Ignorant Armies: Final Thoughts on the Election
by Thomas Fleming
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This election is too tedious a farce to deserve a serious editorial, but since I wake up every morning with a few complaints that I inflict upon my family, I may as well subject my readers to some of them.
Watching McCain on the news or in a commercial, I become convinced that he is the most evil piece of selfishness who has ever run for the presidency, but my disgust quickly ebbs away when the simpering Obama takes the stage. I can understand people who vote for McCain’s resume or support him as the lesser of two evils, but I no longer want to know anyone who votes for Obama for any reason. He is an enemy of anything good that has ever been done in this country or this civilization, and when he is elected, I hope that all those Silicon Valley libertarians who supported him will live to see their property confiscated and their kids sent to reeducation camps. Yes, that is mean-spirited and unChristianm but it is unsettling to realize that you have lived among such monsters for so long without grasping the depth of their depravity and stupidity.
The McCain people are apparently too stupid to pin Obama as a Marxist. When Obama answers the charge that he favors redistribution of wealth by giving his cute line about sharing his cookie in kindergarten, all McCain had to do was to point out that Obama is not planning to share his cookies but ours. Poor Rush Limbaugh cannot believe that the American people are stupid enough to vote for socialism. I wish I shared his naiveté. The McCain camp is forever dissecting Obama’s tax proposals as if they seriously believe that campaign platforms and policy statements have anything to do with reality. All politicians are liars–surely McCain looks in the mirror often enough to know that–so nothing they say in a campaign can be interpreted as a sincere reflection of what they actually believe, much less as a proposal they intend to carry out. Getting bogged down on what the O’Reilly likes to call minutiae (all those facts he cannot comprehend) is exactly the wrong strategy. To the extent Obama believes anything he is a socialist, to the left of Biden and Pelosi. He may not be able to do much about it, other than impose socialized medicine, bankrupt the government, and wreck the economy, but it will not be for lack of conviction.
Where is Willie Horton when you need him? The Republicans have to play the “race card” because they have few other cards to play. White Catholics are gravitating toward Obama, even some pro-life Catholics. People who have lost their money in the markets are praying for another Clinton administration. And, by now, the argument that “the surge has worked” is cutting little ice with people whose sons and daughters may be stuck in Iraq for another decade. The fact is, Obama has been friends with anti-white bigots of the worst type, and if McCain were not both obtuse and cowardly, he would not hesitate to play the race card–or arrange for some front group to play it for him. The world awaits the return of Willie Horton in the guise of Jeremiah Wright.
The other night in New York I told a small gathering that I did not blame anyone for voting for John McCain. Someone shouted out that he was voting for Sarah Palin. I was content to point out he could not have read the ballot, but, really, in the unlikely event of a McCain victory, I will pray for the continued health of Senator McCain. Palin is Dan Quayle in a designer outfit. Quayle was a cute guy, they all said, and a sound conservative. Mr. Buckley informed the world that Dan Quayle was not as dumb as he seemed. His spiritual heirs are saying the same thing about Ms Palin. Perhaps both of them have IQ’s high enough to boil water on the Celsius scale, but there is more to dumbness than a low IQ. Some peope are simply clueless, incapable even of realizing just how obtuse they are. That is Palin in a nutshell.
Dan Larison on his Eunomia blog now on AmCon has drawn attention to our old friend Stacy McCain’s defense of ignorance. Palin and her supporters are virtuous, he is arguing, precisely because what they don’t know won’t hurt them. I fear, however, that it will hurt us. This is worth an entire issue of the magazine. Since Socrates (at least) we have understood that to pilot the ship of state requires skill, not just a good heart, especially when that ship is no longer a simple republican skiff but a nuclear powered submarine armed with missiles carrying nuclear warheads. Besides, it is easier to make a judgment of someone’s experience and competence than of the soundness of his heart.
I haven’t liked a candidate since Ronald Reagan, and even he struck me as too Hollywood to be President. My portfolio went up under Reagan, but that is about the only good thing I can say. The good news is that human happiness does not depend on which imbecille or thug is in the White House. Vote if you must, but go to bed early on election day and do not bother to read the front page of your newspaper the day after. Stick to the funny papers: They are more intelligent and more relevant to our condition than news stories and editorials. Over and out.
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1 Comment by Tom Piatak on 31 October 2008:
A devastating and accurate portrayal of Obama’s supporters. Any conservative who supports Obama a) never was much of a conservative or b) no longer is.
2 Comment by D Simmons on 31 October 2008:
The America the Silicon Valley pinheads would have us live in would be a dream world as compared to the America that Obama’s other financial warlords would have us in. That group is the hedge fund managers who have a fire sale in mind. Not an exact rerun of the fallen USSR but close enough that maybe an editor or two would lose his/her jobs at National Review for objecting to Frum’s funders plunder run.
3 Comment by phil e on 31 October 2008:
I have tried, I really have, to ignore these two execrable monsters, but in the run-up to Suicide Day I’m finding it harder and harder. Dr. Fleming is quite right, though: I find support of any sort for Obama to be, at the very best, simply inscrutable. Without attempting to predict what brilliant ideas he might come up with, let us concentrate on three rather narrow yet quantitatively measurable actions that are possible, perhaps likely: 1. raising or removing the social security cap; 2. a broadening of the reach of the Alternative Minimum Tax; 3. a reversal of the Bush tax cuts. To put it plainly, Obama’s election is going to cost me and my family a bit of money. If I may borrow a play from Dr. Fleming’s book, this means a transfer of money away from my children (for most of that lost income would go to their college savings funds) to people whom I have never known and never will. In a spectacularly innumerate society I have no idea how many people can run the numbers that far, but that there must be a decent number who are not only undisturbed by that fact, but who actually applaud it, is a sure sign of terminal self-loathing and destruction.
4 Comment by Stomma on 31 October 2008:
Alexander Solzehenitsyn very wisely said that it is sometimes better to lose a war than to win one, because a lost war makes leaders rethink their policies and implement reforms. Similarly, Republicans may benefit from losing this election. There will be a civil war within the Republican party and I hope neocons will lose it.
5 Comment by Rollo on 31 October 2008:
“but I no longer want to know anyone who votes for Obama for any reason.,”
I have felt this way for a while and have taken action in my personal life to separate myself from anyone sick enough to vote him.
I have no problem at all with Palin. I don’t know how anyone makes a judgement on her when as vice-Presidential candidate she has no real chance to tell us what she thinks. Even if she is in reality a bit simple minded, I would take that over hateful destroyers of civilization like the rest of the field.
I am voting for McCain. First, he is not Obama. Second, he won’t make it through his first term. For those who are voting for Baldwin and maybe even Nader, I respect you more than I respect myself, but I feel I have no choice but to vote for, as Cantor would have put it, the smaller infintity of evil.
