Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I Like That "Can't Be Trusted" Line...

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.
— Barack Hussein Obama
Commencement Speech, Ohio State University

• FAST AND FURIOUS, where elements of the United State government, including the State and Justice departments, facilitate gun-running into Mexico to create a firestorm against United States gun laws. Two American agents are killed and literally hundreds of Mexican nationals, including women and children, are slaughtered by the smuggled guns. No resolution, and as recently as last week B-Ho once again repeated the now-discredited trope that, "American guns are responsible for crime in Mexico."

• BENGHAZI, where an American ambassador and 3 American citizens, including 2 former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, are killed while the full power of America sits on the sidelines without taking action. Elements of the U.S. government, including the State Department and probably the White House launch a massive cover-up to protect the "Al Qaeda is on the run" narrative just weeks before what appears to be a close election.

• ROGUE BILLIONAIRE Michael Bloomberg launches a major campaign to subvert state and local legislators with threats (the threat of a fully financed primary challenge from the left) and massive campaign contributions (both in cash and "administrative help"), all focused on having state and local legislators "ignore their constituents" and vote the fascistic Bloomberg line. 

• IRS ENEMIES LIST, where arguably the most powerful and feared agency of the U.S. government reveals they were targeting conservative groups such as the Tea Party and other groups who were perceived as against the present Administration.

• JUSTICE DEPARTMENT "RAIDS" THE ASSOCIATED PRESS phone lines. Despite the fact that the Mainstream Media have been little more than cheerleaders or apologists for the Administration, Eric Holder's Justice Department issues secret subpoenas on AP, sending a chill through even the lapdog MSM and supporters of the First Amendment.

And on and on...the disaster of ObameCare, passed by a clever legalistic "trick" rather than a heads-up vote ....crippling government regulation enacted without public input or Congressional oversight... the continual lies from Eric Holder, from Hillary Clinton, from Obama himself...more than four years of a vicious, cynical campaign, headed by Barack Obama himself, to turn black against white, rich against poor, American against American!

Maybe it's time for us to maybe spend a couple of minutes looking at history, then ask ourselves the most important question of our, and maybe America's, lifetime...how is it that the tyranny referenced by B-Ho in his commencement address begins? We Americans live in a country that might be best described as the "Great Anomaly," a stable representative democracy. Even our most contentious national elections, think Bush versus Gore, don't end up with tanks in the street.

But there's a catch...the incredible "machine" built by the Founders' genius only works if its citizens believe it works. The reason the tanks aren't in the street is that despite the white hot flaming rhetoric we believe that at its core the system itself is honest, that the elements of change will work for both sides. Central to that believe is that the instruments of government are not used as a weapon against its citizens...that is the signature of tyranny.

Because we are citizens of the Great Anomaly, we have only a distant, and distracted, view of tyranny. We imagine that history's monsters, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hussein, Amin, Milosovic, Mussolini, Hilter, are somehow the modern incarnation of the vampires of lore, that at some point the citizens of those respective benighted countries answered the midnight knock on the door and invited the great vampire to step over the threshold.

But as even a casual reader of vampire lore will recognize, vampires are not just tricky, but subtle. They understand at an albeit mutated DNA level what constitutes an "invitation," and they're quick to step across thresholds. So we come back to our question, "How is it that the tyranny referenced in B-Ho's commencement address — a tyranny that the President assures us is of course not lurking around the corner — begins?" At what point does the vampire step across the threshold and into our home?

I'm going to send you to Charles Cooke's headlining piece in today's NRO to prove that I'm not completely insane here, and his thoughts align with mine:
“Paranoia is just having the right information,” William S. Burroughs once observed. We have that information. Who can look at the 20th century with a cold eye and conclude that the problem was that people were “too fearful” of their governments? Who will claim that our blood-drenched last hundred years was the product of people insisting too emphatically that they must retain their liberties? Who will claim that the great flaw of the last century was that the people were armed — or able to speak freely? Most important, who will claim that the progressive conception of government has proved superior to that of the Founders? 
The news that the IRS was targeting pro-Constitution groups with “patriot” and “tea party” in their titles is almost implausibly ironic. But that the IRS was “targeting” anyone is flatly unacceptable. Herein lies the silver lining: By reminding its citizenry that government tyranny is not an abstract concept, the IRS has done America a considerable favor. “Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then,” wrote Philip K. Dick in A Scanner Darkly. Indeed. Next time an authoritarian explains how, say, a national gun registry will be just swell — and labels its naysayers as neurotic — his opponents will have a new and useful shorthand: “IRS scandal.”
If history teaches us anything, it's that for we struggling humans, the vampire is always outside the door, always asking its singular question: "May I come in?"


