dito is offline dito Post #1  February 18,2009, 10:34am
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The Left in Power
Daily Article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. | Posted on 2/17/2009 12:00:00 AM



The theme of my book, The Left, the Right, and the State , is that both sides of the political aisle represent a grave threat to liberty — though each of a different sort. It is like two people tugging at a turkey's wishbone: the turkey is liberty, and you are the bone.


We've lived through eight years of the threat from the Right. It was all about nationalism, militarism, war, torture, state secrets, attacks on privacy, the use of tax funds to subsidize "conservative values," the outsourcing of government in a fascistic business-government partnership, the banning of products and services that government doesn't like, the regimentation of educational life, government impositions in the name of security, and so on.


With the end of the Bush years, many of these threats have receded, if only slightly. Consider the problem of nationalism, for example. The neoconservatives who ran the country during the last two Bush terms exploited this dangerous impulse for all it was worth.


If you were not for their wars, you were against America, and hence deserving of jail without trial. The whole ideological apparatus of the Bush years was profoundly anti-intellectual, and while the neocons shouted down anyone who compared their administration to the Third Reich or Mussolini, the ideological comparison was actually quite apt: right-wing government control stems from the same motives of exalting security, discipline, and chauvinism above liberty.


In two short months, however, that ethos has subsided, and it has been replaced by a threat from the Left. It is tragic that Obama should be president at all. If we had a position called "national well-wisher," "national greeter," or "national symbol of accomplishment," he would be perfect for the job. He is elegant, graceful, and articulate, and he inspires people in an unusual way. As chief policymaker, however, he has revealed himself as nothing more than a two-bit socialist.


After all the ghastly statism of the Bush years, you might think that the Left would back off from using power to achieve its aims. Instead, they have learned nothing. The Left has been lying in wait for its chance. As the Obama people entered the White House, it was as if they found a closet labeled "failed ideas of the past." They opened it and the contents spilled everywhere. They started grabbing things and putting them in the regulatory books and in legislation.


What an amazing pile of junky, worn-out, bogus policy ideas! Equal pay for equal work. Infrastructure spending. More money to the public schools. Socialized medicine. Rock-bottom interest rates. Welfare! Every wish granted by government. Down with business. Down with business failures. Curbs on fat-cat pay. Down with Wall Street. Turn on the money spigots. Expropriate the expropriators. Subsidies for every lifestyle that flies in the face of bourgeois prejudice.


Thus are we again reminded of what a profound threat the Left represents to liberty. It's been more than a decade now since we've seen this at work, and probably longer really. Clinton was a pain, but he was smart enough not to take his reigning ideological framework too seriously. He actually showed some deference to reality from time to time.


The Obamaites are different. They are woefully ignorant of economics. They seem to actually believe all that socialist claptrap that has provided an excuse for innumerable foreign dictators: the idea that government is the source of wealth and can make anything happen with the push of a button.


They see no limits to the possibility that government can make society perfect, righting every perceived social injustice, and bringing prosperity to all via stealing from the haves and giving it to the have-nots. Is there inequality? Mandate equality. Is there deprivation? Provide! Recession? Spend hundreds of billions!


What we have here is not just a profound love of the state; it is a profound confidence in the capacity of the unlimited state to create heaven on earth. How does this square with the idea of human liberty, of social cooperation, and of the rights of all? Herein lies the great mystery of leftism. The Left seems oblivious to the relationship between their chosen means and their ends. It's not that they hate liberty as such; it is that they believe that it must always take a backseat to other social priorities, like equality. In the end, they have a tendency to build the total state and find themselves taken aback when the whole of society ends up in a cage.


Those Obamaites! So compassionate, loving, universally minded, progressive — except that their ideological cousins managed to starve and destroy whole civilizations. Loyalty to their creed means death, because their ideology is the pathway to the gulag — and for one simple reason: their preferred means of social change is the state. The state is always and everywhere a threat to liberty, and liberty is the basic building block of prosperity and civilization.


Despite the slogans about progress, the upshot of the Obama administration is as deeply reactionary as anything that Bush conjured up. Despite all the hype and hope, what Obama offers is nothing new. It amounts to the robber state and the regimentation of society, a plan that will kill off prosperity and the conditions that allow for it.