6 Comment by JACK HAMILTON on 31 October 2008:
I don’t get it. Am I missing something? There are several alternatives to the two competing socialists– Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr come to mind. It seems to me if all the disaffected and alienated conservatives would have the backbone to vote their conscience, instead of settling for the lesser of two evils; a true conservative candidate could win by a landslide. Conservatives have no home in the Republican party. How many brick walls do you have to have fall on you before you can figure that out? It’s time conservatives quit whining about the unfairness of the establishment media. No one with an IQ above room temperature reads newspapers anymore and you’re never going to reach the pathetic dolts who do. As the only real Americans left; we need to stand up for what’s right. We may not win; but at least we can tell our children that we took a stand for God and country.
7 Comment by Robert on 31 October 2008:
After two years of agonizing deliberation, countless hours of Google searches on each candidate’s personal and public position on “all” the issues, months spent listening to supporters of both political parties highlighting their national candidates strengths and weaknesses, I walked in solemn procession this morning holding hands with various family members to the absentee polling booth and cast my ballot for Dr. Tom Fleming and Professor Clyde Wilson; confident that “if nominated they would not run and if elected they would not serve.” Having performed my duty as an informed citizen, knowing full well my state does not count write in ballots for candidates to any elected office, being of sane mind and body, I feel relieved that when that one great author of all sports comes to write about this game, he will not write whether I won or whether I lost, but rather, how I played the game!”Peace and Good cheer to all my amercan brothers and sisters and I hope I have not offended anyone. (applause) and with huge toothy smile —-
Thank You, Thank You, Thank you.(exit left and then retire to the country forever !!)
8 Comment by J. Meng on 31 October 2008:
My thoughts are in perfect conformity with yours, Mr. Fleming. What we are being offered is nothing more than to vote for the continued demise of our nation. I will not be cooperating. I will not be voting. I know that the slide into oblivion will continue, but I will not have encouraged it. I’d like to think it is all a nightmare, because it is all so unbelievable, because it is so insane. I would like to wake up and find that it was only a nightmare and that sanity does prevail. God have mercy on us.
9 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 31 October 2008:
Dr. Fleming is a bit dyspeptic today, but I can’t gainsay his distaste for the programs of both major party candidates. I must say, however, that the evil of the wars that McCain may well start matches the evils of the centralization Obama favors, Bush having anticipated him by semi-nationalizing the financial sector (”When Goldman, Sachs speaks, people listen!”).
Baldwin not being on the ballot in our state, having been displaced by the weirdo Keyes, I have voted for Barr. Good enough as a protest vote.
10 Comment by Sempronius on 31 October 2008:
“I hope that all those Silicon Valley libertarians who supported him will live to see their property confiscated and their kids sent to reeducation camps.”— that would be too good for them Fleming,I will censure my opinion on what I would like to see them endure.
“Where is Willie Horton when you need him?”— possibly enjoying a few leisurely moments with O.J.Simpson.I wouldnt be at all surprised if Willie or O.J.’s appearance in the campaign INCREASED the popularity of Obama.Again, I shall censure the rest of my opinion on this matter.
” White Catholics are gravitating toward Obama, even some pro-life Catholics. People who have lost their money in the markets are praying for another Clinton administration.”—Why didnt these worthless clowns “gravitate” towards Buchanan or Perot or even Nader? If they’re wringing their hands now they only have themselves to blame.They’ll receive no sympathy from me.
The problem with much of the criticism of contemporary American politics is that it tends to locate the nucleus of the problem exclusively either in evil “elites”–and yes they are evil– letting the dear ol’ American people completely off the hook,or in ascribing to men such as Reagan or McCain virtues and abilities they dont possess and castigating Americanos who refuse to genuflect before their conventional pieties, i.e. lies.
The fact of the matter is that BOTH the electors and the elected are culpable.
We need to combine what Tacitus described somewhere as the “pars popoli integra,et magna domibus adnexa” with a sound and skillful leadership they deserve.
All the rest can go to Hell.
11 Comment by MAR on 31 October 2008:
Fleming: “Where is Willie Horton when you need him? The Republicans have to play the “race card” because they have few other cards to play. White Catholics are gravitating toward Obama, even some pro-life Catholics. People who have lost their money in the markets are praying for another Clinton administration. And, by now, the argument that “the surge has worked” is cutting little ice with people whose sons and daughters may be stuck in Iraq for another decade. The fact is, Obama has been friends with anti-white bigots of the worst type, and if McCain were not both obtuse and cowardly, he would not hesitate to play the race card–or arrange for some front group to play it for him. The world awaits the return of Willie Horton in the guise of Jeremiah Wright.”
Amen. As Steve Sailer has said, it’s almost as if McCain wants to lose.
12 Comment by EE Roberts on 31 October 2008:
“Even if she is in reality a bit simple minded, I would take that over hateful destroyers of civilization like the rest of the field.”
Mrs. Palin is enraptured over the unforgivably hateful destruction of a much older civilization than that of the US: W’s criminal war in Iraq.
Has that entered your thinking? Evil is usually vapid and often downright dense. Palin is obviously vapid and is openly dense at times. She has no discernible aversion to evil.
Obama is obviously evil, as is McCain. How can anyone justify voting for either of them?
13 Comment by Arius on 31 October 2008:
Does anyone remember Palin’s first speech with McCain? It’s where she made the reference to eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling. Even Camile Paglia (one of my favorites on the Left) was taken by Palin. Since that speech what have we heard from Palin? Just the usual nothing. The Republicans took Palin and turned her to their stupid dark side.
I can’t understand why conservatives can’t see what is coming. This time the Left intends to cement their hold on power like the Left did in Europe. This time they intend an irreversible castration of the Right. All those on the Right that believe in freedom and private property in America should be terrified of a very likely Obama presidency and veto proof Democrat control of Congress. The Democrats are today essentially a European style Socialist party, much further to the Left compared to the Democrats in 1932 and 1965, and consider what they did then. This time it will be the end of the American myth that has animated US citizens since its founding and the start of the irreversible slide into national socialism and dhimmitude.
14 Comment by jack bailey on 31 October 2008:
All of you Conservatives that don’t want to vote or are feeling sorry for yourselves and are gonna vote for Mickey Mouse: your non-vote is in fact a vote for obama. All the Democrats that have doubts about Obama and that is probably half of their voting block are gonna hold their noses and still vote for Obama. They won’t go into a meltdown over their reservations like some Conservatives do. This exactly how guys like Salvador Allende got elected in the first place, so let’s not make this type of mistake. If it will make you feel better, Pat Buchanan is voting for McCain.
15 Comment by robert m. peters on 31 October 2008:
A friend of mine messaged me and others yesterday with what he alleges to be a true story of his person experience a mere two days ago in a “touristy” town somewhere in Middle Tennessee. Whether it was actually an experience of his senses or of his imagination, it makes a good point about Obama.
