...before it's too late.
Proof that powers of government have long breached the bounds of constitutional restraint.
There's an election in one year. Anyone who votes for any candidate not fully committed to cutting the state's size and authority considerably is helping to create a distopia worse than anything fiction has ever portrayed.
Most people get the government they deserve. The rest of us have to deal with their flawed judgement.
This is clearly off topic from what I usually post here, but it's not only informative for those who wish to know, "how things work," it's also presented in a refreshingly informal way free of the snobbish academic elitism one so often finds in discussions of intelligent topics.
Most who read this blog are probably not followers of astrology but, in addition to the astrological insight this post offers, there is some superb insight and analysis of the perpetual contradiction in leftists ideals.
This Is the kind of thing that only a "progressive" would be cool with.
While the left (of all degrees) typically distances itself from gulag styles of socialism, the basic concepts of obedience to the state in it's pervasive quest to control economics and all aspects of life is something they all at least sympathize with to some degree.
The fact that people who so often consider themselves rebels can ultimately be so opposed to free expression is pathetic
Anyone who thinks that the sentiments of garden variety "progressives" in the age of Obama don't ultimately lead to the elimination of individual freedom has slept through history.
As I've written often, 'you want "utopia'," "equality," "justice" - join a commune and leave the rest if us alone.
First; apologies for this site being dormant for so long. My interest in posting comes and goes and I never really look upon it as anything more than a minor hobby. I like noting my personal observations but realize there are other sites out there that can say the same stuff I'm saying and say it better than I'm saying it. My thoughts would probably be better stated as "tweets" though I don't "do" tweets (I'm happily an ex-Facebook guy).
I was going to write a lengthily essay regarding the absurd dishonesty so often used in describing the so-called Tea Parties. In a nut shell, it's ridiculous that a group of concerned citizens can take a stand against excessive taxation, regulation, and the growth of government without leftland falling back on their usual nonsense about "extremists," and "racists" -- yawn.
With a minute to spare, I did want to note a thought that came to mind as I rode toward the train station where I live in Japan.
It occured to me that, in the U.S. and Europe, aged, worn, and weathered buildings typically take on a quaint charm (the mood one may find in an Andrew Wyeth painting). I realized why that is so often not the case here in Japan. Outside of cities like Tokyo, most architecture and infrastructure is from the fifties to the seventies (for a variety of obvious reasons). Some moss on an art Deco warehouse can be quite beautiful. Rusty corrugated metal, not so much.
In my eyes, the issue boils down to simply knowing when to get rid of something, or at least make necessary improvements when warranted. In the U.S. and many other places, old and unsightly buildings are remodeled or torn down and rebuilt.
In the end, this is just another of the many reasons to view prosperity as a good thing. Cities and states languishing in subsistence and decline aren't good for anyone. A society that simply issues checks to bureaucrats and a thousand and one schemes eventually "runs out of other people's money," as Margaret Thatcher famously said. It can be added that exhausting wealth doesn't help the general aesthetic environment either.
Well wishes to all as we slouch toward world socialism.
'An absolutely excellent appraisal of the blatant incompetence of American foreign policy and dealings with Iran. From, The Razor.
I recently went to Tokyo Disneyland with my family. The last time I had been to one of Disney's theme parks was in Florida decades ago. I realize that Disney is ultimately a pop consumer institution so I had no expectation of being profoundly moved by deep issues or refined aesthetics. Disneyland doesn't claim to be an art museum or a crusader for "justice."
Many amongst the snob clique of leftland have a problem with large successful institutions of any kind. If a mob of lowly commoners are cheerfully consuming in a pop venue like Disneyland, all the worse in the anti-capitalist's eyes. Of course, failed state institutions are defended by them to no end.
It can be assumed that Disney, as a business, wants to make lots of money. What's seldom considered is, Iike all businesses, Disney chooses to do something specific to get that money. Of the billions of things it could have done to "get rich" it chose to entertain children and families, which implies that commerce in general is beyond a narrow label like, "greed."
