Category Archives: Republicans

UPDATE III: State of the Union: a ‘Disgusting Spectacle’ (Derb: Defeatist or Realist?)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, English, History, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Literature, Politics, Propaganda, Reason, Republicans, Technology, The State, The Zeitgeist

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution required that the president “shall from time to time give to Congress information of the state of Union.” Like everything in the Constitution, a modest thing has morphed into a monstrosity.

A “Stalinesque extravaganza” that ought to offend “anyone of a republican (small ‘r’ …) sensibility,” is how National Review’s John Derbyshire describes the State of the Union speech. “American politics frequently throws up disgusting spectacles. It throws up one most years in January: the State of the Union speech,” writes Derb in “We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism,” a book I discussed in “Derb Is Right: ‘We Are Doomed'” (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=580).

John goes on to furnish the quotidian details of how “the great man” is announced, how he makes an entrance; the way “the legislators jostle to catch his eye” and receive his favor. “On the podium at last, the president offers up preposterously grandiose assurances of protection, provision, and moral guidance from his government, these declarations of benevolent omnipotence punctuated by standing ovations and cheers from legislators” (p. 45).

Then there is the display of “Lenny Skutniks” in the audience, “model citizens chosen in order to represent some quality the president will call on us to admire and emulate” (this year it’ll be the family of the little girl who was murdered by the Tucson shooter).

Derb analyzes this monarchical, contrived tradition against the backdrop of the steady inflation of the presidential office, and a trend “away from ‘prose’ to ‘poetry’; away from substantive argument to “hot air.”

The president of the USA is now “pontiff, in touch with Divinity, to be addressed like the Almighty.”

Prepare to puke. The antidote is “WE ARE DOOMED.”

UPDATE I (Jan 25.): Robert, have you even read “WE ARE DOOMED”? Derb is a paleo-libertarian and a bloody good writer at that.

UPDATE II (Jan. 26): Derb: Defeatist or Realist? Van Wijk: I did not know you were among the happy faced, cheery conservatives who eschew reality and insist that the band of fools plays on, as the Titanic goes down.

Almost all of Derb’s misery making factual survey of America, in We Are Doomed, is correct (bar his biological determinism, which is supposed to sunder free will, but is not convincing). In fact, it mirrors a lot of what I’ve said and written (why, I’m cited in the book vis-a-vis Robert Putnum). There is no getting out from under:

1) Crippling government debt

2) The layers of crap culture and cultural products (literally: did you know that the MOMA, or its British equivalent, stores bodily waste in hundreds of vials produced as art?)

3) Perverted intellectual and moral standards

4) Crops of affirmatively appointed leaders, in all fields of endeavor, which will be with us for decades, if not longer, because of (1) and (2), among other reasons.

What’s your problem with that (Derb’s) rational, reality based conclusion—an analysis effected over the years in these (my own) pixelated pages?

Isn’t it clear that freedom and mass society—unfettered democracy, mass immigration mainly of voracious tax consumers with a visceral hatred for the history and historical majority of this country, on and on—cannot coexist?

It does not mean that one doesn’t continue to fight (I do), but it’s a losing proposition. Talented, industrious, taxpayers—doing highly skilled work—will become less numerous and more burdened with the years. This shrinking tax-base will be working to keep the voracious racial Idiocracy, represented faithfully by the political and intellectual class, in the style to which they have become accustomed.

(As aside: My source in one of America’s most lauded corporations, brilliant in his performance and intellectual leadership, is forever being told to develop his sorry “emotional intelligence”—even given books about this crap—as he solves the most complex of technical and logical problems. Why? because the manly, forceful, algorithmic iteration of facts, without dissolving into tears and embracing the intellectually halt and lame and dysfunctional around you: that is BAD. Men like that are not dismissed, because few can replace them. But they are cornered and cowed. Wanna tell me that a society that disempowers and subdues talent will survive?)

Isn’t it idiotic to attack the messenger, Derb? In any case, I’m glad you don’t attack me for advancing a similar message for years.

UPDATE III: To the letter about his alleged taste in poetry, Derb has provided some references in the Comments sections below. What about Louis MacNeice? I’m a poetry primitive, but I quite liked MacNeice.

A Paul-Bachmann 2012 Ticket

Elections, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul, War

HOW FAR WE’VE COME. On February 20, 2010, I blogged about the reaction of the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) regimists to a straw poll that placed libertarian Ron Paul in the lead. (http://barelyablog.com/?p=21977.) Granted, out of 10,000 conference attendees, approximately 2500, very motivated Paulites had voted. Still, I expressed my hopes that this informal gauge of the state-of-the GOP was significant, and that, finally, “the bums and their statist sycophants” would be tossed out and replaced with strict Constitutionalists such as Peter Schiff and Rand Paul. “The small Beltway Politburo that runs CPAC” was certainly worried.

