The American Spectator : Gorby Obama and the Collapse of the American Left

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The Obama Watch

Gorby Obama and the Collapse of the American Left

By Jeffrey Lord on 7.19.11 @ 6:09AM

Liberalism in America is going the way of Communism. Obama just might be our Gorbachev.

In an ironic sense Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: Of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world…. What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term — the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.
— President Ronald Reagan addressing the British Parliament, 1982

It’s over.

For the American Left — those who have made it their work to enshrine Leftist or Leftist Lite ideology into American life and law — the end is nigh. Ronald Reagan accurately predicted a similar fate for their more heavy-handed Communist cousins, and now their own demise is clearly in progress.

And Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson have left Barack Obama holding the bag.

If in fact Reagan was right about the inevitability of the collapse of Communism — and to the astonishment of his critics he was — his “ash heap of history” speech more than applies to those who seriously believed that with a nip here and a tuck there the same left-wing theories could work in America.

By the 1980’s Reagan — and others like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II — were dealing in a world where the signs of an eventual Communist collapse were apparent in all manner of events large and small. Here are but a few of those signs:

• East and West Germany: The two side-by-side nations, artificial constructs dating from the end of World War II, had become vivid symbols of the successes of a Western-style capitalist democracy versus a Communist Left socialist state. Prosperity oozed from West Germany — and West Berlin. Germans were constantly trying to flee the East for the West.

• The Berlin Wall: While many in the day saw it as a permanent fixture, in fact it was a literally concrete-and-mortar admission of Communism as a failure. This showcased a society that depended on force to keep its people from leaving.

• Rebellions in the Soviet Empire: From East Germany in 1953 to Hungary in 1956 to Czechoslovakia in 1968 and even in Poland as early as 1970, rebellions against the Communist rulers had broken out.

• Poland and the rise of Solidarity: It was becoming increasingly clear that the Communist government of Poland could no longer hide its economic failures. A prominent Catholic priest, Father Jerzy Popieluszko, a leading Polish dissident, disappeared — his bound body finally discovered in the River Vistula. The leader of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, became internationally famous as he organized union strikes against the regime. And perhaps most dramatically, the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, electrifying Poland and those trapped behind the Iron Curtain.

• Failure in Afghanistan: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a failure, stretching an already failing empire for cash and troops.

• The Arms Race: It was becoming increasingly clear that with an economy in tatters, it was impossible for the Soviets to maintain a serious arms race with the United States.

Collectively these facts telegraphed (to those paying attention, at least) that the entire idea of Communism was, in Reagan’s words, a “form of insanity — a temporary aberration” in history.

Famously, Reagan — against the most assured “wisdom” of the day — believed that to challenge Communism directly was to win, because the insanity was ultimately unsustainable.

Take a good look around the real world in which President Obama is now operating. What do you see?

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About the Author

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (192) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Paul| 7.19.11 @ 6:42AM

Jeffery - If only. As long as there are tax payers there will be democratic politicians around to use tax money to give to the parasites that keep them in office.

PaulyD| 7.19.11 @ 11:58AM

Paul,
I agree. I think Mr. Lord is engaged in wishful thinking.

Here's why:

Most Americans, including conservatives, are now "communists" but don't know it. This is because the underlying worldview that is the foundation for communist thought is almost universally accepted.

That foundation is based on several beliefs: The first is a belief in human "progress" in the sense that mankind is evolving from a lower to a higher form of life and the material prosperity of modernity reflects this. The second is a practical atheism, where even those who proclaim a belief in God, don't think or behave as if this God is someone they are accountable to. And the last is a belief that man is naturally "good," therefore human wickedness is an aberration that can be "fixed."

Contrast this with the "Classic" or Christian worldview, that was generally considered the foundation for Western Civilization (until recently). In that worldview, man was created perfect, but fell in the Garden of Eden. Therefore man is not evolving or morally progressing, but in one sense has been "devolving" ever since. Second, God exists, mankind is accountable to him. And last, man is a fallen, wretched creature, and the human condition cannot be changed without the intervention of Jesus Christ, and even in that event, never perfectly, until death.

The Founding Fathers based our society on the the second worldview. The Soviet Union and all communist societies were based on the first wordview (and of course, North Korea still adheres to this worldview "religiously")

We are much more far-gone than we realize.

Cheers

masly | 7.20.11 @ 2:30AM

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I am a 28 years old doctor, mature and beautiful.and now I am seeking a good man who can give me real love , so i got a username Andromeda2002 on--s'e'ek'c'ou'ga'r.c óm--.it is the first and best club for y'ounger women and old'er men, or older women and y'ounger men,to int'eract with each other. Maybe you wanna ch'eck 'it out or tell your friends!

megapotamus| 7.20.11 @ 10:02PM

Mature and beautiful? Andromeda2002... I am there!

megapotamus| 7.20.11 @ 10:03PM

How is it that crap like this is all over AmSpec but I cannot link to my own blog even in the website window? Mysteries abound.

Grzmlyk| 7.19.11 @ 1:48PM

Talk about drawing exactly the wrong message of history - Why the hell does Jeff Lord think that, even in the face of all of the failures of socialism he cites, hope still springs eternal among the Marxists? Leftism NEVER EVER dies.

The fact is, socialism has already WON. The pathetic debt ceiling debate proves it - the Titanic is sinking and we're arguing about the positioning of the deck chairs. And somehow this utterly feckless debate proves that we're finally going to return to fiscal sanity? That is laughable.

Rip off socialim's compassionate mask and you'll see its true face: Nihilism. The apotheosis of ersatz values like moral vanity and self-satisfied virtue, misplaced compassion and willful ignorance of human nature has defeated the common sense values of industry, hard work, reward, individual responsibility and moral accountability. Like all good cancers, the victory of leftism is the death of its host organism. Look around you at the state of moral decay in this country - you think it hasn't reached the point of no return?

If this is conservatism's victory, I'd sure as hell hate to see what defeat looks like, because we are becoming a fascist/socialist dictatorship at breakneck pace.

Jeffrey, I am shocked at your naivete; after the debt ceiling crisis dies down, it'll back to business as usual - printing money and telling Americans there's such a thing as a free lunch, that Social Security isn't broke, that you can give health care to every person who sets foot in this country for less money than the market would command, that anyone who happens to be within our borders deserves to live the life of Reilly and that, if only the evil rich pay their fair share, the cornucopia of American materialism will continue to disgorge unlimited goodies for people who won't get off their asses to earn one scintilla of it.

All representative republics eventually die because of fiscal profligacy. We are no different. Whistle past the graveyard if you must, but please look into it as you pass. Note the plot that has been being dug since the dawn of the progressive era, then look at the headstone: It reads, Here Lies America. RIP. 1789-2008.

Lesser Weevil| 7.19.11 @ 3:49PM

Well said, Grzmlyk. Sad but true.

Grzmlyk| 7.19.11 @ 4:09PM

Yes, Lesser - I wish it weren't so. We were pushed to the precipice by welfare-state policies since the first Roosevelt - but, under Obama, we've decided to jump over the edge holding hands.

What we are seeing today is insanity.

Mike D.| 7.19.11 @ 4:22PM

Insanity and beyond. Leftism is akin to bubonic plague. It comes out, takes its toll and goes into hibernation until the next time. It never dies.

"Rip off socialim's compassionate mask and you'll see its true face: Nihilism. The apotheosis of ersatz values like moral vanity and self-satisfied virtue, misplaced compassion and willful ignorance of human nature has defeated the common sense values of industry, hard work, reward, individual responsibility and moral accountability."

Thats the best description of the leftist mental state I have read anywhere. Thats a mental disorder your describing.

Grzmlyk| 7.19.11 @ 4:59PM

Thank you, Mike.

Yes, Lord talks about the collapse of the left; I've had a very close friend of mine flip from being a moderate conservative to a balls-to-the-wall leftist, so enamored was he of Obama in 2007. And he hasn't ever looked back. Once you are afflicted with the fever, it seems you can never see reality again.

In my friend's case, I believe it was a confluence of factors: He's a professor at a state college - he resisted the pull leftward for 20 years or so, but eventually fell under its sway. He's also middle-aged and his daughters grew up and left home. I believe he looks at his life and wants to "matter."

He once told me he thought "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs" was a beautiful way to organize society.

When Obamacare was being hotly debated, he told me "I wouldn't mind paying a little more in taxes if it meant everybody could get health care." Is there a more vapid comment in the history of mankind?

First of all, nobody is stopping him from giving the government more of his money right now. Why wait for higher taxes? Second, those higher taxes he's willing to pay represent the purchase of a luxury item - a pat on his own back. If he were still capable of thinking, I'd have tried to explain to him why just paying a little more in taxes won't make it all better. But I gave up - he was already intoxicated with his own goodness.

These people do not give a damn what the true consequences of the policies they advocate is; as long as it makes them feel better, let the poor starve, let the economy stagnate, let American Exceptionalism atrophy, let racism burn, let radical Islam gain a beachhead in this country, let morals collapse, let the values that used to bind us together as a country disintegrate entirely.

What really matters to these people is that, when they look in the mirror, they LIKE the person staring back at them.

Quartermaster| 7.19.11 @ 8:41PM

What few people realize the Republicans were the first truly leftist party in our country. It was Hamiltonian and was for a unitary Federal state that relegated teh states to mere departments and saw the constitution as just a bump in the road.

After Reconstruction ended with the ascent of Hayes, and the electoral domination of the Reps during the last of the 19th, and early part of the 20th century, The Dems saw they needed to out Republican the Republicans, and jumped on the Progressive band wagon, which originally was a Republican wagon, and produced Wilson, the FDR, Truman, JFK, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and now the Obamanation. Each has contributed to a tightening of the vise with the complicity of the Republican establishment which did nothing to roll any of it back. Ike's farewell address was really about keeping the Military in check so the welfare state could grow.

many of you are "Blue Bellies," but Lincoln, combined with the gullibility of the northern population, made the earlier string of names above possible. Lincoln was a scoff law in the name of holding the union together. The northeastern money men made Lincoln's war possible so they could keep their economic colony in the south. Now, the descendants of those money men are threatened with heavier taxation, and many, like Warren Buffet, a hard core leftist, is starting to squawk about it.

Yes, both parties are Communist. They wear sheep's clothing, but they are wolves. Or, as Pat Buchanan accurately stated, "two wings on the same bird of prey."

Grzmlyk| 7.20.11 @ 8:36AM

Quartermaster, for the most part, I concur with your analysis.

One distinction, though, is that I believe only today's Democrats are communists in terms of ideological orientation. Republicans are simply popular opinion lickspittles willing to pay the ever-higher ante to stay in the game, and they know that it is the country itself that has become, if not communist (i.e., requring the abolition of the nation state), then cetainly socialist.

So as much as I despise our political class - and as much enmity as I hold for Obama personally and politically (I think he's a disturbed sociopath), these politicians are only a reflection of what We the People want - hence my initial premise that we are NOT by and large a conservative country; we are in fact a leftist country, despite the plethora of periodic polls that proclaim a right-of-center bent. It's hogwash.

To a great extent it's the "boiled frog" scenario. Well-to-do bourgeoisie types - and, in particular, their offspring - see that we need "x" amount of dollars to provide that most vaunted totem of every post-modern society: a social safety net.

