Who Is For the People?
by Clyde N. Wilson
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I have watched half a dozen documentaries by leftist critics of the Iraq War. They are generally well done and marshal telling evidence that reveals the unprecedented sliminess of Bush and his handlers. Nevertheless, they totally lack honesty and credibility. The word “Israel” does not appear a single time in any of these shows, even during discussion of the Neocons. In fact, one would never know that that country exists so far as the presentations go. In each case they seek to leave the impression that the fighting and suffering is mainly being done by black people and other minorities. And in every case, they work from the assumption that Americans are obligated to spread goodness around the world—they just want to do it in a different way. These Liberals are no more capable of focusing upon a realistic pursuit of the well-being of the real, living American people than the idiot Republicans they skewer.
This goes a ways, I think, toward explaining why it has been impossible for the Democrats to do anything to restrain the war. In fact, it goes a long way toward explaining why American political discourse is so utterly debased and incapable of identifying any genuine solution to any problem. We have an environmental debate between fanatic tree-huggers on the one hand and corporate looters on the other. Where is the sane argument for Christian stewardship? Both sides are crazed with abstractions, unquestioned false pieties, and short-sighted self-interest. Remember the two vigorous opposing sides in the Vietnam expedition? Neither side considered what was good for the American people, only what was appropriate for foreign ventures, which are a given. Our rulers have no past and no sense of a posterity to be cared for. American society, as such, no longer exists as a political reference point. No wonder the living American people are being openly displaced by aliens with the connivance of the entire national establishment. You will have a hard time preserving something that doesn’t exist.
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1 Comment by robert m. peters on 2 September 2008:
Dr. Wilson:
Your words:
“Our rulers have no past and no sense of a posterity to be cared for. American society, as such, no longer exists as a political reference point.”
The notion of the autonomous individual, an abstraction raised to ultimate “reality” in the Enlightenment and imbued with “abstract rights” is what “we” now are in the 21 century. The only thing which post-modernist thinkers have done for us is to point out that the “autonomous individual” has become the “alienated individual.”
We have become a collective of alienated individuals whining and agitating in one form or another for the “abstract rights” which we are said to have. The political parties and the ideological factions, claiming to be left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, are actually, in terms of the Enlightenment, both “liberals,” attempting to identify and ride to power on the fickle trends they think to see or which they can engender in the paradox of the collective of alienated individuals.
Religion, art and even fundamental human relations have no context: pagan or Christian we are born, if we are lucky enough not to get aborted, with no obligation the the gods or God; we are born with neither expectation of or obligation to parents, with the norm seeming to be that a father has been replaced by a sperm donor, and mother is a gal, if she did not abort us, who is out doing her own thing – getting welfare, going on Oprah or being Brittany Spears. Church is a place, among many, if we ever go there, were we go to “fellowship” with other autonomous beings; the Church is no longer the Body and the Bride of Christ which comes together to commune with the Creator. His presence would likely be an impediment to our “fellowshipping.”
At the heart of our frantic endeavors is a void, an utter essencelessness. There is no legacy and therefore there is no heritage; nothing to be preserved and nothing to be nurtured in stewardship. Actually, stewardship has no context in the modern/post-modern word; for God is to the autonomous/alienated man dead. There is no Ultimate Owner who entrusts stewardship. Husbands are no longer His stewards of their wives and children. Households are no longer the stewards of the community. The Church has ceased to be, so it seems, the steward of the sacred, having completely abandoned it in some cases or having given it over to the state.
So, yes, we are indeed having a hard time preserving that which does not exist.
2 Comment by Roy Tripp on 2 September 2008:
I think it was Alexander Solzhenitsyn who once said that each person has 3 choices when dealing with matters of truth and justice.
1. They can give up and say it’s too difficult.
2. They can accept the current norm and go with the crowd.
3. They can speak the truth and suffer for doing it.
I think that most journalists/politicians fall into the first 2 groups and as such the truth is rarely spoken.
This is a most shameful state for man to be in. “Men without Chests” as C.S Lewis referred to it.
3 Comment by Chris on 3 September 2008:
Robert M. Peters, very nicely written.
4 Comment by Michael Yoder on 3 September 2008:
I would second Mr. Peter’s comments and also Mr. Tripp’s. America is reaping the “whirlwind” of the Enlightenment and our separation from God.
5 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 3 September 2008:
As usual, a provocative post from Dr. W.
