The American Spectator : America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution

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America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution

By Angelo M. Codevilla from the July 2010 - August 2010 issue

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several "stimulus" bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind. Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government's agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes, if only they were allowed to. Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about "global warming" for the sake of getting on the right side of history. No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class's continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place. The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.

Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners -- nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, "prayed to the same God." By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God "who created and doth sustain us," our ruling class prays to itself as "saviors of the planet" and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over "whose country" America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

The Political Divide

Important as they are, our political divisions are the iceberg's tip. When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences "undecided," "none of the above," or "tea party," these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well. Hence officeholders, Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate -- most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans. This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class's prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans -- a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents -- lack a vehicle in electoral politics.

Sooner or later, well or badly, that majority's demand for representation will be filled. Whereas in 1968 Governor George Wallace's taunt "there ain't a dime's worth of difference" between the Republican and Democratic parties resonated with only 13.5 percent of the American people, in 1992 Ross Perot became a serious contender for the presidency (at one point he was favored by 39 percent of Americans vs. 31 percent for G.H.W. Bush and 25 percent for Clinton) simply by speaking ill of the ruling class. Today, few speak well of the ruling class. Not only has it burgeoned in size and pretense, but it also has undertaken wars it has not won, presided over a declining economy and mushrooming debt, made life more expensive, raised taxes, and talked down to the American people. Americans' conviction that the ruling class is as hostile as it is incompetent has solidified. The polls tell us that only about a fifth of Americans trust the government to do the right thing. The rest expect that it will do more harm than good and are no longer afraid to say so.

While Europeans are accustomed to being ruled by presumed betters whom they distrust, the American people's realization of being ruled like Europeans shocked this country into well nigh revolutionary attitudes. But only the realization was new. The ruling class had sunk deep roots in America over decades before 2008. Machiavelli compares serious political diseases to the Aetolian fevers -- easy to treat early on while they are difficult to discern, but virtually untreatable by the time they become obvious.

Far from speculating how the political confrontation might develop between America's regime class -- relatively few people supported by no more than one-third of Americans -- and a country class comprising two-thirds of the country, our task here is to understand the divisions that underlie that confrontation's unpredictable future. More on politics below.

The Ruling Class

Who are these rulers, and by what right do they rule? How did America change from a place where people could expect to live without bowing to privileged classes to one in which, at best, they might have the chance to climb into them? What sets our ruling class apart from the rest of us?

The most widespread answers -- by such as the Times's Thomas Friedman and David Brooks -- are schlock sociology. Supposedly, modern society became so complex and productive, the technical skills to run it so rare, that it called forth a new class of highly educated officials and cooperators in an ever less private sector. Similarly fanciful is Edward Goldberg's notion that America is now ruled by a "newocracy": a "new aristocracy who are the true beneficiaries of globalization -- including the multinational manager, the technologist and the aspirational members of the meritocracy." In fact, our ruling class grew and set itself apart from the rest of us by its connection with ever bigger government, and above all by a certain attitude.

Other explanations are counterintuitive. Wealth? The heads of the class do live in our big cities' priciest enclaves and suburbs, from Montgomery County, Maryland, to Palo Alto, California, to Boston's Beacon Hill as well as in opulent university towns from Princeton to Boulder. But they are no wealthier than many Texas oilmen or California farmers, or than neighbors with whom they do not associate -- just as the social science and humanities class that rules universities seldom associates with physicians and physicists. Rather, regardless of where they live, their social-intellectual circle includes people in the lucrative "nonprofit" and "philanthropic" sectors and public policy. What really distinguishes these privileged people demographically is that, whether in government power directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government. They vote Democrat more consistently than those who live on any of America's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Streets. These socioeconomic opposites draw their money and orientation from the same sources as the millions of teachers, consultants, and government employees in the middle ranks who aspire to be the former and identify morally with what they suppose to be the latter's grievances.

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Letter to the Editor

Angelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University.

View all comments (665) | Leave a comment

Don L| 7.16.10 @ 6:56AM

I would simply call the whole thing -divide and conquer. They loathe our freedom and the God that has given it to us. The seek to replace the family with the state and "oughts" with "wants," as they continue with their culture of death ,mentality.

HMarie| 7.16.10 @ 2:25PM

DonL, You succintly coined it:..." the present administration & all the cronies want to divide & conquer & most importantly replace FAMILY WITH STATE", just as Stalin's Communist Russia did.

Cincinnatius| 7.16.10 @ 3:34PM

Here, here! The apathy/ignorance of the America electorate over decades has allowed the formation of a "political caste" in America. Another way to describe it might be a "political peerage", which I find interesting considering the repugnance that most Americans have for the concept of "better by birth", though many Europeans readily accept the premise. Somehow, Americans forgot the principle espoused and endorsed by Washington, "power comes from the consent of the governed." Now, those in power are more inclined to tell us to sit down and shut up, we know what is best for you, like a parent often tells an unruly child who is throwing a fit for something he doesn't need. Perhaps it is time the American people started acting like rebellious teens, who are often ready to throw the baby with the bath water in order to assert independence. I know one thing, we can't continue to allow our "betters" to act with impunity. Plato said it best, "Either be interested in politics or be ruled by your inferiors."

rochesternative| 7.17.10 @ 8:52AM

The apathy of the electorate has been carefully cultivated by the public schools. At no point in recent memory has any school (in my area) made it obvious that "we" the electorate should be active and proud to be Americans. I'm a teacher. I had to fight to teach my kiddos the pledge (granted, they are young) because it wasn't "developmentally appopriate", but if you don't begin young you get....what we have now.

huh| 7.26.10 @ 1:48PM

So how is teaching children to pledge allegiance to the ruling class helpful?

How about teaching them the history and nature of government?

Cecelia| 7.27.10 @ 10:39AM

Teacher here, too....
As long as you're TEACHING them the Pledge of Allegiance and not just how to parrot the words. If you TEACH them "and to the Republic for which it stands"....teach them what that means...then the rest of should fall in.

Hearing the scuttlebutt from around the country, I feel very fortunate that I live in Texas. In my daughter's school, she was learning real history, learned the Preamble, and knows what it all means.

Patrick| 7.28.10 @ 12:28PM

How do you feel that your Board of Education is replacing real history with a fantastical narrative?

L. Hopkins| 8.11.10 @ 2:00AM

I suppose "real" is relative. My guess is you have had a first class education from a public school. A "fantastical narrative" is what you and several generations have been taught.

Stan| 8.17.10 @ 2:26PM

I also live in Texas (unfortunately), and am watching a misplaced arrogance imposed on our children. They are forced to study "
Texas History" in and of itself, not a part of American History. Academic standards here-and in the rest of the country-have degraded to levels I would not have thought possible.

Zach| 8.23.10 @ 1:15PM

Nothing wrong with teaching state history, especially since Texas' is a little more unique than the rest. Here in California, they teach CA history in 4th grade. Nothing wrong with that.

O. Bryant| 9.23.10 @ 1:19PM

I agree that we the people have allowed our public schools to be degraded with the loss of founding ethics: no Bible, prayer, Ten Commandments, or holidays that reference Christianity, etc. But...as a native Texan, Texas history has been rightly taught for many decades. Texas is a grand state with a rich historical heritage that should be taught for a variety of unifying reasons. Teaching Texas history is not part of the problem.

Mark Richards| 7.28.10 @ 5:27PM

How about teaching them the principle's of the
The only nation, self realized and not rooted in monarchy or theocracy. The only nation to raise and sustain the highest standard of living in recorded history, and remind them that the voluntary pledge is to our sacred REPUBLIC.

Wm. Csapo| 8.8.10 @ 10:32AM

I would like to point out that, as a free-born sovereign individual, no entity has the power to dictate to me under what conditions I am to pledge my allegiance. My pledge starts out, " I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America..." In other words, my allegiance is pledged to the substance, not the symbol. Teach the children the substance.

R.L. Lepsy| 7.29.10 @ 2:42PM

.........and to THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS...The clause that allowed me to say the pledge under Carter, Clinton and now Obama. Rochesternative also stated that her charges were "young", she's merely laying the foundation.

Bill Smith| 7.26.10 @ 5:53PM

One sentence in your comment stands out to me!
"I am a teacher." How great that is to have such wonderful History to give to young minds. To teach the TRUTH, and see those children develop into citizens of this great country. Teach the Constitution again and return this country to its rightful owners, the people of the United States.