And so, as surely as the swallows return to Capistrano, year upon year they think that if we just make "x" "x+1," we'll be a more compassionate country, the birds will chirp a little louder and the sun will shine a little brighter.

The corrosive consequences of such folly never occur to these people, for whom the assuagement of moral vanity is the ultimate luxury purchase for which they are willing to spend their discretionary dollars lavishly - never realizing that, in the end, dollars spent on moral vanity cannibalize dollars spent on food, shelter, and every other necessity.

And so, before many of these buffoons know what's happened, we are living in, well, America circa 2011.

megapotamus| 7.20.11 @ 10:09PM

It's a metaphorical edge, after all. We will survive the plunge. There was a very similar article in Forbes today. I am also somewhat dubious about a "return" to a fiscal Eden. What comes next will not be a Guilded Age redux, and good thing. But big scale socialism, and by that I mean anything north of Social Security, won't be a part of it. Keynes dismissed complaints about the actuarial future of his projects by saying, "In the long run, we're all dead." But no, somehow a few of us are still alive, dash it all. We have witnessed the Thatcher Implosion. If that lesson is not learned or is unlearned, well, we will be right back here with a remedial course.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 4:44PM

As usual you cut through all the crap with a samuria of eloquence and insight.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 4:54PM

When you wrote, "All representative republics eventually die because of fiscal profligacy," I could not help but think about Ben Franklin's satement to the woman who asked. 'what did you create for us, Mr. Franklin', and his answer, 'A Republic, if you can keep it.' We were warned and took no heed. Underneath this fiscal irresponsibility, is the real culprit of apathy, laziness, and decadence that has done us in. I do believe there is a sizable number of people left in this country that do GET it and would like to see this decay stopped. The question is, will they rise up when the crap hits the fan?

Grzmlyk| 7.19.11 @ 5:12PM

Yes, Simon, I often think of Franklin's quote, and how I'd like to visit his grave and say, "I'm sorry to report to you, Ben, that we couldn't."

Despite polls that come out periodically asserting that more people in this country consider themselves conservatives than liberals, my question is, where are they?

I have lived in four major cities in my life and I can literally count on two hands the number of conservatives I know. Everybody else think a Leviathan State is just hunky dory.

If there are so many conservatives in this country, why has it listed so far to the left that capsizing is now a fait accompli? Why do the politicians we invariably enlarge the public trough?

I guess it's trite at this point, but I always trot out the most prescient quote I know of that predicted America's demise. It's attributed to Alexander Tytler, a Scottish-born British lawyer who lived in the 18th century (though its true provenance remains uncertain):

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.

From what I can see, we are now entering the state of bondage.

Thanks, Barack.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 5:32PM

GMZ, I share your concerns absolutely. I too have not met many conservatives as well as most people today are afraid of talking politics or revealing their political views. The conservatives I have met tend to keep their cards close to their chest. I have attended several tea parties around the country and can tell you that they are out there and mad as hell. I also have too remind myself of the audiences and viewers that many conservative talk show host have in the 10's of millions. I was also very moved by the billionare, Wynn, who recently spoke out. I am certain that there are many like him. There are many small towns and rural areas of the US that are very conservative still and fight daily to hold onto their traditional values. I think there is still hope and the story has yet to be written. We will see. Once again, your comments are truthful, honest, and insightful.

Dai Alanye | 7.19.11 @ 6:05PM

Conservatives who analyze every event from a pessimistic outlook aren't doing themselves or their cause any favors. Jeff Lord has offered a hopeful interpretation that will encourage opponents of Obamanomics to work and vote for the Right. Pessimism, however, can only discourage voters into staying home, thereby leading to a potential Democrat win by default.

A friend of mine used to say that pessimists have it made, since whatever happens, they're happy. I suspect that is what motivates many of the negative commenters here.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 6:27PM

Is it pessimism or realism? Is it encouragment or lulling people into false hope and sleepiness? You are right, pessimism can discourage people from taking action and create impotence. Let us be realistic and see the problems accurately but approach them with hope, optimism, and a fighting spirit.

Grzmlyk| 7.19.11 @ 8:13PM

Thanks for the tip in, Simon.

I am tired of hopey changey talk. I have no interest in subscribing to myths. There's thinking positively, and then there's denial.

At some point, the fairy tale is over.

Grzmlyk| 7.19.11 @ 8:07PM

It's not pessimism. It's MATH.

It's REALISM.

Look at our debt. If you count the unfunded mandates of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, it's well over ONE HUNDRED TRILLION dollars. That's before Obamacare kicks in. We borrow $188 million dollars every hour of every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

There is absolutely no way we can pay it off. Zero.

When this happens in countries, they always resort to one tactic: debase the currency.

Again, if you showed me a video of a guy in front of a firing squad, and you froze the frame at the instant the bullet emerged from the muzzle and asked me what I thought would happen to the guy with the blindfold, would I be a pessimist to tell you I think he'd be dead in a second?

So what do you think I should do? Whistle a happy tune as the Titanic sinks beneath me? This is not about attitude. It's about reality.

What needs to be done is draconian spending cuts - real cuts - of about 50% in this country. NOW. Instead, Obama's insisting on NEW spending, and Obamacare waits in the wings. As you demonstrate, there is not the political will to face reality in this country.

Alan Brooks| 7.19.11 @ 9:30PM

But the outcome is you will elect another Bush-type.

simon templar| 7.20.11 @ 10:51AM

Well...Alan..you can help us not reelect another progressive moderate republican like Bush. Let us try another Reagan conservative.

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.19.11 @ 7:00AM

Jeffrey,
I don't want the United States to collapse.
Also, I will NOT accept "world governance" in lieu of pure American sovereignty...and individual Americans' sovereignty.
Read my book. www.americaalonesaidno.com

Teaghan| 7.19.11 @ 10:47AM

Just bought your book Ken. Look forward to reading it. Will you ever put it in book form?

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.19.11 @ 11:45PM

Teagan,
Dai is a communist. (smile) Conversely, I am a capitalist.
I am the only author to my knowledge who gives a money back guarantee...on every book I have ever written. Just another pen name to keep terrorists off my porch here.

Dai Alanye | 7.19.11 @ 6:17PM

I've decided that every time Ken advertises his world-saving tome I'll make a similar but better offer. Go to my site and read some excerpts. Any legitimate Spectator commenter who wants to read one, I'll send an ebook for FREE.
http://alanye.com/

No world saving in mine, only entertainment generally fit for man, woman or child.

If Ken lowers the price on his book to zero, I'll possibly go farther, offering to pay you to read. (Don't count too much on this, though.)

Trolls and people with stuck caps keys need not apply.

Appleby| 7.19.11 @ 7:05AM

Communism has never worked anywhere it has been tried, because it depends on Mom and Dad paying the bills no matter how high they are...and the childish idea that All Money Is Mine.

I am noticing a few state unions trying to forbid companies from leaving for right-to-work states, but its far too late for interstate passports and besides, what do you do about all the illegals who have no right to any kind of a passport?

It was rubbish in 1968 when the hippie scum thought it was new, and it still is.

Mike D.| 7.19.11 @ 7:46AM

Everybody who knows history knows that collectivism and the rest of the "ism's" are doomed to collapse under the same weight they bring upon those who have to bear it. The problem is that how much damage has to be inflicted before its finally run its course. The almost laughable but tragic point brought by the rise of Communism and its 10's of millions of souls it killed directly or indirectly is that its still taught and worshipped as some kind of panacea for humanity by so called "intellectuals". Frankly I don't see the purpose in trying to install what happens in ant colonies on those who are designed and born as free minded individuals. Utopianism can only exist in the minds of self rightous idealists and nowhere else. It has nothing in common with reality and mans inperfections in that reality. Trying the same doomed concept over and over again and inflicting it upon the unwilling is the classic definition of insanity. Utopianism is so easy to sell to those looking for the ultimate answer to man's political imperfections but have no knowledge of its miserable and bloody past to anchor their perceptions in reality. To the useful idiots, its a religion. For those who rise to the top, its just another way to gain power and wealth, and then march the useful idiots off to the labor camps.

SGB| 7.19.11 @ 9:33AM

I hate to be the one to say it, but too often when we conservatives start decrying the ill effects of the various "isms," we conveniently forget about one very important "ism": Capitalism.

Truth to Power| 7.19.11 @ 10:19AM

Call it regulated free enterprise if you must and realize that it is over regulated. We need to move away from the corporatist approach which of course is an ism where politicians shake down business interests for their own good.

David Wilhelms| 7.19.11 @ 8:52PM

Truth, you scabrous dog, still spreading your filth and lies, I see.

mjfin| 7.20.11 @ 7:39PM

Sorry, SGB, Capitalism, alone among economic organizations is not an economic philosophy, an invention of a political class, an "ism".

Capitalism is what ordinary men and women do with their money and resources when they are free to trade and purchase, and form associations (companies) without coercion. The result of this complex of free, unforced decisions, multiple (freely selected) personal choices has been defined as Capitalism. But it is not an invention.

It is the absence of a politico/economic philosophy. Every other economic philosophy is an invention that cannot be sustained without coercion, i.e., without force.

Deborah D | 7.19.11 @ 7:18AM

Let's hope Mr. Lord is correct about the collapse of the Left...it's obvious if you look at Europe. Let's also hope that the collapse of the Left doesn't first require the collapse of the United States of America -- I'm one who believes that is Obama's goal.

emo| 7.19.11 @ 7:51AM

Here is the problem: Perception of the public.

It is obvious the left is failing in Europe to us. But to average Europeans do they blame leftist policies for their collapse in Greece, Spain, Italy etc. Then there is Ireland. A nation also collapsing but Ireland moved to the right in the 1990s.

Even after all the failure in places like NY, CA, MI, IL and worst of all Detroit voters continue to support the left in those states and cities. I see absolutely no evidence the left will be blamed for a collapse in the USA. The left will simply blame Bush and 50% or more of the public will believe it.

richard ryan| 7.19.11 @ 9:21AM

that is a very good point, and I agree. The biggest challenge to freedom is the ignorance of our population being expoited by the GD leftist media.

DaveD| 7.19.11 @ 11:42AM

Everything, and I do mean everything is George Bush's fault - including the fact that I took a nine on a par five yesterday.

Should Have Impeached| 7.19.11 @ 9:49PM

The failure of California has taught us nothing. People still collect their checks, people in foreclosure find other places to live, the jobless still get unemployment, they all still drive fine cars, those so lucky to have it, still get their medical coverage. In essence, we continue to live like nothing has changed. Even the not-so-rich aren't all that bad off--not bad off enough to get on the first bus out. Whan most people start doing that, then the fit will hit the shan.

Steve G| 7.19.11 @ 7:39AM

While Mr. Lord will ultimately be vindicated, the very wealth and tenacity of the US ordains the final struggle to be long and horrific. Power-crazed leftists will not go quietly into that good night until their vampiric fangs are ripped from America's jugular and stakes driven thru their beating hearts.

And, yes, I agree that Obama fully intended to destroy this nation either by getting his way or running it into the dirt.

Keep your powder dry.

DaveD| 7.19.11 @ 12:02PM

Agreed. It took us 30 years to get here, don't expect the remedy to only take a couple years or a single presidency.

Dismantling this monstrous government and the entitlement albatross will be decades in the doing and heavy sledding all the way. And it will take much more courageous leadership than I see on either side of the aisle. This is made even more unlikely when your typical congress critter's activities revolve around re-election rather than managing the country properly.