There’s a lack of concreteness on both sides. Each is wedded to abstract propositions. Too much reliance on multi-guess tests and book learning have given us a bicoastal élite composed of people who never had a paper route, never learned to use hand tools, and haven’t carried a lunch bucket since fifth grade. They certainly haven’t dressed a moose, or even a rabbit. Of course they’re Gnostics; they’ve never experienced incarnation, least of all their own. (I include myself, but I’ve lived long enough to understand a bit).
As the old Wobbly song said, “Chop some wood, ’twill do you good.”
6 Comment by Robert on 3 September 2008:
Professor Wilson writes :
“Our rulers have no past and no sense of a posterity to be cared for. American society, as such, no longer exists as a political reference point. No wonder the living American people are being openly displaced by aliens with the connivance of the entire national establishment.”
“To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing.” Blessed Pier Frassati.
Dr. Wilson,
Maybe America still exists, but only with a Death Rattle.
7 Comment by woodcutter on 3 September 2008:
Robert Peters very good observations! Thanks
8 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:
It’s the same with communism with the recent conflict in Georgia no one seems to mention that communism was a Jewish movement and every tier of the Bolshevik government had senior Jewish officials including its most nefarious mass murderers and made up the bulk of its administrative bodies KGB, Gulags, press, etc.
9 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 3 September 2008:
To paraphrase ‘ol Churchill: “Never have so few done so much damage to so many”.
This of course refers to the Zionists and their enablers.
In another forum there was a debate on the intelligence if Jews, based on the number international prizes awarded to the members of that tribe.
Consensus had it that this was primarily due to the clannishness, backed by bribery, and supported by threats. Singlemindedness of purpose is also a major contributing factor.
My contribution to that debate was: “If Jews are so damn smart how come everything they touch (in matters of public policy) turns to s**t”?
H.F. Wolff
10 Comment by Dan S on 3 September 2008:
Sarah Palin appears to embody an amazing number of classic American virtues. That the media venomously and instinctively despises her on every count confirms Dr. Wilson’s comment that we have succumbed to an alien influence, all the more insidious as it hides behind the shield of victimhood.
11 Comment by Phiz on 3 September 2008:
American policy is sold to the highest bidder, which for the past thirty years has been the Israeli lobby.
No presidential candidate ambivalent towards Israel will ever be elected, since politcal parties are dependent on the financial support of American Jews. We all know that with enough money a rabid squirrel could become president.
12 Comment by acartwils on 3 September 2008:
Makes me wonder why more people aren’t flocking to third-party canidacies and away from the ridiculous false dichotomy presented by the media and ruling parties.
However, even if Americans starting voting in large numbers outside the major parties, would the voting machine results even report it?
13 Comment by robert m. peters on 3 September 2008:
acartwils @ 11
Voting is, in my understanding, the last refuge of fools. The only real way to control a general government is through a powerful counter force of sovereign states willing to exercise interposition, nullification and ultimately secession.
On a personal level, free holders have long since given up their rights, obligations and sanctions as well as the will to enforce it which the barons of old articulated against Prince John.
Thus, the tyrants of today allow us to believe that we are in charge, when after they have vetted the choices, they invite us to cast a ballot or to vote. This “vote” which they “give” is a two-edged sword for them: it placates on the one hand, and it is a weapon in their never-ending quest for the “Utopia of equality” which they use to destroy the natural commonwealths of family, local community and republican state polity.
In this scripted tyranny, a third party now and again has about as much force as a minnow fart in backwater.
14 Comment by ural haines on 3 September 2008:
All true enough Mr. Peters, but if a large segment of the electorate were to cast their votes for Third Party candidates, would that not at least make life a little less pleasant for establishment politicians and their armies of operatives inside and outiside the Beltway? You can’t deny that Ross Perot inspired a little fear in the DNC and RNC back in ‘92, enough so that both parties’ members in Congress and the White House were forced to seriously address one of Perot’s core issues (balancing the budget).
Likewise, if (by some miracle) Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr were to garner 10% + of the vote this year, might Congress have to give more weight to what the general public wants the next time they take up illegal immigrant amnesty? And a strong showing by 3rd parties this year might lead to the formation of other political movements even more troubling to the political orthodoxy – such as parties calling for regional secession!
15 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 3 September 2008:
Somewhere I read a study on American voting habits.
I seem to recall that the premise was that Americans want to be perceived as having backed a “winner”, regardless of whether that candidate represented the voter’s interests or not. It certainly appears to explain what has happened in recent memory.
Personally I vote for the candidate I believe to best represent my electoral district, ideally an independent of similar socio-economic background.