Maddog| 7.27.10 @ 3:35PM

All that and: Teach them (parents and teachers) about the principles behind Free-Enterprise; require competition and responsibility, abolish attitudes of entitlement. So many schools reflect Socialist ideologies. Stop "averaging" these kids. Stop designing curriculum for the lowest denominator. Stop lowering the bar to foster false confidence. Make it clear that there ARE winners and losers in life; strive to be a winner, strive for excellence, shun mediocrity. Kids learn MUCH more from example than by reading or hearing. If we surround our young, impressionable students with "Socialism" it is the language they will carry with them throughout their lives.

Nate| 8.5.10 @ 11:30AM

And who determines who are the winners and who are the losers? You all call upon returning to a more democratic past, but this past is pure fiction. Do you want to return to the 1950's when neighborhoods were legally segregated and business owner's had no need to fear hiding their racist practices? Do you want to return to the times when women and minorities couldn't vote? Or do you want to go even further back to when all white men enjoyed their freedom to own black people? This sort of nostalgia for (completely fictional) bygone glory is very reminiscent of Italian and German Fascism. I see a lot of seething white resentment and anger at having to share privileges they have long enjoyed at others' expense. Christ teaches us that we must love the least among us. Who among you can say that you have done this?

James| 8.6.10 @ 12:26AM

One of the main reasons there was segregation to start with was because of the disproportionate amount of violence on the part of blacks. Whites living in an all white community were safer!

Joe Hill| 8.8.10 @ 10:45AM

Yes, American history is rife with instances of Whites being lynched by Black mobs, struggling White communities burnt to the ground by the Black upper-class, poor White workers abused and exploited by corrupt Black political machines and it's time the truth were told. And what about all those Native Americans using their cavalry & cannon to steal the land of the whites? For some odd reason that story is never told either.

truth in alabama| 8.8.10 @ 12:33PM

there was a book out within the last ten years, written by a black man, and some of the truth that it brought out as i remember it is that some lynchings were in fact of white people who were too friendly to the black cause or person in particular and there were some blacks in the crowds that lynched blacks. it was a mob rule thing against alleged criminals and certain known criminals.

CD2| 8.21.10 @ 2:33PM

In America whites invented violence and universal pain towards men of color. Violence was taught as the ultimate problem solver for many generations in this country. You are right, whites had to seperate themselves from their Frankenstein. And also hated those who had class in the black communites that would live among anyone in peace. My grandparents are perfect examples of great African Americans who were just as civil as any other American in their time, but hated anyway. We have always had civilized people as well as unlearned. Whites do too, even with the head start set by violence.

Ritchie The Riveter| 8.8.10 @ 1:35PM

Christ does teach us that WE -- not some government surrogate, WE -- must love the least among us.

And many of us have done just that ... in stark contrast to the "love" of government welfare that mired people of color in intergenerational poverty prior to the kinds of welfare reform you probably still disdain ... and the "love" of affirmative-action programs that were nothing more than quota enforcement.

Jesus ... and other writers included in the Bible ... also had a healthy respect for private enterprise and personal profit. Read His Parable of the Talents ... or Proverbs chapter 31 ... and please avoid the cherry-picking of Scripture in the future.

Jim Crow was lynched well over 40 years ago ... and just after that happened, I was growing up in a mixed-race neighborhood where the content of one's character was the primary metric that determined the winners and losers .

THAT is the true democracy we seek ... and to suggest otherwise is merely to play that wrinkled and floppy Race Card.

Step away from the Re-, er, Progressive conventional wisdom, and seek the real deal.

Bill| 8.19.10 @ 2:51PM

Nate no one wants to go back to slavery or where women were second class citizens. Yes mistakes were made but we had a good basic government and it did in time correct wrongs. Limited government power is good. People should think they do not have to provide for themselves and look to the government. We should only look to government for what we can not do as individuals.

PlyBel| 9.9.10 @ 7:57PM

Q. And who determines who are the winners and who are the losers?

A. Reality. The side with the best worldview and culture wins.

Q. You all call upon returning to a more democratic past, but this past is pure fiction.

A. That is an unsupported assertion.

Q. Do you want to return to the 1950's when neighborhoods were legally segregated and business owner's had no need to fear hiding their racist practices?

A. Yes. (It's spelled "owners", by the way.)

Q. Do you want to return to the times when women and minorities couldn't vote?

A. Yes.

Q. Or do you want to go even further back to when all white men enjoyed their freedom to own black people?

A. Straw man. No one is advocating a return to chattel slavery. Your attempt to race-bait us has failed.

Q. This sort of nostalgia for (completely fictional) bygone glory is very reminiscent of Italian and German Fascism.

A. Unsupported assertion.

Q. I see a lot of seething white resentment and anger at having to share privileges they have long enjoyed at others' expense.

A. White people do not enjoy "priviliges". White culture ( = Western European, Judeo-Christian culture) simply produces better results.

Q. Christ teaches us that we must love the least among us. Who among you can say that you have done this?

A. I can. Now please go be a sanctimonious douche somewhere else.

Alex the Droog| 11.6.10 @ 5:28PM

Wow. Just wow. Uh, ruling over people of minority and different gender IS fascism. The definition of fascism is to rule by force, not democratic consent. So, it is NOT an unsupported assertion that it is fascism. In fact, YOU sir, provide the support that that past is fascism.

You are delusional. Completely insane. And not to mention racist. 'White culture simply produces better results'. That's why arabs took the cradle of civilization back from you white anglo saxon catholics again and again and again , isn't it? Because whites had a better result, right? That's why they were defeated repeatedly by a different race in battle, correct? Go back to Alabama please, keep your inbreeding to yourself. I'm allowed to be Politically incorrect if you're allowed to suggest that we take away the right to vote from everybody except white men.

Donna Bhatia| 8.12.10 @ 3:23PM

Thank you for your common sense!

Jose Marquez| 7.31.10 @ 10:37PM

I agree with Mr. Bill Smith in saying to teach the truth to our children when it comes in teaching history. The truth must be taught so our children can trust us and never have to wonder if he is beign taught the truth.

LdC| 8.22.10 @ 10:20AM

truer words were never spoken,
we should learn from this 2008 big mistake, I did not vote for this mess we have now, but we have a responsibility to defend our Country and our Constitution...so VOTE them out starting this Nov. 2010 and finish the cleaning in Nov. 2012

Richard| 9.22.10 @ 5:08AM

Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance - if you have not seen this - I think you might enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBTyTWOZCM

Doug Omara| 8.1.10 @ 7:12AM

Wow......simply a superb post. I couldn't possibly agree more with it. That's indeed where we are. And with public schools doing such a marvelous job dumbing down kids to gerbils, they've done a great job.

We'll see......despite their outrageously huge victories, they might not like the results.

Once agin, thank you my kind sir for the excellent article.

Constantine Ivanov| 7.16.10 @ 3:35PM

Just one adjustment: "just as Lenin-Stalin's Communist Russia did."
Please never omit Lenin's name when talking about Commies atrocities: they started with and by him. Pleeeeeaaase!
It's me who says it, me who lived 50 years in the USSR.

coal carrier| 7.16.10 @ 8:20PM

Hello Constantine,
From an old co-worker @J&J. Glad to see you are on our side of the fence.

Reasonsjester| 7.19.10 @ 1:22AM

Just ignore him, Ivanov. I sense a red Kool-aid drinker.

lumpenprole| 7.26.10 @ 8:48PM

The article completely fails by basing it's whole argument on a false, subjectively based dichotomy- "Dems/Ruling Class vs. "Country Party." Money is what's real. The top 400 in income in 2006 paid 16% in income tax--the minimum income to be in the top 400 was over 100 Million. And they pay less taxes than you .
THAT'S obective, and doesn't depend on flimsy sociological speculation. You decide how to assess and act on that. We might disagree, but at least we'd be dealing with numbers and not mumbo-jumbo.

Maddog| 7.27.10 @ 3:49PM

Lumpen: you like the objectivity of clean math? You claim your top 400 paid 16% of their $100M, and that is LESS than "you" or me? That's $16M my friend. I don't know about you, but that's a tad more than I paid in.

Anyway, you missed the point of the article. The discussion focused on the "ruling class" and where they came by their power. Your Top 400 are an integral part of this equation. Take a moment and examine how the socioeconomic bell-curve has -and continues to- flattened. (This should be objective enough even for you.) And then extrapolate how this phenomenon both affects and is effected by the "Ruling Class".

Andrew King| 8.2.10 @ 5:56PM

You forget, most american's pay 30% of their income in taxes. So yes, I don't pay 16m in taxes but 30% of my income does get taken out.

And before you say anything, I count medicare/medicaid and SS as taxes. All of which I will never see in a few years due to Baby boomer entitlement.