The Republicans are right to fight this tendency at every turn, for it represents a radical attack on all things truly American. Worse still, by playing with the printing presses, the policy tendency here is also deeply dangerous. It could destroy the dollar internationally and domestically, igniting a hyperinflation that no one will be able to control once it gets going. One only wishes that the Republicans had been so principled when their president was in charge!


The Obama administration says that we have to give the stimulus time to work. No need. The stimulus will not work. If we manage to pull ourselves out of this slump, it will be despite and not because of this stimulus package.


When putting together my book, I wondered which threat was actually more dangerous for us, the Right or the Left. I'm still not sure, for national socialism and international socialism are in close competition. I ended up focusing on both. It's a hard truth for Americans to face that neither team in Washington is going to guard what we love the most. That is something we are going to have to face. Liberty is for the citizens to guard themselves.
 
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dwreese182 is offline dwreese182 Post #2  February 18,2009, 7:30pm
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Look on the bright side.....I just saved a bunch of money by switching to GEICO.
 
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cameracollector is offline cameracollector Post #3  February 19,2009, 8:55am
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dwreese182,494273 wrote :

Look on the bright side.....I just saved a bunch of money by switching to GEICO.
LOL!!
 
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dito is offline dito Post #4  February 19,2009, 2:48pm
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So, any thoughts or comments on the article?
 
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neardc is offline neardc Post #5  February 19,2009, 4:09pm
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Honestly, it just comes across as a huge rant (and I don't have a lot of interest in reading those...).
 
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RobInPlano is offline RobInPlano Post #6  February 19,2009, 4:19pm
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The challenge with articles like this is that you've got to commit too much time into reading something without any idea what it is.


The author could definitely have made the content more interesting to digest by providing section headings, bullets, or some other way we could quickly tell if it is worth our time.


As for the actual content, I think he completely mischaracterized the objectives of the Right. I can't speak for the left of course.


I do agree with his conclusion however that neither the Right nor the Left has served the American People well in many years.
 
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chawks64 is offline chawks64 Post #7  February 19,2009, 4:41pm
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RobInPlano,495462 wrote :

I do agree with his conclusion however that neither the Right nor the Left has served the American People well in many years.
True dat!
 
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dito is offline dito Post #8  February 19,2009, 4:51pm
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RobInPlano,495462 wrote :

The challenge with articles like this is that you've got to commit too much time into reading something without any idea what it is.


The author could definitely have made the content more interesting to digest by providing section headings, bullets, or some other way we could quickly tell if it is worth our time.


As for the actual content, I think he completely mischaracterized the objectives of the Right. I can't speak for the left of course.


I do agree with his conclusion however that neither the Right nor the Left has served the American People well in many years.
You are right. Next time I'll be sure to put cliffs at the bottom.


I think he is correct about the right of the last 8 years.
 
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Bandmate is offline Bandmate Post #9  February 28,2009, 4:01am

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dito,495301 wrote :

So, any thoughts or comments on the article?
Asking or expecting the average American with Elephant or Donkey poop on their nose to have any intelligentthoughts or comments on the two sided coin of American politics is asking and expecting alot.The us vs them or the A team vs the B team and my guy vs your guy mentality is about all that can be expected from the average American.The real threat to liberty is the average American who simply does not have the courage or possess the personal responsabiliy to be free,they are willing peasants and serfs running for their masters cover whenever something goes wrong.
 
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saulgoode is offline saulgoode Post #10  February 28,2009, 12:56pm
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I like the balanced viewpoint -- hate both parties equally. I could benefit from looking at my own party in a negative way.


She didn't mention the states, though. She mentioned that it's up to the people to fight for their liberty, but failed to mention that youfight at the STATE LEVEL.


It's up to our governors, mayors, officials, and state citizens to stand and prosper, as she said, despite the effect the stimulus packages will have on our and ourchildren's credit burden.


It's up to us to redefine ourselves as a Union of Independent States. I think we'll continue seeing State-ism rise against National-ism.


- Saul
 
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