But eventually, Liberalism will collapse. It has to. There ain't enough money anywhere to sustain it. It is the nature of the collapse that worries me.

If we can first contain Liberalism here we have a chance at eventually killing the beast with minimal pain. But to contain it, we need more than the wishy washy whimpy proposals currently put forward by the Republicans. Not much of chance here.

Uncontained, spending continues to soar. Eventually (soon perhaps) there is no one who will loan the money so we'll just make it up out of thin air and pretend that everything is honky dory. Inflation goes bonkers and Seniors starve unable to find the $100 for a loaf of bread.

Either way Liberalism dies. One way gives us a chance to preserve out freedom and liberty. The other way, if history can be any guide, leads to something exceptionally ugly, and as you say, horrific.

George True| 7.19.11 @ 7:39AM

Sure, the left will collapse. But not before they collapse the American economy, destroy the US dollar, and impoverish most Americans in the process. Until then, the Mother Effing Media will continue to lie to the American public, just like the state media organs Tass and Pravda in the old Soviet Union.

Not until every last bit of wealth has been stolen and squandered by the Commiecrats and their well-connected friends will the game be over. The aftermath will be ugly. With the dollar worth a fraction of its current devalued state, life in America will become a daily struggle just for the basic necessities of life. There will be no such thing as retirement, as most retirement savings will have been wiped out with the dollar being destroyed. Look at what happened in Argentina ten years ago and that is where we are headed.

At that point, there will be scant satisfaction in everybody knowing the left was wrong all along. The damage will have been done. It will take decades for this country to recover, and most of us will not live to see it.

Mike D.| 7.19.11 @ 8:01AM

The ironic thing is that when these leftist religionists have done their damage, and the recovery from it, whether years or decades, plays out, somewhere at some point in time another generation forgets the lesson and the whole thing starts all over again. Thats the brilliance of what the founding fathers saw. They understood the imperfections of men and the repeating cycles of the few tyranizing the many and they also understood that freedom and rights was and is not a "install and forget system". It has to be maintained, protected, and guarded against usurpers in any form by those who know and don't forget the lessons of the past. We have allowed this honey coated poisin to infect our nation now we will face the consequences and the pain of its self-destructive course.

pigletrios| 7.19.11 @ 2:04PM

I think the difference might be that by the Soviet Union rose from the ashes of the Russian monarchy. We have over two hundred years of freedom under our belts. We are on the edge of the cliff but it is not too late to pull back.

David Wilhelms| 7.19.11 @ 8:54PM

Oh my god, oh my god, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

I heard the same kind of crap when Clinton was first elected from the Right and I heard the same kind of crap when W was first elected from the Left.

Chill, people. These are not the End of Days.

MASS-Crypto-Con| 7.19.11 @ 7:46AM

Sorry, the Democrat party in Mass is riddled with Communist True-believers. The Party is a long-way from dead in this state, in that party, at universities and in the media. All of them are willing to fight until the US economy is destroyed.

davelnaf| 7.19.11 @ 7:50AM

Indeed, the left's best days are behind it.

On another note: Obama will be the last Democrat who will ever be spared the scrutiny of the media, that is, the new Conservative and Internet media that is slowly replacing the Old Media vanguard-of-the-dem-party. May the OM rest in pieces.

And on another note: dems and their operatives are plotting out strategies for the final debt showdown and Obama’s campaign next year. They may prevail in the short term with the debt crisis. But Obama will not be reelected and the usual dem schemes to advance his and their cause will only alienate more voters. At this point the more they try to help Obama the longer they will delay the return of their party to something that is close to the mainstream of American life—that is, if this is still even possible.

emo| 7.19.11 @ 7:53AM

Also dont forget Identity Politics. As America become more diverse demographically, there will be an increasing number voters who wont vote GOP no matter what..period. Ultimately I see one giant Detroit, ruled over by the left, continuing to blame the right even if the right is extinct.

Melvin| 7.19.11 @ 8:35AM

As I sit here patiently waiting for my prey to come to me before I and others strike.
Ever since this whole thing started in 2006, I have advocated a rebellion by Americans of some type.
I have been derided, chided, called crazy, and called extreme. But as this event unfolds, it is appearing more and more that a open revolt will be our only option to clear this scourge from both parties that has befallen our Country.
On one side we have a large percentage of Republicans who are Progressives and advocate a Global, "New World Order." On the other we have the Socialist Democrats who want to create a Communist, one party rule, that wants to dominate and dictate ever facet of our lives.
Come on people, let us be honest with each other. The United States of America no longer has a functioning representative form of government.
Elections are merely a facade fabricated by the powers to give us the illusion that we matter. The 2010 Mid-Term Elections have come and went and has any changes happened to us, I'm not talking about Wall Street, I'm talking about us, the guys and gals that get up every morning and go to work to only have our take home pay shrink and shrink and shrink.
"Oh, we need to get Obama out of office before big changes can be enacted." As the Globalist Republicans tout. Yea, right, your the same bunch that wants to hand this Nation's sovereignty over to a board of Governors in Brussels Belgium. "I need four more years to complete my mission." So Obama and the Democrats can finish selling off our Nation's assets to the Chinese.
I want to defend this Country one last time, before I get ground down by the endless legislation, and regulations that are strangling me and my fellow Americans.
We cannot and must not play by the rules anymore. The rules are set for our defeat, we either fight for our freedom or we bow our heads and hand the enemy our National identity in defeat.

Mike D.| 7.19.11 @ 9:03AM

Agree 100%, what washes out in the end will not look anything like where we are now. If the leftist movement was new and just getting entrenched it could have gotten stomped. Now, after years of infection into the schools, universities, and government and multiple generations slowly being assimilated, no I don't beleive this will be turned around without a major upheaval and economic armageddon. I firmly believe that some parts of this nation are already unsavagable and are a lost cause, i.e. California as the best example. Its a matter of amputation of limbs to save the body. There has already been talks of parts of some states looking to secede from the rest of the state. Its talk now but as the weight of this collapse continues to build it will build into a do or die reality. The Federal Government for the most part is a self serving, self feeding ever increasing tyranny brought on by the corrupt statists and collectivists who feed their careers by taking from some and giving it to their voting base to maintain power. They also do the bidding of their sponsor corporate/globalist bosses. There are very few idealistic leaders who still believe in what this country stands for and too many who would gladly sell it down the river for their own power and wealth creation. Time will tell if this whole thing can be salvaged or not. Most historical course corrections of this magnitude require a historical calamity of the same magnitude.

Melvin| 7.19.11 @ 9:47AM

Mike are we dinosaurs, who think of things as they used to be, instead of what they are now?
Good post by the way.

Chef Schnauzer| 7.19.11 @ 8:38AM

It appears to me that the acceleration down (terminal velocity, anyone?) is deliberate but that debate is moot as we are surely on that path. What I am curious to see is the post-socialist life of these vast pools of government (and union) parasites who, lacking an nodding glance at reality, will refuse to give up their self awarded entitlements. Wether its the barely credible JDs stalking and mugging the taxpayer via the halls of power and the insane court systems or the brain dead union thug who get 20$ an hour for showing up in another pointless government building.

DaveD| 7.19.11 @ 12:10PM

It is equally possible that Obama is simply a naive intellectual, who never having held a "real" job, is still in thrall of the collegiate collectivist mind set. You see, socialism/communism looks good on paper and works out well in theoretical games on the blackboard. Of course, when the rubber meets the road it is another story alltogether.

On the other had, it is also possible that Obama read Animal Farm in his youth and instead of being disgusted, approved of "All animals are equal. Some are more equal." And this is simply a power trip on a National scale.

What is certain, is that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, don't give a shit about what the consequences are to everyday folk. They only care about the feathers in their own nests.

Tomp| 7.19.11 @ 8:46AM

The moocher class may be too large to be defeated .

Appleby| 7.19.11 @ 10:56AM

Starve the beast.

I can remember film of people standing amid the ruins of the Watts Riots crying that they had no grocery stores or drug stores -- as if some magic or alien invasion had looted all the stores and burned them to the ground. I foresee the same thing happening when TheMostVulnerableAmongUs, as the moocher class are called in Canada, is starving in the ruins.

Occam's Tool| 7.19.11 @ 1:38PM

Dear Appleby:

Having lived through the LA riots of 1992, I totally agree with you. What always amazes me is that the Lefties and the moocher class treats hard-working people like shit, then wonders why they don't invest in their areas.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 9:06AM

Mr. Lord is correct, but that should give little comfort to those commenting on these pages. The causal reader may get the impression that Communism worked, after a fashion, until it "hit the wall", then collapsed quickly. It didn't. People lived their entire lives in privation.

My uncle spent sixteen years ('48-'64) as a political prisoner in Czechoslovakia and now, in his late eighties, lives comfortably. Still he, and his son, would be characterized by Margaret Thatcher as "wets". My cousin (in his 30's) lives a thoroughly modern life with significant other and daughter by not-so-significant other - all very sophisticated. I visited him in Prague a few days after Obama was there, last year. Obamamania perfumed the air. My cousin told me that once we got over Obamacare, we would love it as it would "Just Work".

My conclusion is that Mr. Lord is an optimist. If those who lived through real Communist thuggery are still wobbly, what hope is there for us. This downturn will have occupied us for a statistically significant portion of our earning lives. It will be years, if not decades, before the damage is fully repaired. Once the job market recovers, the memory or what brought us to this recession will fade and the day-to-day problems will be most important. The man from the government who is here to help will come knocking, once again. We will have some respite from the malarial fever. Without the cure, and I see nothing in human nature to suggest one, the patient will ultimately die.

I pray I am wrong.

irish19| 7.19.11 @ 12:54PM

It took decades to get here. It will, absent some major calamity, take decades to get back. Those who think changes should already have taken place need to take notice.
Actually, changes have taken place. Think Wisconsin. Think of the fact that we would not be having a discussion about the debt limit had the 2010 elections not taken place. Revolution may be inevitable at some point, but I'm not certain it's imminent-certainly not the revolution that Melvin is advocating. If it does, however, my powder's dry. The voices in my head tell me my guns need cleaning however (the nags!). But then, I do love the smell of Hoppes #9 in the morning.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 1:46PM

irish19,

While acknowledging the recent changes, please forgive someone who argued against "the debt we owe ourselves" thirty years ago for wondering what took everyone so long. I will be most pleased when it becomes clear that the newly saved won't backslide.

Cleaning with Hoppes #9 - the pause that refreshes. Did you know they made an "air freshener" with the scent?

irish19| 7.19.11 @ 6:49PM

Excellent point about the backsliding.
Now, where can I get the Hoppes #9 air freshener? Do they make a little hanger-thing so I can put one in my truck? Enquiring minds and all.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 7:09PM

irish19,

You can buy it at:

http://www.hoppes.com/products.....hener.html

Your truck will forever thank you ;)

irish19| 7.20.11 @ 12:34AM

Sweeeett!! Thanks for the link!

Hakeem Shabazz| 7.19.11 @ 9:06AM

The welfare state is indeed at the end. But so is the American Empire.

Fortunately, our military is a needless luxury.

As Bismark pointed out, out neighborts on the north and south are weak. Our neighbors on the east and west are fish.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 9:38AM

Hakeem Shabazz,

Did you notice the 35,000 dead in Mexico from the "drug war" (15,000 last year)? That "needless luxury" may not be quite as needless as you think.