Ed in North Texas| 8.7.10 @ 9:20AM

Most Americans pay 30% of their income in Federal taxes? According to Congressional Budget Office data for TY 2006, a rate of 29.1% (counting ALL Federal Taxes, as you have) was paid by those taxpayers with income placing them in the top 99% to 99.5% of all taxpayers. That is somewhat short of "most". In fact, 20% pay less than the FICA contributions (does this involve "Tax Welfare" such as the Earned Income Credit?), while 60% do not pay quite double (14.2%) the amount of FICA "contributions" (7.45%). That seems to qualify as "most", at least when I went to school (admittedly that was long before "new math"). And for the record, the Federal Government could keep the Social Security they pay me every month, I doubt I'd miss it.

Angee| 10.27.10 @ 9:20PM

And thanks to the illegal aliens who come here when they are old and useless, the first thing they do is to
visit the SS office and become eligible for monthly SSI of about $1.200 After that they are also eligible for other benefits, ie:Medical (ACCESS, food card, and sometimes subsidized housing). How do I know? A teacher's aide at
Scottsdale School District has a mother who is
here illegally, and has a nice apartment in Scottsdale, courtesy of us AZ taxpayers, and the
daughter, who is employed by the District lives
with her...rent free! Because the woman needs
someone to look after her (?) hard to tell when you see her! That is where your SS is going to.

JG20| 8.8.10 @ 9:16AM

How can someone in our country who made over $100 million last year only pay 16% tax when the tax bracket they fall in is 36% tax bracket? If they are failing to pay $20 million in taxes they should be audited. I think you made up that statistic.

Ritchie The Riveter| 8.8.10 @ 7:14PM

It depends upon (1) where you measure the income ... gross, adjusted gross, net ... and (2) how many of those wonderful, social-engineering carrots and sticks known as "deductions" they take advantage of.

Deductions passed by Progressives to suit their aims -- like the $7500 tax credit for purchasing an EV, to cite just one -- as were passed by conservatives. Some of them might even be good -- it is always good to see productive people hold on to more of their money, for they will use it to our benefit more often than the government will, regardless of our leaders' intent ... but all of them are evidence of a problem.

The current tax code is rife with such back-door social engineering ... and all these so-called "greedy" people are simply complying with the letter of the law ... though sometimes they do so by subordinating their own sound business judgment to the diktats of the tax code, at an aggregate compliance cost of tens of billions of dollars and perhaps more in lost opportunities.

At a minimum, our Congresscritters should have the fortitude to do their social engineering out in the open, instead of trying to hide it behind the IRS, and work to truly simplify the tax code ... but that would reduce the amount of influence they would have to peddle, and they just can't countenance THAT.

Malcolm| 9.24.10 @ 5:40PM

Good grief, JG20, it's Federal Tax Law 101. Haven't you ever heard of deductions? The Rich shape the tax laws to benefit themselves. That's why Federal Tax Law books fill an entire library.

old white guy| 8.21.10 @ 11:32AM

check your figures at rush's site. you will find you are way off. by the way if the government took every dime from the top 20% of the wealthy in the u.s. it would not run the country for three months if that.

cosmogenes| 7.28.10 @ 7:18PM

Good comment, Constantine. As a 1956 Freedom Fighter from Hungary who grew up under Hitler's and Szalasi's Nazis then Lenin and Stalin and Rakosi's Communists, I am am saddened to see how the "New Class" (credit: Milovan Djilas) has taken control over the USA.
What can the country's serfs do?
How is America's phony Bipartisan Party system better than the Communist one party state?

citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 2:51PM

We aren't serfs yet but I fear that the upcoming generation has no concept of serfdom and is willing to readily accept the concept of the velvet prison, forever dependent, forever beholding to the ruling class.

Ed in North Texas| 8.7.10 @ 9:32AM

Isn't this our fault? Too many of us have given the responsibility of educating our children totally to the government. I don't claim the expertise to educate children in every subject, but I certainly can do an excellent job when supported by outside materials. And when it comes to our politics, morality and religion - the schools have been found incapable in the first and avoid the latter two. And, frankly, I think we can do a better job on the nation's history. Dig out an old US History book. You will find more than a paragraph on the Founders (are they all even mentioned these days?).

My kids (OK, after 40 they really aren't kids) do not buy the crap being shoveled today, and I do what I can with the Grandsons too.

Soregon| 8.23.10 @ 8:03PM

Constantine is speaking truth. Everyone who's interested should read at least the first 250 pages of 'The Black Book of Communism' and 'Whisperers' to boot. Control is what these people are after and these two books spell out what that can mean.

IM Spartacus| 8.7.10 @ 10:23AM

Terrific article. Correct enough Marie.

However, it's not just the Obama Admin that is doing this. This assault against the republic has been perpetrated by both parties for the last 100 years. It picked up speed in the 60's & 70's & went into warp drive in 2007.

Obama his minions are not the problem. They are merely the symptom. Our Founders gave us a particpatory republic. For the last 100 years most people have been content to sit at the back of the bus & go along for the ride. We didn't want to work at maintaining our republic. Most of us do don't understand Liberty today as our founders understood the word. Most folks believe in liberty witha small "l". But not so much they they could get hurt. Most believe that if they can say what they want, worship as they wnat & have a vote they have Liberty. Our Founders had no such illusions. They were extremists in defense of Liberty. They were willing to risk it all & they did. They understood human nature & knew that though they constructed a Constitution to bind the Federal govenment in chains through enumerated powers, leaving most governace to that which is closest to the people in the state house, county seat & school board; the eternal vigilence of the people is required to have life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. They knew that natural course of human nature in government was toward tyranny. They gave us a republic if we could keep it. We are heirs of an awesome inheritance. They pledged thier lives, their fortunes & thier sacred honor to give us Liberty & the right to live free. The question we all must ask ourselves is, are we willing to do the same???

MeJane| 8.15.10 @ 6:09PM

IM Spartacus,
Yes great article. Good post. I am in total agreement with you. True liberty, as our founders understood it is very different from anything we have experience with in our lifetime. The question is how do we re-establish liberty when we have almost no true comprehension or experience of it? Ignorance is the enemy. Teaching ourselves, our children and others about our precious Constitution and liberties is a start. We have no one to blame but ourselves the situation our Republic is in. The 100-year snooze we have taken as a citizenry is over. We need to exercise the same vigilance and commitment to principles that our founders did. They sacrificed so that we would be the beneficiaries of a precious and great gift. Their great gift has been placed in the attic like some unwanted dusty relic; it is time to dust it off. Thought true liberty is almost forgotten those who have the understanding need to stand up and speak up. Hopefully they can be one of the small sparks that ignites the kindle that sets the US ablaze to jump-start our Constitution, regain our lost liberties and our God given rights. I for one am willing to sacrifice all so that my child and future grandchildren will live under the founder’s definition of liberty and freedom.

MontanaDave| 9.6.10 @ 5:56PM

An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against......Every new and successful example therefore of a PERFECT SEPARATION between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance. -James Madison in a letter to Livingston, 1822, from Leonard W. Levy

Scotchieguy| 9.10.10 @ 1:52PM

Nice. Couldn't have said it better..."if we can keep it." Such apt words, esp. today.

HumbleTexan| 9.15.10 @ 7:50PM

When the Constitutional Convention ended a woman approached Ben Franklin and asked, "What kind of government have you given us?"

He responded, "A Republic, madam, if you can keep it". The Tea party is now asking, "What have you people done to our government?"

Alan Brooks| 7.16.10 @ 7:47PM

But libertarianism, Angelo, that is way way in the future; we don't even know what to do about the Mexican-- you have no answers, only questions.

Alan Brooks| 7.16.10 @ 10:51PM

... you know what will happen, Mr. Codevilla? violent crime from Mexico will continue to make its way from Mexico to America. Just today (7/16) a car bomb killed three Federales in Ciudad Juarez, using the most sophisticated lure I've ever heard of: narco-goons left a wounded man in a cop's uniform lying on the street or sidewalk; so the feds came and... hasta la taco to 3 guys.
The narco fascist/commies are not going to give up-- gangsters don't spend most of their lives obtaining power and then to relinquish it merely because law abiding citizens tell them to.

Alan Brooks| 7.17.10 @ 12:20AM

To sum it up, Angelo: until very recently Mexico was an asset;

now it is a liability.

AMENFRO| 7.17.10 @ 11:34AM

AUTOMATIoN is the answer right Alan???

Alan Brooks| 7.18.10 @ 12:49AM

AUTOMATIoN is the answer right Alan???

Yes, Amen. But we wont live to see it.