Walking with his wife through the streets of the town on their way to a restaurant, they passed a man who was beggar, bum or homeless with a sign which read, “Vote Obama! I need the money!” They had a wonderful meal at the restaurant, and the service was excellent. According to my friend, the waiter deserved a commensurate tip. However, the waiter was wearing an Obama T-shirt. So, my friend acknowledged the waiters excellent service and showed him the tip which he had earned with his courteous manner and hard work. He, however, told the waiter that, in accordance with Mr. Obama’s message with which the waiter obviously agreed, he was giving the tip to the bum down the street who obviously deserved it. My friend claims that the waiter cursed him out. My friend also maintains that he gave the tip to the bum.
If McCain had any sense, he would use my friend’s story. Likely, McCain’s operatives do not read Chronicles.
16 Comment by Robert on 31 October 2008:
“All of you Conservatives that don’t want to vote or are feeling sorry for yourselves and are gonna vote for Mickey Mouse: your non-vote is in fact a vote for obama.”
That depends on where you are voting, Big Jack. If you are in South Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina or some other such state with a remnant of civility left in its culture, you don’t have a damn thing to talk about with Obama because he couldn’t win in these states with fraud and duress on his side — as it certainly is !!– Even with thanks going to the RHINOS and neo-con men who have occupied both parties, and managed to mangle our sons and daughters in Iraq and our economy at home.
If you live in a battle ground state or are arrogant enough to think another vote count every four years will really matter at this point, then it is too late for your country or state, and I recommend you walk and don’t run to the nearest red state and hunker down for a long winter or take a vacation to Disneyland — Mickey Mouse might not be all that bad —- comparatively speaking.
17 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 31 October 2008:
As true as Dr. Flemings thoughts on the election are, somewhere a Republican party operative is reading this and smiling. Yes, here at Chronicles the Republican Party is savaged endlessly (esp by Dr Wilson), but when it comes time for election day, most of us know our place and cast our votes for McCain.
18 Comment by The Fronde on 31 October 2008:
Gentlemen, let’s stay optimistic. This election is not yet a foregone conclusion. John McCain can still win, and I’m predicting he will squeak it out with around 274 electoral votes.
I make absolutely no apologies for my decision to vote for McCain. Politics is the art of the possible, after all; Baldwin and Barr are not possible. Should McCain win, we paleos will be able to complain about his policies in relative safety and comfort; all the while rebuilding the conservative movement from within, which is much easier to do when the conservative (even if only nominally so) candidate controls the corridors of power. Should Obama win, then conservative voices will be effectively silenced by a PC media establishment which is manifestly “in the tank” for him.
However, even an Obama win should not be taken to mean that socialism will gain the upper hand in America. For all the talk about a Democratic landslide sweeping a rubber stamp Congress into office for him, any real taste of Obama-style radicalism will be so unsavory for most Americans that a reverse landslide will sweep them back out again in 2010. Obama has promised far more than anyone could deliver. Whether he wins or looses, disappointment is sure to follow in his wake.
Additionally, let us not fall in to the dialectical error of thinking that a Republican loss will redound to our benefit. A loss is not going to “clean up the party” or “set it back on track” or “return it to its roots.” It will only allow Sen. Obama to appoint a coterie of left-wing hacks to divers positions in the federal government, where no doubt they will proceed to do damage it will take us decades to undo. We cannot depend on any Hegelian/Marxist logic of history to do our work for us, and it’s disturbing to hear conservatives using the very rhetoric of the enemy in their rationales. Was Oswald Spengler correct when he claimed that we moderns were all socialists unawares? WE will clean up the party; WE will set it back on track.
John McCain, whose right hand I grasp, is the correct choice in this election. The economy will continue to go up, down, and sideways according to its own logic no matter who wins the presidency; that’s just life. Foreign wars will continue to be fought for stupid reasons even if Obama wins; that’s what governments do. But principles, like eternity, are everlasting. Do not do anything that might put your country into the hands of a fourth-estate, terrorist-courting, property-redistributing, arch-abortionist like Obama. Be good team players, cross your heart, pull the lever for John McCain, and commit the rest to God.
On November 5th, we go to work.
(Edit: Comment # 17 Daniel Maxwell ironically posted while I was writing this. I swear I am not a Republican operative, but I agree with the sentiment.)
19 Comment by TJF on 31 October 2008:
In Presidential elections I voted for Reagan in 1980 and then Buchanan. I voted for neither Bush and did not vote for Dole. As much as Obama disgusts me–though I am more disgusted by people who vote for him–I cannot bring myself to vote for McCain, if only because he has taken Albanian money, supported the KLA, and wants war with Russia. He is a sick and evil man, whose only virtue is the fact that he served his country in a stupid pointless war. Voting for someone like Chuck Baldwin is worse than an exercise in futility: He stands for nothing. Give me a third party candidate with a clear head, sound principles, and some kind of track record, and I’ll vote for him. Better Barr than Baldwin, though a vote for the Libertarian Party would be to play a minor role in the theater of the absurd. The lesson, as someone on this thread as sagely commented, is not simply that both parties are corrupt. The fault lies in the stupidity and fear of the gutless American people. Dyspeptic? Hardly. The condemned man will drink two Martinis, eat a hearty dinner, and watch The Great McGinty, one of the best political films made in the land of everything for sale. It’s time for a bit of the poet who once opined, “a politician is an arse upon which everything has sat except a man.”
“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
20 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 31 October 2008:
Well then, TFJ, forgive me for erroneous diagnosis. Hoist a martini for me.
” . . .. a tear within his stern blue eye,
upon his firm white lips a smile,
one thought alone: to do or die
for God for country and for Yale
above his blond determined head
the sacred flag of truth unfurled,
in the bright heyday of his youth
the upper class American
unsullied stands, before the world:
with manly heart and conscience free,
upon the front steps of her home
by the high minded pure young girl
much kissed, by loving relatives
well fed, and fully photographed
the son of man goes forth to war
with trumpets clap and syphilis”
21 Comment by TJF on 31 October 2008:
Thanks for the additional lines. What a country we once had, when it nurtured Cummings, Frost, crazy Old Ezra, Robinson Jeffers, Eliot…The poets always told more truth than even the best pundits like Nock and Mencken. I should read and write less prose and stick to verse.