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Been enjoying your writings on here for quite awhile from the sidelines... I have to say this has to be one of my favorites. Good stuff, Thanks.
PS. please straighten out your state in the near future. My wife and I just finished last year's elk and they do not sell OTC tags in SE Iowa.

clark myers said...

As is being pointed out all over the voices pointing out the risks of tyranny include many of the founding fathers of this noble experiment in self government.

I'd guess the college students are being told to ignore things like The Federalist Papers and maybe even never to see the musical 1776?

When the Speaker of the Colorado House is being interviewed on Colorado Public Radio and claims a special expertise on high capacity clips with no comment from the radio host the reign of folly is upon us.

Anonymous said...

You live in a country where the Govt regulates how much water you can use to flush a turd .
If you have an old "high capacity tank" and transfer it to any one else you will be fined or jailed, the same as any other illegal substance .
The tyranny is here .
Tom Bogan
Laconia NH

Anonymous said...

As far as believing in the system, if Obama is what the "Birthers" claim, it makes the party that ran him negligent in doing their due diligence and vetting of candidates. This would mean a fraud was committed by the party. One half of the national body politic is corrupt. I don't want to believe that. I may be naieve, but that is a very scary idea.

nj larry said...

I find that most of my profound knowledge comes from movies that date prior to 1960.

With regard to your post, Forbidden Planet serves me best as the template. The vampire isn't outside, it is inside us all. "The monster from the id."

Call it original sin (which our Founders knew all about), the id, or plain old biological realism that a homo sapien is one nasty son of a b*&^h. A meat eating species that whittled down the evolutionary tree by murder and cannibalism. The Founders were looking for some way to contain the beast. Hence all the counter balancing mechanisms.

The evil that lies within, is within everyone. We are all capable of playing the role of tyrant. I try to remember that the worst of Barry is in me also. Its an ugly thought I know, but its the truth.

Only more reason to be hyper-vigilant. No one is to be totally trusted.

DamDoc said...

I am getting minor jollys, if any can be had in the predicament America finds itself, watching carnaval barker Carney getting slapped around by the press corps. The escapades of Dear Leader and his minions is not original sin, and I, for one dont think this is in all of us...this is pure evil, Chicago gangster crime. Pure and as blatent as i have ever witnessed. There is no way Barry's actions should be minimized as being "in all of us". Equivacation like that is the problem with this country right now.

Andrew West said...

OK. obama then give us some power to trust us with. starting with telling us the true scope and powers of the patriot act. every phone call is now stored and is accessible to the fbi. the cats out of the bag, why cant he address this publicly? If thats not irony?

Anonymous said...

"Fast and Furious" has slipped into obscurity already. It shows that if you stone-wall long enough, the issue will go away. Notice that we here are the only ones listing it with the current scandals. Even conservative media seems to have forgotten all about it.

The same strategy of stone-walling is being put to use with all of the new scandals. Just watch the master, B-HO do his work. He will mesmerize the gullible "useful idiots" back into complacency.

I don't think that the "AP" scandal will keep its "legs" either. The liberal news media will return to being Obama's cheerleader. Just watch.

We can't give up here. We need to all get further involved.

Life Member

P. S.: The anti-gun people are very much at work, as this is other stuff is going on. They're depending on the distraction to keep our eyes off of what they're up to. Keep an eye on them.

Jkwas said...

And don't forget dissmissing the charges against the new black panthers for voting intimidation in phila. after they were already convicted.

Anonymous said...

It's up to the people who are not happy with the current elected officials to make changes by :

Remaining vigilant and vocal to Congress

Be an informed voter in 2014 and 2016

Encourage like-minded associates to do the same