Only Marxists think you can change things just like THAT. "peace now"; "abortion on demand"; "automation in our lifetimes".

orsobubu| 7.18.10 @ 7:16PM

You never studied Marx if you can say this. Marxism is the opposite than idealism. You confuse dialectical (historical) materialism with leftist idealism. For Marx, men can change history only when material conditions permit, and only by violence/revolution. Just as realists (Machiavelli, Kissinger) do, only by the opposite field than capitalistic bourgeoise: the worker classes. About automation: mathematically, it can only works under communism. If you can't understand this by math, you didn't study The Capital by Karl Marx. Under capitalistic condition, full automation brings to economical disaster because you can't extract the surplus value from labour via workers' exploitation: look at automotive factories nowadays. let's study Marx and Lenin at least half an hour a day. Workers of the world, unite!

axbucxdu| 7.18.10 @ 8:02PM

So I can get rich by digging a hole in my backyard?

There's no logic from marx to the hegelian bullshit it's based on. Oskar Lange had no patience for the Labor Theory of Value, but was satisfied that marxism is an ideology, neither scientific nor mathematical. So should you.

Alan Brooks| 7.19.10 @ 12:30AM

Orsobubu,
Nano would-- or is already starting to-- change the very meaning of production.
What did Marx know about Engines of Creation?

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 12:52AM

Engines of Creation sounds like a punk rock group. Groucho Marx wouldn't have known anything about them.

Alan Brooks| 7.19.10 @ 1:14AM

All I know, Holland, is I've heard (from many sources) of how Angelo is a real libertarian.

And that is bad news, as far as I'm concerned..

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:01PM

Libertarianism ideologies neglect the fact, allowing it to grow unchecked by regulation, greed will expand to consume everything touches.

Reasonsjester| 7.19.10 @ 1:48AM

Orsobubu - haughtiness and puffery will not prove your position the more correct.

1. Marx's Labor Theory of Value (adapted from Ricardo) has been proven incorrect. For more on this see Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy."

2. Historical Materialism begs the question of human agency (how socialists come to have consciousness that is "authentic"); and begs the question of how classes arose to begin with. Marxism is a self-stultifying ideology that renders life meaningless. The struggle for domination in mankind is obviously due to human nature, and not materialist forces. For more on why socialist systems always lead to oppression, see Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy."

3. Marx's theory of historical determinism, i.e. the "inevitable triumph of socialism," is obviously flawed. Socialism lasting any considerable period of time in a polity has developed due to Marxist-Leninist radicals ushering in bloody putsches in economically backwards states. This is the opposite of what Marx predicted.

4. Marx claims that the "Iron Law of Wages" leads inexorably to a decline in standard of living among the proletariat tending towards subsistence living. Yet in the most advanced capitalist states, standard of living increased ever upwards. (This is actually the primary impetus for the shift to cultural marxism). The counter-argument that this was due to labor unions is obviously false in the U.S.; labor unions only redistribute wealth, they do not increase productivity.

5. Equality of means has not been improved in any socialist state of any kind in world history. Every single socialist state in world history has been led by an elite cadre of the relatively wealthy and a miserable underclass far underfoot. I defy you to name one counterfactual.

6. The fraud of socialism was perhaps best summed up by Margaret Thatcher, who in a speech to the socialist opposition, demonstrated the absurdity of its position. Later gesticulating with her fingers to illustrate it visually, she showed that "(Socialists) would rather the poor be poorer, provided the rich were less rich." [Search: Margaret Thatcher on Socialism" on YouTube.]

7. Socialism is only a critique of capitalism and not a self-sufficient economic system. It advises how to redistribute wealth, but not how to create it. Socialists are unable to persuasively answer the "then what?" question of what happens when capitalism is destroyed/collapses. Apparently, eternal prosperity ensues, but the causal linkage is not adequately explained (by design).

9. Socialism is not consistent with human nature. Human beings are not innately altruists, because as a species, mankind is driven by the desire to procreate and all that seminal act entails. Man has been a hunter, a producer, a thinker, but never a redistributer. The implications of modeling an economic system merely on redistribution for the contrived ethic of "equality" is no less than the destruction of civilization itself. And this is by design. Marx set out to foment world revolution prior to developing the philosophical system that justified it.

Reasonsjester| 7.19.10 @ 1:51AM

Sorry, the Obama administration has censored number 8.

HighlanderJuan| 8.3.10 @ 9:16AM

ReasonsJester,

Excellent analysis.

Texas Mom| 8.6.10 @ 3:55PM

easily understood analysis, thanks!

Alan Brooks| 8.7.10 @ 12:26AM

That is encouraging! if you are a Texas mom who understands what Reasonsjester wrote then schools in TX can't be too bad.
Most of all: there are no "laws of history"-- unless God exists!

so much for Marx.

Alan Brooks| 8.7.10 @ 12:53PM

"Workers of the world, unite!"

orsobubba,
Workers are too busy attempting to get ahead (THEIR kids come first in their eyes) to unite.

Peter| 8.13.10 @ 3:04PM

Que?

Pat Fields| 7.17.10 @ 7:04PM

This whole calamity has no political solution at all, because the politicians and bankers have their hands tied and are as desperate as deer in the headlights of a semi-tractor. We're in a conundrum just as John Adams said “All the perplexities … arise … from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.�?

There is a solution that worked like a magic potion some 600 years ago, that we can avail ourselves of today. See my description at the bottom of the thread.

wyndale| 7.18.10 @ 9:23AM

Excellent essay.
Pat Fields - There is a solution. It's a default solution. Scotland and Spain have used it. It's messy but not impossible. The Scots call it devolution. I would call our version of it - regionalism.
Money counts. Don't buy outside your region unless you have no choice. (Who grows papaya in Minnesota?) Create informal regional economic associations. Encourage (in fact, demand through the pocketbook) manufacturing returns to America. Encourage smaller local enterprises including manufacturing. Then contract with neighboring states (on or two others) to provide what your state cannot.
Follow the Constitution and the Ten Commandments to divorce your state from most involvement with D.C. Turn belonging to the 'in' crowd into a liability.
But hold on like Capt Ahab because the Central Authority will try to put us back in our polace. The CA will do all it can to undermine our efforts to free ourselves from serfdom.

Pat Fields| 7.18.10 @ 2:02PM

Default is denial of a creditor's rightful property ... what exactly is 'Constitutional' about that? Where among God's Commandments has one leave to borrow and never return?

It doesn't appear that you'd read my enlargement below. There is a ... proper ... equitable ... and permanent solution to this dilemma that doesn't require outright theft by the borrowers.

Lionsden| 7.18.10 @ 2:47PM

Scotland was only allowed devolution so it could become a socialist state. Had it been 'rightwing', its present partial sovereignty would never have happened.
Rather like Cuba, it is to act as a posterboy for far left ideas, being subsidised all the while by English taxpayers who have no say in how Scotland is governed. The Scots on the otherhand do have a say in the government of England.
Its as though the most leftwing state of the US was given partial independence, all the while being bankrolled in its folly by the rest of the country (think Detroit on a grander scale). This is no model for libertarians.

citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 3:01PM

Wait for California to get in line.

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:05PM

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. -James Madison, 1803

Betsy C.| 8.8.10 @ 9:51PM

Phenomenal article! Worthy of a second and third reading. Thank you.

betsy parsley| 8.18.10 @ 4:38PM

YOU BETTER BELIEVE THE MUSLIM/RADICAL ADMINISTRATION IS TRYING TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER, ITS A WAR BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL,EVIL IS IN OFFICE NOW, BUT GOD STILL IS ON THE THRONE!!! I SAY IMPEACH THE WHOLE BUNCH OF "EDUCATED"IDIOTS!! GOD WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS EVIL MUCH LONGER. WE ARE FROM JUDOCHRISTION VALUES,WHICH COMES FROM OUR BIBLE, NOT THE KORAN,DO THEY REALLY THINK WE WILL GIVE UP?? NOT ON THEIR LIFE!!!!!

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:07PM

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect. -James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1,1774

kev| 5.11.11 @ 9:08PM

"JudoChristion" heh gotta love it

Peter Shepherd| 9.17.10 @ 3:58AM

The problem, Don, is that many Americans have forgotten that it is GOD, indeed that has given us our freedoms. We have tried to take that which is wrong, in God's sight, and make it a right. Our founders were right when they said that our form of government is intended for, and will only work for, a people who would govern their lives by the Word of God.

We will either willingly choose to serve and obey a loving, forgiving God, OR we will be ruled by a tyrannical government.

The first justice of the Supreme Court, Jon Jay was right when he said that we should only elect Christians to represent us.

I know many might disagree with my assessment, but it's hard to argue with the results.

Carol M| 9.24.10 @ 12:14AM

There are those who are able to create and build wealth and those who are not able to do so. Instead the latter finagle ways to take the formers wealth. The takers do not care about improving mankind - that is just lip service to hide their true intent of accruing wealth from others labor.