22 Comment by alessio1947 on 31 October 2008:
May I suggest that Mr. Fleming and most posters above take a good stiff drink and lay down for a while until they feel a little better? While it’s true that democracy may not survive the Democrats, it is certainly true that the republic has not survived the Republicans. Hasn’t it occurred to anybody here that the fiscal situation being what it is, Obama’s hands will be tied? Unless, of course, he attempts to do the only thing that remains to be done, which is to downsize the military-industrial complex and start rolling back the empire? Either he will succeed in those endeavours, which would be a very good thing, or else it’s likely we will be treated to another JFK-style presidential funeral, I reckon — but either way, nothing, absolutely nothing, can be expected of a McCain presidency. This election is a craps shoot, gentlemen, not the first in U.S. history, surely not the last …
23 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 31 October 2008:
I am unable to fathom why people think the country will continue on the path to hell any more with Obama than with McCain.
24 Comment by Robert on 31 October 2008:
“I am unable to fathom why people think the country will continue on the path to hell any more with Obama than with McCain.”
Professor thank you from the bottom of my heart for your brevity, your persistence and your authentic southern charm. Reading TJF’s and your own final brief sentence gave me the heartiest laugh and most delightful disposition I have had in weeks.
25 Comment by MAR on 31 October 2008:
Mr. Maxwell: I, for one, am voting for Baldwin, not McCain.
26 Comment by Steve Berg on 31 October 2008:
From what I can see, the only saving grace we might have in this ghastly election is that an imploding world economy and declining revenues in the U.S. may force a reduction in imperial overreach. If McCain does manage to squeak through a victory, we may well see if the 4th section of the the Twenty Fifth Amendment is more workable than impeachment. No matter how it goes, I expect major rioting, spawned either by the thrill of victory, or the agony of defeat.
27 Comment by Rollo on 31 October 2008:
“I am unable to fathom why people think the country will continue on the path to hell any more with Obama than with McCain.”
1. The media will destroy President McCain. They won’t touch President Obama
2. The Democratic Congress will possibly stand up to McCain. They would not dare stand up to Obama.
3. Image is everything. It is image that makes possible future hellish policies. The image of a black, racist Marxist with three muslim names changes everything about Americans’ image of themsleves; who they are and what is acceptable. Even if Obama himself doesn’t take us all the way to hell, he will have set up our trip there in the future.
Electing the McCain-image over the Obama-image at least tells me the American people are resisting the war against them. If they still have some belief in traditional America, which the McCain-image represents then there is still hope, even if that belief is based on nothing real.
4. McCain will not survive the first term, for health reasons, and I have no reason to dislike Palin and plenty of reasons to put some hope in her.
5. Delay, delay, delay. That is our ONLY option right now. I believe the McCain-Palin ticket will move us to hell slower than the other guys.
28 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 31 October 2008:
Just in case the Republic survives, through the Lord’s mercy, the next four years, I offer this, by the Greek poet Cavafy:
“What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.”
29 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 31 October 2008:
Most Silicon Valley tycoons are what Eric Cartman refers to as jay-oh-ohs. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Dell, the turkey who runs Loral — famous for giving W-88 guidance technology to the Red Chinese, and many lesser types are not libertarians at all. They are most often both anti-American and anti-Christian. A veritable force for social destruction. If I were dictator, I would strip them of their citizenship and force them to live in Arabia, where the ADL and the ACLU would not be able to help them. Oh, let’s kick them out too!
30 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 31 October 2008:
@8 J Meng
I encourage you to go to the polls and vote “No” on the bond issues and whatever propositions are on the ballot in your area.
31 Comment by polemicscat on 31 October 2008:
23 and 23
The reason for voting for McCain is simply to buy time.
For all who realize that we have practically lost Europe to
Islamization (England has already incorporated sharia law), I would like to point out that ideally we need a President who will (1) begin to secure our borders and (2) deport all Muslims who do not renounce jihad and do not refrain from teaching it to their children. We don’t have such a candidate now.
We do have a candidate who–if he is not a Muslim– is sympathetic to Islam. He will not begin to do the things we need to be doing to avoid the end of western civilization.
As a note, let me add that I believe our two wars in Iraq were counter productive on several counts: (1) So long as Iraq is an Islamic state, it will never become a democracy with rights for its citizens such as our founding fathers’ first ten amendments. (2) The second war was begun without identifying the real enemy. In fact, there would have been some advantage to us in leaving Sadam in power. (3) The second Iraq invasion has only consolidated the determination of the jihadists.
32 Comment by george on 31 October 2008:
Seeing how both candidates are vying for who can be more war like including starting a war against Russia or should I say overt war they’ve been running a covert war since the collapse of communism I think they should have policy advisors or running mates that suit there foreign policy agenda like Satan or the Grime Reaper.
Actually there advisors aren’t that far of Satan or the Grime Reaper on the Democrat we have Zbignew Brezinski who created the Afghan war and international Islamic militant terror groups 1 million dead and got China to support the genocidal Khamer Rouge in Cambodia over a million which he admits in his own words and seems proud of it and on the Republican side we have Henry Kissinger giving airhead Sarah Palin foreign policy advice who was responsible for the mass bombings in Vietnam, installation of Pinochet in Chile and something else I can’t remember.
Actually aren’t fundamentalist Christians at all bothered that the head of homeland security literal Russian translation of his name means Son of the Devil.
@29Etienne Gervaise
But we need groups like ADL and FSWC to put pressure on Universities, hotels not to hold conferences that support agendas they don’t like and media not to air programs or host guest they don’t approve of, pressure ISP to shut down websites they don’t like and spy on Americans and political action groups.
33 Comment by J. Meng on 31 October 2008:
@ Etienne Gervaise. Yes, I will be doing that. In our state we have a proposition concerning embryonic stem cell research on which I will be voting no. Thanks for your remarks.
34 Comment by Robert Bruce on 31 October 2008:
5. Delay, delay, delay. That is our ONLY option right now. I believe the McCain-Palin ticket will move us to hell slower than the other guys.
@ Rollo #27,
Sounds like the old Harry Brown analogy of the two major political parties with the two cars going off the cliff, one at 80 mph, the other at 55mph. Doesn’t matter which vehicle you are in, you are still going off the cliff. Why take a purely hold the line mentality(strategy)? Historically, it almost always ends in defeat. If you are a true conservative vote for Baldwin or if lucky enough to be in a state with Paul as a write in, go for him. A vote for McCain is a vote for facism, and you might as well pull the plug on the Republic!!!!!!!!
35 Comment by M.Z. Forrest on 31 October 2008:
I’m a little disappointed having come to expect more even when I disagree with Mr. Fleming. He makes clear what is the problem with conservatism, even the paleo variety: the utter dependence upon libertarian thought to advance toward a more perfect society. To see people in these comboxes advancing men like Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin with their radical individualism to save us from the liberal state even if their improbable election were to occur is perplexing. The fear of government in the presence of our present oligarchic nightmare is to miss the forest for the trees.