SGB| 7.19.11 @ 9:44AM

This is the one reality that the American public, especially the those on the left fail to realize, is that Europe and Canada have had the "freedom" to explore socialism writ large because they have lived under the protective umbrella of American military might. Even without having to pay for the military, socialism is unsustainable. Moreso when you are the "world's policeman." You cannot have it all: world dominance, unparralleled prosperity, and society where someone else takes care of all your needs.

Drunken Sailor| 7.19.11 @ 10:02AM

"Fortunately, our military is a needless luxury"

Really? Maybe in the days before modern Navies and aircraft capable of covering hundreds of miles, not to mention IBM's, but not in this day and age.

You my friend have obviously never seen a Amphibious assault or you would not think twice about maintaining our defenses.

Occam's Tool| 7.19.11 @ 1:40PM

And Hakeem, the oil for our trading partners come from places that are run by scum. We need our military for quite some time.

The funny part is that whenever we've had a weak military, some event has always come along that demonstrates the need to maintain our defenses.

megapotamus| 7.20.11 @ 10:19PM

Yes, the military was also obsolete after World War One. You would think they would have seen what the One implied.

Derek Leaberry| 7.19.11 @ 9:22AM

Sadly, Mr. Lord is too optimistic. Not only has the Left imported a new constituency since Ted Kennedy's 1965 Immigration bill, the Left has gained thorough control of the culture. Even more sad is that many on the Right have either surrendered on both Third World immigration and the culture wars, many on the Right abet the Gramscian Left. To steal John Derbyshire's line, we are doomed.

PolishKnight| 7.19.11 @ 9:39AM

You forgot feminism: a powerful philosophy that capitalized (pardon the pun) on conservative chivalrous values while simultaneously undermining traditional families. Unwed mothers are the ultimate democrat voter.

Reagan's philosophy was to take containment to a whole new level. To not only contain communism, but accelerate it's metabolism and rush it's demise while the USA survived. As brilliant and brave a man as he was, he forgot that the USA was a part-communist state even then and Western Europe considered the ideal communist regime. With the USSR out of the way, the left would seek to destroy the USA, not preserve it. Even as the left pretends that it's the Iraq war which is why they're ashamed to display an American flag overseas, the reality is that they wish they were Europeans all along. They don't move there because they know they won't cut it. They don't have any friends who can slip a bribe to some administrator to get them a cushy job and they don't want to work in some kiosk outside of a railway station.

As Emo points out, they want to make the USA look like Detroit so then it won't be an ideological threat to Western Europe. Then, somehow magically, it will change in Sweden. This is the disconnect and tragic flaw in their ideology. I point it out to them and they quickly change the subject or resort to an ad-hominem argument against me.

They 72 virgins and cool aid drinking nuts. At least the few traditional old school remaining ones. The rest are now members of welfare state or entitlement groups that vote with their pocketbook and even during Reagan's time, little was done about them. THAT was the battle he let go and it's the one that may take us down.

In the meantime, hows that abortion issue going for us?

Occam's Tool| 7.19.11 @ 1:41PM

Sweden has a high suicide rate and no kids.

PolishKnight| 7.19.11 @ 3:14PM

Sweden's high suicide rate has a lot to do with their weather and they are producing children, especially in the non-European immigrant communities.

Perhaps the great secret about Sweden's limited success is that they had relatively little damage after WWII, a small population compared to natural resources, and not too many cultural issues that the USA regularly battles with.

Those days are coming to an end however and it will be interesting to see how a country made up of slacker men will perform moving forward.

Frekki| 7.19.11 @ 9:23AM

God I hope so.
I am tired of feeding the beast.

Sam Vaughn| 7.19.11 @ 9:33AM

Despair is the grist of evil. All of the "doom' will certainly be true if we all accept passive observance. An agnostic friend once asked me why I believe in God. My answer was simple, why not? If we are all random atoms, bound together with nothing to define our existence then nothing we do matters, there is no good, there is no evil. I simply choose to believe in God, perhaps that is faith. I choose to believe we will overcome the evil blight of Liberalism, it is because it is truely a blight on the human spirit. The Leftists will not win.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 9:54AM

Sam Vaughn,

As Keynes said: "In the end we are all dead." That doesn't mean we give up living. By all means keep up the fight. If not for ourselves, then for the future.

However, this republic, by any historic measure, is long in the tooth. It's not doomsaying to suggest impermanence. The notion that the citizen was sovereign was the grand experiment. Jefferson knew this required an educated electorate with the interest of the nation being paramount. Here's to the hope that the electorate regains its senses.

Drunken Sailor| 7.19.11 @ 10:04AM

Liberalism may been on its last legs but one should always be cautious around a cornered rat. They fight fiercely for they have nothing to lose.

Bob K.| 7.19.11 @ 10:34AM

"Here we face two, perhaps superficially contradictory developments. One is that liberalism has, after all, triumphed: it's self-imposed tasks are done. The other is the overall waning of it's appeal, of the appeal it once may have had.

If "liberalism" means the extension of all kinds of liberties to all kinds of individuals, mostly as a consequence of the abolition of restrictions on all kinds of people, these have now been institutionalized and accomplished in formerly unexpected and even astonishing varieties of ways. (And with not a few fateful, and, yes, deplorable consequences, such as laws approving abortions, mercy killing, cloning, sexual "freedoms," permissiveness, pornography.....a list almost endless.)"

Quoted from the Chapter: "Triumph and Disappearance of "Liberalism" in "DEMOCRACY AND POPULISM Fear and Hatred, pp 217-218 by John Lukacz, published 2004

martin j smith| 7.19.11 @ 10:45AM

A more energized and conservative Republican Party with articulate leaders such as Marco Rubio and others must give US voters a crash course in economics and explain in layman's language what is going on and what is at stake. They must explain why Socialism fails and is failing in Europe and will fail here. But in the end its the voters choice they will be told the consequences but it is their choice--a version of " Believe it or not ".

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 10:55AM

Jeffy, this is not Europe nor Russia and the so-called fall of communism and leftist agendas is more myth than reality. The political and economic events, furthermore, that have taken place in the last 25 years are not indications that leftist ideology is dead. You really need to take a step back and reread Marx and Marcuse. The culture of the US and most of the western world has already largely been transformed into the leftist and marxist vision of society. Statism is fully entrenched and has crushed any possibility of true self government. Globalization is here. Open borders here. Atheism is rampant and has been expressed in our laws. Traditional values are on the death bed. Destruction of the family almost complete. All of these are essential elements of communist doctrine. Marx and the Left had a greater vision than just the economics of production and free market vs. centralized planning. The events taking shape right now are just one more step in the agenda. Do you really think what is happening is just the incompetence of a President and the result of overspending for most of a century by American liberals and Rino's? Please stop writing articles like this one and start telling the truth. This helps no one and misdirects people with rather shallow sophmoric arguments and observations. The American Left has largely accomplished its agenda in the past century and now we are standing at the precipice of another where they might just accomplish the last piece of this agenda through a crisis that they largely manufactured.

Bob K.| 7.19.11 @ 1:33PM

".........the importance of giant corporations, involving their "globalization" is deceiving, because their transitory managers and directors are not their real owners. They do not amount to a new aristocracy, the kind of aristocracy that inevitably arises when states are weakening. A new barbarian feudalism is bound to come in the future: but not yet."

From the chapter: "The Decline of the State" in "DEMOCRACY AND POPULISM Fear and Hatred." p. 163 by Professor John Lukacs, published 2004.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 4:38PM

Bob, not sure your comment was in agreement or not. To clarify, globalization of economies and the subsequent globalization of the work forces and resources is not much different from the internationalism within communist doctrine. The inevitable world government and supreme state will follow from the globalization of economies into one world economy. American Unions are already talking about workers of the world uniting. The progressive elites welcome globalization as it undermines nationalism, competition, and free markets. I am not familar with John Lukacs. I would take exception to his idea that the state or statism is declining. In fact I believe it is entrenching and evolving to its next stage of complete control. It is nationalism, self government, free market competition that is vanishing.

Wayne | 7.19.11 @ 10:57AM

The world community is making progress, just not in the way the Progressives intend. We are getting to know each other. We are becoming a world of people rather than a world of sects, races or nations. However this requires freedom and that is where progress continues and the Ruling Class Effetes can only stop it by sending the world back to the Dark Ages.
That is why the Progressives have more in common with Radical Islam than the Tea Party. If we as people stand up to them, then individualism will continue to progress around the world.

Conrad Spiracy| 7.19.11 @ 10:59AM

>>> After decades of raising taxes, states like California, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan have looked around to realize their taxpayers and companies -- drained of money -- have chosen to fight back by moving. Their feet are taking them to places like Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.

Conrad Spiracy| 7.19.11 @ 11:00AM

The rest of my commentary was truncated.

Conrad Spiracy| 7.19.11 @ 11:01AM

WTF AmSpec? Why are my comments being truncated???????

Folks, please bear with me. I'll try to get it all in.

megapotamus| 7.20.11 @ 10:21PM

That's what she said!

Conrad Spiracy| 7.19.11 @ 11:01AM

Don't come here to NC. I came here from Michigan in 1996. There is precious little to distinguish the Old North State from the Great Lake State today. Governor Beverly Perdue is Jennifer Granholm-lite: doing everything she can to destroy a once vibrant economy.

Within the last few months, Perdue has: vetoed legislation limiting frivolous lawsuits; vetoed legislation requiring the presentation of proper identification at voting booths; vetoed legislation requiring NC to work with SC and VA to lobby the federal government to promote offshore oil drilling, and; vetoed legislation banning the automatic deduction of union dues from teachers' paychecks.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Liberals cannot learn because their minds are more closed than they accuse conservatives' to be. The real world has a way of intruding upon the wet dreams of those who, as Madame Thatcher and Mr. Reagan agreed, know so much that simply isn't true, and who so quickly run out of other peoples' money.

I was raised a JFK Catholic Democrat, but quickly changed my stripes upon taking the oath when enlisting on active duty in the 1970s. Maybe conscription is a possible solution for the preservation of our constitutional republic. If we can educate (i.e. "grow up") only 20% of those who serve, what a tremendous success we could experience!

Con Spiracy

EXCELSIOR!!!

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.19.11 @ 11:04AM

Well, guys,
.....timing timing timing!
There are still a hundred million of us "clinging to our God and our guns."

I will give the "ballot" box one more chance, then if necessary, I will "miss-spell" ...ballot.

The only thing in between I can see is a national sit down strike thus producing no tax revenue.
Call it a "last ditch" before Armegeddon.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 11:16AM

...Oh, Ken. Please spare us the periodic threats of violence.

Skippy| 7.19.11 @ 6:10PM

It's only a threat if you feel threatened.
Do you really think the 300,000,000 firearms in America are solely for hunting deer and ducks?
Keep thinking that...

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 6:42PM

No! No! Please, Skippy! What shall I do?