PaulD| 7.16.10 @ 7:20AM

Thanks for reminding us of those dark days when the people's loud and clear objection to passage of the TARP was ignored with disdain by our representatives. I am also reminded, however, that we had an election just weeks after that when the most disdainful were returned to their positions of power. That act gave them (Pelosi, Frank, etc.) a feeling of invulnerability and ultimate control. As a result, we have now had unbearable legislation forced upon us. Will this year's elections do anything to change the balance of power? I truly hope so, but if TARP didn't wake the voters up, what will?

Achilles Toejam| 7.16.10 @ 3:39PM

Roger that PaulD, what concerns me is that people will be so desperate to get the Democrats out of power that they will be bamboozled into voting for progressive Republicans, Sen. Scott Brown is an excellent example you probably remember the euphoria after he won now he votes with Collins and Snowe to stick it to us! that's why this time around the primaries were so important.

So now we have people like Sarah Palin using the tea party movement at their rallies talking about bucking the good old boy Republican entrenched establishment then comes here to Iowa shortly before gubernatorial primary and endorses the epitome of the Republican establishment good old boy former four term Gov. Terry Branstad who when he was on his way out the door many previous supporters labeled him "Bumstad" he raised our taxes increased the governor salary numerous times, cooked the state's books, handed over Iowa education to the teachers unions that has produced disastrous results and is a firm believer that judges can make law.

Palin really shot herself in the face politically here in Iowa when she didn't endorse the true constitutionalist candidate, I could never vote for that woman she's just another two-faced politician like Mitt Romney who is a real buddy of Branstad. Unless the candidate is willing to take on the lie of judicial supremacy and refuses to acquiesce to the lie that courts can make law it won't matter who we vote to the legislature because a handful of unaccountable people in black robes will rule us.

David F| 7.17.10 @ 4:29PM

Achilles is right about Palin. She did the same thing in Texas, supporting a tax raising, property stealing (trans Texas Corridor), inoculation mandating for your young daughters Rick Perry. She also support the big loser (McCain)

Perdido| 7.17.10 @ 8:29PM

Exactly. The most intractable problem is the court system. They are the rulers of the rulers.

MeJane| 8.16.10 @ 1:58AM

Sarah Palin has turned into the Republican version of Bob Beckle - a party hack! She has shown her true colors in her endorsement of McCain, Perry and Branstad. She turned her back on constitutionalist candidates and supported Republican party line favorites all the while claiming she has conservative principles; that has RINO written all over it!!! Conservatives were taken in by her, it was all smoke, mirrors and lip service.
Voters Beware!!!
The Republican candidates running for office may be more Liberal than they appear. Do your homework!!
While this idea is playing by the Progressives rules, it might have been better to have some undercover conservatives infiltrate the Democrat party to run as candidates using their usual jargon, talking points and lies. Then once they got into office they do a Scott Brown 180 degree turn, in the other direction. We'd have DINO's !!

Alan Brooks| 7.16.10 @ 10:05PM

"Please never omit Lenin's name when talking about Commies atrocities: they started with and by him. Pleeeeeaaase!
It's me who says it, me who lived 50 years in the USSR."

Trotsky was worse, he wanted violent revolution all over the world. The guy who ice-picked him, Mercader, did us a favor.

Alan Brooks| 7.19.10 @ 1:24AM

"Trotsky was worse, he wanted violent revolution all over the world. "

Even more than Lenin.

sharpfang| 7.28.10 @ 11:35PM

Lenin killed the Bolshevik Revolution and turned Russia into a Totalitarian state, which was consolidated by Stalin in his madness. It was never Socialist in form or in aim; China`s history is different, but similar - a group dictatorship around and after Mao. They oppressed workers and power was consolidated from the top down.
Not Socialist - which by definition, really, is grassroots power and rule for the benefit of the majority, not the for the enrichment of the elite.
Frankly, looking at the state of the World now - wars everywhere, our one superpower going broke funding an obscene Worldwide military Empire - maybe it would have been better to have fought with Trotsky: - before drones, spy satellites and facial recognition technology made the Taliban`s approach, the only viable way to fight :( If you admire independence, you should be supporting them and the Afghan people who want their country back, and regardless of our disdain for their culture, they will get it.
You people speak of Freedom, and yet support your government in denying liberty and democracy to people everywhere, from the Congo to Colombia and Haiti to Iraq to Okinawa to Krygystan etc etc and see your own growing numbers of increasingly desperate poor, as `failures`.
You understand nothing and that is what allows your elite to thrive whilst the majority suffer.

jg20| 8.8.10 @ 9:39AM

The consolidation of power into the hands of the federal government which is necessary for socialism is the reason why totalitarians like Lenin, Stalin and Mao were able to wrest control of their countries. Continually giving the federal government more and more power "to do good" for the people is simply laying the foundation for a totalitarian rule in our future. The government and the ruling class very rarely voluntarily relinguishes power. Human beings do not need the "benevolent" hand of government to direct our lives. We can self-regulate. We don't because we have been trained over the last 100 years to expect the government to do it for us. If you think that Wall Street is filled with a bunch of crooks, do not put your money there. If you do not like Walmart, don't shop there. If you think meat is bad for you, do not eat it. If you want health insurance, work hard and get a job. Stop expecting government to do for you what you can easily do for yourself. If human beings evolved from a single microbe, into the complex intellectual beings they are today without the help of the "benevolent" government, I am totally sure that through hard work, human beings get for themselves the necessities of life without government intervention.

Alan Brooks| 8.8.10 @ 11:59PM

"maybe it would have been better to have fought with Trotsky"

Trotsky was no humanitarian, Sharpfang, he was a professional revolutionary who wanted to destroy everyone who got in the way of the dictatorship of the proletariat; the reason Trotsky didn't engage in what Stalin did later (democide) was because Stalin got rid of him.

vladdy| 1.10.11 @ 8:24PM

Oh, yes, I'm sure we all agree that all lovers of freedom must support the Taliban.

Heh.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:17PM

That is the basis of a representative democratic republic. We elect representatives, to vote their conscience, not proxies to vote the way we want. If you don't like their voting patterns, well then you un-elect them when you next have the chance.

It's simple, has worked for over 230 years, so why would anyone be so arrogant to think they have a better way?

GavInTucson| 7.18.10 @ 12:39AM

In other words, elections have consequences. For once, I agree with you.

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:27PM

not if they misrepresent "their conscience" you f'ing pinhead. that's the whole point.

it's folks like you and your blatant dishonesty who are turning the country into an ever more polarized, MORE VIOLENT place.

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 6:37PM

Can't argue the point, can you? Resort to name calling when you can't come up with anything rational to say? Perhaps I know why you can't debate the issue ...

Did you miss the part about "their conscience"? Say it slow now - Not your conscience, their conscience. We entrust them with our vote. But you are free to un-elect them when you can. That's how your representative democratic republic works - that's America, love her or leave her; she's the best. I suspect you're a secret communista or something.

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 8:07PM

yea. yea. yea.

1) You can't be this hopelessly simpleminded...can you? Where in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers does it say the first priority of the elected representative is to vote his/her conscience?

2) Do I need to get the concept across using BIG BLOCK LETTERS? Democracy falls apart when THEY misrepresent or dissemble THEIR conscience, idea structures and goals/objectives - which is precisely what is happening today. What you are arguing is that the voter has no reasonable expectation of the elected voting along the lines of what the majority intended - there's an escape clause, an electoral bait and switch as it were. And you, of course, fail to see the irony/integrity trap in that situation while pumping your chest with presumed virtue.

3) It's not a debate twit. The time for that is long past. You are my enemy. Make no mistake about it.

HighlanderJuan| 8.3.10 @ 9:22AM

purpleguy,

You are assuming we have honest elections, which we don't. The 2008 elections were a travesty, with too many votes counted and malfeasance at almost every precinct level, caused by the democrats. This is not including the military vote which was largely conservative and simply not counted.

I agree with your comment that America is the best, but we have some huge problems with power elite that we must solve. We are not intended to be a two class society - we left that when we broke away from England.

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:06AM

Purpleguy, you are being stupid again - those recessive genes are kicking in again. Voters elect representatives to defend their interests in the legislature - that is why candidates go to a lot of trouble to explain why you should vote for them. If, as you claim, representatives were elected to vote their consciences, then election campaigns would be completely different. You never noticed how often the John McCains of this world run as conservatives and vote as Democrats once elected? This is exactly the kind of thing that bought about the tea party movement - taxpayers and voters have had a gutfull of being taken for granted, they want representatives who are representatives in fact as well as in name.

