What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.”

Cynical? So now we will be demonized for even questioning the motivations of the statists. We now must faithfully believe that everything government does is ultimately good and in our best interest. This is the state as religion and it leads to the same place as all the other versions.

Assuming the Republic survives Obama mostly intact, how long will be his shadow of divisiveness and identity politics?

deepdiver on January 23, 2013 at 10:17 AM

Now that you mention it, I don’t know which is worse — that, or our increasing national debt.

I kinda like many parts of the modern world. I like being able to be lettuce and lemons and raspberries year round. I like having electricity with the flip of a switch, running water and a public sewer system. I like being able to drop by one of the numerous stores even in this fairly rural area and buy most anything I could want or need or, alternatively, popping on the internet for almost anything I could ever want with a few clicks and have it here as quickly as the next day. I like that, although I carry a sidearm daily for the unexpected, the danger is just that, unexpected. I don’t run corner to corner, alley to alley with my rifle loaded and at the ready to visit my friends or to get a bucket of water. I like my gas fireplace and central HVAC system that keeps the house cozy with no effort on my part on the coldest of nights.

While I like camping and being in the woods to get away sometimes, I do not want to live as my great-grandparents in very rural America in a poorly insulated house with a pot belly stove for warmth and cooking, an out-house for bathroom facility, a pump in the kitchen for water, a bowl for a sink and a washtub for a bathtub. A time when fresh vegetables were for summer and fall and self-canned for the rest. A time when fresh meat and fresh vegetables rarely met but rather fresh meat was with canned vegetables and salted or smoked meat with fresh.

I think Obama threatens all of this. And I think he is too ignorant of history, arrogant of his positions and derisive of the majority of the producers who mostly live in “flyover” country to understand what he threatens. Will he destroy it by forcing multitudes to “go Galt”? Or will he inspire armed rebellion to reestablish a constitution observing government? Or will he just push a long, slow but accelerating decline that turns us essentially into a third world country? Assuming the Republic survives Obama mostly intact, how long will be his shadow of divisiveness and identity politics?

fogw on January 23, 2013 at 9:26 AM

I was actually thinking of Robespierre, but any of them will do.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.

You mean, like, the Constitution? Yeah, I think that’s what you mean.

Ein Volk!
Ein Reich!
Ein Fuhrer!

Blake on January 23, 2013 at 9:19 AM

Aber, Ich bin nicht einen Obamaner!