Skippy| 7.19.11 @ 8:25PM

Run.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 9:55PM

I think I'll stick around and let the fine men and women in law enforcement take care of you nut jobs.

ds80| 7.19.11 @ 10:38PM

It depends, RCV, on if you are a producer, a moocher, or a looter. Which are you?

ds80| 7.19.11 @ 10:38PM

It depends, RCV, on if you are a producer, a moocher, or a looter. Which are you?

blackwatch| 7.19.11 @ 1:29PM

I like the strike idea as the second to the last step. But before we get there why don't we let the 50 states show us the way? We need some of the GOP controlled states to hit the Leftists where they breed--lets start with killing off the State Employee Unions in as many states as possible. Then start out sourcing as many State sector jobs as possible to the private sector. Does anyone think that there is not a private company that could not operate the DMV or the Dept of Highways for example in a more efficient manner?

We need to show that the states can do with much less government and it can be done cheaper. encourage freedom and self help versus leftist statism.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 11:15AM

Every few years, someone on the left or right writes these delusional pieces about the imminent demise of their political opponents. I remember reading, after the Goldwater debacle in 1964, the smug pieces in the Nation and New Republic (then both bastions of liberalism) that Conservative Republicanism was dead at last. Eight years later, after the crushing of McGovern, I read in National Review and Human Events how the Liberal Democratic disease had been erradicated at last and the enduring new alliance of the South and the GOP would prevail forever. The same song was reprised in 1980 with the new Reagan coalition which had destroyed forever the Democratic Liberal-Union coalition. Only two years ago, the Nation and Mother Jones again told us how the conservative GOP movement was vanquished forever with the triumph of Obama Populism.

And now, the predictable Mr. Lord.

The American Republic, with its politically stable electorate, endures, and will endure for many generations to come. Its pendulum swings slightly left, then slightly right, but it stays on its steady center course over time. It's only those too myopic to see the genius of our Founders' brilliant design who miss how the ever-shifting coalition of interests keeps us steady.

Melvin| 7.19.11 @ 11:23AM

The only problem with your analysis. The swing to the Left was not slight.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 5:11PM

Exactly. He apparently can not see this nor the steady erosion of liberty and the immense improper growth of government.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 12:02PM

RCV,

The Republic is a little over 200 years old. We've had almost one hundred years of statism. When these swings exist for longer than a lifespan, I'll suggest they are not swings, but rather shifts. Does anyone really expect Social Security to be any other than a tax on the worker? Will government entitlements disappear? When I'm dead and gone, will it matter to me?

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 1:39PM

Ah, yes, John, "the good old days" 100 years ago before "statism" descended. Let's remember how "free" it was: Women denied the right to vote; Blacks held in subjugation in the South under Jim Crow, denied the constitutional rights guaranteed them under the thirteenth through fifteenth amendments, unable to vote, segregated, denied decent educational opportunites, lynched with regularity, terrorized; Standard Oil and other monopolies illegally conspiring to destroy competition; no safe food and drug laws; garment workers incinerated in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire; management labor relations consist of union bombings and company thugs violently attacking striking workers; Catholics terrorized by Tom Watson's "Guardians of Liberty" and the KKK.

Gee, it was wonderful. Liberty was great -- for wealthy shite males, anyway.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 1:40PM

sorry - "wealthy, white males"

Occam's Tool| 7.19.11 @ 1:43PM

RCV,

Freudian slip. "The unconscious makes no mistakes." :-D.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 1:50PM

Except "shite" is not a form of the word I've ever used. And I would never have taken you for a Freudian, OT.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 2:43PM

RCV,

And which party worked to provide liberty to the blacks, and which worked so diligently against the Civil Rights Act. Should Lyndon Johnson's words be recalled?

You might also wish to review the actual effect of barriers to entry during that period of Standard Oil and the monopolies. The effect was felt by the investors in the competing firms, not the public at large.

Without trying to whitewash over labor disputes, this was also a period when the middle class began. While we are talking unions, just who were those people in Madison, WI?

Your rose colored glasses need cleaning.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 4:33PM

...as does your rose-colored view of history.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 7:06PM

RCV,

Please! You scatter-shot a series of 'baaaad' things from 100 years ago implicitly suggesting that statism was the salvation which gives us what we have today. So today we get crony capitalism and Jeffrey Imelt is advising Obama while his rent seeking company pays no income taxes. We get public employee unions bankrupting government because they sit on the same side of the bargaining as management. We have the thousands of pages of regulations to comply will, all for the public good, and people writing books entitled "Three felonies a day". Is that the statism you seek?

Do you complain about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? Not that I buy it, but you can't have it both ways.

I shouldn't have brought party into the discussion as it brings forth the tribalism which permeates our politics. (I can tell you that I haven't given a dime to the Republicans since George the First presided over the largest tax increase in history.) You suggest the segregationist Democrats joined the Republicans so really the current Republican party is the party of racism. Can you explain the Reagan Democrats? Can you explain how Lyndon Johnson, builder of the great society, was so opposed to the Civil Rights Act? While you are on a rant about Strom Thurmond, please fill us in on Robert Byrd.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 5:36PM

The "party" that worked to provide liberty to Blacks were northerners, Democrat and Republican - Hubert Humprey and Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits and Adlai Stevenson. And after the northern Democrats did so, the segregation Southerners left en masse and joined -- which party? The party that purged its ranks of all progressives, the party that would no longer tolerate the inclusion of Ed Brooke or Kenneth Keating or Tom Kuchel or William Scranton. Its now filled with the ex-Southern Democrats who followed Strom Thurmon into its ranks -- you know, the guy Trent Lott wished had been elected in 1948 when he ran on a segregationist platform.

W| 7.19.11 @ 6:19PM

Can you name the current Republicans who are ex southern democrats that followed Strom Thurmond? Thurmond became a Dixiecrat first, then a Republican. and as a republican he got black and white votes, and also had a black daughter that he supported. I am not praising him but in his later years he changed from his segragationist past. Maybe you are thinking of Robert Byrd (Klan memeber) or George Wallace or Lester Maddox or Bull Connor, all Democrats. Or AlGore Sr. and William Fullbright, all who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and remained "respected" Democrats.

Skippy| 7.19.11 @ 6:36PM

I'd love to tweak your racist self with a comment like "If Strom were POTUS, Obama would be bringing him coffee", but Bill Clinton(The First Black/ Boy President)beat me to it.
Actually, I'm considering becoming a racist just to fit in with my progressive N. Ca. Wine Country neighbors.
And to screw with you, of course.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 5:08PM

It is always very easy to judge those in the past with the lens of the future. They have a word for this. It is called presentism. A malady that most liberals suffer from without cure. Yes, it was wonderful...to the millions that came to these shores fleeing EVEN greater oppression, evil, and loss of liberty. You also neatly overlook all the communities and free states that existed that did in fact provide opportunity and equal justice for all and many of the efforts and successes that this country did in fact achieve in the past differentiating itself from the rest of the world. A very famous frenchman visited this country in the old days and remarked about its greatness. Perhaps you should read his work and get a better frame of reference than the boring and old rehashed liberal dogma.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 5:41PM

This country was and is great, Simon. I'm not judging the past, I'm simply noting that far from being a march toward tyrannical statism, what our great Republic has had is a march toward expanding liberty. Jefferson and Madison and many of our great founders were astonishingly brilliant minds, who single-handedly reinvented government and promoted and expanded liberty. I stare in awe at their portraits in my office each day. Were they perfect? no - they were men of their times, but astonishingly advanced for those times. And they remain my heroes because of what they created. Fortunately, America has continued in that tradition.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 6:02PM

Ok. Yes, there is no denying that we have made great progress in social areas of our society and have improved working and living conditions. Our prosperity and inventiveness is astounding. I do not not think you understand what conservatives are really concerned about. The very bedrock principles that this country was founded on and gave the soil of nourishment to this crop of prosperity and freedom is being undermined and destroyed at every turn, particularly in this last century. We have creeped closer and closer to a tryannical state, perhaps not the kind that you conjure up like that of the soviet union but one with a happy face of democratic fascism and corporatism whereby a ruling elite of professional politicians, interest groups, and beuracrats have literally brought us to the brink of collaspe. Can you not see this? Every aspect of life has become under the jurisdiction of a giant federal government that is literally strangling business, invading our private lives, and spending our wealth at a rate that is unsustainable. Are you not concerned about this?

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 6:16PM

Simon, that is not the way I view things, honestly. I see a society that is both freer in terms of political participation, and blessed with highly improved living and working conditions. But I also see a world which is more complex and inter-related. When we were primarily an agrarian society, with limited communication and community interelationships, there was far less need for regulatory oversight. When you had community markets in a limited area, for example, not only was the danger of widespread damage from poor sanitation or health vigilence limited, but local self-regulation worked reasonably well on the small scale. It is not so today. An agribusiness which distributes thousands and thousands of eggs into the stream of commerce can cause massive damage. Yes, there are always the market's own self-regulatory incentitives, but the damage that can be inflicted in the interim is enormous. That's what led to increased regulatory oversight, not some nefarious desire to control people's lives.

When I look at American innovation in technology, communication, entertainment and a host of other thriving new areas of intellectual property, which bring enormous wealth to thousands of new enterprising young people, I don't see the American opportunity on the brink of collapse. I really don't.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 6:13PM

Let me add with all this so-called liberal progressivism and change in the last century it has also brought tremendous social dysfunction and breakdown. Was all of it bad? No...of course not. What did the War on Poverty produce. Can we honestly take a look at this? What did the so-called sexual revolution produce? Have any of these government programs and the trillions spent accomplished the desired results? What was the outcome of this government control and meddling for the most part? Are we as conservatives saying that no government is the best course? No. Man, take an honest look at what this explosion of government control and regulation has done to this country. Can you honsetly say this is what the founders intended?

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 6:36PM

I appreciate the thoughtful and reasoned approach.

Do I believe that all government programs, as well-intentioned as they may have been, have been good? No. The welfare system as it came to be operated was a disaster, one that contributed to the destruction of poor families, not just poor African-American families, but poor white families in rural midwest areas as well. Were there successes, as well? Yes. I know from personal experience many such stories, families whose productive lives would have been lost to society, but who with some assistance, have gone on to be highly contributing members of society, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople. But much of Johnson's so-called "Great Society" was a failure.

What did the sexual revolution produce? Good and bad things. Empowerment and expanded opportunity for many talented women. The benefits to society from the discoveries, inventions and accomplishments of those women finally allowed to pursue independent lives. Were there costs? To be sure: less stable nuclear families, increased social anomie.

As human civilization grows more complex and the world shrinks, live becomes more complicated and things change. And they always will. We have to work to protect what we deem essential in terms of our traditional freedoms, work to expand freedom in those areas where we can (as we've done in the political process the past hundred years), and adapt as best we can to change.

Southern_Comment| 7.19.11 @ 8:47PM

Ahhh, but it's that 'with some assistance' that seems to cause issue. I don't feel that either side wants to prevent help for those that are in need. How that help can come about - much better ways. For instance take a lesson from business, ebay has a site called Microplace. You 'donate' or invest a small amt. say 100 dollars - they in turn use this money to fund loans for unbelievable small businesses in third world countries. You actually get a return on the investment while doing something good and there is a 98% pay back on the loans. The people gain confidence and have acheived such goals such as sending their kids to college. We should be coming up with ways like this for our own country that supports and rewards success - just imagine the opportunity opened up then.
Secondly, you made a point earlier about innovation here in the US. I disagree, the innovation has come to a stand still, people are not going to invest in starting a business until there is more stability, something that seems to be dead in the h2o right now. I know because I am one of those people, waiting for a more stable future to leave my career and open my own business. Instead, I'll take the time and build it more on the sidelines make as stable as possible before opening shop. I'll have to make my own stability as it is obvious the WH has no intentions of doing so and I would not want their hand outs anyway.
Lastly, this idea that life has gotten more complicated is an excuse. Nothing more than an excuse. It is we who make our lives complicated. It's really not that complicated - study, graduate, either go for more school or enter the career of your choosing, earn a living (hopefully doing something you like), raise a family (if that is your choice), enjoy your spare time, retire, do what you want for awhile, and die. What about any of these things is really all that complicated? It's the excess and keeping up with the jones', that's all those complications are, nothing more.

mjfin| 7.21.11 @ 12:05AM

Well, RCV the U.S. was indeed a horrible place.

