Communitarianism: This is Your Future

From the Post Sustainability Institute:

Economic collapse creates a chain of events, but on a micro level (county, city) there is a marked reduction in revenue for maintenance of services. Loss of services to outlying areas means, for example, roads not being maintained to rural and suburban areas. Roads not being maintained to those areas, schools not being supported in those areas, law enforcement/fire/social services not being supported in those areas means a gradual movement into the denser city centers.  Add to that the increased cost of gasoline (manipulated), and the higher cost of energy (manipulated) to heat and cool statistically larger homes, and you have more pressure to leave rural and suburban areas. Reduction of energy usage is key.  Smart Growth/New Urbanism in Redevelopment Areas is the supposed answer: smaller units, attached condos, little or no parking, few private cars.  More eyes on the street.  Redevelopment projects are the implementation arm of the UN plan, and include rezoning of huge sections of your cities to Smart Growth zones. This physical manifestation of UN Agenda 21 is social engineering paid for with your property tax dollars.    These areas then have their property taxes diverted away from your services and into the pockets of a few developers and bond brokers for 30-45 years.  Result?  Bankrupt cities and counties.

The Left’s One-Percenter Problem

By Frank Salvato | May 17, 2012 | New Media Journal

In the aftermath of Vice President Joe Biden’s “Howard Dean” moment in Ohio this week, I was struck by the sheer magnitude of the Progressive-Democrat Left’s hypocrisy when it comes to their political attacks on the so-called “rich.” As the unwashed masses of the Occupy Movement – the overwhelming majority of which are anarchists, pseudo-Socialists, Progressive activists and union operatives – take to the streets of Chicago to protest the NATO summit, I really do have to wonder if they – the useful idiots of the new millennium – know that those who they follow are the one-percenters?

Among the leaders of the Progressive Movement and the Democrat Party, it is nearly impossible to identify anyone among them who isn’t in the one-percent, and that includes President Obama and, yes, Vice President Biden. Maybe that’s why his statement, “They just don’t get us,” made my head cock like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise. “Who’s us,” I thought to myself.

Government’s Trump Card: The Use of Force

By Robert Ringer | May 3, 2012 | WND

Exclusive: Robert Ringer says going the way of Europe is least of our worries

The two most poisonous words in the English language are rights and entitlements. They mean essentially the same thing, and both are subjectively created in the minds of collectivist dreamers.

Though the notion of rights/entitlements has been around since the founding, and has been heating up at an accelerating pace since FDR first introduced Americans to the welfare state, it is Barack Obama whom historians will credit with bringing the issue into the debate arena.

His nasty, Alinsky double-down style has caused millions of heretofore sleepwalking citizens to wonder if his fundamental change of America is transforming it into the kind of country they really want for their children and grandchildren.

Right now, Republicans are obsessing about “reforming” entitlements, though few of them dare talk about taking away people’s artificially created rights (a right to an education, a right to a good job at a “decent” wage, a right to “affordable” housing, a right to free health care … a right to just about anything one can imagine).

Even though rights and entitlements are really one and the same, the word rights has a much stronger moral connotation. A right sounds very official, as though it were handed down from on high, while an entitlement has a twinge of victimization to it.

But whether one refers to involuntary gifts from his neighbor as rights or entitlements, the bottom line is that they are made possible only through the government’s never-fail trump card: the use of force. And it’s not a force for good, but evil.

Mao had it right: Political power does, indeed, grow from the barrel of a gun. Patriotic Americans like to delude themselves, but the reality is that government can do anything it wants to you, your children, or your property through the threat force – and the use of force, if necessary.

Even so, most people – including some of the most sophisticated media types – tend to ignore what government’s essentially unrestricted use of force means in real terms. Their normalcy bias tells them that we have checks and balances via our three branches of government, so a Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Castro, or Chavez could never happen in today’s America. Alas, they are hopelessly naïve.

Whether it’s Waco, Ruby Ridge, taxes, silencing free speech, or regulating activities individuals want to engage in, government’s use of force is always the trump card. This was made evident yet again when a video of another Obama far-left appointee, Alfredo Armendariz, went viral last week.

Read the full article here.