After getting my money (the entrance fee), capitalist Tokyo Disney gave me a chance to leave corporatist Japan. Unlike most of Japan, the grass and landscaping was neatly trimmed, there were no rust-stained surfaces, and once indoors the temperatures were cool and comfortable (not the muggy stale air of Japan's government-recommended temperature of 28c). I could even easily find places to dispose of or recycle waste paper and plastic. In most of Japan, bureaucrats have determined that less waste will be produced if one has to lug around every gum wrapper rather than disposing of it immediately. Apparently carrying it around and trowing it away later saves the Earth or something. They charge for using approved trash bags at home -' wouldn't want the trash-o-crats coming up short in their yearly tax-funded bonuses.
Disneyland is a good case in point demonstrating how capitalism is ultimately not about capitalism. It's about a million and one things valued by a million and one individuals who daily choose some services, products, or ideals and choose to reject others. Disney appears to have no deliberate desire to comment upon any ism beyond liesure-ism (if there is such a thing). Capitalism's parasitic opposite, socialism, on the other hand, is stridently ideological, with smug proclamations as to what it is not ("greedy," and "selfish," etc.). Attractions at disneyland have nothing to do with "justice," "building a fair society," or anything else in the demagogue's bag of catch-phrase philosophy.
It just so happens that all the wonderful playful things one can experience in life are more easily attained in a system that doesn't feel compelled to impose an ideology.
Can one ever imagine a socialist state spontaneously producing what Disney has produced or, for that matter; movies, airplanes, or flush toilets. A committee would be formed and all politically correct considerations would be followed and we'd end up with just another boring bureau-scheme devoid of life and color. Later it would be closed as socialist autocrats determine their priorities of subsistence rationing and funding the security and propaganda apparatus.
Disneyland in Tokyo is amazingly successful,..in Europe, not so much. There are some in Europe (perhaps many) who view it as a vehicle for "cultural imperialism," which is actually a pretty dumb concept in the left's arsenal of nonsense. No one is forced to go to Disney and, unlike - say - Obamacare, no one is penalized for choosing not to use it. Do French kids really savor an afternoon at Sartreland or Derrida world?
I've said it many times on these pages; socialism is not only stale, conforming, inefficient, and often ruthless, it just plain isn't fun and when they see fun make it illegal -- "For the people" of course.
So, enjoy the voluntary pleasures of Micky Mouse and company. Let the corporation that perpetuates the fun continue to get rich, and let coffee shop intellectuals contemplate the horrors of fun, bourgeois inferiority, and their own pathological angst.
By now, most politically-minded observers have read Vladimir Putin's comments in the New York Times.
Hopefully, more than a few have read the response penned by Jim DeMint as well.
I'm not going to get into a lengthily commentary about what should be obvious. DeMint's comments -- and ones by others -- effectively do that.
Criticisms of the U.S. -- some more than justified -- are beyond easy. If I can paraphrase Reagan in one of his rather funny but insightful jokes; In the U.S. we can criticize our leaders. Russians has the same freedom and they too can criticize America's leaders.
Chastisements coming from the current Russian bureau-autocrat are on par with the usual critiques heard and read daily on college campuses and in classrooms across America and by self-important intellectual whiners everywhere. It's been pointed out that what Putin wrote was basically what those on the political left say and write daily. What's really ironic is that the American president Putin directs much of his critique to has, in the past, held many of the same beliefs. In Putin's favor (and not Obama's), I'd note that he at least has some pride and confidence in his own nation. Pity our current president can only occasionally make a brief comment or two in favor of America and its system and values, and when he does it usually comes across as less than sincere. Obama and his wife have a long history of being typical American academic mentalities far removed from anything that could be even vaguely considered confident in our nation's -- exceptional -- founding principals (which is seen by the left as cheesy at best and fascist in spirit).
One more thing I want to note about Putin in general. I understand the macho posturing for a guy in his forties or so. Guys want to look cool. Rinding bare-chested on horseback, wrestling wild animals, and posing with dead tigers just makes one look ...like they're posing. When you're a man over sixty, its time to simply look dignified in your suit and play responsible elder statesman. When the latest Putin- as-James Bond/Indiana Jones photo comes out, it reminds me of those once attractive women who are now old ladies but insist on wearing a short skirt and dying their hair bleach blond -- it just looks pathetic.
I truly hope that one day the long suffering people of Russia will be graced with a decent truly representative government that will leave them to excel, pursue happiness, and even criticize the state and its leaders. For now, 'some minor advancement from the past, but very minor.
