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The Establishments war on Donald Trump
See other The Establishments war on Donald Trump Articles

Title: “So-Called Judges” Try To Mandate American Dispossession. Resist Or Die!
Source: VDare
URL Source: http://www.vdare.com/articles/so-ca ... an-dispossession-resist-or-die
Published: Feb 13, 2017
Author: James Kirkpatrick
Post Date: 2017-02-13 15:21:58 by nativist nationalist
Keywords: None
Views: 4955
Comments: 17

So it’s not just enforcing immigration laws that is “racist” today. Now, even the distinction between citizen and non-citizen has become “offensive.” The battle now is not just to preserve President Trump’s travel ban from the attacks of “so-called judges,” to adapt his entirely accurate description, and the Official Opposition/Main Stream Media. It’s about preserving the existence of the nation itself.

MSM enforcers, few of whom have ever read a book other than Harry Potter, cheered President Trump’s defeat in the courts as a defeat for the president they despise and are openly trying to unseat. But their simplistic coverage concealed the staggering radicalism of the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision.

The Court not only ignored presidential authority and existing statute law, it essentially rendered American citizenship meaningless. As Daniel Horowitz explains:

The Ninth Circuit, although not “officially” deciding the merits of the immigration case, indicated that there is a constitutional right for anyone to immigrate, even during a time of war, even from countries we were so careful never to take immigrants from until recently. It concluded the president must show the courts sufficient evidence that each person will be a terrorist and anything short of that creates a due process right to be here.

[The Ninth Circuit’s Stolen Sovereignty Should Serve As Final Wakeup Call, Conservative Review, February 10, 2017. Emphasis added.]

The claim that non-Americans somehow possess constitutional rights, and have a right to immigrate to the United States, is laughable on its face. Yet quietly, without debate or even acknowledgement of what is going on, it has become the consensus in the MSM, in the courts—and in the streets.

Part of this is just the result of MSM gaslighting and deception. By the tens of thousands, Leftist protesters have poured into the streets to demand an end to President Trump’s “Muslim Ban.” The Narrative being promoted by the MSM is that they are taking a stand against religious persecution and in defense of a beleaguered, oppressed minority.

Of course, President Trump has instituted no such “Muslim Ban,” nor anything close to it. Indeed, President Trump’s actions are practically identical to actions President Obama took in 2011.

Nor are Muslims facing a dire, genocidal threat in the Middle East because of their religious belief. The people who actually being systematically exterminated in Iraq, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries are Christians—many of whom were prevented from fleeing to America by President Obama [The State Department Turns Its Back on Syrian Christians and Other Non-Muslim Refugees, by Nina Shea, National Review, November 2, 2015].

President Trump has said he will prioritize refugees from this group in American policy [Trump’s order is a balm for Christians, not a ban on Muslims, by Carol Swain, CNN, January 30, 2017]. But he has received no praise for defending this oppressed community in the MSM. Indeed, even nominally Christian groups have piled on in condemnation and urged President Trump to reactivate the refugee programs, as “many of the country’s most prominent refugee resettlement organizations are faith-based” [Where Christian Leaders Stand on Trump’s Refugee Policy, by Emma Green, The Atlantic, January 27, 2017].

Partially, this is because many of these leaders are more interested in virtue-signaling to the MSM than standing up for their supposed brothers and sisters in Christ. But the profit motive should also not be underestimated. “Refugee resettlement” is a lucrative business. Many of these so-called Christians, to coin a phrase, talk a lot about serving God when they are really bowing before Mammon.

Yet we see little MSM interest in these facts. Instead, we get sob stories (some invented out of whole cloth) about how Muslims have been supposedly victimized by not letting them in the country [Fake News: Man Who Claimed Mom Died Due To Trump ‘Ban’ Lied, by Joel Pollak, Breitbart, February 1, 2017].

The only way the MSM’s Narrative makes sense is if you believe America was founded specifically to invite the entire world to settle here.