However, nothing you bring up justifies the leviathan state that has arisen since the beginning of the last century.

Modest but effective libertarian remedies to the clear injustices of the denial voting privileges to women (explicit) or blacks (implicit) have been put into place. The KKK has been demonized and marginalized to oblivion, and was so long before the civil rights laws of the 60's. Budding racist or anti-religious groups with any similar appeal and power cannot emerge without being pitilessly scourged and ridiculed by all political persuasions and the press - without need of government intervention.

Racism as a systematic cause of job discrimination has essentially disappeared. Professional Asians now make more money than white professionals; 2nd generation black immigrants to the U.S. are on a par economically with whites. Native African-Americans still lag, but arguably would not without the Great Society era federal programs responsible for destroying the black family and nurturing a continuing sense of minority entitlement.

Anti-union violence was an historical artifact during the initial growth of labor movements in the factory industrial age of mass production with huge labor pools of essentially identical workers punching identical rivets. Them days is over, but the archaic federal union bureaucracy remains.

Today most Union coercion is usually from the unions toward their employers - most of which are now government agencies. Union-dues bribes now pay for legislation mandating union benefits that bankrupt state treasuries. Private-company unions are another vestige of the past, and are on a path to near extinction, and are partly on life support by government efforts to resuscitate their union pals through rulings like that of the NLRB which is attempting to tell companies (Boeing) they cannot build factories in right-to-work states.

Antitrust laws were always controversial from the beginning, questionably effective, and are now mostly applied to those great robber barons like Microsoft, one of the truly great U.S. companies. Microsoft used to have no Washington lobbyists. Not anymore; they now spend $10'sM per year to suck up to the Washington political maw.

The incineration of workers is also not improved by federal government agencies. Frontline and other organizations show that OSHA (the federal bureaucracy charged with protecting worker safety) is completely ineffective. A Cato study (www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-36.htm) that plots workplace death rates showed a steady downward slope in deaths since 1937. This slope was completely unaffected following the birth of OSHA. You literally cannot tell from the workplace death chart when OSHA came into existence.

Finally, maybe some modest food inspection should be part of the federal responsibility; I'll give you that. But FDA delays bringing new drugs to market unquestionably cause thousands of needless deaths. I believe the FDA should be privatized and turned into an organization like Underwriter's Laboratories. When was the last time your house electricity or appliances failed because of faulty design in a UL approved device?

So, for essentially all of the problems you bring up, including real, serious ones, remedies for them have been put in place, and they have been largely fixed. Without the lingering behemoth state playing much of a part.

Today ordinary middle class Americans are richer than your typical wealthy white male of the 19th century, racial and gender equality has hugely improved or been overcome, unions now are not oppressed but if anything, the opposite, food is safe, and workplace deaths decline without noticeable OSHA effect.

Not much left is there? But then of course there is the racial slur claiming "It was wonderful. Liberty was great for wealthy white males."

But hey, apart from the reflexive race card always played by liberal scoundrels (this one from the 19th century!), that last sentence is a two edged sword. Perhaps, we can leave the federal mountain behind, return to most of the simpler rules of the 19th century and say, with you: "Gee it is wonderful. Liberty is great for Americans."

Or would be if Washington weren't bankrupting us.

Slacker| 7.19.11 @ 12:43PM

You make a good point but, the demographics are different this time. This endless recession has pretty much wiped out any hope that the nation could somehow find a way to pay out the baby boomers. It is going to be very hard for the left to sell new promises when they can’t meet old promises.

Ground Control| 7.19.11 @ 2:08PM

"TARP" and the "Stimulus" are not "steady center" policies. And most of what the Federal Government does is actually prohibited by Law under the Founders' brilliant design. This is not myopia, it is fact.

It has been said that some minds have be open for so long that they should be closed for repairs.

michael| 7.19.11 @ 11:16AM

Anyone who thinks "liberalism" is dead is not paying attention. Liberalism has already achieved its goals to the extent that those goals have been institutionalized: we have "wealth redistribution" with a vengeance, numerous government agencies which intefere in what we can consume, a court system that rules virtually every aspect of our lives, and a government system in which we the electorate receive policies by fiat--as when a President takes us to war merely because it suits him. The fact that nobody uses the term "liberalism" anymore reflects only that liberal concepts have been so thoroughly incorporated in American thinking--to the extent there is such a thing--that they are no longer considered "liberal". These ideas are now mainstream, and politicians who argue against them are easily passed off as cranks.

The problem now is not properly characterized as "liberalism" versus "conservatism". Those terms are irrelevant. The problem now is "statism", in which it is largely taken for granted that more government is better. Maybe much of the electorate disagrees with that, but that is the whole point: nobody in government pays any attention to what the electorate thinks--until the runup to an election. Then the argument becomes: whose ox gets gored, his or mine? The debate is never about whether to stop goring the ox.

Pat| 7.19.11 @ 4:58PM

Michael, well expressed and correct in every point. And qualifying “much of the electorate disagrees with that” through the addition of a “maybe” was very perceptive. Because even Conservatives will rationalize “statism” to their personal advantage when the occasion warrants it. People on welfare are “moochers”, people receiving social security handouts are entitled to recover their contributions – with the appropriate mental gymnastics, it’s irrelevant that the money is neither there for the “moochers” nor there for the social security recipients. It’s quite likely much of the electorate agrees with statism depending on which government handout is being debated.

From ancient Egypt until today, once a central government overcomes geographic isolation to extend control over a dispersed citizenry, the path to one of the various forms of statism is as sure and certain as continental drift. Even American “exceptionalism” was no more than a small twig yielding to the flood of history.

Our present government’s flavor of statism encourages us citizens to create new wealth and then demands, through force, the right to control it. We have the right to freely assemble and petition for redress as long as nothing changes. And we collectively equate a modest amount of economic prosperity with being “free citizens”. But a chicken in every pot is not freedom when our government claims the sovereign right to “own” both our chicken and our pot.

Melvin| 7.19.11 @ 11:21AM

You know what I really want?...I want to plant a garden in my front yard without a permit.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 12:03PM

Melvin,

I'll bring my shovel. When do we start?

blackwatch| 7.19.11 @ 1:10PM

Call it a Carbon Monoxide Reduction Factory. Don't call it a garden--that's illegal.

Lesser Weevil| 7.19.11 @ 4:01PM

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

Southern_Comment| 7.19.11 @ 9:01PM

Wish I could do that in the back. A natural one - no chemicals. I can't though, because the land behind me is owned by TVA - and they have it for a reserve. I've lived here two years and have never seen a deer in those three acres. I bet I would have seen deer if I planted the garden. I didn't care about the deer or the rabbits having at it. I just liked the action of it. Thanks to the gov. that can't happen. Oh well... no matter. The way we found out, was because someone came out here and questioned us about who was mowing back there and then planted rows upon rows of hardwoods, little tiny saplings (how much do you think that cost the taxpayers?). Only they don't mow the grass which has grown about 4 feet high, so those saplings couldn't get any light to grow. This was done for the Carbon Credits - like that? Cracked me up. In the course of the conversation with numnuts, I found out they had several more jobs ahead and the company that supplied the seeds. I invested in them. Since I couldn't beat them I made money off of them. :)

Ground Control| 7.19.11 @ 11:27AM

I'm not sure what to make of Mr. Lord's essay. Is Leftism REALLY on the decline? As budgets explode? As taxes remain abusive? As government intrudes ever more into our lives demanding conformance to Leftist group-think? It is ture the Leftist in Washington are getting desperate, but remember, desperation sometimes pays off. I'll believe Leftism is truly dead when it has been cremated and the ashes buried and we can all piss on the grave. Leftist right now hold all the cards, they have all the power. And it seems likely the voters of America are going to return the same Crooks, Liars, Cheats, and Thieves (the Democrat Party) to power next year. When Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are reduced to looking for handouts, then I'll believe it.

Kingofthenet| 7.19.11 @ 11:37AM

I often ask my Conservative 'friends' So we pay too much taxes? Compared to WHAT? Compared to what the rates were under Reagan? Compared to what they were under Eisenhower? Compared to what Modern European Democracies pay? Unless you can answer THAT question, it just sounds like baseless whining.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 12:04PM

Kingofthenet,

Compared to as close to zero as we can get while funding the limited government we truly need.

Occam's Tool| 7.19.11 @ 1:44PM

Joh N,

Correct as usual.

Kingofthenet| 7.19.11 @ 3:49PM

I want an expanded Nanny State, funny thing about opinions!

Ground Control| 7.19.11 @ 5:23PM

Funny thing, indeed! It's just that YOUR opinion costs ME money! (Taxes! Taxes! Taxes!) Get a job.

W| 7.19.11 @ 6:13PM

King, if you really believe you do not pay enough in taxes can write a check to the Treasury for whatever amount you want,Or you do not have to take deductions and exemptions. I always suggest this to my lib friends and after the shock, they say they will do it when everybody else does it. I do not mind paying taxes, we should have a national sales tax of about 20% on all items except food and clothing, and eliminate the income tax. This will eliminate the undegdround economy that now flourishes, and everybody will have a stake in paying. Thus if you want to buy a Mercedes for $100,000 you will pay $20,000 in tax and this will make all the class warfare warriors happy.

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 7:11PM

Kingofthenet,

Please help yourself to all the Nanny State you can afford. I promise not to charge you for my freedom.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 6:19PM

Compared to whats left in our wallets and our inability to save for our retirements, pay our health care, and pay our bills. Does that help?

Kingofthenet| 7.19.11 @ 6:52PM

Than WHAT Country does it 'better'? If None than what you are saying is foolish. Everything is compared to something else, otherwise opinions are pointless. If you tell me you are strong, I am assuming you mean COMPARED to other men your age, or men in general, not 90yo women. That wouldn't mean anything.

simon templar| 7.20.11 @ 11:18AM

Why does one have to compare the tax burden of their society to anothers to make a judgement on whether or not it is burdensome and improper? I do not give a rats ass what the Europeans are doing or the chinese communist. Shall we compare our tax burden and big government control to communist countries that essentially tax at rates that make people into slaves of the state and control every aspect of their lives. No. Americans have never judged themselves by anyone's standards other than the ones we have set for ourselves. If if you do this comaprison you will find that we are indeed being taxed at greater rates than many countries and have been suffering for immense government control and interference. Why do you think corporations are leaving certain states and the country as a whole? Once again you are misdirecting. It is not a tax or revenue issue it is a spending problem. Why is it so hard for you to see the reality that this government is spending more than we, the private citizen can earn? What's enough taxation and what's enough spending? What do you want? A 95 percent tax rate? Another 100 trillion in spending? Another 100 trillion in borrowing? What you do not seem to understand is one simple reality and principle. It is not your money nor the US federal government. It is mine. I earned it. You and the fed do not have a divine right to it. This is the foundational stone to what it is to be an American and the basis of why this nation sought independence and developed a divide Republican representative government.