It is my opinion that the ideal government is one in which the ruling party holds a MINORITY position, and the balance of power resting in the hands of independents.
Probably not a long-term solution but it may concentrate the political parties’ heavy thinkers that the voter does matter.
H.F. Wolff
16 Comment by robert m. peters on 3 September 2008:
ural haines @ 13
In my understanding, which I continue to inform the best I can with the resources available to me, the end of the leviathan, the empire or playground of inscrutable elites – whatever we would call it – will not likely come to an end or be meaningfully reformed through the ballot or some third party action. Its end will definitely come; however, as prophet as to when and under what circumstances I cannot say. There will likely be an unanticipated nexus of fiscal, economic, political, demographic and even military actions which herald and bring about the end. Whether or not we are aware of the fall, ready for the fall and have the courage to act in the fall such that something better rather than something worse, perhaps much worse, comes of it remains to be seen. I suppose that institutes like the Rockford Institute and publications like Chronicles exist to assist us in being aware, in being ready and in acquiring the requisite courage.
17 Comment by Robert Bruce on 3 September 2008:
Come on folks!!!!!! Voting is America today is no different than voting for your Class President in HS. In 2000 my dad relayed to me a story of how a young woman that worked in his building at the Ford complex in Dearborn MI told him she was going to vote for Gore just because she thought he was “cute”. Needless to say my dad’s jaw almost dropped at this remark. The average American doesn’t follow politics, has no notion about their political system, or their history for that matter. They vote for the best looking, the best BSer, or just against the incumbent if times are tough. I know blacks at work that are going to vote for Obama just because Bush “sucks” and Obama is a black man. Not much going on in the thought processes of most Americans. In short, the political system is a bad joke because the intelligence of America as a whole is alos a bad joke.
18 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 4 September 2008:
I think it was an American politico that said: “You can never underestimate the intelligence of the average American voter!”
H.F. Wolff
19 Comment by Tom Jacobsen on 4 September 2008:
If there is a solution to our problems, it won’t be found in the mass media. Any part of it, really, because all of the major media companies have strong ties to the federal government. In exchange for parroting the government’s lines about politics and such, the media companies get kick backs (subsidies) in the amount of many millions of dollars annually. There’s no money in the truth.
It’s a bad situation. I guess the only thing we can do is wait for the money to run out, and while waiting, prepare ourselves for the changes to come after that.
#13, I don’t think there’s any chance of an independent candidate winning a big chunk of the votes. If anything, the media is even more oligarchic than it used to be. Ross Perot ran for office over 15 years ago, and his success can’t be duplicated today.
20 Comment by MAP on 5 September 2008:
Last I heard, only about 1/3 of the population votes. The rest are simply too frustrated, dismayed and disillusioned to bother. And this is the system we will bring to the globe, by force if necessary? It seems a fact of human nature that those caught up in abstract idiotology see success where there is only failure.
21 Comment by robert m. peters on 5 September 2008:
Last evening, I brought myself to watch Mr. McCain’s speech before the GOP’s national convention.
It was all there, in the speech: Lincoln’s propositional nation, “a city on a hill,” the “founding” as articulated in Jefferson’s decontextualized “…endowed by our Creator ….,” the ghost of Reagan – the entire fable or fiction.
From my humble perspective, McCain recast the GOP in his image. He is now the GOP and that which is not he is not the GOP – at the very least for public consumption. He and his stalking horse, Mrs. Palin, are coming to Washington. The effects of Mrs. Palin are actually quite interesting. No few folks in my circle of acquaintances, although they have been suckered time and again to vote GOP, have been wary of McCain, not unlike ducks, to stay with the stalking horse metaphor, which are apprehensive at the approach of some menacing figure; however, with Mrs. Palin has quelled their apprehensions. Foolish ducks!
22 Comment by Michael Hill on 5 September 2008:
The elites will not stop until they are forced to stop by equal or superior power. Do you think they would surrender power based on something as inconsequential as an election? Do you think they will listen to reason, admit that they have acted wrongly, and return power to the sovereign States and the people thereof? Not no, but hell no!
The alien class and ideology that now runs America will be stopped only when we reduce the equation to its simplest form. That is why Michael Collins is one of my heroes.
23 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 7 September 2008:
@16 Robert
I can top that! In 1986 a woman on the Fairfax City Republican Committee proudly stated that in 1988 she would vote for George “Herbert Hoover” Bush because Barbara would make a lovely first lady. And to think that women threw themselves under the king’s horse to get the right to vote!