And that seems to be precisely what the Left is claiming. The indisputably accurate observation that Islamic settler colonization of Europe has inflicted massive cultural change on the Continent, and therefore America should avoid duplicating these policies, garners a “wow just wow” reaction from privileged journalists who seem to believe such statements should be prohibited. As Scott Greer, author of No Campus For White Men, has pointed out, opponents of the travel ban and supporters of Open Borders seem to believe “immigration is the core principle of the United States” and America is “only great because of its newcomers.” Such an interpretation essentially reads the Historic American Nation out of the history of its own country.

Indeed, some supposedly conservative commentators such as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat have made this explicit. He writes that the American story about settling a continent and building a great republic has been transformed into a Narrative about evil whites oppressing everyone. European-Americans were supposed to just quietly die out, but then Donald Trump emerged and spoiled everyone’s plans. Now, Douthat mourns, we have to figure out a way to appease these uppity Anglos without giving them anything substantial:

Trump’s ascent is, in part, an attempt to restore their story to pre- eminence. It’s a restoration attempt that can’t succeed, because the country has changed too much, and because that national narrative required correction. The myth of the “Lost Cause” had to die, the reality of racial wrongs required more acknowledgment, the Judeo-Christian center had to make room for a larger plurality of faiths.

But so far we haven’t found a way to correct the story while honoring its full sweep — including all the white-male-Protestant-European protagonists to whom, for all their sins, we owe so much of our inheritance.

[Who Are We? By Ross Douthat, New York Times, February 4, 2017]

As long-purged National Review Editor John O’Sullivan commented, what Trump did was violate the principle of white dispossession which served as the bedrock of both parties.

Both parties saw it as their responsibility to ensure that this gradual transformation of America’s national identity occurred without violence and undue conflict…[T]his required, and got, a degree of collusion between the parties that took the form of not strongly opposing policies such as affirmative action and not exploiting popular opposition to high levels of immigration and not following through on election promises to do something on such matters. It seemed to work quite well until Donald Trump came along…

[Notes towards the Redefinition of a Nation, National Review, February 9, 2017]

The screams of “no borders, no nation” coming from far-Left protesters is thus not a cry of rebellion, but an affirmation of this pre-Trump Obama-Bush status quo.

And it is their views, not the president’s, that the courts are imposing on the nation. As Horowitz observed in the piece cited above:

Those radicals breaking windows and beating people up in the streets? Those views are not only represented in Congress but are now codified into law and the Constitution by the misconceived supremacy of the judicial branch of government. As I predicted in my book [Stolen Sovereignty: How to Stop Unelected Judges from Transforming America] within a few years (perhaps less), there will be wholesale judicial amnesty for all of the illegal immigrants in this country under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It’s already happening in the lower courts. Last night, it was codified into law by the Ninth Circuit when it said illegals have due process rights (to remain in the country).

From the lowest Antifa guttersnipe to the most dignified jurist, from the foul-mouthed celebrity to the congressmen of the Democratic Party, the American Left is utterly united around the principle of European-American dispossession.

In their view, America is a “proposition nation,” but the new proposition is even worse than that expressed in Emma Lazarus’s insipid poem: it is that the country belongs to everyone except the historic American nation that created it.

The courts, the journalists and the Parasite Class of paid activists are trying to make this proposition unchallengeable.

For the Historic American Nation, the battle has become existential. President Trump must overturn this ruling and break the power of the courts and the Ruling Class.

It’s no longer a battle about protecting the nation from terrorism. It’s about whether we will still have a nation left to protect.

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#1. To: nativist nationalist (#0)

The courts cannot impose their will if the President does not obey.

The Ninth Circuit stated constitutional principles which are not, in fact, in the Constitution, and which it does not, in fact, have the power to enforce.

Were Trump to stand up and state, in a national address, that the Ninth Circuit has violated the Constitution on a matter of national security, and ask Congress to affirm his override of the decision, that will be the other two branches of government standing up the check the rogue third, and the judiciary will find itself subject to joint override by the Executive and Legislative branches thereafter.