With a smart strategy, this scenario is not implausible. As abcNews reports (http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/01/romney-wins-new-hampshire-republican-party-committee-straw-poll.html), “In the first ever ‘straw poll’ of New Hampshire Republican party committee members sponsored by ABC News and WMUR and sanctioned by the state Republican party, ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took 35 percent of the 276 valid ballots cast. This is just 3 percent more than Romney took in the 2008 GOP primary, when he finished in second place behind Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Coming in a distant second was Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, with 11 percent. Paul took 8 percent in the 2008 GOP primary.”

Ron Paul can pull this off. But he needs the punch and the pizzazz of a Michelle Bachmann as second-in-command. Bachmann is cerebral (a quality poor Palin is without). She’s also beautiful, eloquent and is seldom fazed. Moreover, Bachmann is not wedded to the warfare state. She has officiated on enough panels with Paul, and is wise enough, to recognize the value of bringing moderate liberals into the fold by denouncing America’s forays abroad.

Hey, what do you know? On 09.28.09, I had already proposed a Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann ticket. The occasion? An address by Paul, introduced by Bachmann, about “The Ben Bernanke.” By that time, Bachmann had already beefed-up her knowledge of the Fed and was familiar with Tom Woods’ Meltdown.

Reps. Paul and Bachmann can neuter Mitt Romney politically, but they must unite to do so.

UPDATE II: House Republicans Talking Tactics & Tinkering Around the Edges

Debt, Economy, Elections, Politics, Republicans

No wonder neoconservative kingpin Bill Kristol (http://barelyablog.com/?p=33225) anointed House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan as heir apparent to the neoconservative project. Ryan is a strategist; he has more plans than principles. You and I do not want to see the debt ceiling raised. But for some reason, Ryan thinks that “tactic isn’t viable.”

Tactic? Come Again? Ryan believes that it has to be lifted (something to do with the neoconservative national-pride dybbuk).

He is, however, prepared to “tack on requirements for deep spending cuts as a condition of passage.” (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/06/5779097-ryan-hints-at-debt-ceiling-strategy) Why, thank you, Sir.

No sooner do our overlords arrive in DC, than their campaign promises evaporate. (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=579.)

(I’m placing hyperlinks in brackets, for now, because hyperlinks attached distort the blurb that propagates to my Facebook page. Any suggestions?)

UPDATE I (Jan. 14): When it comes to serious spending cuts, Republicans intend to tinker around the edges. John Stossel exposes just how little they will do to beat back the federal behemoth:

New Speaker John Boehner, leader of the Republicans who now control the House, says he wants to cut spending. When he was sworn in last week, he declared: “Our spending has caught up with us. … No longer can we kick the can down the road.”
But when NBC anchorman Brian Williams asked him to name a program “we could do without,” he said, “I don’t think I have one off the top of my head.”
Give me a break! You mean to tell me the Republican leader in the House doesn’t already know what he wants to cut? I don’t know which is worse — that he doesn’t have a list or that he won’t talk about it in public.
The Republicans say they’ll start by cutting $100 billion, but let’s put that in perspective. The budget is close to $4 trillion. So $100 billion is just 2.5 percent. That’s shooting too low. Firms in the private sector make cuts like that all the time. It’s considered good business — pruning away deadwood.
GOP leaders say the source of their short-run cuts will be discretionary non-security spending. They foolishly exclude entitlement spending, which Congress puts on autopilot, and all spending for national and homeland security (whether it’s necessary or not). That leaves only $520 billion.
So even if the Republicans managed to cut all discretionary non-security spending (which is not what they plan), the deficit would still be $747 billion. (The deficit is now projected to be $1.267 trillion.)
This is a revolution? Republicans will have to learn that there is no budget line labeled “waste, fraud, abuse.” If they are serious about cutting government, they will ax entire programs, departments and missions.

UPDATE II (Jan 16.): Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Majority Leader, was out and about … lobbying for an increase in the debt ceiling. Why, of course. Give a little, get even less. “Live and let live,” said the one leech to the other.

On Grief And The Aggrieved

Crime, Democrats, Etiquette, Pop-Culture, Republicans, The State, The Zeitgeist

In the aftermath of the Arizona shootings, our masters in modern Rome are foregoing “partisanship” (read principle) and are coming together to spend funds not their own to secure their sorry asses against the statistically minuscule chance that these royal behinds will come to harm. Curiously, House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson is commending House Speaker John Boehner for being “extraordinary in setting the right tone” for “a more enlightened way.”

“A more enlightened way” than what?” It’s almost as though Larson is the aggrieved party and Boehner a member of the offending group. Both parties have assumed these respective roles.

Indeed: “Republicans are clearly responding as if they feel somewhat incriminated,” said University of Michigan political science professor Lisa Disch. “On the one hand, they are acting very quickly to distance themselves from the incident, but on the other hand, they seem to be feeling as if they have been caught at something; caught at using rhetoric that is incendiary.”

On the topic of grief: A day after their child’s dreadful demise, the parents of the “9-year-old girl gunned down in Saturday’s shooting rampage outside an Arizona grocery store” were liberally granting interviews.

To me this is unsettling. We once used to grieve privately—at least initially. These days, there is nothing people will not share and express in public, and ASAP. They have no private selves.

This is part of our festering cultural commons.