Liberty dies to thunderous applause, 2019 version

The 9/11 Truther kooks used to weave the "Missing Pentagon trillions!" into their tinfoil hattery. The theory was that the "missile" that hit the Pentagon was just a distraction from the "DA TROOF!" That being the theft of the trillions of dollars from the Pentagon when everybody was looking the other way.



Good stuff, good stuff.

I miss those wacky 9/11 Troofers. The intertoobs just isn't as much fun since they all crawled back under their rocks.

 

That wasn't a theory sir, that was a fact. Most all the casualties at the Pentagon were congressional auditors trying to find those missing funds.

 

Actually, the Nazis did not win power democratically. The 1933 elections were closer to Soviet-style elections --Hitler was already in power, not by getting a majority of the vote, and used both state and extra-state power to physically attack his opponents before the election.

In fact, the Nazi share of the popular vote actually declined significantly from the Spring of 1932, when they won about 37 per cent of the vote, to the next big election int he autumn, when they got only 32 per cent of the vote. In fact, their bitter enemies, the Socialists and Communists together got 37 per cent of the vote. Had they co operated to crush the Nazis, they might have been able to win, although it would have required a civil war. But the Communists had been scaring hell out of the German people for the past fifteen years, aiming at political system which had everything in common with the Nazis' goal, so this didn't happen. (The idiot Stalin had directed the German Communists to consider the Socialists their main enemy, 'social-fascists' in the language of the time. Another Leftist own goal, with tragic results for humanity.)

As for democracy and constitutions -- a constitution is just a piece of paper, unless there is strong populat -- democratic -- support for the kind of limitations it imposes on majorities-of-the-moment. And if people are facing starvation, mass unemployment, loss of their homes -- they not give a toss for these limitations. Thus the necessity for wise Rightwingers to make sure that the system from they benefit so much, also offers enough good things to everyone.

And while we're talking about Nazis, a quote comes to mind ... something about 'gas chambers' ... oh yes, it's Whittaker Chambers, in the flagship conservative journal NATIONAL REVIEW, with his devastating book review of Ayn Rand's awful Atlas Shrugged. Wonderful to read still after more than sixty years. No one clicks on links, so I'll just quote the best sentence:'From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: “To a gas chamber–go!' But do click on the link, whether you're Left or Right or neither.

 

Well I'm glad we agree that the socialism of businesses has been destructive in Venezuela. And I do agree that private corporations can be especially exploitive in 3rd world nations such as what Venezuela has become. The only way I can see for Venezuela to recover financially is for businesses to reinvest in that country and so long as they fear any assets will be confiscated that is not going to happen. The people need a non-socialist running the country but the despot who has seized complete control of the country has no intention of ever letting that happen.

 

Good stuff.

I love the 9/11 kookery.

 

One chubby hand gripped tight on the throat of Venezuela, the other stuffing empandas in his mouth.

Long may he reign.

 

Reread my post.

As to the rest, it was FDR that put the Japanese in concentration camps, not Ayn Rand.

As to the mealy mouse, Whitaker, he would know, it’s his religious conservatives leading the charge.

 

Yes, there was little dissent with respect to locking up the Japanese, about whom it was believed that many would choose genetic over formal-national loyalty. They mainly didn't, as it happened. It's the rational hope behind those who propose open borders today -- Randians? what do Randians believe about that issue? -- that trational racial/tribal loyalties will be submerged in a new, American, national identity. Or, in the case of mass Muslim immigration to Europe, in loyalty to trans-national liberal-democratic values in general. Hope it works. (It's ironic that the Left has found that trying to exacerbate racial divisions is their best line of attack on the existing order, since history has shown that when you really set the tribal fires alight, a rational democratic order is the last thing you can expect when the conflagration dies down.)

And it's true that tradtional conservatism has seemed to require, as a central principle, belief in some sort of transcendent order, normally identified with a supernatural one peopled by sort-of-human-beings-like--your-grandfather. This belief in that particular kind of transcendent order seems to be dying away generally, and even on the Right although it's a process of generations, not of a few years.

Will a general humanism be able to replace it? I think it will, but it's not certain.

Some sort of belief in something like the destiny of our species, something beyond mere consume-copulate-and-die, seems necessary, or at least desirable. It's not a true-or-false thing, rather an affirmation. Reason enslaved to the passions, as it should be.


. Religion was generally a pretty poor substitute for this, tied up as it is in irrational beliefs and vicious tribal loyalties. Rand was not wrong to reject it. And when Chambers lived, there seemed to be no substitute. (Anyway, I believe Chambers was a Quaker. I hardly count them as believes in the supernatural.)