Anthony| 7.19.11 @ 11:44AM

President Reagan left one vital group out of his precient observation; history will reflect that Washington RINOs will also be left on history's ashheap.
Are you listening O'Connell and Boehner?????

MikeBee| 7.19.11 @ 11:56AM

Mr. Lord,
You left off the list a couple more modern examples of the failure of Communism/Socialism: Cuba and Mexico. Both communist nations, with their people pouring into the U.S. to leave their failed countries.

My prediction for the future: there will be two parties in the U.S., one with all the RINOs, who still believe in government spending, but just not as much as the Libs did, and the other with conservatives in it, pushing for individual responsibility and a small government. The hard Left will all be in the ash heap, crying for attention ("It COULD have worked; we just didn't do it right. We only needed more money!")

John Navratil| 7.19.11 @ 12:11PM

MikeBee,

'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

cicero| 7.19.11 @ 12:09PM

The real problems will begin if and when the people wake up and try to take back their country. As things now stand, our beaurocratic class has lathered themselves with wages and benefits that are clearly unsustainable, and much too rich . The proposed solutions only call for a slowing down of the increase in the current levels. The trouble will come when the people elect representatives who ratchet the costs back to some reasonable level more in keeping with the worth of the service provided. Minnesota will look tame, and Greece will be the pattern. The trend in government expenditures have to take a downward turn, and soon. Entire departments have to be liquidated.
Some years age, (1972), as a young lawyer, I was asked to give a talk to a group of homeowners. After the set speach, I opened the floor up to questions. One young woman asked what i considered to be the biggest danger facing America. I told them that the biggest threat to America was government by fiat. The increasing number of government regulatory agencies that were being established by Washington that could make laws with civil and criminal penalties, and had no checks or restraints by the electorate. This was shortly after Congress began setting up such bureaus ad HUD, HEW, etc, and shortly before we were given the Dept of Trfans, Dept of Energy, etc.
These agencies are populated by individuals who have never worked in the real world, and feel conpelled to DO SOMETHING to justify thier existence, all the while being compensated at wages far beyond what they could make doing something useful.
We have to elect representatives who will go to Washington and not merely wring their hands and talk in broad generalities, but go with the intention of closing down whole departments. If legislation is needed, our representatives should be held accountable for passing such. They should not be allowed to point to a regulatory agency, and say that they did it, and its not our fault. Then we can begin to get control of our country again.
This may take a new conservative naational party to replace the Republicans.

DaveD| 7.19.11 @ 12:19PM

There was only one real crisis in Minnesota, but it alone was probably sufficient to make the Governor buckle under. Miller brewing lost its license to sell beer in the State and no government agency available to renew it. That's 38% of the beer sold in the state that was about to disappear from the shelves and that was about to incite a mini-rebellion. So now all we have to do is find something similar on a national level ...

Margie| 7.19.11 @ 1:33PM

Who WOULD really close down whole departments?
This always reminds me of the verse in the Bible that says, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" in Revelation.
I think that's talking about the Anti-Christ, but think about it in regards to the subject.
Who would do that? Who has the courage and conviction?
Very, very few, if any.
There is one that might, though~ and her name's Sarah Palin.
God bless America.

Occam's Tool| 7.19.11 @ 1:44PM

Or Allen "Balls of Steel" West.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 5:44PM

West-Rubio...unstoppable!

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 6:38PM

Sounds like a new Will Ferrell movie.

Skippy| 7.19.11 @ 7:28PM

Except this time, the laugh's on you.

Who Knows?| 7.19.11 @ 12:48PM

Mr. Lord, thanks again for another “emperor has no clothes” take.

When hoary Gorby comes to my mind, I’m such a gross guy that something Rush Limbaugh (I think it was him) gifted us with---

Gorbasm.

What to make of BHO---Obamasm?

There’s no doubt he’s “getting off”, every day, and “coming” all over America!

He needs a rubber!

michael| 7.19.11 @ 1:08PM

All this talk about sending honest politicans to Washington overlooks the big problem: Only those who know the game can play the game. An occasional Mr. Smith might slip through and go to Washington, but his oratory won't change a thing.

What will happen here in the US is what has happened in every other society governed by the principles of the Left: state-created economic "rights", funded by wealth redistribution from producers to consumers, resulting in a shrinking base of real wealth and income, financed by borrowing and/or a lower standard of living for all but the political class and its adherents. Eventually, borrowing opportunities end, and the redistribution comes to an end because there is nothing to distribute. That does not always result in a change of government, at least immediately. Over a span of generations, the mode of government may change.

Regardless of what economic theory may teach, there is still a fundamental fact: 1+ 1 =2. If you consume 1 and give 1 away, you then have 0. And no word or deed of any politician can change that equation. The people of this country have lived and continue to live as if 1 + 1 =3. Politicians get paid for creating and perpetuating this mindset.

Blaming politicians for our problems is really pointless. They didn't do this to us; we did it to ourselves. They merely gave us what a sufficient number of us demanded as our "right".

JimH| 7.19.11 @ 1:20PM

The One may be a last hurrah of the unreconstructed 60s left, but Statism is ever present. Only the labels change.

DANSHANTEAL| 7.19.11 @ 1:53PM

AMERICANS ARE WAITING IN THE WEEDS FOR 2012.

Pat| 7.19.11 @ 2:16PM

This piece is a pleasant escape from reality – and there is some documented truth in the reports of ordinary taxpayers fleeing Michigan for Nebraska and small businesses, weary of being a regulatory punching bag, happily singing “Texas here we come” as they exit California. But this beautiful Conservative vision is no more real than alien life forms, with the ability to easily transform themselves into Ferraris or dump trucks, visiting our planet sometime next Thursday. The Left has patiently spent decades developing an incredibly complex web of governmental regulations which provides both legitimacy of authority and financial security for themselves and their constituency.

Nor can frustrated patriots recruit an armed band of American revolutionaries to successfully fight a second battle of Bunker Hill on Washington’s Freedom Circle. Our government possesses the armed might of the former Soviet Union’s KGB and while Washington’s intent may be more benevolent in method, these politicians are nonetheless deadly serious about preserving their place in the seat of power.

What signs would herald the demise of the Left? A million angry, dispirited taxpayers converging on Washington to demand responsible government. Widespread discussion of how our government, federal, state and local, has become an intricate matrix of corrupt medieval fiefdoms during week-end table talk at your local Starbucks. An individual realization that the personal wealth of others constitutes the cornerstone of the Left’s taxpayer funded edifice and a willingness on the part of average citizens to withhold personal spending and choke off the funds of the Left’s many allies in the media, quasi government institutions like universities and their lobbyist led partners in private business. But we’re a long way from concerted action by an angry citizenry.

Observing the current financial crisis in Greece, a Greek politician recently said “we ate it together” referring to the money from government borrowing and taxes many among the Greek citizenry have personally consumed these past decades. As in Greece, America also has millions of private citizens dependent on government largesse and who “eat well” when it comes to preserving the present status quo.

Opposing these home grown forces, American fathers and mothers are too busy scrambling to make a living and paying their many taxes to realize the game is rigged against them and there really is no magic formula allowing them to have the “good life” and enjoy it too. The day will come when the Left’s long term corruption can no longer be ignored, but today is not that day.

David| 7.19.11 @ 3:01PM

PaulyD, great comments. Mr. Lord, as long as the public schools are government-run, liberalism/socialism will continue to have a stronger and growing foothold on all of our institutions. People are simply dumbed-down.

megapotamus| 7.20.11 @ 10:30PM

The public schools are also in collapse and deservedly so.

Marc Jeric| 7.19.11 @ 3:48PM

It was clear from the first moment of Mullah Obama's rise to power that the block of our socuialists, marxists, communists, and eco-nazis will work together to bring America down, starting with massive nationalizations of private industries. In order to grab permanent power these criminals need big crises - and they are working feverishly to bring them about.

Ohiolad| 7.19.11 @ 5:02PM

When the American left finally runs out of other people's money here at home and can borrow no more from abroad then they will have reached their terminus, the end of the line, and will inevitably collapse. But I am not as sanguine about what comes afterwards. We cannot assume that the left's collapse will automatically create the conditions for a new flowering of individual liberty because by that time we probably will have already experienced a chaotic economic collapse. Looking at the example of the former Soviet Union, if we look at what came after the collapse of the communist system, their brief flirtation with constitutional democracy has all but vanished and has been replaced by a KGB-run criminal oligarchy currently headed by Putin. This lawless criminal enterprise would barely be able to function at all if it were not for the wealth generated by their oil and gas revenues and sale of other natural resources. Instead of a society of limited government that maximizes individual freedom that we are all hoping for, my biggest fear is that the future of the world social order may revert back a thousand years to some sort of New World Order-inspired technocratic feudalism run by a global ruling elite - think of today's Russia on a planetary scale.

Rick| 7.19.11 @ 5:08PM

Your a bigget and a rasist!

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 5:19PM

You really need to learn how to spell. Try a dictionary..it is a very useful book that has almost all the words and their definitions.

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 5:43PM

Unfortunately, Simon, "Rick" thinks he's funny and he has only one joke, which he tells over and over and over.

Southern_Comment| 7.19.11 @ 9:08PM

Does he purposely misspell them every time too, is that part of the joke?

RCV| 7.19.11 @ 9:59PM

That is Rick's "joke" -- you know, Blacks can't spell. Ha Ha.

PODBAYDOORS| 7.19.11 @ 5:19PM

Good God, I hope so.... Couldn't be a moment too soon.

BackToBasics| 7.19.11 @ 5:21PM

I think that the political "order" will never be the same again in the USA even if a Tea Party Conservative wins in 2012. This will help in the near term, but long term the attitudes and demographics of too many including millions of illegals will change us and the rest of the West within our grandchildren's lifetime. What we are in for only God knows but I think we will see dictators in America within 50 years.

In 100-150 years or less, I think Democracy will be seen as a failure. Within that time, take your pick; kings, queens, feudal-style Lords, dictators, Caliphates could very well comprise the political reality in the ""ENTIRE"" world, and I enphasize it to include what is now called the West.

Like today, it will be a mix of good and bad, but gone as we know it will be the brightest beacon of hope and freedom which is what America was until recently.

simon templar| 7.19.11 @ 5:41PM

The what you need to do is teach your children about the truths of liberty, free markets, and self government. We are not the first to see these declines and the forces of tryanny. What the heck do you think the founders of this country were up against? Hell, half the population did not want independence. We are not helpless. Fight for it, my brother. Raise some hell like the patriots of 1776! Push back!

BackToBasics| 7.20.11 @ 2:09AM

I do push back, but half of the population in 1776 did not consist of freeloaders and lawbreakers and a what amounts to a pagan culture for the left half like it does today. Ultimately, these days pushing back will result in civil war on a massive scale, not a fight against a relatively small British army. My post is as much a warning as anything else, not a capitulation. But I also know enough history and enough about human nature to see we are more like the late Roman empire than we are 1776. There are 2 hopes that remain in my opinion, one is a major crisis that hopefully wakes up a majority but in a bigger way than 9/11 did. That "awakening" lasted about 4 months. Secondly a major revival towards Christianity could save us. Or a combination of crisis/revival. It IS going to take something like this to turn this large ship around.

