Of the elites by the elites and for the elites
 

I certainly hope that the conclusion to this article is way off base - but IMO there is little doubt that for decades government, as a whole, has been woefully inefficient.

Unfortunately, as others have suggested on this BB, the seeds for social unrest are becoming more apparent - I guess that we hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

December 9, 2011

Government of The Elites, By The Elites and For The Elites

By Monty Pelerin

American Thinker

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...#ixzz1g4mhCJbp

Excerpts:

In the short span of a century and a half, the US went from a government famously described by Abraham Lincoln as "of the people, by the people, for the people" to one "of the Elites, by the Elites, for the Elites."

Albert J. Nock referenced Lincoln's phrase as "probably the most effective single stroke of propaganda ever made in behalf of republican State prestige." Perhaps, but when Lincoln said it our country had at least some resemblance to Lincoln's description.

This country, founded on personal liberty, freedom and limited government, has morphed into a massive Social Welfare State rivaling the paragons of Socialism in Europe. The concept of government serving the people no longer applies. The people now serve their government and its cronies.

Attacks on the Rule of Law and the Constitution, coupled with the general decline in ethical norms, enabled the inmates to take control of the asylum. Now we face a situation described rather bluntly by D. Sherman Okst:

“Plutocracy allows them to do what you and I would be jailed for doing. Being a legislator today is a get out of jail and get rich card. Congress isn't a place to serve the public, it isn't where you go to honor your country - it is where you go to earn wealth 150% faster than the American that serves you while you screw them.”

There is no viable political solution. Choosing between Corruption Faster (Democrats) and Corruption Slower (Republicans) does not change the destination, merely the rate at which the public is plundered. Government is too large and too powerful to allow itself to be dismantled via the ballot box. Yet it is also too large, too inefficient and too insolvent to survive.

A mercy killing, administered by an economic collapse, will provide a meaningful opportunity to address the political problem and return to limited government. Such an event, unfortunately, also opens the possibility of a totalitarian state.

Great pain lies ahead. The only issue is whether it will be short-term (say ten years) or long-term as in the old Soviet Union. Be aware of what lies ahead and prepare as best you can.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...#ixzz1g4mJLzrO

Your Spidey senses are tingling are they :D

If and when it happens, it will surely be an ugly affair on scale never seen before..

Oswald Spengler wrote, "Decline of the West" during the early 20th century. Some exerts from the book via wikipedia...

He thought the West was entering what he called the "winter" phase.

Winter: Coming fissure in the world-urban civilization. Exhaustion of mental organization strength. Irreligiousness rises.

Religion: Materialism: Cults of science, utility, and luck. Ethical-social ideals: philosophy without mathematics, skepticism. The last mathematical thinkers. Decline of abstract thinkers, and the rise of specialized academic philosophy. Spread of the last ideas.
Art: End of symbolic art. All art becomes meaningless subjects of fashion.
Politics: Democracy, the rule of the rich, followed by caesarism and bureaucracy.

Spengler predicts that the permanent mass conscription armies will be replaced by smaller professional volunteer armies. From millions, states will revert to armies of hundreds of thousands. However, the professional armies will not be for deterrence, but for waging war. Spengler states that they will precipitate wars upon which whole continents—India, China, South Africa, Russia, Islam—will be staked. The great powers will dispose of smaller states, which will come to be viewed merely as means to an end. This period in Civilizational decline he labels the period of Contending States.

Caesarism is essentially the death of the spirit that originally animated a nation and its institutions. It is marked by a government which is formless irrespective of its de jure constitutional structure. The antique forms are dead, despite the careful maintenance of the institutions; those institutions now have no meaning or weight. The only aspect of governance is the personal power exercised by the Caesar. This is the beginning of the Imperial Age.

Despite having fought wars for democracy and rights during the period of Contending States, the populace can no longer be moved to use those rights. People cease to take part in elections, and the most qualified people remove themselves from the political process. This is the end of great politics. Only private history, private politics, and private ambitions rule at this point. The wars are private wars, "more fearful than any State wars because they are formless." The imperial peace involves private renunciation of war on the part of the immense majority, but conversely requires submission to that minority which has not renounced war. The world peace that began in a wish for universal reconciliation, ends in passivity in the face of misfortune, as long as it only affects one's neighbor. In personal politics the struggle becomes not for principles but for executive power. Even popular revolutions are no exception: the methods of governing are not significantly altered, the position of the governed remains the same, and the strong few determined to rule remain over top the rest of humanity.