But I've always wondered whether really intelligent conservatives like him really, truly believed that God came down as an angel and impregnated a woman whose son turned water into wine ete etc ... come on, really? Usually such people avoid affirming these absurd propositions, and turn to general considerations about the origins of life and consciousness, or the supposed terrible consequences that would ensue, should people stop believing that they are continually being watched by an invisible man in the sky. But it's defnitely fading away.

 

For Whitaker to write the review he did of a novel which contains this ideal:

From Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged: "Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html

is for Whitaker to announce for one and all to hear, "Im a pathological liar"

And for Buckley to hire him to do so is for Buckley to announce to world, "I'm an intellectual fraud".

 

I think what we old intellectual frauds and pathological liars don't like about Rand -- I don't say all Randians are like this, some of my best friends etc .. is the obvious deep contempt for ordinary people she displayed. Plus the cult-like atmosphere of her group. Not everyone can be highly intelligent, physically attractive, energetic ... and if you're lucky enough to tick those boxes, you should also tick the box of compassion for others. There's a me-me-me thing about the Rand ideology which repels the rest of us on the Right -- it's something that Leftists accuse us of, and not without some justification, but Randians seem to exult in it.
But that's just a personal reaction.

Down to politics:
Would you regard tax collection as an example of the initiation of physical force? If I don't pay my taxes, phyisical force will definitely be used against me. Is it justified?

 

If you wish to discuss Ayn Rand, Objectivism, or the future of Man, feel free to stop on by--http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mans-future-the-pedestal-or-the-cross.550884/

As to Rand's treatment of the ordinary and the good--do you know who Cherryl Brooks, the Wet Nurse--Tony, or Eddie Willers is? Hint: They are not the brightest, the richest, the luckiest, or the most beautiful.

The greatest resentment on the Right towards Ayn Rand comes from one basic ideal, self-fulfillment by one's own effort, i.e., she took Man off of the cross and put him on a pedestal, not to worship, but to emulate, to the best of our ability, not as clones, but as independent beings with creative minds and moral souls.

With regards to the premise of this thread, America is immoral because it entered an embassy to remove thugs--it reminds of an armed robber using the moral principle of self-defense to justify his killing a cop. I wonder what side Eleuthera came down on the Elan Gonzales abduction by Clinton and his federal goons. An action that was taken by President Clinton, without a warrant, without a court order, without permission of the family the mother was bringing the boy to, and in deference to a father willing to enslave his son to win favors from his dictator. (If I see Clinton and his federal goons in the afterlife, I will know I am in hell.)

Yes, taxes are as immoral and evil as slavery.

 

What happened with Venezuela? Been awful quiet about it lately. Did glorious leader Maduro fix all the problems? Has Venezuela become the socialist paradise we were promised?

Oh, that's right, nothing happened, and it's still a dumpster fire, but all of the people who pretended to care, stopped pretending when it became clear that Trump wasn't going to invade, and make their 'Trump the warmonger' dreams come true.

Viva la Maduro. Long may he reign.

 

Much like Antifa today.

I did read the link, thanks for posting. A good one here, "For the world, as seen in materialist view from the Right, scarcely differs from the same world seen in materialist view from the Left."

I would highly recommend Whittaker Chamber's book "Witness", that helped expose the Communist traitor Alger Hiss. Some on the LW still think him innocent in their delusion.

 

Witness is a very powerful book. Fortunately, Chambers' pessimism about the future -- he famously said that he knew he was joining 'the losing side' -- proved unfounded.
There is a pretty good biography of him, written by a fair-minded liberal, Sam Tannenbaum, called An UnAmerican Life.

I think the guilt of Alger Hiss is not conclusively proved, in the strict legal sense. Wiki has a discussion of the evidence against Hiss. I cannot see why Chambers would lie about Hiss, and I can see why Hiss would lie about his Party membership and espionage activities. And it certainly was the case that it was the duty of every Communist to support the Soviet Union in its struggle against the capitalist powers. However, despite all the new evidence that appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union, like the Venona intercepts, there does not seem to be an air-tight case against Hiss. He may have been a Party member, but not an active espionage agent. Or he may have passed on a few papers of little significance. It would have been his duty to do that, if he were a Communist. It's very frustrating that the documents which would conclusively show the truth one way or the other have not been found, or that the Russians have chosen not to release them.

