RoR: Forum

Great essay, Ed.

Obama's acceptance speech included the sentence: "We are more than the sum of our individual ambitions." This is dead wrong as we are precisely the sum of our individual ambitions/aspirations. That is what we are, nothing more and nothing less. He's obviously using propaganda in the same way John McCain did in his campaign when he said you have to be in service to something higher than yourself -- in order to become content as a human being. These "original sin" guys want you to think that being an individual is somehow lowly or disdainful, and that the price paid for the federal permission to attempt to live as an individual is some vague, unenumerated services to the Great Empire (of which they just so happen to be the Emperor).

On a hopefully-positive note, Glenn Beck beckoned people to Texas today. He said that we need a "Galt's Gulch" and that he may be willing and able to fund such a thing. He admitted that The Blaze, his new personal broadcasting station (he has severed all ties with the official media conglomerates), is already an 8-figure cash-cow. He said he is working on new and big things.

Hear, hear.

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/07, 7:55pm)

Post 1

Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - 6:44pm

Glenn Beck as John Galt, eh? That's funny.

That isn't to say that I don't support his actions; I just find it ironic.

I do enjoy his monologues. He, along with Rush, is my favorite well-known firebrand against the Left.

I guess I'll have to head down to Texas sometime in the future.

Galt's speed to Glenn!

Post 2

Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - 6:48pm

Yes, good essay, Ed. (I'm much more pessimistic, but maybe some of that is post-election day blues.)

You wrote:

America is now in a civil war—albeit a bloodless one so far—between the makers and the takers, the producers versus the expropriators

So true. Notice that it is really an issue of education. There aren't enough producers that know they are in a war, much less that they have always been on the moral high ground in the war. Some of the Takers are ideologues and some are just angry in their demands for the unearned. But nearly all of them are ignorant of the fact that the economy is going to disappear from under them - the well isn't bottomless.

Our problem is that the educational system is in the hands of the Taker advocates, and even if that changed over night, there would still be a generation that had to pass.

The Taker mentality functions with this socialistic/corporatist government only because they think that the money for all those freebies won't run out. When it does, the collapse will generate massive panic. Under those conditions the game won't go to reason and is more likely to hand our liberty to a strong man.

Post 3

Thursday, November 8, 2012 - 8:57am

Regarding serving something higher than yourself (in order to achieve salvation), you don't have to serve something higher than yourself if you can get into the position wherein you can rely on "faithfully" serving your higher self.

:-)

Ed

Post 4

Thursday, November 8, 2012 - 10:31am

Andddd the dow-jones keeps dropping..

Post 5

Thursday, November 8, 2012 - 9:18pm

Thanks guys! Fully about Texas, I had an Italian journalist today ask whether there was a chance that states might secede from the union. I said it might be a nice daydream but, realistically, not a chance.

The serving others stuff is really the central moral issue on which we need to focus. As long as people both feel and believe that they must justify there own existence and prosperity in terms service to others, the statists will guilt-trip them into surrendering.

Post 6

Friday, November 9, 2012 - 2:08pm

That said, I point out that the Republicans have a clear majority in the House of Representatives where money bills must start. The House must pass any other legislation begun in the Senate.

The President can initiate very little - even via Executive Orders. As much as you all hate President Obama, the man is a non-entity who was chosen as a speaker, nothing more. If the government were a business (Govco), then Barack Obama would be in charge of marketing, not production. Joseph Biden is the real president, just as Dick Cheney represented the interests of those behind the Younger Bush Administration.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/09, 2:57pm)

Post 7

Sunday, November 11, 2012 - 2:17pm

Michael - My favorite dialogue from Return of the Kings!

Post 8

Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 9:21am

Michael,

One of the great dangers we face from Obama is that he is likely to appoint a couple of Supreme Court Justices and they will get affirmed by this Senate no matter how far to the left they are - that can change our constitutional republic in a fundamental way. And the house has no say in that.

Then there are the treaties that Obama and Hillary are lining up to push through his pet Senate for approval and the house has nothing to say in that. This will be an end run around American sovereignty and a march towards global governance.

You mention that the House has control of the purse strings but notice that they haven't done anything but whine when Obama uses borrowed money to funnel billions to his political cronies. Solyndra is just one of many, many such projects. And is anyone even asking where the money went that John Corzine was responsible for? No. Has the House stopped Obama from borrowing 43 cents on the dollar? No. Has the House stopped the flow of billions of dollars in aid to foreign nations, like Egypt and Pakistan? No. Congress is a noisy potted plant.

There is also his veto power. Even if the Senate went along with the house on a bill to curb spending, this far left ideologue would veto it. There is also the fact that Obama will not take a leadership role when it comes to making government smaller and that is critical.

And he has already shown that he does not feel contrained to stay within the constitution and appears only to be concerned with how much he can get away with in ignoring it - and the House has let him walk all over them - like when he started the war in Libya while they were on break and then he never got back to them for even the tiniest shred of constitutional recognition, as if he was demonstrating that the days of living within the constitution are long gone... or the decisions he made where he chooses who to apply the law to and who go to 'grant exemptions' to. (Think about that... Congress passes a bill, the president signs it in to law, and then, even though there is NO mention of exemptions anywhere in the bill, the president decides he has the power to exempt some from it. It isn't law for them? And there is nary a squawk to be heard when there should be calls for impeachment!)

You say the president can initiate very little... I say that with this senate, with a house that lets him get away with so much, and so little understanding of the constitution, that he can take the country over the line into a dictatorship. He only needs a large enough crisis to supply the sense of panic.

By the way, I have no idea what makes you think Biden is the real president - did you mean to say "Court Jester"?

You said, "As much as you all hate President Obama...." For me, it isn't that I hate the man, it is that I hate his dishonesty and the principles that motivate him and where he wants to take the country. What I don't understand is why you don't feel the same.
(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 11/15, 12:44pm)

Post 9

Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 11:32am

The problem is that quite a lot of makers voted for Obama. In their own lives, they pursue goals and values and build businesses and make profits. They pursue their self-interest, then in politics they vote according to the ethics that they wish they had: they vote for sacrifice, altruism, brotherly-love etc..

They seem to have the same psychological issue as the religious nut-job who thinks the government should force everybody into some sort of sexual morality that he defines. He despises his sexual nature and those makers despise their economic nature.

They also use the government to assuage their own guilt at being successful--- they create tyranny and control to plunder others and themselves for the purpose of assuaging their guilt at being human and productive and are more than happy to force everyone to follow ethical standards that they cannot do so in a peaceful manner.

I recall Ed talking about how altruists suffer from arrested development. It seems such makers do to
(Edited by Michael Philip on 11/15, 11:55am)

Post 10

Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 1:13pm

"The problem is that quite a lot of makers voted for Obama. In their own lives, they pursue goals and values and build businesses and make profits. They pursue their self-interest, then in politics they vote according to the ethics that they wish they had: they vote for sacrifice, altruism, brotherly-love etc..."

Was just reading TITAN, the bio of John D. Rockefeller, earlier today, and it described his belief that he was predestined by God to make money, because of his belief that he was to be a steward of the public good, that he would put the money to good use in a religious sense...

Post 11

Friday, November 16, 2012 - 4:32am