Trump cannot be impeached for this: his party controls Congress. The executive agencies will obey Trump, and any civil servant who refuses to can be fired: there is no public union protection for insubordination in civil servants.

The Ninth Circuit has laid the groundwork for a constitutional crisis, and Trump must remember to never let a good crisis go to waste.

Trump has the opportunity right now to establish a veto over the opinions issued by judiciary. He should move very aggressively to do so.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-13   15:38:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Vicomte13, nativist nationalist (#1)

The executive agencies will obey Trump, and any civil servant who refuses to can be fired: there is no public union protection for insubordination in civil servants.

This is not accurate.

Government officials, e.g., postal supervisors, are part of management and are prohibited from being part of a union, and have no union protection.

Civil Service employees, typically GS scale, postal service PS scale, are unionized and the employee protection applies in all cases. Generally, the employee is entitled to 30 days advance notice of termination. If the employee is insubordinate, management may file charges and suspend the employee, placing him on temporary administrative (paid) leave and follow the union grievance procedures set forth in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

There may also be MSPB appeal rights for preference employees. In this case, they remain on the rolls (non-pay status) until after exhaustion of MSPB appeals.

Without doubt Federal employees may be, and are, fired; but management must still jump through hoops. The Union can provide representation to the employee. A representative at an administrative hearing need not be an attorney; for instance, it may be a union steward.

Many, many termination cases are won on appeal. A common defense which proves successful is disparate treatment.

If 1,000 employees engaged in legally indistinguishable insubordination, and an agency decided to terminate some and keep others, it may lead to the terminations being overturned due to disparate treatment. In this case (and it may be years), the employee is returned to his former position and receives back pay and allowances, with interest. It is like he had a very long, paid leave of absence. The cases might be combined into a class action grievance.

Where the employer has reasonable cause to believe the employee is guilty of a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed, then the notice period may be shortened to what is reasonable and can be justified and the removal from paid status begins after the abbreviated notice period.

nolu chan  posted on  2017-02-13   17:44:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: nolu chan (#2)

Who are the adjudicators of the disputes?

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-13   18:37:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Vicomte13 (#3)

Who are the adjudicators of the disputes?

That would vary at what level is being spoken of. At grievance Step 1, it would be a local official. At Step 2 it may be a regional official. At Step 3 it may be at the national office. At an MSBP hearing there could be an ALJ, and for appeal there is the Board. And it can carry on into the courts.

The government has deep pockets and keep going are far as the other side chooses.

In a right to work state, joining the union is optional, but the union is obligated to represent all employees. The union may may represent union members more equally than non-union employees.

nolu chan  posted on  2017-02-13   19:19:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: nativist nationalist (#0)

The claim that non-Americans somehow possess constitutional rights

There is a limited set of rights in the Constitution that apply to all persons in the United States, including non-citizens.

The Constitution itself only applies such rights to people lawfully present in the United States.

In Washington v. Trump, 9th Cir at 4, the Court said:

The Executive order makes several changes to the policies and procedures by which non-citizens may enter the United States.

People seeking to enter the United States are not in the United States.

The finding of standing is also seriously questionable. The complainant need show damage specific to the complainant. The problem is that nobody seeking to enter the United States is a complainant or has any constitutional rights to exert. The complainant is the State of Washington, but finding that the State has sustained any injury is a bit of a stretch.

At 9:

The States argue that the Executive Order causes a concrete and particularized injury to their public universities, which the parties do ot dispute are branches of the States under state law.

At 10:

Specifically, the States allege that the teaching and research missions of their universities are harmed by the Executive Order's effect on their faculty and students who are nationals of the seven affected countries. These students and faculty cannot travel for research, academic collaboartion, or for personal reasons, and their families cannot visit.

Essentially, the State argued that the President cannot keep an alien out of the country if that will result in a state university losing the tuition expected to be paid for the alien's education. Any inconvenience caused by extreme vetting at the point of entry can hardly qualify as concrete and particularized injury to the State.

