mongoose has some killer comments in this thread.
"16. Mongoose:
Eggplant: Hyperinflation destroys the middle class–the small and medium size, independent business owner. Why would the democrat want anything other than this.
Wretchard: The problem with your notion about iterative methods are 1) you are assuming good will (and along with it honest communications and informaton), 2) you are assuming a consensus on goals, metrics, outcomes and definitions of success, etc., and 3) you are assuming that you can use the full power of that method.
Iterative methods are wonderful when part of the loop is getting rid of problems, but when those problems are bad decision makers, incompetent government structures and a corrupt–even treasonous–political class, iterative methods may devolve down to just repeating the same thing over and over again with the same results, and we all know what that is a definition of.
Politics in the USA (mostly) heretofore have had obvious control mechanisms for feedback to break out of this insanity. Are they still in place?
Are the people so stupefying stupid to let the Republic and all it stands for and has stood for fall out of their hands? With the MSM like it is we may never know the answer to that question. We may be at the greatest crisis point in our history as a Republic.
The solutions to this financial mess, of course, are quite simple: Tax relief, regulatory relief and a pullback of government spending. All ths is obvious on the face of it. This is what we should be iterating on. Instead we are iterating on the New Deal–iterating on the collectivist totalitarian state–and the likely outcomes are quite well known.
Iterating with this sort of mind set will not get us out of this, or if it does odds are that the destination would be worse than where we are now.
It is sad that the GOP has let the Democrat’s get away with this “failure of capitalism” and “caused by deregulation” agitprop.
The crisis is becoming an almost metaphysical one now.
Feb 25, 2009 - 6:23 am"and...
"29. Mongoose:
peterike: I would go as far as to say that social engineering can never be “well intentioned” for it must perforce reduce man to less than what he truly is. Generally in living memory “social engineering” and its errors have sprung from the moral and intellectual errors of positivism and materialist and economic determinism, but it can certainly take place where some bizarre metaphysical assumptions are guiding principles,as the Nazi’s well show.
A lack of self knowledge is not innocence. It is ignorance.
The matter is one of metaphysics colliding with ethics and morality.
The point is that the true nature of man as an idividual spirit (dare I say “soul”) with free will, self ditemeination and assent to being must be ignored in order for the social engineer to even begin concpetuialiszing his project. A mere aspect of mankind, which is to say a mere aspect of being itself, must be the focus, and all the rest ignored, not merely made dependent on the primary focus, but completely ignored.
Otherwise, the remove of the engineer vanishes and with it any notion of superiority of the engineer over the object of his “work”.
So aside from the moral and psychological aspects, flaws or errors of embarking on programs of social engineering, the metaphysical aspects–the entomology and ontology of the assumptions themselves– make good intentions almost impossible.
To continue once this is seen means the shunning of morality and the mere pursuit of power and self interest.
It is philisophically and morally self-selecting for those inclined to evil.
Feb 25, 2009 - 8:04 am"This last part is just truly insightful ... its like the opposite of the golden rule:
Matthew 7:12
12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do you ye even so to them. For this is the law and the prophets.
on another note later on Wretchard had this to say:
"153. wretchard:
“Wretchard, you cut your teeth opposing Marcos’ dictatorship. While we are not yet at the phase where the force of the State is being deployed against those who do not submit; it appears to be a mere matter of time before both statutory and extra-legal applications of brute force by the State are in our future.”
In the decade before Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and proclaimed himself dictator of the Philippines in 1972, it was clear that the Philippine Republic established in 1946, created in the aftermath of the devastation of World War 2, and based upon a thin crust of autocracy, had not long to live. The storm clouds were building, but when exactly the tempest would make landfall and where precisely it would strike was still unclear. Yet by the early 1960s a number of political movements were clearly girding themselves for the struggle ahead.
But none of this was clear to me as a teenager in high school. But I could feel the buzz. Now I know from history that a zero sum contest was brewing between what you would call extremists and reformists. The extremists, which were represented by the Communists, believed that the existing society had come to a dead end. They were willing to overthrow it by any means necessary. I do mean any. The reformers, on the other hand, were alive to the value of democracy, however flawed, and of Christianity, which served, and still serves, as the single unifying glue of that society.
Leaving aside the vast differences in between that distant Third World country and America in the 21st century, it’s reasonable to suppose that a similar process may now be occurring. There’s a sense of crisis; and an unfocused debate over what to do about it. I suspect that as things develop, a race between quite dangerous political elements and those who wish to preserve or work through the Constitution will develop.
In the case of the Philippines both Marcos and the Communists decided it would be in their best interests to murder the republic. At a stroke the choice would be between two extremes. Marcos would benefit by making the sole alternative to his dictatorship the Communists, who were as reprehensible as he was. The Commies would benefit from making Marcos the alternative to them. The reformists were amateurs and when Martial Law was declared, using the bombing of an opposition convention (analogous to car bombing the Republican National Convention) as a pretext (historians now know that the Communists did it) the clandestine war was on.
During the subsequent years, the Bolshevist methods by themselves proved incapable of defeating Marcos, and just as the Abimael Guzman has failed in Latin America, so would Jose Maria Sison have failed in the Philippines. But what ultimately destroyed the Marcos regime was a vast, viral organizing effort that created a dense network of NGOs, church groups, grassroots organizations, etc all of whom worked within the law — though some only just — that eventually made the regime culturally illegitimate. Pivotal to the this viral organizing campaign were the efforts of the Zone One Tondo organizers who showed the way and developed a model which was widely emulated, both consciously and unconsciously, until it was widespread. When the Aquino assassination occurred there was enough dry tinder on the ground to sweep the reformists (represented by Cory Aquino) into power. This was an immense strategic surprise not only to Marcos, but also to Sison, who rues the day he pooh-poohed that outcome.
The mistake most amateurs make when faced with a crisis that may involve violence, etc is to become obsessed with underground activity, illegal actions, etc. Bringing down even a dictator is 95% legal organizing and 5% clandestine work. The reason for this is that most people are too scared or unwilling to break the law and rightly so. So the most effective resistance to tyranny happens when you take the law at its word and demand your rights. Eventually a real tyrant must either yield or show his true colors. We used this ploy time and again to force the crisis. It’s always a lose-lose for the dictator; and an aggregate win for the rebels. I must say though, that the fact that you are acting legally doesn’t mean you are risk-free. If things get bad, there’s really no distinction between acting legally and acting clandestinely because the dictator doesn’t split hairs.
But returning to 21st century America, the only advice I can give is to maximally use the liberties allowed under the law and the Constitution. There’s a lot of space there and I believe it has hardly been used. From the courts, to local politics, to media campaigns, to civil disobedience — there are lots of levers yet to be pulled. I think it would be immoral for anyone to go all apocalyptic on the Republic and take to the hills like some kind of militia group, besides being impractical, because there are lots of things that have yet to be pushed to their fullest legal extent. But there’s another reason for exhausting all the remedies under the Constitution. Afterward.
It will be a hollow to gain a political victory at the cost of destroying the framework you were trying to preserve. One day there will be another party, another political movement, another set of views in Washington. And on that day you want the Constitution whole and inviolate; because that scrap of parchment represents a hard won set of rules which by common consent defines legitimacy.
We are in the path of the storm. Men of goodwill should get involved; they should prepare to pay some price for their involvement. But for the moment, it’s all hands on deck and none below.
Feb 26, 2009 - 12:42 am"this is some meat and potatoes... especially this thought: One day there will be another party, another political movement, another set of views in Washington. And on that day you want the Constitution whole and inviolate; because that scrap of parchment represents a hard won set of rules which by common consent defines legitimacy.
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