230 years ago, blacks were slaves and witches were burnt at the stake. Fortunately for the likes of you, people were arrogant enough think that there was a better way.

Alan Brooks| 7.19.10 @ 1:21AM

BTW, no one has to like/respect blacks (or witches-- be their number quite insignificant) but I do NOT get why the Confederacy was correct in its Fugitive Slave pressure, its pressure to move west as far as possible to gain allied slave states.
Such is only expediency; not any sort of morality that would be in opposition to the North and its wage slavery. But perhaps the North and South DESERVED each other? Now there's a thought.

Crow| 7.26.10 @ 6:05PM

Did you read the article Purpleguy?
Voting them out isn't going to happen. To think so is naive. And to think it's "worked" for the past 230 years is even moreso.

Citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 3:18PM

The entire system depends upon an informed electorate and a pool of honorable candidates. We have a country filled with the willfully ignorant voting for whatever demagogue promises them the most.
Once a society loses its moral compass its finished.
The communists were right, though they didn't know it, the west was/is decadent. We live in the last days of the Republic as we knew it.

Alan Brooks| 8.9.10 @ 12:13AM

Purpleguy,
Carter was far worse than any president in the almost three decades since he left office, you'd have to think back to Lyndon Johnson to find a POTUS as incompetent (or perhaps even more so, if possible) as Carter. If Carter had been re-elected we'd be much worse off-- perhaps even dead.
As LBJ's handling of Vietnam was folly ("suicidal" someone called it), so too was Carter's overall handling of the Cold War.

Progressivism is derived from Marxism, and is outmoded; now we just stumble through. it's just too bad, Sharpfang: that humans deep down only really care about their own people.

Stephanie| 7.16.10 @ 7:43AM

Paul, so much more has happened since the first TARP. I believe in my heart that the house will flip in November, but you know if it does, the lame duck session will work to jam even more garbage through. The Republicans will have their work cut out for them. Let's hope they have the stones to attack the manure piles that have been left by these filthy progressives.
My new bumper sticker says,
"Progressives are not"

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 12:02AM

Somehow it were stuck with the same Republicans I'm not optimistic I heard some of them were referring to
Obamacare as health reform legislation. I'd sleep easier if we could get rid of some of the entrenched system corrupted Republicans as well.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 2:29AM

It will take time, Achilles, but we'll do it. From the ground up, hundreds of thousands of conservatives taking over the local Republican party apparatus is the key. If we don't get involved, we will get what we deserve, a decaying nation, a sorry reflection of its former glory.

The Plato quote from Cincinnatius above should be our rallying cry. This is the way it reads on my email signature: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:19PM

You already have it... power is the goal, not the American people... The party of "NO" just wants to get back into power at all costs, including throwing hard-working Americans into the street by cutting off their unemployment during the worst Recession since the 1930's.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 8:26PM

Power?

It's the entitlements, stupid. (Not you , necessarily; but if the shoe fits, wear it.)

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:29PM

good then you agree that since the Dems will not follow the law on "pay go" we are all free to pick and chose what we care to follow.

I like that idea!

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 6:32PM

Funny isn't it? How y'all that supported the stupid spendthrift Republicans for 6 years, now want to blame the complete house wrecking on the Democrats. I'm tired of hearing how "it's so long ago, it's not Bush and the Republicans, it's Obama now.
If you were truly honest about it, you'd know that the economy turns slowly and it takes time to recover from such a beating. But you're not, 'cause you want your people in charge -

btw, can you tell me what specifically the Republicans would do if in power? Since they are less able to handle the economy than the Democrats, according to the latest Rasmussen polls, what exactly would they do differently that they didn't do under Bush? Dismantle Social Security? Medicare? The Pentagon? Those are the big 3, right? Oh, and we could default on the debt, that would save 800 billion/year. Would they do that?
Like it or not, 1/2 the country depends on the country, so what do you do with them - dump 'em in Somalia?

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 8:13PM

yawn.

Mr Plouffe can provide better talking points than those.

What is the long-term threat? Unfunded, unsustainable entitlement payments.

Can't have it both ways -> can't claim Republicans are cold hearted, evil people with no compassion (i.e., don't support MEDICAID, MEDICARE, unemployment insurance, welfare, Obamacare, etc., etc) and then claim the Republicans are the root cause of the financial dilemmas we face. nope that one is the "conscience" of virtuous people like you. this is one pice of double talk you will not slither out from.

citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 3:33PM

The worse thing that anyone can do to another is to neglect to show hem their errors. That is a punishment reserved for the willfully ignorant. So let me start by informing you where your logic(?) fails......ah forget it.

citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 3:36PM

Many pardons carnot. My remark was intended for purpleguy.

HighlanderJuan| 8.3.10 @ 9:29AM

Purpleguy,

Democrats are not to blame? What are Democrats today? Democrats are today's progressives, communists, socialists, and Marxists. The Repubs aren't much better, which is explained by the power elite article we are discussing.

Did you read this article, or are you a troll merely trying to distract readers from understanding what the article says.

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:25PM

The author is hoodwinking you and everyone else that screams "Libertarian" when they really mean "Everything for me! Nothing for anyone else!" Libertarianism fosters and festers GREED just as easily as any totalitarian regime from our collective history. 'Country Party?' Hah! A socially-engineered term, catering to the nostalgic notion of 'salt-of-the-earth' folk - it softens you up and makes you ready to accept his own political biases. He's got you eating out of his hand; keep ignoring history and you'll do just fine.

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:20AM

You confuse the party of No with the Party of RINO, who say yes to anything. Saying no has a lot going for it - women do it all the time when drunks try and chat them up in bars, and people who say no avoid drug problems and social diseases and they don't lose their money to scam artists.

Also, hard working Americans are more likely to avoid unemployment than lazy ones, especially in a recession. One of the reasons recessions happen is because there are too few hard working Americans and too many lazy ones who couldn't work in an iron lung. Like the guy in the White House, for example - never had a real job in his life, has a lot of shady friends from Chicago and has no relevant skills, experience or qualifications. The sooner that arrogant son of a bitch is collecting unemployment benefits, the better for everybody.

R.L. Lepsy| 7.29.10 @ 3:42PM

Chris, don't let your frustration get in the way of rational thought. I worked from the time I was 13 years old. I'm unemployed now for the first time since I was 17, (forty years), you try to find a job in a region with 22% real unemployment. Take a breath and try not to give the rest of us a bad name by huffing over-worked cliches.

Alan Brooks| 8.9.10 @ 12:28AM

Hard to accept that outright communists, or marxists/dialectical whatever-they-might-bes, such as Sharpfang and orsobubu would want to blog at AS.

We will never know as just world, as we will never know a virtuous world-- the two go together. I'm not interested in Obama's policies, I'm voting for him so another Bush (or a Dole, McCain, Romney) don't get elected.

Alan Brooks| 8.9.10 @ 12:31AM

Some of you still don't get it that Obama is preferable to a Jeb or a Mitt?

As with poker, you have to deal with the cards you are dealt.

Patrick| 7.28.10 @ 12:37PM

That's rich Stephanie. Are you going to start with the health care bill which pays for itself or the Medicare Part D the Republicans funded with deficit spending? I know I know they're just "RINO's" not "real conservatives." I suggest one more bumper sticker "Conservatives are definitely not"

granny3| 8.5.10 @ 6:42PM

Where in the world did you get the idea that health care bill would pay for itself? From Nancy Pelosi and Harry Ried? That's where I heard it - but they hadn't even read the bill! Nor did they understand it. Really - please provide figures and articles proving this health care bill will pay for itself.

jg20| 8.8.10 @ 9:51AM

Do you know that if all the people that the government takes in the form of Social Security and Medicare taxes were put into a private account in the name of each worker, and the interest on that money was compounded quarterly, a person retiring today at age 65 would have between $750,000 to $1,200,000 in Social Security and between $250,000 to $400,000 in Medicare. Instead, he gets about $1,800 per month and a Medicare card. Entitlement programs, which Obamacare is, are systematic theft of the American people. Be very careful when we vote to give power to the government.

coal carrier| 7.16.10 @ 8:18AM

Great article.

Is it any wonder why the Media, progressives or the other system want-to-be’s despise, ridicule and malign Sarah Palin? Or any other every day citizen wanting to abolish the system. What an uphill climb before us.

potkas7| 7.16.10 @ 8:25AM

Wow! How often do you read a lengthy piece and end with the thought, 'Yeah, that's exactly what I think...that's describes exactly how I feel. I wish I'd written that."

Anyone looking for a manifesto that describes and explains the spontaneous citizen uprising that is the Team Party Movement could find no better document than this essay to embrace and pass around.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:20PM

what's a team party?