The whole thing is wordsmithed to reach a desired political result.

nolu chan  posted on  2017-02-14   2:30:22 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Vicomte13 (#1)

" Were Trump to stand up and state, in a national address, that the Ninth Circuit has violated the Constitution on a matter of national security, and ask Congress to affirm his override of the decision, that will be the other two branches of government standing up the check the rogue third, and the judiciary will find itself subject to joint override by the Executive and Legislative branches thereafter. "

That is a battle that is long overdue. If we continue letting the courts have their way, what need is there for the Pres or Congress ?

It is time to bring this boil to a head, and pop it!

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."Theodore Roosevelt-1907.

I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur

Stoner  posted on  2017-02-14   8:53:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Stoner (#6)

That is a battle that is long overdue. If we continue letting the courts have their way, what need is there for the Pres or Congress ?

It is time to bring this boil to a head, and pop it!

I agree. The Republicans control 35 states - one shy of what is necessary to ratify the results from a Constitutional convention without any Democrat party veto or even input. (They can CALL a convention now, with 32 states, but it takes 36 states to ratify.)

Republicans control the White House and both Houses of Congress, and they don't HAVE to let the filibuster block them in the Senate. They COULD simply suspend the rule and turn the Senate into a majority vote body.

They will soon have the federal judiciary back in their control.

If there ever was a time for the Republicans to move with power and speed it is now. The Democrats can't stop them, and the Republicans can blitz on both the federal AND state fronts.

And they have the ability to ignore the courts, if need be, in the interest of speed, until they can seat judges who will ratify what they've done.

The iron will never be hotter. NOW is the time to strike and strike hard!

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-14   9:02:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Vicomte13 (#7)

" The iron will never be hotter. NOW is the time to strike and strike hard! "

Agree. The Congress should go ahead, and break up the 9th Cir, they need to limit the jurisdiction of the Fed Courts ( am pretty sure the Constitution gives them that authority ), and there are many examples of Fed Judges that should be impeached, and removed from the bench.

I would think those could be accomplished in short order. Just need to get Congress to grow a set, and get on with it.

I still have reservations about a Constitutional Convention !!!

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."Theodore Roosevelt-1907.

I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur

Stoner  posted on  2017-02-14   9:25:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: Stoner, A K A Stone, Mayor Levar STONEy, STONE'd Brewery, MUD (#8)

IMPEACH Justices Breyer/Ginsberg/Sotomayor...
Once, TWICE, THREE TIMES until DemRATZ R dispossessed of the SCOTUS!!

RATZ hoo DECREE blatantLEE against the U.S. Constitution R derelict in their DUTY!!

Quite Sincerely...MUD

"Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the US Constitution."

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2017-02-14   9:43:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Stoner (#8)

Agree. The Congress should go ahead, and break up the 9th Cir, they need to limit the jurisdiction of the Fed Courts ( am pretty sure the Constitution gives them that authority ), and there are many examples of Fed Judges that should be impeached, and removed from the bench.

I would think those could be accomplished in short order. Just need to get Congress to grow a set, and get on with it.

But now listen to me carefully here now, because this is the key to the whole thing:

IF the courts are stripped of this power, and the filibuster is taken away, such that the Republicans have plenary power to move ahead, then they have GOT TO FOCUS ON MAKING LIFE A LOT BETTER FOR THE WORKING CLASS AND MIDDLE CLASS.

If all of those changes are made, and the Republicans continue to favor the rich, refuse to curtail "free" trade that offshores jobs, continue to hack away at the social safety net, don't fix Obamacare with a system that still provides coverage for everybody, or continue to favor business over labor in all disputes, then something will happen - the majority of the people will go back to the Democrats.

And then the DEMOCRATS will be in possession of a government that no longer has the checks and balances within it that has slowed down the Republicans.

