Two recent essays from Victor Davis Hanson worth your time:A Rather Angry America
A Weird Sort Of Depression
Understand that even right-minded members of the intelligentsia such as Dr. Hanson are unwilling to speak about what is coming.
Ever wonder why?
Tempus fugit....
"An inability to cut pensions and social security [VDH's lower-case spelling] for the baby boomers."
ReplyDeleteIs he being sarcastic? Those were contract items with employers and the government. Paying into Social Security is INVOLUNTARY. Now he has a problem with us getting what we were promised? What we paid in should not be rationed back to us as intended? These are not entitlement programs. Anyway, employers see that layoffs are a really neat way around such obligations. Old-age pensions won't total nearly as much as active salaries AND pensions.
Indeed, the alternate economy he describes must be the way to go. Why work long and hard and dedicatedly, if you're going to end up gadget-rich but homeless and an alien minority in your own country?
Defender seems to believe that a "contract" with the Congress is enforceable. As long as the Congress remains a sovereign, you are subject to their decisions. Social Security is a TAXING agency, which is indeed involuntary (with a few ways to escape it), but it is also a distributor of funds, as the Agency and Congress sees fit. No individual has a claim on a specific pension amount nor a total value, regardless of the huge amount paid in to the "fund" over 50 + years. It is in fact an "entitlement program" just one that requires you to make mandatory payments to qualify for the possibility of some return. Every dollar that comes out of your pay, by self-employment 15% or 7.5%+7.5% for employees is a straight tax.
ReplyDeleteIt is an unfortunate (for regular American citizens) super-size Ponzi-style scheme that has financed the US Gov since the VietNam war at least. There is no "Trust Fund", "Lock-Box", or other store of wealth, only IOU's from the Government itself which are guarantees that force will be used to extract wealth from the current able-to-pay.
re: my comments about Peggy and her ilk. http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2010/08/ya-think-peggy.html
Why, indeed?
Cheers.
How do you know that VDH is "unwilling to speak about what is coming"? Have you spoken to him?
ReplyDeleteShow me a column wherein VDH discusses the more brutal consequences of the ongoing economic and political catastrophe....
ReplyDeleteHanson, like a lot of other talking heads, Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, etc., is a squish. What's a squish? If you step on one, they don't kick your ass, they just go squish. They eschew violence as a means of maintaining their liberty and freedom. And evil is not overcome by running away from it. Normally, I'm a peaceful man. But these are not peaceful times.
ReplyDeleteTo Kerry,
ReplyDeleteVDH is unwilling to speak about what is coming, and so are almost all of the intelligencia in the media and in academia, yes, that is a fact. Nobody has to ask them, they speak volumes by omission with every piece they publish. None of them, VDH included, are willing to speak the unspeakable, that "The Country Class" are fed up to the eyeballs with having been trashed by the "Ruling Class." A reckoning is coming!
As much as I respect VDH for his knowledge and ability to express in writing the state of current existence, he is still a member of the "Ruling Class." Soon, the voice of the people will be heard in a national election. Many of the ruling class will be swept from power, and in two more years many more will join them. It remains to be seen whether, or not, "we the people," we of the "Country Class" will be able to reclaim our nation from the progressives who have systematically waged a class war against us.
If the next majority in the Congress does effect major changes in the governance of this country, changes in favor of "we the people," then woe betide this nation, for that "thing" of which VDH and his peers never speak will surely take place. We are still willing to do this peacefully, at the ballot box; but, if there is no respite from the tyranny of the progressives and a repeal of all the damage they've done, then there will be an insurrection of horrendous proportions sweep this country.
And, Kerry, if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem!
That the self-appointed 'elite' know what's coming is shown by their near-total avoidance of discussion of 'gun control'/2A even after a mass casualty shooting. Yes, there are some mentions of such incidents as "proving that America needs stricter gun laws", but when compared to what would've been said/shown/written just 5 years ago about a similar occurrence, the silence from the press & politicos is deafening. Just about the only time one now sees/hears/reads about guns/2A is when a candidate makes his/her support for the 2A a major part of his/her campaign & repeatedly brings the subject up on the stump/in interviews. Even the allegedly pro-2A folks @ Fox news (w/ the noted exception of Andrew Napolitano) avoid the topic unless events like the recent Heller & McDonald rulings force them to acknowledge it or it can be used against their ideological opposition, & rest of the 'leaders' on the Right generally agree w/ Emperor Obama's assessment of RKBA supporters although they'll never admit it publicly. Also note how the continuing run on guns/ammo/CCW permits/'survivalist' gear has been slowly erased from press coverage since about mid-09 & that the increasing discussion of open revolt against the Imperium/another civil war/regional secession is for all intents & purposes non-existent. Our 'bettahs' on BOTH sides know what's up, folks, & are doing all they can to see that the lid's kept on for as long as possible because they also know that if it ever blows off they, their progeny, & their class will be forcibly ejected from power & quite possibly from further existence on the planet if they can't escape.
ReplyDeleteCassandra (of Troy)