24 Comment by Livy on 7 September 2008:
Too much of anything, including voting rights, is demonstrably harmful.
The idea that a person should be entitled to cast a vote for electing leaders merely because they have reached a certain biological age is about as thoughtful as the idea that society should terminate people’s lives after they have reached a certain subsequent biological age (regardless of their state of health) because we all know that they’re “gonna die anyway”…
25 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 8 September 2008:
#23Livy:
I like that thinking, despite the near impossibility of selling it to Joe/Jane Q. Public.
Here is an alternative, it is entitled “The Seventh Vote”.
While not original with me, here is the essence:
-upon reaching the age of majority the CITIZEN obtains 1 vote
-upon completing secondary education a 2. vote is awarded
-upon completion of undergraduate degree a 3. vote is earned
-upon marriage with children a 4. and 5. vote is awarded based on # of children (reduces requirements for immigrants)
-upon owning property AND paying property taxes a 6. vote is awarded
- for extraordinary service to the nation a 7. vote may be awarded by parliament
Mix and match as conditions apply or needed.
It certainly gets away from the idea that a “cave” dweller has the same power with his vote as a family man with an engineering degree raising 5 children and paying income, property, sales, & school taxes. And later university tuition. (a real-life case but not mine, and no, I am not the cave dweller).
Brings a whole new meaning to meritocracy, right?
H.F. Wolff
26 Comment by MAP on 9 September 2008:
H.F. Wolff, this was a contention and law of the South. But like so much else, it was overruled and the present system was imposed by those living elsewhere.
27 Comment by Livy on 9 September 2008:
@26 MAP – I believe the property qualification for voting originated and existed much earlier in several different western nations, including the US, prior to the mid 19th century, after which it was abolished almost everywhere in fit of madness in favor of near-universal manhood suffrage.
@25 H.F. Wolff – yes, the idea that most modern citizens cast meaningful votes has been rightfully questioned in many places, even the academic world. I’m not a cave dweller either – 3 kids, 2 degrees, 1 house. Could you imagine the outrage if someone today suggested that some ordinary people might have a legitimate right to more “say” in decisions affecting the country’s future than others? Those outraged people are probably the ones who also want to limit campaign contributions.
I like your idea, though.
28 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 9 September 2008:
#27 Livy:
Multiple “say” is available in Canada for municipal voting.
I don’t know the exact particulars because it doesn’t apply to me (I run a sole proprietorship home-based professional business), but if I owned a commercial building in the city and a separate residence, I would be entitled to two votes I believe. ( 1 honours degree, 2 sons, 1 house & shed, only small caves in the neighbourhood).
Just thinking out loud: I wonder if this multiple vote premise could be the basis for a new political party? Would need to find someone to finance a trial balloon. Anybody out there with serious cash looking for a home???
H.F. Wolff
29 Comment by jabo37 on 9 September 2008:
Before this current campaign began, a poll indicated over 30% of adult Americans were ready to entertain the idea of a third party. With the first coming of Obama, all that talk went qway. Now the GOP has added Sarah to its ticket, and attracted many of those who were ready to bypass the election.
The biggest fault for not keeping the third party ideal alive belongs to panderers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who shill unashamedly for the GOP (they may complain, but watch where they come down as election day approaches). The greatest service those clowns could have provided is to keep harping on what they disapprove of in the GOP, and telling their listeners and viewers tht real reform has to begin with a viable third party.
Just think, if a real choice were offered, the 30% might start to migrate toward it. It would have a real chance, maybe not this year, but in an election cycle or two.
But as Sean has been telling us for the last three or so elections: This election is the most critical of our life times. Vote for the establishment. Well, what has that gotten us so far?
Read the platforms of the various parties: Republican, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, and Constitution, for starters. Vote your conscience, not for a party that has a chance. If we’d all do that, the GOP would be history in an election or two (maybe even sooner).
I’m voting Constitution, but what I’d really prefer is a Christian Libertarian party based on classic Catholic thinking. Outlaw the most socially harmful actions, such as murder, theft, fraud, abortion, and the like, but tolerate most other sins as Aquinas recommended, such as prostitution (and today, drugs), not because they’re less bad, but because outlawing them might cause more harm than tolerating them. Give us a strong defense (to protect our people and borders, not to export our way of life), a sound money system for the stability it offers, and for the most part, leave us alone. Taking care of each other is our job, not that of the Government.
Never lose sight of the meaning of life (why we’re here on earth in the first place): to serve God in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next. This is for each of us to work out for ourselves, but each of us should never lose sight of that fact.