The PRICE of having a government that moves is that that government has GOT TO MOVE in a populist direction. Republicans CAN hold power for decades, even a century or more IF they cater to the people, the broad back of the people.

IF the Republicans remain "stuck on stupid", meaning they continue to consider the interests of workers to be "mob rule", and focus their favor on the business round table, and cut worker protection, slash the safety net - all those things they have traditionally tried to do but been stopped by the Senate filibuster, then all they will have done is to hand a well-oiled, powerful government with the ability to make rapid change with few controls right back to the Democrats.

And they will use that power fully.

That's the danger of messing with the precedent: lose power, and you've established a new precedent in which you're toothless.

So, if Republicans are going to do this, they had better be prepared to change their philosophy to populist nationalism, like Trump. Because if Republicans remain anti-labor and too pro-business, and they end the various checks and balances precedents, then the next time the Democrats get power they will never lose power again, because Democrats WILL be populists, nothing will hold them back, and they will rapidly move to implement their entire agenda.

All that said, I want the Republicans to rein in the courts, but I realize that this means, in the long run, that the Republicans will have to discipline themselves to stop being such dicks about things that involve helping people. Otherwise they are just slitting their own throats.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-14   11:19:02 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Vicomte13 (#10)

I tend to agree. The problem is the Republicans are rightly known to be the Stupid Party.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."Theodore Roosevelt-1907.

I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur

Stoner  posted on  2017-02-14   11:31:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: Stoner (#11)

The problem is the Republicans are rightly known to be the Stupid Party.

Well, I'd say that they are rightly known as the party of the rich, and Republican POLITICIANS do very well (whether they win re-election or not) by catering to the desires of their rich donors.

It is against the Republican grain to be looking for a way to make universal health care sustainable and affordable, including some level of necessary government subsidy.

It's against the grain, but if Republicans want to keep power they have to change from what they always have been - a party of the rich - into being a more populist party.

If they cannot or will not do that, then the changes they make to the structure of the system - knocking out the filibuster and wiping out judicial review, will merely smooth the way for swift imposition of leftist policies when the Democrats take back over.

And here's the thing: if Republicans cannot delay Democrats, Democrats probably can be redistributionist enough, swiftly enough, to maintain a permanent majority.

For Republicans to not be rolled by Democrats, THEY have to be redistributionist enough to keep the support of the majority of the population.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-14   13:09:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: Vicomte13 (#12)

" For Republicans to not be rolled by Democrats, THEY have to be redistributionist enough to keep the support of the majority of the population. "

Yes, but the establishment Republicans are beholden to the Big Business and Big Money wing, where their donations and orders come from. That is where their loyalty lays .

So, to maintain political control, it sounds as though it is a race to gain control with providing benefits. ( Bread & circuses ). Then, as to the saying that is attributed Alexander Frasure Tyler I think, that once it is discovered society can vote itself funds from the public treasury, that " democracy " will fail. Then the society will implode.

I understand what you are saying. In the current political reality, what you are saying is correct. Let the democrats dominate the socialist direction, and they stay in power. Or, let the Republicans dominate thre socialist direction, and they will stay in power. It may work in the short term. But in the long term, the outlook is not good.

We are screwed.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."Theodore Roosevelt-1907.

I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur

Stoner  posted on  2017-02-16   6:54:07 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: Vicomte13 (#12)

For Republicans to not be rolled by Democrats, THEY have to be redistributionist enough to keep the support of the majority of the population.

2 points.

They don't have to be thieves.

Secondly how can you RE distribute something that was never distributed?

A K A Stone  posted on  2017-02-16   6:59:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: Stoner (#13)

So, to maintain political control, it sounds as though it is a race to gain control with providing benefits. ( Bread & circuses ).

Bread, yes. Also medical care (for everybody), housing (for the homeless), and education (for everybody).

Circuses? No. That's not necessary.

In an urban, post-industrial society people no longer have the option of going back to the farm and starting over. There is no family farm. For the first 6000 years of civilized human history, primary agriculture was the occupation of 85% of humanity, so people could pretty much always go back to the farm.