Regardless of which party one finds more evil, the Democrats or the Republicans, one’s greatest fear should be fascism, not socialism. As has been lamented long enough in places like Chronicles, there is an absence of solidarity in the greater society whether measured in support for open immigration (something for which I’m sympathetic), free trade, union busting, the rise of Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, or the various cultural markers of social identity like the public celebration of Christmas and Easter. We have the ridiculous spectacle of folks finding more cause with “Joe the Plumber’s” fear of higher taxes some day than with him being able to get the medical treatment he needs today. And to top it off Mr. Fleming holds out the specter of socialism with a raise in the highest marginal rate to 39.6%.
36 Comment by T. Chan on 31 October 2008:
M.Z. Forrest–since you disagree with Dr. Fleming’s judgment regarding the prospects of socialism, maybe you can refute his exposition of American socialism that he gives in his book. I suspect that his judgment is grounded in an understanding of what socialism is.
37 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 1 November 2008:
#36. Mr. Forrest. You are right—the problem is not “socialism. ” It’s proper name is fascism—which is socialism, only more so.
Voting for the lesser evil as a delay tactic. Is it not obvious that it was just as bad under the Bushes as under Carter and Clinton. Even worse, because the Bushes destroyed the possibilities of resistance.
38 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 1 November 2008:
@32 George
Do I detect a hint of cynicism, or are you merely being sarcastic? A visit to ADL’s, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s, and affiliated websites proves that they’re all scraping the bottom of the barrel in their search for “hate groups,” the League of the South! Seriously folks. It almost makes me want to start a dozen such cell groups so that I can get rich off dues paid by their — and the government they push around — spies.
@36 MZ
Part of the problem is that conservatives are clueless as to what they are trying to conserve. For the Christians — at least the Evangelical type — think that the United States is a Christian nation. It is not and never really was, or else the Freemasons would not have played such a large role in its founding. Truth be told, we are little more than a product of the Enlightenment. That is why Massachusetts prohibits shopping on Sundays, but elects degenerate sex perverts to the House and Senate.
Christians should stock tehir libraries with Xenophon and some of the Roman republic writers to complement their New Testament study guides.
@34 Robert
Two party system? That’s a sham too. In this election both candidates have taken money from that anti-Christ George Soros. What we have is two puppets controlled by the same puppeteer, in truth a media floor show which has successfully deceived the majority of sheeple voters. I’ll be happy to go to the polls knowing that I’ll be voting for a third or fourth palce loser.
39 Comment by woodcutter on 1 November 2008:
“The McCain people are apparently too stupid to pin Obama as a Marxist. When Obama answers the charge that he favors redistribution of wealth by giving his cute line about sharing his cookie in kindergarten, all McCain had to do was to point out that Obama is not planning to share his cookies but ours.” – TJF
I have worked with the products of a socialist welfare state. The resentment generated by this process is unbelievable. First coming from the givers and then from the receivers when they are refused what they think the are owed. In our small town of 8000 we have determined that 1/3 of the population is either receiving or involved in the process of “sharing”. I have come the prayerful decision that the only help for the “kindergarten” is no help. Socialism creates a dependence and a resentment that will only end in hell or at least a long stay in purgatory. It is a very good way to get votes much akin to the bottle of rum that was traded in the old days for that vote. Beware and stay away from anyone who supports this ideal. The life of the people that receive the shared cookie is a life of resentment that only their government supported addictions can quell .
40 Comment by Jd on 1 November 2008:
MAR writes:
“Amen. As Steve Sailer has said, it’s almost as if McCain wants to lose.”
But if he wins, he’d still be genuflecting to the left on almost every issue due to the guilt he’d feel over having defeated “The One”.
41 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 1 November 2008:
After next Tuesday, we may be able to enjoy the destruction of the Republican party, a necessary step if there is to be any hope of restoring genuine republican government. For anyone with a sense of historical irony there will be something else to enjoy. The globalist rulers of the US decided that they didn’t want a man named Hussein ruling Iraq, so to the applause of their mindless jingoist subjects, they invaded Iraq, overthrew Hussein and had him executed after a sham trial. Now the US is about to get a ruler named Hussein. Talk about what goes around, comes around – you gotta love God’s sense of humor.
PS. Don’t blame me; I voted for Paul in the primary, Baldwin in the general.
42 Comment by george on 1 November 2008:
@39Etienne Gervaise
Of course I’m being sarcastic that the ADL acts as a Gestapo and has links to the Mossad.
The only independent investigative newspaper in the US the Spotlight now American Free Press ran stories of police investigations uncovered the fact that ADL was recruiting agents inside the police force even sending them on all expenses trips to Israel.
Do you think that the previous examples I quoted earlier that I was praising there nefarious activities?
Actually the South Poverty Law Centre was running Elohim city the white supremacist militia training camp with links to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Prior to OKC the SPLC and ADL where running a campaign against militias as public dissent against the government increased after Ruby Ridge and the Waco massacre by ATF goons covered up by our “war hero” senator John McCain.
On your point of US origins of Freemasonry there’s a good video on Google about the architectural history of Masonry in Washington DC and it’s philosophical, government influence in the US and around the world.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5839084912030464561&ei=TivtSOmFCYqwiALh7J2aCw&q=Secret+Mysteries+of+America%27s+Beginnings%3A+Riddles+in+Stone+-+Secret+Architecture+of+Washington%2C+D.C.&hl=en
“Two party system? That’s a sham too”
Your right about that. Good example is Georgia Democrat George Soros financed and created installing his puppet into power and Randy Schuanamen who lobbied for the Georgian government and work for a George Soros company.
43 Comment by Sean Scallon on 1 November 2008:
Having legtimized socialism in the form the nationalization of banks, farm subsidies, prescription drug benefits, No Child Left Behind and a blaoted military budget suited to the empire we now hold, it is impossible for McCain and the Republicans to criticize Obama’s Marxism with a straight face. They will only have themselves to blame if they lose.
44 Comment by woodcutter on 1 November 2008:
Dr.Flemming, keep up the good work!
Your friend Woodcutter
45 Comment by J. Meng on 1 November 2008:
Today, for us Catholics, we celebrate the Festival of All Saints, and that’s what America needs: saints, real saints who are living the life of Christ. Saints like, King Louis IX, Henry I, Holy Roman Emperor, King Stephen of Hungary, Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, Sts. Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Francis de Sales, Ignatius Loyola, John Fisher, Thomas More, Elizabeth Ann Seton, etc. If we had saints governing families, communities, and the nation, we probably wouldn’t be in half the mess we find ourselves. Looking at the contenders for the presidency of the U.S. in light of the saints, it seems evident that we are in for more dark days.
