Commenter Neil asks:
So the right seems to be rebelling against repression, but two posts later you claim this election is between the communists and the fascists? What gives?
Good question Neil.
There is the old right – Romney – and the New Right – the TEAs. One is morphing into the other. They are not exactly the same.
The Old Right loves control – Drug Prohibition exemplifies that. The lead elements of the new right exemplified by the Paul family wants to dump it.
The Old Right wants to manage Big Government. The New Right wants to shrink it.
In another comment Neil asks:
How, exactly, is Mitt Romney a fascist?
Mitt is a corporatist socialist and Obama is a populist socialist. Obama thinks you can have socialism without business. Romney thinks business is essential.
BTW I’m going by what they have done in office – not their campaign speeches.
Comments
5 responses to “Among The Rocks And Hard Places”
I would quibble the assertion that Obama is a true populist of any sort. He is far too politically tone deaf and ideologically doctrinaire to be a true populist. Palin is a populist with mildly libertarian instincts. Obama is a full-blown, Class-obsessed, redistributionist Marxist.
It is true that in 2008 he ran using all of the populist tropes that the American electorate loves to hear. But he didn’t really mean any of them. If he had, he’d have been Clinton.
As you note, not all corporatists are created equal. There are the relatively responsible corporatists and the totally irresponsible corporatists.
Seems to me that Obama is a totally irresponsible corporatist–a fanatically devoted and ideological one, pretty nearly totally divorced from economic reality.
I don’t think Obama is even capable of intellectually comprehending, let alone understanding the actuarial hole that the Progressives and New Dealers have dug for this country. I think he actually thinks that it’s a positive good, rather than a ticking economic time bomb. (These are the jokers who invented the intellectual obscenity called “positive rights,” after all.)
Romney strikes me as someone who’s in the “responsible corporatist” camp.
Going with the rock motif . . . we’re still in the phase of saying “nice doggie” to the politician-corporatists until we can find a big enough political rock to hit them with. (Disclaimer: this is an analogy–no actual violent action is suggested or advocated.) We’ve already tagged them a couple of times, enough to make them a bit uncomfortable but not nearly hard enough to make them (temporarily) change their ways. I say “temporarily” because I suspect the corporatist drive is as old as humanity.
The good news is that we’ve wandered as a society from the rather pleasant manicured lawn left to us by our predecessors directly into an economic gravel pit. It’s harder to make our way now, but there’s plenty of rocks about should we decide to pick them up.
Corporatists are, maybe, like dogs in another way. Some may be useful to have around–like a good, obedient hunting dog. Others become rabid monsters that simply need to be put down. (Again metaphorically–no actual violence implied or intended).
But corporatists, like any of the timid but power-motivated people who naturally gravitate towards government work, need to be reminded occasionally who the master is, and who is the servant.
We need to apply a correction to the politicans of all ilks. We’ve snapped on the leash to get them to heel. We’ve whacked them a couple of times on their hindquarters to try to get them to sit/stay, and still most of them aren’t behaving.
Ever been angry at your dog for peeing on the carpet? That’s where we are right now with the politicians. The wife has started to hint “why do we have those smelly things in the house.”
Even the sheepish doggy-guilt look followed by the submissive hand-licking isn’t going to be enough this time.
Change is coming.
A friend of mine, who has been a local politician (in another state, he’s now retired in Florida – from politics as well as his job back there) told me: “Vote them all out – every incumbent. Whether you agree with them or not. If they’ve been there twice, they are getting corrupted. Politicians are supposed to serve. Once we’ve been around a time or two, we think we deserve to rule. It goes with the territory. I decided to move (for non-political reasons) and didn’t run again. That probably saved those I was representing.”
If Romney is elected, he’ll owe more than a little to the Tea Party, along with his other supporters. He’ll owe enough that he’ll have to listen if he wants to get re-elected. Even if his preferred stance is to preserve the status quo ante.
If President Obama is re-elected, he’ll owe it to his wealthy buddies, progressive groups, greens, unions, etc. You know, all those corporatist-socialist types.
Perhaps Romney’s heart isn’t pure, but it seems like a pretty big difference to me.
I would say, if you live in a swing state, you probably should vote Romney – nose firmly held – but do not expect him to be much of an improvement over Obama, generally, and probably worse in a few ways. I don’t live in a swing state, so I have an morally free vote: I don’t have to just vote against someone, I can with good conscience vote FOR someone: Gary Johnson, who is very close to my own political ideals. If GA is close, then Obama would likely be so far ahead nationally that it won’t matter if he wins GA. That is true of all the McCain states, and also (in reverse) of the bluest states, like CA, IL, NY, MD, etc.
Aristomedes,
More than a few Democrat anti-prohibitionists – disgusted with Obama – are planning to vote for Gary J.
Since I live in Illinois I may do the same.