And in that world, where the overwhelming majority of people had a family farm out there to resort to if things went south, it was possible to provide for people in a downturn through a pot-luck informal charity system - there was no secular, permanent unemployment and no burgeoning ghetto of poverty.

But with industrialization and urbanization, that has all changed. Only about 1% of the population works in agriculture, and most of that is done on large industrial farms. There is no family farm to return to for 99% of the population. There's nowhere people can go back to to live frugally and grow their own food and start again. There's nothing but the street.

Traditional forms of charity were always predicated on the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population lived and worked on farms, that everybody had a family farm, or two or three or four of them, in the family tree to go back to. So widows without family, or orphans, really were people without a safety net under them. Charity could handle that small subset of people.

With urbanization everything changed. The number of people with no farm to go back to, and no land capital, expanded to 70, 80, 90, now 99% of the population. The family farm disappeared. Paying rent to live, with the need for an endless cash income stream to cover it became a feature, and so did mass homelessness in times of downturns.

Before, most families ate from the food they grew, and exchanged the excess for variety. But now, nobody grows anything, and everybody needs a constant stream of cash to eat. So before, farm poverty meant a dirt floor and bland food and no luxury at all, but today, poverty means homelessness and hunger and nothing to eat at all, and no family on the farm to provide it.

The problem is fundamentally different than it was in biblical times, or colonial times. Since 1900, the economic structures are nothing at all like they were in the ages before that. And when the economic downturns came in the 20th Century, people literally starved and froze. And rebelled - violent revolutions occurred precisely BECAUSE traditional charity DID not, and COULD NOT, cover the needs of a desperate unemployed urban population. Things had changed, and pretending they had not is WHY the Tsar and his family were all shot and Communists took over Russia and China, Nazis took over Germany and Fascists took over Italy and Spain, Portugal, Argentina, etc.

There is a wild unreality to the idea that churches can handle the problems of modern poverty. They do not have anything close to the resources to feed and house and clothe, on an ongoing basis, 20% of the population. It's not possible. IT WAS TRIED, everywhere, and it FAILED. Smart places, like England and France and Holland and Scandinavia, and America, realized that government was the only organizing force with the power to be able to address the problem, because it had the power to tax to pay for it.

Other countries refused to change their traditions, and so their governments were all overthrown by either Communists or Fascists, because the traditional Christian charity-based system CANNOT WORK IN MODERN CONDITIONS. There is TOO MUCH poverty, and there are TOO FEW Christians, and the burdens are TOO GREAT. The Churches cannot handle it, there is mass starvation and homelessness, and people do not peacefully stand by and die: they revolt.

And armies are drawn from the lower classes, not the upper, so when the lower classes are on the verge of rebellion because they are hungry, if the authorities turn to the army to shoot them down to keep order, the army is being asked to shoot their own relatives. Usually they shoot down the government officials instead. That is the history in 100+ countries that would not adjust to reality.

That is not OUR history BECAUSE we adopted social welfare through the state. We teetered on the brink of right wing and left wing revolutions, but we didn't go either way, choosing instead to remain a capitalist democracy WITH A SOCIAL WELFARE STATE, because THAT is the true choice in urban societies. You can do it the way that we, and the Canadians and French and British and Low Countries and Scandinavia do it, and have peace, liberty and permanently high taxes to pay for it - OR you can have various forms of Naziism of Fascism, like so many dictatorships - OR you can have Communist dictatorships. What you CAN'T have is a traditional Christian agrarian society with traditional Church-run charity covering the needs, in a modern industrialized urban society. 100 countries have tried that, including ours, and it failed. It failed and the countries faced social unrest, civil war and revolution.

The countries that went for social welfare, like we did, retained freedom, retained freedom of religion, retained SOME Christian charity, but had the state step in to provide the 85% of social spending that the Churches cannot provide. The countries that refused went Communist or Nazi, had mass death and mass misery, and war, and eventually were dragged back by the civilized world - us - whose model works better.