Related Articles

• Rights, Entitlements, and the Government’s Trump Card: The Use of Force – by Robert Ringer (robertringer.com)
• Pentagon trumps poverty programs (politico.com)
• The Life and Death of the Old Right (johnmalcolm.me)
• Liberal Imperialism (spectator.org)
• John Stewart’s 19 Questions for Libertarians Answered by a Constitutional Conservative (texaslynn.wordpress.com)
• Why I don’t Call Myself a Libertarian (rossbot.wordpress.com)
• Non-aggression is not pacifism (dailycaller.com)
• Left-Libertarianism, Utopian Pipe dream? (lurdblog.wordpress.com)
• New World Order? (spectator.org)
• Time for a return of the Cypherpunks, Crypto-Anarchists & Techno-Libertarians? (jroller.com)
• The Injustice of Modern Warfare – Part I (libertarianreview.us)
• What is libertarianism? – Part I: principles (politicsontoast.com)
• Why I am Not a Libertarian – A Libertarian Response (youngcatholiclibertarian.wordpress.com)
• Anne Wortham: American Conservative/Libertarian (gadabout-blogalot.com)
• Today’s Occupier is Tomorrow’s Teapartier ? …. Hmmm (youviewedblog.wordpress.com)
• The Good Arguments Against the Kochs’ Using Their Property Rights Over Cato Are All Burkean and Communitarian. They Are Not Libertarian (delong.typepad.com)
• White House expands reach of sanctions on Syria, Iran (stripes.com)
• Obama Quietly Seeking to Cede U.S. Oceans to U.N. Law (johnmalcolm.me)
• Panetta caught in one-world scheme Defense secretary says ‘international permission’ trumps Congress (gunnyg.wordpress.com)
• Alarms over Obama coup against Constitution surging (wnd.com)

The Republic, if We Can Keep It

By Michael Applebaum, MD | March 29, 2012| American Thinker

With its uninterrupted history of peaceful transition of power through elections, America has a multitude of citizens who justifiably feel pride in the strength of their democracy.  But it cannot be denied that political tensions are rising, and it is not uncommon for occupants of the extreme end of both sides of the political spectrum to voice fears of (or hopes for) revolution.  Is there any reason to believe that the republic is in danger of revolutionary activity?

Crane Brinton authored The Anatomy of Revolution (hereinafter “Anatomy“).  The “aim [of his] study is the modest one of attempting to establish, as the scientist might, certain first approximations of uniformities to be noted in the course of four successful revolutions in modern states” (Anatomy, at 7).

He intended to accomplish his goal by application “of the bare elements of scientific thinking – conceptual scheme, facts, especially ‘case histories,’ logical operations, uniformities…” (Anatomy, at 13).

Brinton identified certain characteristics common to the revolutions he analyzed.  Due to space limitations, I will focus principally and briefly on just two: structural weaknesses in the economy and politics.

The economic events Brinton linked to successful revolution were “unusually serious economic, or at least financial, difficulties of a special kind”:

… in all of these societies, it was the government that is in financial difficulties, not the societies themselves. [Italics in the original.]

The first two Stuarts were in perpetual conflict with their Parliaments over taxes[.] …

Americans need not be reminded of the part trouble over taxation played in the years just before the shot fired at Concord[.] …

In 1789 the French Estates-General, the calling of which precipitated the revolution, was made unavoidable by the bad financial state of the government[.] …

… three years of war had put such a strain on Russian finances[.]  (Anatomy, at 29)

That the government of the USA faces financial difficulties and tax issues is axiomatic.  (It is also agreed upon by both major political parties.)

Economic deprivation of society at large was not a factor Brinton found to be of significance (Anatomy, at 32).  However:

… what provokes a group to attack a government is not simply deprivation or misery, but an “intolerable gap between what people want and what they get[.]” (Anatomy, at 30)

Thus, the animating element is not necessarily true deprivation so much as perceived deprivation.

In the USA, the perception of deprivation is rife despite the absence of true widespread privation.

Nicholas Eberstadt, in his 2008 book The Poverty of “The Poverty Rate,“ has evaluated the official U.S. federal metric used to assess deprivation and material need. Citing federal data, the:

… consumer patterns of officially poor households … have recorded simultaneous, steady and significant increases in consumption of food, housing, transportation and health…examination of the remaining categories within the market basket of the low-income consumer – clothing, entertainment, personal care, and so on – would reveal additional and analogous improvements in material circumstances[.]

The data and conclusions in Eberstadt’s tome were recently confirmed by Robert Rector, and also by using the government’s own numbers.

Read the full article here.

The Ryan Test: Demagoguery Versus Ideas

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Jonathan S. Tobin | August 11, 2012 | Commentary Magazine As John wrote earlier today, liberals are convinced that Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan to be his running mate offers them a golden opportunity to savage the Republicans about the Wisconsin congressman’s budget plans. Predictably, the New York Times delivered one of the first such salvos in its editorial posted […]

Smoking Obama’s Crack and Yearning for the Mud

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Vanderleun | August 10, 2012 | American Digest [From 2008. Only the names have been changed because the target has changed.] This downward flight of intellectuals has been going on ever since the Romantic movement began its counter-revolution a couple hundred years ago. No matter how much they flap their lips it’s a fall, not […]