46 Comment by jack bailey on 1 November 2008:
Yes by all means if you live in a red state vote for whoever you want. RB, comments about Pat are over the top since he is a regular contributor for the Chroniclesand and I hopethat you are not a seminar writer from the Obama headquaters. However, let’s discuss your “the worse the better” argument. There are two major problems with it. 1. The blue states will never become blue again after the illegals get to vote. 2. the resurrection of Marxism here and abroad will cause tremendous problems worldwide, not the least of it being a tremedous deterioration of the US strategic position. There is nothing to be gained and a great deal to be lost by an Obama presidency. At the very least, as other panelist have pointed out, we are buying time. Nihilism never solved anything but strategy always did.
47 Comment by David N. on 1 November 2008:
We should remember that George W. Bush is as responsible as anyone for Obama’s election if it happens. After being reelected in 2004, Bush seems to have been determined to drive his poll numbers as low as possible. It is really hard for a Democrat to lose this year.
48 Comment by alessio1947 on 1 November 2008:
@46, David N.
Right you are. A co-worker of mine, way leftward-ho, plans to write President Bush a thank-you note if/when Obama wins. She’s serious. You should hear her giggling as she works up the language …
49 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 1 November 2008:
Jack Bailey @45 wrote: “the resurrection of Marxism here and abroad will cause tremendous problems worldwide, not the least of it being a tremedous deterioration of the US strategic position. There is nothing to be gained and a great deal to be lost by an Obama presidency. At the very least, as other panelist have pointed out, we are buying time. Nihilism never solved anything but strategy always did.”
I’ve wondered for quite some time now if globalized Marxism isn’t a step logically following upon the one-world crap even the best and the “brightest” of the GOP have now passionately embraced. In other words, did Marx miss a step? He thought that first came capitalism, then came socialism, but maybe he hadn’t envisioned or imagined the globalization that now seems to have been necessary for his philosophy’s spread. (Was the defeat of the USSR but a minor setback of Marx’s dream? Almost twenty years on, it would appear so.)
While I abhor Marxism, the only clear solution to preventing it’s epidemic spread is independent and free-nation states, such as Americans once still appreciated before the Bushes began parasitizing mainstream conservatism and the passion for which is now decidely out of vogue.
Additionally, if our one world doesn’t become the substratum for the growth of world-wide Marxism, I fear it will provide the matrix for the spread of that other great enslaver of intellectual growth and freedom: Islam.
50 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 1 November 2008:
@46 David N; @ allesio 1947:
Eight years ago some said Bush would be the next Ronald Reagan. Now, at the end of his misrule, we see that instead he’s the new Jimmy Carter.
51 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 1 November 2008:
M.G. at 49. May I respectrfully suggest that you have slandered Jimmy Carter. In so doing, you adhere to the delusion that a Republican is somehow more likely to be better than a Democrat. It is that delusion which has been keeping alive the Republican party for decades now. The only hope for reform is the destruction and replacement of the Republican party. Its only function is to capture the votes of decent Americans by a pretense of representing them and then to make sure that their wishes are thwarted. If Ronald Reagan had not abandoned his supporters and made Bush major his heir, there would be no Bush minor as president. How many brick walls have to fall on you folks before you see the light.
52 Pingback by I’m almost there « Stony Creek Digest on 1 November 2008:
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53 Comment by jack bailey on 1 November 2008:
MG, if I remember correctly my Marxist theory, a communist paradise is supposed to spawn from the most advanced country on earth first and then spread around. The Marxists were at odds to explain why the revolutions succeeded where they did prematurely. So perhaps that explains it. If a Republican party needs to be destroyed so that real Conservative movement can succeed, then I am all for it, but it’s hard for me to imagine how this will play out. One can equally argue that it is the organizational and ideological strength of the Left that usually succeeds in making the Right appear weak, corrupt and clueless. (for example, convicted Democrat congressmen and senators keep their seats but not the Republican ones.) Communists have won and stayed in powere wherever they gained it but Conservatives have not prevailed anywhere in the end. The only respite was achieved during Reagan years due to the demonstrated American strength. With Obama, the biggest weakling ever to seek the presidency,(who in fact wants the capitalist America to be defeated) they will be back with a vengance world over. How anyone can perceive that to be good for America on any level is hard to fathom.
54 Comment by george on 1 November 2008:
@49Miles Gloriosus
More like the new Woodrow Wilson.
55 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 1 November 2008:
JB51 wrote: “With Obama, the biggest weakling ever to seek the presidency,(who in fact wants the capitalist America to be defeated) they will be back with a vengance world over. How anyone can perceive that to be good for America on any level is hard to fathom.”
Clearly it isn’t, but with this we-are-all-one-big-global-society claptrap now emanating from both parties, I don’t see how a plausible defense of conservatism (classical liberalism, really) can be made. When our leaders defended American interests first, we at least could see the possibility of an America, sovereign and independent, offering an alternative to the world.
Unless we recognize the importance of putting America first (and the interests of her citizens over those of international bankers and multinationals), we’ll continue in our occult vassalage
56 Comment by Rollo on 1 November 2008:
Dr. Wilson,
Why do you think they Republican party, or the other party could ever be destroyed and replaced? The two parties are dependent on each other. If the Republicans really took such a beating that they collapsed, the Democrats would be forced to resurrect them. The two party system needs two parties and it needs two parties that serve the same master.
I think the only hope is to weasel our way into power in the Republican party, slowly stalling and then reversing the current trends.
57 Comment by DAVE K on 1 November 2008:
Rollo
You have it figured exactly. The difference between Deomcrats and Republicans is the same as that between Buick and Pontiac. All profits go to GM, the rest is just about market share. The same as with teh Soviet Union and the US. Both sides realized that teh demise of the other would be bad for business. All antogonists need a protagonist and vice versa, one giving meaning and purpose to the other. Soviet Union out, War on Terror in, all manufactures to keep your share of the market needing and believing in the efficacy of the snake oil you are peddling. The pathetic ones are those that actully take any of it seriously.
58 Pingback by Fleming on Why Conservatives Who Support Obama Really Aren’t Conservative « Versed in the Permanent Things on 2 November 2008:
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59 Comment by G.L.A. on 2 November 2008:
The forces that are bringing this latest chapter of American history to an electorial climax on Tuesday have been a long time in the making.
The “wire pullers” that have created the nonchoices and the endless election drama are as sophisticated as ever. These forces have wealth and techniques of mass manipulation never imagined by the original puppeteers of the “peoples will” back in the 18th C.
Dr. Fleming has mentioned the posibility of discussing Cochin’s writings. Perhaps, when the dust settles from this current round of national “elections” in the US, and the memory of this campaign of deception is still fresh, it would be an opportune time to look at Cochin. What better way to try to understand who is behind the current hype and to understand just how these forces are organized?