Spengler asserts that democracy is simply the political weapon of money, and the media is the means through which money operates a democratic political system. The thorough penetration of money's power throughout a society is yet another marker of the shift from Culture to Civilization.

Democracy and plutocracy are equivalent in Spengler's argument. The "tragic comedy of the world-improvers and freedom-teachers" is that they are simply assisting money to be more effective. The principles of equality, natural rights, universal suffrage, and freedom of the press are all disguises for class war (the bourgeois against the aristocracy). Freedom, to Spengler, is a negative concept, simply entailing the repudiation of any tradition. In reality, freedom of the press requires money, and entails ownership, thus serving money at the end. Suffrage involves electioneering, in which the donations rule the day. The ideologies espoused by candidates, whether Socialism or Liberalism, are set in motion by, and ultimately serve, only money. "Free" press does not spread free opinion—it generates opinion, Spengler maintains.

Spengler admits that in his era money has already won, in the form of democracy. But in destroying the old elements of the Culture, it prepares the way for the rise of a new and overpowering figure: the Caesar. Before such a leader, money collapses, and in the Imperial Age the politics of money fades away.

Spengler's analysis of democratic systems argues that even the use of one's own constitutional rights requires money, and that voting can only really work as designed in the absence of organized leadership working on the election process. As soon as the election process becomes organized by political leaders, to the extent that money allows, the vote ceases to be truly significant. It is no more than a recorded opinion of the masses on the organizations of government over which they possess no positive influence whatsoever.

Spengler notes that the greater the concentration of wealth in individuals, the more the fight for political power revolves around questions of money. One cannot even call this corruption or degeneracy, because this is in fact the necessary end of mature democratic systems.

On the subject of the press, Spengler is equally as contemptuous. Instead of conversations between men, the press and the "electrical news-service keep the waking-consciousness of whole people and continents under a deafening drum-fire of theses, catchwords, standpoints, scenes, feelings, day by day and year by year." Through the media, money is turned into force—the more spent, the more intense its influence.

For the press to function, universal education is necessary. Along with schooling comes a demand for the shepherding of the masses, as an object of party politics. Those that originally believed education to be solely for the enlightenment of each individual prepared the way for the power of the press, and eventually for the rise of the Caesar. There is no longer a need for leaders to impose military service, because the press will stir the public into a frenzy, clamor for weapons, and force their leaders into a conflict.

The only force which can counter money, in Spengler's estimation, is blood. As for Marx, his critique of capitalism is put forth in the same language and on the same assumptions as those of Adam Smith. His protest is more a recognition of capitalism's veracity, than a refutation. The only aim is to "confer upon objects the advantage of being subjects."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West

The current administration and its many supporters might not view the inefficiency of big government as being quite so obvious.

Nor, IMO is big goverment inefficiency quite so obvious to some currently elected members of the Republican Party.

That is a large part of the problem - what some see as obvious - might not be quite so obvious.

Crony Capitalism in America
 

Crony Capitalism in America - misdirected anger - valuable resources diverted - billions at stake.

A short but interesting video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiMai...A&feature=plcp

I would go so far as to say that the Government has been woefully and purposefully inefficient enforcing the laws that are supposed to protect our country, and they have been complicit in the theft of economic resources and finances of the nation.

IMO, you have to look no further than MF Global to get a birdseye view.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot...-customer.html


Why SIPC? MF Global Customers Were Thrown Under the Bus on Day 1

Such an event, unfortunately, also opens the possibility of a totalitarian state.

The only reason we are not a totalitarian state is the United States Military..... we are sworn to defend the U. S. Constitution, not serve or protect the people.

The idiots in Washington know this all too well. While we breath the U. S. Constitution is safe and so are the people "it" speaks of and for....

The first step to bringing down this nation wuold be to disband its military. I don't see that happening anytime soon....

Dismantle the military? Not a chance...
...however, weakening the military until it becomes ineffective? Would that work?

Image this: 400 billion in defense cuts, followed by another 600 billion in additional cuts if congress should fail to agree on how to manage budgets, followed by trimming troop benefits with a light sabre instead of a scalpel...
...would such a military remain strong? Could such a military continue to provide a bulletproof security blanket to the American public?

-You don't have to dismantle a machine, you just have to keep it from working. For example, a '71 Hemi-Cuda with no motor oil wont run very long before the engine seizes up.

just my two cents

I hope you are on target
 

the latest from Occupy is they want to picket Barry to get him to cut our Federal military budget in half. Talk about pushing someone to do what they wanted to do from day one. Stay tuned, and pray.