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:25AM

You need a vibrator to participate in a team party. In a tea party you keep your clothes on and meet a better class of people. That is why liberals hate tea parties.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:54AM

TMI, dude - do want you want with your Team Party... keep me out of it.

HighlanderJuan| 8.3.10 @ 9:33AM

Purpleguy,

Consider yourself out of it, because you are.

citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 3:46PM

P-guy, your a real breath of fresh air in this arena of thoughtful comments by serious people. Let me see if I can guess what your party affiliation is.

J K McGowan| 7.16.10 @ 8:25AM

This is the best, most comprehensive article I have read about the plight of "The Country Class". And I like that label better than "Tea Party".

Don Francisco| 7.17.10 @ 12:40AM

He used that term for lack of a better one. It's okay, but it does not describe well the character of the "ruled." Better yet, how about "The Patriot Class," and if we can't teach Republicans to change their ways, we will have to start our own party called "The Patriot Party."

ciizenx| 7.29.10 @ 3:48PM

Capital idea! When do we start?

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 8:02PM

I'm sure that we could all go to the Constitution Party - imagine how mighty a force that would be!

J Peterson| 7.17.10 @ 7:57AM

I don't care for the "Tea Party" label either and I'm a member, as some here are, or may be. The term "Party" indicates politics.

The Boston Tea Party was a resistance/protest movement, which in my mind is what "we the people" have at the present time.

Our local efforts have had permits turned down on several occasions for meetings/gatherings in or on public grounds and facilities, hearing the phrase (or words to the effect), 'we don't do or cannot allow things of a "political" nature'.

What I believe we have, as mentioned, is a resistance/protest movement against "politics" as usual, by both political parties and the 'professional politicans' associated with both parties.

I truly believe a "We the People" resistance/protest movement would have been a much more acceptable term.

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 8:00PM

You know, when the Tea Party first started, I loved their mission and hated the name. Now, knowing how the progressives hate it - makes me smile!

eVince| 7.16.10 @ 8:41AM

The sheer arrogance of the Dumb Left is what costs them any allegiance by the masses. The masses will choose Freedom every time. The American masses want the 2nd amendment enforced. They want their guns. The extra Dumb Left would deny them both.

The extremely Dumb Left passed HealthCare AGAINst the will of the people - RThen thyey told them they hasdn't even read the frriggin' particulars!!!!!

And they really wonder why their prospects are so dim. Dumb A$$s!

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:22PM

72% of the American people wanted the public option, but the Party of No foisted the current plan on us ... so go blame the right bunch for a change.

Joe| 7.18.10 @ 12:07AM

the right bunch voted against the bill, to a man, and it passed anyway. If you have complaints, blame those who voted yes.
Oh... and, welcome to slavery.

Jeanette| 7.18.10 @ 4:15AM

72% of the American people wanted the public option? Which 72% is that? Who was surveyed in that particular poll? SEIU? By the way, are you a member of the SEIU's "Purple Gang" or whatever they call themselves, Purpleguy?

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:32PM

and were the 70% asked: "do you want a public option, with price tag X, taxes Y and options Z?" no. of course not.

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 6:25PM

Why don't you ask those without healthcare or a job right now how much they care about your damn deficit? And, bitch about spending, but when the Bush tax cuts are to expire -- oh, don't touch them, huh? The wealthiest need their dough - their jumpstarting the economy, ain't they? Selfish, Un-American, Anti-Christian right need to be put to sleep.

Bob Knutson| 7.18.10 @ 7:56PM

I am sick of hearing about the Bush tax cuts for the rich. It has been fully documented that the top one percent of income earners pay fully forty percent of all income taxes collected. Pray explain how you cut taxes for people who don't pay any taxes.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:47AM

Those that extract the most from the economy should pay the most to support that economy. It's just that simple. As one of the 1%'ers, your argument rings hollow, since I'm sure you pay little or no Federal tax.

Who said anything about cutting anyone else's taxes?

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 8:19PM

wow...touchy are we little one?

I and others won't have to do anything. you, your ideology, the expression/advocates of your political will are manifestly incompetent! you will destroy yourselves. it's unfortunate that most of us will be sucked in along with you. but one thing you won't get is help...you're on your own bubba. that's just one of the bigger mistakes Mr Obama and the Liberal/Left made in the recent election and aftermath. They may abuse that 70% that doesn't share their unstated objectives...but they need them to succeed in the long-run. and that, by all appearances, aint gonna happen. they horribly misjudged their level of support and the political inertia of the public.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:49AM

As are you Chuckie, as are you. 11/02/2010

R.L. | 7.29.10 @ 3:58PM

P-guy, your a very angry little man, I guess that makes you one of the compassionate, open-minded, peace loving Lib's, eh? You and your ilk are too blinded by utopian dreams to realize that all you're asking for is to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. It seems to me that you all won't be happy until we are ALL equally miserable and without a chance to change our circumstances unless we join the ruling elite or become one of the apparatchniks of the new system.

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:32AM

Purpleguy, one day, in a galaxy far far away, you might realize that what you call 'your damn deficit' is actually your damn problem too. You remind me of the joke about the Irishman who went to a drive-in movie, didn't like the movie so he slashed the seats and walked out.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:52AM

Of course the deficit belongs to all of us... and had the 5 Trilllion dollar surplus when Bush took office been applied to the deficit, well, we'd be in a much better position, now wouldn't we?

So once again, you right wingers misdirect and change the subject without answering the questions. Because you can't answer the questions, and the American people have 5 months to figure y'all out. Trust me, they will, and 11/02/2010 can't come soon enough for me

Mirac| 7.28.10 @ 4:45PM

Hey Einstein? Those tax cuts expiring will affect every person in the country. ( working ones that is, not the freeloaders who love big daddy liberal handouts). Every one of your posts lack facts and real world stats, as per the Alynski model. Grow up or get lost, head on back to Holders office to report how foolish you looked here. Then ask him for a raise. Wait you sound like a JORNO-list con artist now that i read more from you. Yup, a real piece of falsehood among intelligent Patriots here.

Mirac| 7.28.10 @ 4:46PM

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 6:22PM

Don't be stupid. Once again, the righties ignore the facts, those pesky little irritants, in favor of the lies of the right.
"The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan -- something like Medicare for those under 65 -- that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.c.....018706.php
http://www.thenation.com/blog/.....ogressives

And, of course, it's true that NOW most Americans opposed the HCR bill, exactly because it doesn't go far enough.

So look for the public option to come back with overwhelming support - unless y'all wanna go down the death panel route again... maybe you can continue to deny unemployment benefits to millions of people - think they'll vote your way ?

JimE| 7.18.10 @ 8:21PM

A telephone survey? once again you prove yourselve to be a useful idiot shithead.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:43AM

How do you think they conduct polls, dittohead? The fact you don't like the evidence is so sad, too bad for you.

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:37AM

You keep this up and they will be feeding you by passing pieces of raw meat on the end of a stick through the bars of your cage. I thought the neanderthals died out in the last ice age.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:44AM

Intelligent response, yep, very intelligent.

citizenx| 7.29.10 @ 4:07PM

P-guy, it's a shame that the rest of us have to regress just to communicate with you in language that you understand. Since we're willing to do that for you, how 'bout elevating your rhetoric to a more rational level, please?

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:52PM

Keep condescending and dodging legitimate factual information, and you'll consistently act against your own bests interests. Purpleguy's method of engaging the semantic frame that conservatives show in this thread may not be the best option, but his heart is in the right place - everyone has a civic duty and responsibility to SOCIETY AT LARGE. When you let your neighbor sink under the burden of poverty and exploitative corporations, you have no right to complain when your turn comes up. Take some pride in helping society instead of bitching about how everyone wants a piece of what you think you've got.

Neil| 9.16.10 @ 4:42PM

Who says I have a civic duty and responsibility to SOCIETY AT LARGE?

phwest| 10.29.10 @ 9:27AM

I don't disagree with the idea that everyone has a civic duty and responsibility to their community. My objection is to the idea that said duties and responsibilities must be exercised collectively under the aegis of the federal government. The progressive ideal of national solutions to what are more often than not local problems actually destroys civic engagement at the local scale, by taxing away the resources that would fund voluntary efforts, by agressively regulating what efforts remain to conform with a "national" vision of their purpose regardless of local needs, and by encouraging individual disengagement by the grant of moral absolution (I've paid my taxes and voted for the government to fix the problem so my duty is done).

No one can truly be engaged with society at a national level. It's too big. Any organization fundamentally changes once you get past a few hundred people. At best you get some vague sense of pride or patriotism. Only at the local level, where you can actually know people and their problems can you truly engage. This doesn't mean gutting local government - if the scale is small enough, local government can foster engagement because the entire community can be engaged.