That is reality. To assert that the Churches can handle poverty relief is a fantasy, an evil and foolish fantasy because the world DID THAT, for half a century, and ended up in bloody world wars and revolutions. It doesn't work. The economic conditions of the Bible NO LONGER EXIST. If we pretend that they do - and the Russians and Chinese and Vietnamese and Koreans and Cubans and Venezuelans and so many others DID pretend that because the government refused to get involved in poverty relief - the result was violent revolution and Communism or Fascism.

Social Welfare - permanent, heavy taxation for a permanent, heavy social welfare state - is the PRICE for peaceful, stable, free capitalist countries. It cannot be done otherwise, because the Churches at their best could not provide even a fifth of the level of resources needed, when there was no income tax at all. A 10% tithe works in a country where 95% of people are farmers. It does not work in a country where 99% of people are not. That's us. For OUR conditions, the tithe needs to be more than 30%, and people simply will not give that much voluntarily. They will not. They never, ever did, and they won't now, especially now that only half of people are religious.

The social safety net has to be provided by the state, because only the state has the taxing power to obtain the resources to provide it, and the amount of money it takes to keep the entire population from starving or being illiterate is about 30% of the economy far, FAR more than anybody will voluntarily give. Taxes aren't voluntary.

Where people are left to give only what they WANT to give, you have mass starvation and homelessness and desperation. And you either address that by going to social welfare, or you decide to stick it out "on principle"...and end up having a bloody Communist or Fascist revolution.

We have seen this over and over and over, in 100 countries over 100 years. America has found the best mix. It 's not ideal, but it's better than the alternatives. It is not realistic to believe we can live in peace and prosperity without a social welfare state. Nor is it realistic to believe that we can have peace and prosperity if, INSTEAD of providing social welfare, we arm up with a brutally repressive police force to hold the poor in check. That's Latin America - and it ends in revolution or fascism.

That's why "Bread and Circuses" is a very inapt phrase. Bread was not the issue in Rome. It was the circuses. Expensive, bloody spectacles and feasts for the denizens of Rome. Had the state merely contented itself with feeding everybody the Roman state would have been at peace, and it would not have gone broke. Agile politicians went for more than that - MUCH more - and sought to provide every form of illicit and perverse entertainment to the Roman citizenry, to keep them entertained.

Our government does not do that. There is the occasional local tax break for a stadium, but we're not paying taxes for sports and spectacles. We do the bread part, and we have to.

The argument SHOULD be about how to get universal health insurance to everybody efficiently, how to improve universal public education, how to keep the factories here so people are employed so that we don't NEED as much social welfare. Instead, the argument is foolish - with one side arguing we shouldn't have social welfare AT ALL. That's crazy and stupid, and it gives the other side a massive political advantage.

Trump won BECAUSE he is talking about protectionism to bring back factory jobs to America. People out of work for the most part WANT their jobs back, they WANT to work, not dependent on threadbare welfare.

That a substantial portion of the Right has STILL not reconciled themselves to the need for social welfare a full century after the Russian and Mexican Revolutions is a tragedy, because it cedes a permanent advantage to the American Democratic Party, and means that the Democrats always get back into power due to the lack of realism by the Republicans.

Trumpism is a real effort to make Republicanism popular, by focusing on the needs of working class people. If the Republicans can effect this shift, they will make themselves the permanent majority.

The social welfare state cannot be killed - it is NECESSARY. But it could be a LOT better managed, not to be crueler and harsher and more judgmental - precisely the sort of nonsense that the Right loves too much - but to be better run, and aimed at getting more of the help into the hands of those who need it with fewer public employee administrators. Democrats have an incentive to not just get the social aid out there, gaining the votes of the people getting the aid, but to make the government as enormous as possible in the process, gaining the votes of the public employees unions and the power that comes from a large state model.

