A friend over at another blog (you can find it if you know my haunts) asks a very serious question in a discussion about what to do about “the bankers”. How can they be reined in?
This has been a rather dramatic change in your tone, has something happened to you in the last six months? Prior you’d actually debate things in rational tones, even when you disagreed there was still a form of civility involved. Now its mostly just a fire hose of rhetoric.
Is this what an election does to otherwise sane individuals?
There is no doubt he has my number. My spirit has taken a dive. I feel engulfed in darkness not of my own making. Let me see if I can explain it.
It is not the election per se. It is that this election has given me a deep view inside the politics of the electorate. And what I see is very ugly in my sight. Some crave to be masters. Some crave slavery.
For me? Neither master nor slave. (Thanks Kathy)
I can think of no chains you can put on bankers that can’t be used to enslave the population. And if it can it will. The only way to avoid bank slavery is this: don’t go into debt. Don’t mortgage your future. You want a house? Pay cash. You want a car? Pay cash.
The same goes for government. The banker takes advantage of your greed. Your unwillingness to wait. The evil is not in the banker. The evil is in you. And to avoid looking at yourself in the mirror you rail at the banks and their collusion with government. I’m sorry to tell you but money will ALWAYS buy power. The answer is less government and a government without debt.
Your effort to make an inherently evil system work will only lead to more evil.
You rail against the greed of the rich. How did they get the power? They bought it based on the greed of the poor. So tell me again how you fix that? The poor are not satisfied with food and a roof. They want the 52″ plasma and lots of bling. And the bankers through the government are willing to satisfy that greed in exchange for slavery.
It is not just the greed of the bankers. The greed is epidemic. The Right supports the greed of the bankers and the Left supports the greed of the “poor”. It is making us all a nation of slaves.
Do you get it now?
Comments
11 responses to “Why I’m Pessimistic”
Change reigned to reined and I totally get it. : )
Genie,
Thanks! Done.
It is not the election per se. It is that this election has given me a deep view inside the politics of the electorate. And what I see is very ugly in my sight. Some crave to be masters. Some crave slavery.
We Americans (all of us) have been trained to think within a 2-party system that means the same damned thing. The Federal Gummint ultimately rules all, and with our, ultimately, voting for one of theirs, benign permission.
Be sure to vote!
The evolution of the vote originally intended, to the point we are now, where my dog Fido can register, ought to wake most up. But most are so busy being “American” and “patriotic” that to suggest they might have been operating within an engineered “brain-dead-ness” seems to escape most.
Just – do it again, and expect a different result! That’ll work!
“Political Science” is called such because politicians have observed the behavior of the sheep, made the necessary adjustments, and still persuade us to support THEIR system with our supposed “freedom” of “the franchise” (the vote). We buy into it every single time, like lemmings viewing an opportunistic cliff off which to march. Change! Change!!
Lincoln killed what existed of Constitutional America. Fuss about that if you will, but go read DiLorenzo and try your best, your very, very, best non-political party/two party self, to dispel what he says.
Judge Roberts’ decision the other day merely proves DiLorenzo a prophet.
TR tried to really capitalize – playing the full-fledged progressive while advocating yet further wars, but Wilson was the genius. Re-direct the creators of the money supply (the Fed), create the collection agency to absolutely screw with a citizen’s entire life and livelihood (the IRS), and instead of “true” Senators who would be the ultimate bulwark over against an imperial Presidency, tell the states to screw themselves and turn their election into a beauty pageant.
Then, go to the war that guaranteed the next one.
FDR was merely a beneficiary.
Mission accomplished. Thanks, Woody, or his bride, while he was brain-dead. Every Prez since then has sworn to uphold, not the Constitution, but the two-party system and the imperial presidency.
It is not the usual counter-arguments here or there that proves the contrary, but the actual result smacking us in the face over and over again.
But go vote for another smack in the forehead, or the chops!
As an aside, the left supports the greed of the bankers EVERY bit as much as does the right, and in some cases, as the Bammster has proved, the left supports those assholes even more than the right right could dream of doing!
The “Republic” is DEAD. The people have allowed the “political scientists” to euthanize the Constitution and present themselves as its substitute.
And we will trudge off to the polls come November and pretend we are being patriotic and good, responsible citizens.
Winston, and Mencken, did not come close to grasping the enormity of our ignorance and sheer stupidity.
Americans are creative, no doubt, and we are proving to the world how well we can prove our own stupidity superior to all.
“epidemic” is not the precise word . . .
“Endemic” is.
“No government is perfect; all governments violate rights. This was well known. So the Americans had to allege more than mere violations of rights. They had to allege nothing short of a criminal conspiracy to violate their rights systematically.”
http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/04/the-declaration-of-independence-annotated/
Will,
Excellent link!
…what I see is very ugly in my sight. Some crave to be masters. Some crave slavery.
Simon,
Let me get this straight–you are now pessimistic because man is a fallen creature, and imperfect-able, and Americans are no different from any other men in this regard? So why were you ever optimistic if this commonplace can spoil your outlook?
The amazing thing is not that every American wishes his liberty within a constitutional republic, or wishes it to the greatest extent possible, but that there are so many who will (if perhaps reluctantly) answer “Yes” when asked in stark terms. A country populated by no one in particular, just random folks from every nation on Earth. Every 70 years or so, that question must be asked and answered once more, and each time it is possible that the answer will be “No”. Is this time really so much worse than 150 years ago?
I’ll leave off with perhaps the most succinct statement of American Exceptionalism ever: Bill Murray in “Stripes”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Q1fDf0GeY
Neil,
I’d put this at about the same level as 1859. So you got that one.
But I see this as a little different. Back then it was about a desire to keep slaves.
What we have now is much worse: the desire to be slaves.
Nice link. I have been wanting to put a video up for a few days. That is the one. I was a squad leader in Navy boot camp so that one hits home. I did give a few short speeches about wanting to be excellent. But none that good.
[…] Commenter Neil and I were discussing the nature of our current problem and how it related to the problem of 1859. I pointed out that the problem back then was whether or not to keep slaves and our current problem is whether or not to be slaves. A whole different order of problem. Neil suggested the following video as an antidote to my pessimism. Enjoy. […]
You have yourself a point there.
There is hope, though. The same demographic that fought to the bloody end for slavery has, 150 years later, turned out to be the most steadfast against it. Partly through education, partly through bitter experience, they’ve realized that their own well-being requires liberty.
Much of the current trend is the result of a popular culture and an educational system designed to reinforce that trend. These things are not immutable. They can be changed. Actually, the technological trends encourage liberty–centralism is on the defensive against IT, distributed culture, and off-the-grid energy. The danger is great and the line must be drawn here and now. But if that line can be held, there is hope.
The Bankster problem (and I am a recovering one) is simple.
Let them do what they want.
What they most want to do is go bankrupt (funny coincidence that word, huh?)
Citi/Goldman/BOA etc have been bailed out on 4 different occasions in the past 20 years.
Give them Liberty (and give them death)