veteran" ran for President against an incumbent Democrat with lackluster military service credentials.

These people don't communicate ideas. They tell people what to think and when to think it. They figuratively pop open the cranial cavity of the "listener," stick the idea in, and sew things shut again, bypassing any critical inspection whatsoever. It's not just their preference. They simply can't do it any other way.