60 Comment by TJF on 2 November 2008:
Some responders are clearly not reading what I have written. Obama is bad news for many reasons, worse news probably than McCain, but this is hardly the first indication that the US are in serious trouble. Electing FDR President for life should have been a clue. The one thing that BO can bring to the revolution is his principled commitment to socialism plus a symbolic endorsement of welfare and affirmative action programs that rob the American Middle Class to subsidize a criminal class. It is a serious mistake, as I have explained previously to confuse the evils of fascism with the evils of socialism. Fascists pandered to the responsible middle-class and even draped themselves in religion and patriotism. Our socialists for the most part hate their country, its tradition, and its religion. National socialism, as John Lukacs has been pointing out for years, has been the dominant ideology of modern times, but a) fascism is not reducible to national socialism and b) the left wing of Democratic Party is far from nationalist.
One final caveat against the ill-considered use of fascism as a label. The great tactic of the left has been to identify every decent impulse as fascism–love of family, attention to sex roles, bourgeois morals, patriotism. It seriously confuses the issue, then, to use such a term for Obama.
61 Comment by Roland de Chanson on 2 November 2008:
I will not be able rouse myself from this slough of despond long enough to even bother casting a vote. Nor will I watch the election returns. The thought of seeing hordes of ecstatic Mohammedan louts flouncing gleefully through the streets around the world is only slightly less repugnant than the knowledge that the citizenry will be a captive audience to Michelle Obama’s mindless mouth for the next four years, should the Republic survive that long.
Fuit, fuit ista quondam in hac re publica virtus, ut viri fortes acrioribus suppliciis civem perniciosum quam acerbissimum hostem coercerent.
We may well be facing ruination at the hands of the most pitiless enemy with the very conniving of the republic’s most pernicious citizen. Di nos servent.
62 Comment by Tom Flinn on 2 November 2008:
I urge all readers to write in my name as President. My platform?
Bring the troops home from Iraq, march them to the Capitol, arrest every congressman and give them an ultimatum: leave the country or I will hang every last one of you.
63 Comment by M.Z. Forrest on 2 November 2008:
My reference to fascism was to the Republicans; I see them as the greater evil at this time. As for the Democrats and Obama’s socialism specifically, they seem to fit the more benign form of democratic socialism. Not being familiar with TJF’s larger criticisms of fascism and socialism, I can’t comment compentently on any of those claims.
64 Comment by prisonplanet on 2 November 2008:
george is absolutely right on Zbignew Brezinski for playing a major role in creating Al-Qaeda and empowering Pol Pot. He will more than likely further damage America’s reputation around the world serving as Barrack Hussein Obama’s foreign adviser.
American patriots only have two real choices for change: Chuck Baldwin or Bob Barr.
65 Comment by Robert Bruce on 2 November 2008:
My comments have to await moderation? My Buchanan is a moron statement @ #34 was fairly moderate I think. The guy gets the royal shaft from the Neocons and dumped by the GOP in 2000 for espousing “paleo” virtues in one of his books, goes 3rd party, then quits active politics to help found the American Conservative, which is totally anti Neocon and an anti war publication. So what does he do when push comes to shove? He endorses the neocon presidential candidates in both 2004 and now 2008!!!!!!! I mean does Buchanan believe the stuff he writes or does he just pander to the crowd that made him such a celebrity? I mean selling millions of books that debunk the necessity of WW II, the danger of illegal immigration, and the pursuit of empire, then asking folks to vote for a guy that is exactly 180 degrees from his policy positions is outright moronic, unless Pat is just full of BS.
66 Comment by TJF on 3 November 2008:
Mr. Bruce’s statements do not have to await moderation, but name-calling, moderate or not, is not tolerated, especially toward men who have been friends of this magazine and its editor for over 20 years. If people are now angry with Mr. Buchanan as a fallen leader, it is because they made the initial mistake of choosing him–or any man–as a leader. As I have said many times, this conversation is carried out according to the same rules that would obtain in my house or in a seminar at our office.
67 Comment by dwright on 3 November 2008:
Maybe Mr. Buchanan in the end supports Republican nominees that stand for many things he finds abhorrent only because, like many of us, he just can’t stand to see their liberal socialist opponents win.
I can’t believe some of the supporting comments I made recently for McCain. It is settling in how awful it will be when Obama takes office, and that disgusts me even more.
Whatever Mr. Buchanan faults may be, he sure has contributed greatly in his writings and campaigns, even if it falls on mostly deaf ears.
68 Comment by Ron Paul Apostle on 3 November 2008:
Don’t blame me: I’m voting again, though for neither Republicrat. The more we go on record as voting for principled candidates, the more the tide turns.
69 Comment by jack bailey on 3 November 2008:
RB, I don’t think you will find one other person here that thinks that Pat is a sellout, quite the contrary. To understand why this is so, you need to study your Paleoconservatism more. But since there is a strong possibility that you are an Obama seminar writer, this should explain to you why Obama lost. You needed to come up with far cleverer stuff. Phony righteous indignation just won’t do it.
70 Comment by Bruce on 3 November 2008:
I’m thinking of writing Mr. Buchanan in to atone for the fact that I once voted for a Republican president.
71 Comment by Michael Hill on 3 November 2008:
I apologize for my inability to take this election seriously (not really). I see it as being little more than a glorified high school student council election. The real power behind the throne–the principal, as it were–will still be in control of the school.
72 Comment by Scott Palmer on 3 November 2008:
(( Any conservative who supports Obama a) never was much of a conservative or b) no longer is. ))
Essential to the definition of “conservative” is some reference to what one wishes to conserve.
What to conserve, then? The Department of Homeland Security? Warrantless searches when you get on a plane, combined with warrantless wiretapping of phones and email? A “no fly list” of people who have criticized the administration? A Pyrrhic war on the Muslim world? Torture? Halliburton’s bottom line? Deficits as far as the eye can see? The wreck of the American economy? To be hated and despised by civilized people around the world, and for good reason?
I am a conservative and support (tepidly) Obama because I think that to support the Bush-McCain faction is to endorse national suicide.
Obama might be terrible, but it’s difficult to imagine that he would be worse than McCain. What America needs right now is radical change, and there’s a chance Obama might provide it if he hasn’t already been co-opted by the corporatist state. It’s only a chance, but with McCain, I believe we would have no chance.
Many people whom I respect, including Dr. Fleming, disagree with me. I trust that whoever wins tomorrow, we’ll be able to carry on in supporting the things on which we do agree.
73 Comment by TJF on 4 November 2008:
There is only one conceivable motive for supporting Obama, and that is self-hatred. The alternative is lack of awareness of reality that borders upon stupidity. If we hate Stalin, we are not obliged to vote for Hitler, especially if we happen to be Jews. If we hate McCain and the GOP–and with good reason–we are not obliged to vote for Obama, especially if we are middle class Whites. It used to be that one did not have to point out the obvious. What do you think, that the man who chided his grandmother for her “racism” will not take out his resentments on us? No, it is not possible to collaborate with those who wish to destroy themselves and take the rest of us with them. To vote for Obama is like paying for your mother’s abortion, retroactively.