But I do as much as I am able to inform and create change for the better. I have given and continue to give much. My posts here are but a very small part of what I do to try to make a positive difference for our country.

simon templar| 7.20.11 @ 11:23AM

Excellent. I was attempting to encourage you not condemn you or chide you. I am glad you are out there fighting the fight. Keep the faith!

Mikey| 7.19.11 @ 6:08PM

Norman Thomas (1884-1968) was a six-time U.S. Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of American. In a presidential campaign interview in 1948, he said: "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day American will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." That has been the strategic plan of the Democratic Party for the last 50-years - the incremetal whittling away of our freedoms and liberties. We have become a Socialist nation (really a tyranny under BHO); but, for the old "Silent Majority", we know how it happened. President Reagan was a Democrat; but, he also said that he left the Democratic Party, because it had left him in the 1950's - so he became a conservative Republican. Some do see the light - unfortunately, those on the left who live predominately in the cities outnumber those over what Rush Limbaugh called "flyover country." What is needed is a national revival; but, we can't "preach" politicals or issues facing our country from the pulpit because of the left's twisted "separation of church and state" mantra - unless they're in campaign mode - then it's okay (except for Republicans!). Unfortunately, I fear that our secular, instant gratification, blame others, do whatever feels good society has gone so far left that I hold out very little hope for a national spiritual awakening - but, we can pray. Politically, the Tea Party movement is a step in the right direction; but, will this grassroots movement maintain enough momentum to weed out these Leftist Democrats and RINO Republicans for the next 5-10 political election cycles? Who knows - because after one Leftist departs the scene (either via defeat or death), two pop up to that his/her place - they're like cockroaches and flys! Everyone above is right - this is insanity - doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results (A. Einstein). Lord, help us!

Thom| 7.19.11 @ 9:00PM

Mr. Lord,

I don’t think anyone has every voted themselves out of a Marx’s system of government. It took a real crisis to make things happen and in all cases there were deep and serious consequences across the board. From my perspective, Marx’s form of government is parasitic in nature and you simply cannot kill it without risking the patient too. Unlike the Soviet Union which collapsed onto itself, our disease is within the body politics and half the body depends on the “drugs” the other half pays for. I do not believe Marx’s nightmare is simply going to go quietly into the night nor do I believe we can remove it from being institutionalized in our laws without significant effort. Time is not on our side either. The ultimate destination I’m pretty sure will bring about Marx’s collapse just as it has everywhere else but the cost to this nation will not be trivial. I don’t see this as a fairy tale that ends well in other words.

Oklahoma| 7.19.11 @ 10:42PM

The stench of decadent pessimism overwhelms most of the comments on this article. If you are of the opinion that all is lost and we are helpless to change the situation then you can go straight to Hell. I don't need you or your worthless opinion.

Vic| 7.20.11 @ 2:48AM

The stench from Washington these past couple of decades leads me to believe Hell is pretty close at hand for all of us. But we can be optimistic about being in Hell. We sure can't get any lower.

POST American| 7.19.11 @ 11:19PM

---Now, are we speaking of Rockefeller Foundation
sponsored 'Calm--YOU---nism' ? or Freemason
scripted 'So--SHALL---ALLL-ism'?

Or are we speaking of some other opposition
to London-Wall Street monopoly Banksterism
-ie 'CAP---IT----ALLL--ism'?

Please clarify.

Mark MacDonald| 7.19.11 @ 11:37PM

Ultimately the decision lies with the American people: can they accept the reality that is right in front of their noses or will they continue to believe that raising the taxes of top earners can solve all their problems? Magical thinking, I believe Freud called this. As a conservative who perhaps reads Shakespeare too often, I am deeply pessimistic about the future of our country. I hope that I am wrong.

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.20.11 @ 12:02AM

RCV,
is simply feeling guilty for being a whore to business for the last umpteen years. He has made a lot of monjey screwing people, and this is a place he can pretend to be a decent man.

RCV| 7.20.11 @ 6:16PM

Ken, your ignorance -- and your willingness to slander people on this site without a shred of factual support -- knows no bounds. I worked honorably for every cent I ever earned, and represented my clients -- good people, every one -- to the best of my ability and always with professionalism and integrity.

I'm not surprised that other good, decent people like Margie have come to see you for the little man you are.

Kingofthenet| 7.20.11 @ 1:13AM

You Conservatives are NUTS, almost 'Rainman' Autistic, you are looking at things like a 'Rainman' Accountant, like you ACTUALLY believe EVERYTHING will Balance...You STUPID fools, it's just a GAME. Large country's 'Debt' is a JOKE, it will NEVER be paid off, nor should it....What it IS a sort of 'Warning' when it gets too large, COMPARED to other Big Countries. China for example is saying USA cut back on the unfunded debt, and uncontrolled spending, we can't buy all that stuff, even with our MASSIVELY growing Economy.This is an Illuminati Game....

simon templar| 7.20.11 @ 11:33AM

Your comments here are very revealing and have given me a greater understanding of the liberal mind.

Dacron Mather| 7.20.11 @ 2:24AM

If Obama is our Gorbachev,doesn't that make Putin mayor of Chicago?

Bennet Cecil| 7.20.11 @ 2:29AM

Obama, Reid, Pelosi and their fellow statist-Marxists are not defeated. Once the economy improves they will win the votes to be in power. Socialism has been a big part of America for more than 100 years. Republicans have been enabling socialists for years; McConnell and Boehner are continuing that tradition. The House can refuse to raise the debt ceiling but do not have the courage to say no. They could give $200 billion at a time. Keep the debt front and center until November. Force Harry Reid to propose his budget. Get on TV with Obama's budget that was defeated even by his own party. Tell the American people every week about democrat's policies of misery and republicans plans for prosperity. In November 2012 voters will choose.

Kingofthenet| 7.20.11 @ 2:40AM

ANSWER me this? Who PAID for World War II, Germany for all the Destruction and atrocity they did? Maybe Japan for killing THOUSANDS of Americans in one shot at Pearl Harbor? No of COURSE not, they were defeated and ALL of their debt's were wiped out....like they NEVER existed, in fact we the USA rebuilt BOTH Countries....Yet you Conservatives THINK the USA is SPECIAL, it MUST pay back all it's debt's? Why can't WE get debt 'relief' like some small African State? I am not being serious, of course we won't get 'debt relief' nor do we need it, because we will NEVER pay back all we owe, in the sense of us REALLY making the money to do so. SURE we will PRINT our way out of it, but as far as POWERFUL Nuclear States are concerned, even with our 'Friends' in China' all the Debt hassle is just a warning to slow it down.

Bobby| 7.20.11 @ 2:53AM

You are highly deluded or something. Germany has been paying for WW II since the war ended and is still paying. They were used to prevent the spread of communism, and how many times have they bailed out their neighbors?

simon templar| 7.20.11 @ 11:31AM

Wow. That was one of the most interesting comments that you have ever posted! It really is very revealing and has given me a greater understanding of exactly how you (the liberal mind) see this and how you think. Can you hear yourself?

Bobby| 7.21.11 @ 12:16AM

I detest lies, whether they come from the left or right, and I detest liberals.

Bobby| 7.20.11 @ 2:47AM

Friends, could someone tell me what I'm missing when, the author of this article implies that the country is broke due to leftists. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I detest, deplore, and despise the left with all my heart. But, could it be endless wars, and Wall Street criminality that also, contributed to the mess we are in???? It seems both the left and right share this blame, including, the cowardice and apathy of the American public.(I'll include myself) We have had it too good for too long and of course the left kept bringing down our standards with a vengeance.

Clinton Lovell| 7.20.11 @ 9:09AM

Another brilliant analysis of reality by Mr. Lord.

Chrisiv| 7.20.11 @ 10:53AM

One can only hope that the author is correct. Any sane person would be bewildered by excessive spending, illegal immigration, welfare/food stamp society. The economy is crashing around the leftist socialist world and these leftists still want to borrow more and solve all human problems using big gov't. Junk science like evolution (with no evidence or factual basis) and global warming have taken hold on this secular society. The secular society is now trumping constitutionality and logic and religion. We hope that some in the Mob (mob mentality according to Coulter), the decent ones, will finally join us in turning this country around.

David Doyle| 7.20.11 @ 12:16PM

I believe Mr Lord has accurately assessed the history and the impending change. The politics has come face to face with the economics, or as Ms. Thatcher said "you eventually run out of other peoples money". Not different really from the fall of Soviet Russia, they ran out of money! We have run out of money and sadly have charged up the credit cards leaving the rest of the world 'holding the bag' empty as it may be.

David

Bill S| 7.20.11 @ 5:01PM

Liberals remain unconvinced that liberalism doesn't work. It's astounding that 45% of the American public approves of the job that Obama is doing. That, according to a Gallup Poll taken today.

Jack Rail| 7.20.11 @ 6:32PM

Paraphrasing the Gatlin Bros, the Left plans to take everybody with 'em when they fall. That's what we have to be careful of. We see how nasty they are when there isn't much real stress; imagine what they will do when the going gets tough.

Dominic| 7.20.11 @ 6:48PM

A fine article and historically speaking, 100% correct for all know. If this fate you write of; the fate of the American liberal agenda is similar enough to the soviet union for your article then it should be similar enough for my point? What happened to the soviet union? Did they go away? Or, did they simply change their name and regroup into a more formidable advisary?

My point is while I agree with your premise, and I believe I share your dislike of liberals; the conclusion is still being developed, they arn't dead yet., neither are the soviets in my book.

weddingdresses | 7.21.11 @ 6:01AM

We see how nasty they are when there isn't much real stress; imagine what they will do when the going gets tough.

EJM| 7.21.11 @ 12:01PM

The comments on this article are interesting and thoughtful. Certainly our country is in a very distressed state. More distressing still is that 45% of the electorate still supports Obama and will vote for him in 2012. It is easy to be pessimistic. But isn't this a kind of narcissistic withdrawal into a private world of knowing you are right while the country sinks? Just the kind of smug self-satisfaction we so often see on the left?

These are the times that try men's souls. Our liberty was not won by pessimists. Reagan was known for his sunny optimism. Every problem America now faces is due to our own choices, and can be solved by making different choices. Are they more difficult than Washington's Army faced at Valley Forge? Or Lincoln faced at Gettysburg? Or FDR faced with depression, the rise of fascism, and world war on two separate fronts? Or the 45 year standoff in Cold War and threatened nuclear annihilation?

Keep things in perspective, conservatives. This will be a difficult fight. But we will win it because reality is on our side. And reality is a difficult and persistent opponent. This is the point of Jeffrey Lord's piece, and he is mostly right. The left will not go away, but they must and will be defeated. The future is made by those who believe in it.

Jack Thaddeus| 8.8.11 @ 3:08PM

You do realize that all of the fastest growing major economies, the BRIC, are all very socialistic. They're near the bottom of the WSJ/heritage list of economic freedom. And the most moderate of them, Brazil(predicted to surpass the UK in GDP by the end of this year) is governed by an avowedly Marxist party.

If the America and other liberal democratic leaders like the UK are faltering and Obama is Gorbachev, then wishing that he fail is not something you want. The entire west is declining rapidly if it's systems, liberal or conservative headed falter, then that will leave world leadership to a block of emerging countries who's world view has more in common with the soviets than any American party.

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