Witness is a good book to read because it makes that period of time come alive. Another good one, fiction this time, is the U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos. [The link is to the first volume.] Originally sympathetic to Communism (as U.S.A. will show), he later wised up.

 

Well, in the strict legal sense a lot of things can't be conclusively proved, but IMHO Hiss was guilty. The only reason he wasn't prosecuted for espionage was the statue of limitations had run out. From Wikipedia:

"In 1995, the CIA and the NSA for the first time made public the existence of the World War II Venona project, which, beginning in 1943, had decrypted or partially decrypted thousands of telegrams sent from 1940 to 1948 to the primary Soviet foreign intelligence agency—for most of that period, the NKVD—by its U.S. operatives. Although known to the FBI, Venona had been kept secret even from President Truman. One cable, Venona #1822, mentioned a Soviet spy codenamed "ALES" who worked with a group of "Neighbors"—members of another Soviet intelligence organization, such as the military's GRU. FBI Special Agent Robert J. Lamphere,[112] who supervised the FBI's spy chasing squad, concluded that the codename "ALES" was "probably Alger Hiss".[113][114]

In 1997, Allen Weinstein, in the second edition of his 1978 book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, calls the Venona evidence "persuasive but not conclusive".[31] The bipartisan Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, chaired by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, however, stated in its findings that year: "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department."[115] In his 1998 book Secrecy: The American Experience, Moynihan wrote, "Belief in the guilt or innocence of Alger Hiss became a defining issue in American intellectual life. Parts of the American government had conclusive evidence of his guilt, but they never told."[116] In their numerous books, Harvey Klehr, professor of political science at Emory University, and John Earl Haynes, historian of twentieth-century politics at the Library of Congress, have mounted an energetic defense of Lamphere's conclusion that ALES indeed referred to Alger Hiss.[117] National Security Agency analysts have also gone on record asserting that ALES could only have been Alger Hiss.[118] The Venona transcript # 1822, sent March 30, 1945, from the Soviets' Washington station chief to Moscow,[114] appears to indicate that ALES attended the February 4–11, 1945, Yalta conference and then went to Moscow. Hiss did attend Yalta and then traveled to Moscow with Secretary of State Stettinius.[119]"


Interesting that the ancestors of today's LW who pushed the Russia collusion hoax were silent or even defended Soviet agents working in our government. A couple were even executed for treason.

 

Yes, if I had to come down one way or the other, I would vote 'guilty'. Incidentally, Hiss lived in the same apartment building as my in-laws (of a previous marriage), and one day, while we were visiting my wife's parents, he got into the elevator with us. I didn't know it was him until we had all left.

It is indeed ironic that a lot of the Left have turned on their heads and are now calling some people on the Right 'Russian agents', and playing the patriotic card. But not everyone on the left is doing that. The very leftwing magazine The Nation has run interesting articles on this by Stephen Cohen (he's married to the editor), a prominent scholar who has made the study of the Soviet Union his life's work [he's the author of the standard biography of Bukharin]. His most recent article is here.

All the comfortable old categories of Left and Right are beginning to melt a bit, as the world changes. But human beings are deeply conservative -- and this isn't always a good thing, at least when it comes to trying to understand and deal with a changing world.

 

What happened was that the guy got arrested


My mistake

The guy was beat up by anti communist protestors

 

The guy was the head of a group called Veterans For Peace, of which I am a member.

He was beat up by federal police.

 

You mean he resisted arrest

 

They 'arrested' him for objecting to their violation of the sovereignty of the Venezuelan Embassy, a sovereignty protected by international laws and treaties to which we are signatory. They 'arrested' him for attempting to deliver water and food to those inside the Embassy after the US turned off water and electricity to the building.

You apparently approve of such violations by the federal government.

I object to such violations. So did he. He was brave enough to put his body on the line. Neither you nor I are that brave.

 

I have a different opinion on that. FDR was a capitalist but faced with a growing communist movement due to the economy. His 'welfare state' was an effort to head it off.

 

So, to make a long story short they arrested him and resisted arrest

 

To make a long story short, tyranny played out on the streets that day. Tyranny, preceded by criminal actions of government, such as violating the sanctuary of any foreign embassy. Am I an *******, or are you heathen?

For harming nobody and attempting to deliver food and water here in the land of the free and home of the brave, he was bashed down to the ground, and you seem to approve.

 

I dont believe you

Most likely he refuse to stop after being ordered to stop

And then resisted arrest

 

You cannot believe me, because your mind won't acknowledge facts that violate your view of the world, and in that view the federal government can do no wrong.