74 Comment by woodcutter on 4 November 2008:
“The one thing that BO can bring to the revolution is his principled commitment to socialism plus a symbolic endorsement of welfare and affirmative action programs that rob the American Middle Class to subsidize a criminal class.” TJF
Dr.Flemming you have hit the nail on the head! This the reality of the socialist commentary that the bleeding hearts of the left ( and the cowards of the right ) have embraced for the sake of appearing to care. It is much easier to be a bleeding heart coward than to carry the cross of truth.
75 Comment by Ken Zaretzke on 4 November 2008:
This is indeed a desultory election season. I’ve never felt so much dismay about voting for president. Today I’m saying the hell with it and casting my vote for Nader. (Chuck Bladwin almost got my vote but lost it because of his desire to build new oil refineries. Nuclear plants, absolutely; coal and oil polluters, no.)
76 Comment by TJF on 4 November 2008:
I thought about voting for Ralph, a quondam Chronicles subscriber and once upon a time contributor to the American Mercury, but his gratuitous endorsement of abortion rights and same-sex “marriage” is a bit much to stomach, not so much that one cares about his positions as these shifts indicate an opportunist.
77 Comment by Ken Zaretzke on 4 November 2008:
I’m still in 2000 mode, when Nader disparagingly referred to the “gonadal politics” of feminists and pro-choicers. I hope Nader’s not a true opportunist. But if he is, it just confirms that there’s not even the right kind of environment in this country for developing really good political leaders. As for same-sex marriage: I was recently thinking of the significance of using quote marks around the word marriage in the phrase “same-sex marriage.” Given the recent nonsensical declarations from the courts about how equality requires homosexual wedded rights, liberals can be expected to react with extreme hostility to that scare-quote tactic. The consequence, I predict, will be the rise of a militant center-right populism that may become the biggest story of American politics in the next decade. (This would be clearer to everybody right now if Obama didn’t portray himself as an opponent of same-sex marriage because of his religion.)
78 Comment by J. Meng on 4 November 2008:
@76 TJF: excellent point with which I heartily agree. Either Ralph Nader is an opportunist (a quality that is part and parcel of any politician’s resume} or he is such a liberal to believe that women have a “right” to kill their own babies or that homosexuals have “rights” which God has condemned. By the way, I just learned, today, in the polling booth as I was perusing my ballot, that Ralph Nader was representing the “Natural Law” party. What a hoot!!
79 Comment by Andy K. on 4 November 2008:
Too bad there has not been a word during this whole campaign about Admiral John S. McCain Jr.’s (McCain’s father) role in the disgraceful coverup of Israel’s 1967 attempt to sink the USS Liberty, an unarmed spy ship sent to the coast of Gaza (intentionally sent there, no doubt, to be sunk) during the Six Day War. The ship was intended to be sunk, and with no survivors to say otherwise, the attack would have been blamed on Egypt, and Arabs in general– much the same as Arabs have been successfully framed for 9/11.
The “investigation” into the attack was conducted through the London office of Admiral McCain. It was, in the words of survivor James Ennes, a complete whitewash. The protectors of Israel even went so far as to have young sailors incarcerated until they learned to keep their mouths shut about the attack.
It may not be fair to blame the son for the father’s treason. But it’s difficult not believe that John McCain’s successful political career is not at least in part payback for his father’s “loyalty.” And it’s easy to see that should McCain assume the presidency that the way would be paved for yet another homicidal false flag attack– aimed at Americans, blamed on Muslims– to be carried out by our Zionist friends.
80 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 4 November 2008:
#73 – I have to disagree with Dr. Fleming that the only conceivable reason for voting for Obama is self-hatred. The lack of awareness of reality which he gives as an alternative is probably closer to the truth. I can think of no conceivable reason to vote for McCain, other than fear of Obama. It is really counterintuitive that voters would reward the Republicans for involving the country in multiple endless wars, for the collapse of the value of their homes, for the loss of their IRAs and 401Ks and of their jobs. Anyone who would vote for the Republican candidate after all of that would have to be a real self-hater, a blind partisan, or one of the few who is actually benefitting from the current situation. Almost all people, however, are so thoroughly indoctrinated into the two-party system that any alternative vote for a third party is simply unimaginable. Returns up to now show a vote of 1% for all third parties and independent candidates COMBINED. It makes me appreciate how exceptional my extended family is. Among us, the race was between Chuck Baldwin and Ron Paul as a write-in candidate.
81 Comment by Bruce on 5 November 2008:
…. meet the new change ! Same as the old change !
82 Comment by joe johnson on 5 November 2008:
This election, to put it in marxist terms, is a constest between the lenenist and the trotskyites.
83 Comment by W. S. Lucky on 5 November 2008:
Dr. Fleming’s comments were a great tonic for the incredulity and dread I experienced after I learned the election results. He is right. We should not let who occupies the Oval Office be the determinant of our happiness. If we love God and or neighbors (the real kind, as in the ones next door and across the street) as ourselves we will ultimatley end up in the right place.
84 Comment by The Campbell on 5 November 2008:
I just read the election results a little while ago. I should be looking up aneurysm in the dictionary to see if I just had one. Being a Chronicles reader, however, prepared me for this mad post-election world long ago. For which I’m thankful.
“Don’t blame me – I voted for Koto.” -Homer Simpson
85 Comment by Chris Campbell on 7 November 2008:
I voted for Chuck Bqaldwin…perhaps he is liked by Mr. Fleming?
86 Comment by Chris Campbell on 7 November 2008:
Mis-spelling alert:
Chuck Baldwin!!!!!
87 Comment by Michael Johnson on 17 November 2008:
Hate to break it to you, but – “bankrupt the government, and wreck the economy”? – the government is already bankrupt and the economy is already wrecked. Maybe the $550 BILLION dollars spent on the Iraq war might have something to do with it…ya think?
88 Comment by CarolusMagnus on 21 November 2008:
We’ve been socialist for years, haven’t we been? The two-sides-of-the-same-coin parties put on the same old “All-Star Wrestling” thing every 2-4 years to make the still painfully naive hang on the the belief or hope that we have any real choice in the ballot booth. The Fed-cum-Goldman Sachs makes a mockery of any so-called capitalism/”free market” we may still think we have. But how can you run a Counter-Revolution when the sheeple, room temperature IQ types are all running interference for the Wizards of Oz?
I’m going to read more O.T./N.T., Cicero and Mencken, along with the good Dr. Fleming, to ease my pain, as I’ve given up the cerveza and Martini habit, so now I’ve got to confront this blasted reality with good reads, not good stiff drinks. But I think I picked the wrong year to do that!
89 Pingback by I’m Shocked: Palin Turkey Video Reveals a Shocker « But As for Me! on 22 November 2008:
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