The danger for Republicans in all of this lies in the fact that they STILL have not reconciled themselves ideologically to the NECESSITY of social welfare. The Founders ABHORRED large standing armies, but the necessities of the modern world have caused the Right to become comfortable with the reality that large, permanent, expensive standing armies are necessary to the survival of the American state. That's true - they are - and the Right has adjusted to that reality and no longer seriously argues that we need to respect the Founder's Original Intent and dissolve most of the military.

But the Right has still not grown up and accepted reality regarding social welfare. They still dream of a world in which Churches can provide all the social welfare we need, and we really just need to stop paying for the social safety net and return that responsibility "Where it belongs". That world, though, is gone with the wind. It's gone with the agrarian society that could support that simple of a model.

Social welfare, American style, is not bread and circuses. It's bread. Just bread. And it is as necessary to the peace and liberty of America as the large US military is. We will have a bloody Communist revolution in this country if we do away with the social welfare state and throw it back on the states, and coming out of that revolution we will either be communists, or we will be nazis. We will be poorer and less free, and the Churches will be rapidly destroyed by it too, because if the amount of money the churches had to pull from people to provide social welfaee multiplied by five, people would just stop paying it and stop going to church.

The only way that a modern state can successfully operate is with a social welfare budget that costs about a third of the GDP. That's what it costs to educate everybody, medicate everybody, and to be sure that nobody ever starves for freezes.

The alternatives are Naziism or Communism, which are more expensive and which crush everybody else's liberty to zero.

The centrists get this. The Right does not. And this is the political Achilles' Heel of the Right - the reason why all of this power that Trump is amassing to get his policies done will end up in Democrat hands. TRUMP understands the need for social welfare, universal health insurance, and protectionist tarriffs to keep the jobs in America SO THAT we don't have to expand the social welfare state.

Too many people on the Right are children in their thinking who do not, and who WILL not, see that all of these things are fundamentally linked.

Therefore, Trump will succeed, and will amass the power, centralizing it more, to get done what he needs to get done. He'll end up popular because people will be back to work. But then he'll leave, and the Republicans will turn back to the farther Right, back to catering to the rich at the expense of the working class, and that will hand all of that power concentrated back into the hands of the Democrats. And they will use it aggressively to establish a socialist state that won't be able to be taken back again.

So, the time has come for Republicans and the Right to GROW UP and stop eternally hating the social welfare state. Christianity cannot carry that burden - it's too high - and Christianity did not grow up in a world that HAD that burden. The agricultural world of Jesus was not like the urban industrial world of today. Religious people have to stop pretending that it is. The state has to provide education, health care and the safety net against starvation and homelessness. It has to do it on a continual basis, and that costs about a third of the GDP, which has to be collected through taxes, which are by their nature involuntary.

The alternatives are socialism, communism or fascism, and those all ALSO collect taxes, but ALSO crush out all personal liberty. Bad trade.

It's a trade the the Right seems to want to make too much, because they refuse to open their eyes to reality.

Bread - yes. Circuses? No. This isn't Rome. We don't pay for circuses. Public schools, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, HUD, food stamps - these are not circuses. They are necessities.

Strip them, and you will need massively increased police and armed forces to contain the violence. And police are three times as expensive as social welfare, and they attaint personal liberty of everybody. A bad choice.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-16   10:00:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: Vicomte13 (#15)

" Circuses? No. That's not necessary. "

Well, we already have circuses, or if you will, opiates for the masses. It is called NBA, NFL, College Sports, Daytime TV, etc, etc.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."Theodore Roosevelt-1907.

I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur

Stoner  posted on  2017-02-16   10:23:18 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: Stoner (#16) (Edited)

" Circuses? No. That's not necessary."

Well, we already have circuses, or if you will, opiates for the masses. It is called NBA, NFL, College Sports, Daytime TV, etc, etc.

True. But none of those things are paid for by taxes. They are commercial enterprises.

Vicomte13  posted on  2017-02-16   10:30:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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