That is the objection - the nationalization of what are essentially local issues (welfare, education, violent crime, most business) in the quest for some optimal, universal solution instead makes us worse off by removing any sort of accountability at a level where common citizens can actually influence outcomes. I really wish people like you would quit confusing the belief that the federal government should not address these issues with the straw man that no one should.

HighlanderJuan| 8.3.10 @ 9:34AM

Purpleguy,

I am now believing that you are so full of crap that it has destroyed your ability to think clearly.

Granny3| 8.5.10 @ 6:46PM

You are quite mistaken. May 72% liberals did, but they are only 25% of the population. Frankly the bill came from the left side of the Congress - they didn't let the Party of No have any input to it. You need to read more. And not just the NYT. And the Party of No voted against this monstrosity. And Americans from all walks of life called Congress to ask them to vote NO on it. What are you reading?

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:54PM

"Frankly the bill came from the left side of the Congress - they didn't let the Party of No have any input to it. " - wrong. The committee which developed the bill had equal numbers from BOTH parties. Unfortunately, the majority of both sides of that isle were corporatists, which facilitated the death of the public option and subsequently handed out billions to big PHARMA.

jg20| 8.8.10 @ 9:55AM

Do you know that if all the money that the government takes in the form of Social Security and Medicare taxes were put into a private account in the name of each worker, and the interest on that money was compounded quarterly, a person retiring today at age 65 would have between $750,000 to $1,200,000 in Social Security and between $250,000 to $400,000 in Medicare. Instead, he gets about $1,800 per month and a Medicare card. Entitlement programs, which Obamacare is, are systematic theft of the American people. Be very careful when we vote to give power to the government

jack| 7.16.10 @ 8:43AM

Awesome! Revolution is the only solution.
The present tax system must be scrapped because it is where these grifters derive their power. A flat tax on everyone with no deductions for anyone or any industry is the best way to hold these sewer rats in check.
Every new regulation such as the new financial bill creates more corruption,because the central planners always have their hand out.
ABC,NBC,and CBS must be held accountable for their support of the ruling class.

Old Joe| 7.16.10 @ 10:02AM

I agree with everything you say with two exceptions. A flat tax is much, much better than our current progressive tax and yes everyone should pay taxes. But, a flat tax perpetuates the IRS and forcing companies to pay taxes just increases the consumers tax since all corporate taxes are passed to the individuals who consume the product or service.

Why don't we take the same approach federally as Texas, Florida, and Tennessee? No income tax, only sales tax. If you consume, you pay. If you save, you don't pay. Imagine a country without the IRS. Imaging not worrying about April 15th. Imagine the loss of power to politicians, tax lawyers, and accountants. Think about it, you may like it.

Clinton nee Publius| 7.16.10 @ 9:11PM

Sounds nice but won't work. Taxation is a limited resource - you can only increase the marginal tax rate so far before the economy contracts and receipts start to go down. On the other hand, the ruling class has demonstrated (time and again) that fiscal spending in a democracy is an unlimited activity and we have $13 trillion in national debt that substantiates this point. In macroeconomics, any time you have a situation where you are trying to address an unlimited activity (i.e.: fiscal spending in a democracy) with a limited resource (i.e.: taxation) the outcome will always be an economic failure of the same nature and scale as would be the case as if you were trying to hold back the ocean with a broom.

This should tell you something fundamental about the structure of our economy and must happen next if we continue to try and use taxation as the means for paying for the costs of our government. What I mean to say is that the communists were right; it is not a matter of "if" our society will fail and a dictatorship will take our place, it is only a question of "when" because we have chosen taxation.

The only real solution - the only "saving grace" - for this problem is to use an unlimited resource to address the unlimited activity. In economics there is only one money-related activity you can undertake that is unlimited in nature and non-inflationary and that activity is equity investing. The only system of economic organization that offers true free-market capitalism and a rational system of using equity investment income to generate revenues for government and a sustainable economic model that is free of the corruption of the ruling class and is also self-sustaining in nature is that set forth in Lovellian Economics.

Arguing over which taxation plan to use is kind of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; feels good, but you are still going to go down with the ship. Sorry, but there it is...

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:24PM

" you can only increase the marginal tax rate so far before the economy contracts and receipts start to go down" ---- Can you explain why through most of the 20th century the top tax rate was 70-90%, and yet we became stronger and wealthier than ever... You're argument doesn't hold water - it's the current mantra for today, but it's bullshit.

Jeanette| 7.18.10 @ 4:21AM

We became stronger and wealthier because the TOP tax rate was increased. Others had more disposable funds and used them However, with The Comrade and merry marxists in office, we'll all end up paying a TOP tax rate, either via income tax, some screwed up VAT, or inflation. Not many other options. Then NO ONE will have any money.

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:35PM

gee...I dunno...WWII saved FDR's bacon and failed economic policies? tax decreases saved Kennedy's bacon? Reagan's tax decreases prompted accelerated growth? Your nitwit, one sentence generalization doesn't cover all the historical variability. but who would expect different from a lying government crack addict?

MountainsDave| 9.6.10 @ 6:59PM

"WWII saved FDR's bacon and failed economic policies?" - no, the temporary stagnation of recovery and growth came in 1937 when FDR made the mistake of listening to deficit hawks, which prolonged the impressive recovery he had worked so hard for. You've been sold a bill with the WWII war machine equaled capital explosion lie.

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:47AM

Purpleguy, where do you get your ideas from? This is stupid - there is no end to evidence that high marginal tax rates reduce employment and economic growth, and low tax rates increase both economic growth and government tax revenues as well. Only an economic illiterate argues to the contary. You are an economic illiterate, so you argue to the contary.

Your ideas are childish and boring - you sound like a teenage sociology undergraduate at a Friday night college bong session. Grow up, and throw that introduction to Karl Marx book that is your sole source of knowledge.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:42AM

Typical right-wing argument - it's a known fact ... blah, blah, woofie. You didn't dispel a single fact I presented. It is true that most of the 20th century we did just fine with top rates at 70-90%. Can you refute that? Where's your proof? Links please - and not Cato, Heritage or Fox please ... If you can't refute the facts, don't engage in ad hominem attacks - it says way more about your intelligence than it will ever say about me!

Granny3| 8.5.10 @ 6:50PM

I didn't read any facts in your reply either. You can't discuss anything so complex in a paragraph. It's quite obvious you enjoy insulting conservatives, but that doesn't solve the major problems we're having in this country. If you want to solve problems in a leftist way, try going to Slate or DailyKos or somewhere you can pat one another on the back all day.

jg20| 8.8.10 @ 10:05AM

I work for one of the richest men in America. If congress allows the Bush tax cuts to expire, he will end up paying millions of dollars more each year in taxes which means his profit margins will decrease dramatically. He will then, in an attempt to increase his profit margins back, will either fire people, cut benefits, not pay bonuses and not hire new employees. In the end, he may pay more taxes, but his employees will either lose their jobs, or work longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits. We saw the decisions that companies made during the 2008 economic downturn. When their profits went down, they fired people and they cut salaries and benefits. I know that when profits are good, all's good at my job. When profits are down, we all suffer. So when you try to stick it the rich, you end up stabbing the average citizen.

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 8:18PM

It's no use, I've seen him make the exact same lame comments on other conservative sites. I'm not sure why he doesn't want to be with like minded people who don't need any stinkin' facts!

Tennman59| 8.19.10 @ 3:05AM

Bs61 : That one is easy, his boss @ OFA or another one of the want- to -be dictator's NGOs sent him to stir trouble.
Wonder how long he would give away his 90% before he quits, or moves out of the country to a place where he can keep more of his money?

Loved the Anti-Christian - right winger comment!?
Must be one of those Christian/Marxist/Muslims from Rev. Wright's Church.

P'guy: Wake up dude your are being used, by the real anti-Christians.

HighlanderJuan| 8.3.10 @ 9:40AM

Purpleguy,

You simply don't know our American history, now do you. The 20th century was nearly destroyed economically by Wilson and FDR, both active progressives. The same thing is happening under Obama. America has always done well when the government reduced its tax burden and its onerous legislative restrictions.

Freedom is the absence of legislation.

wyndale| 7.18.10 @ 9:35AM

I agree Old Joe. No flat tax. Only a sales tax. A sales tax allows us to make a choice. To buy or not to buy according to our economic need.
I would add another change. The sales tax should be imposed at the state level ONLY. The State, who should be the provider of most services (closer to home; closer to the voter too), takes a legally defined amount for itself. Some of that should go to cities and counties. The rest of the tax collection should go to D.C., but a narrowly defined amount only to support those things the Constituion describes as the Federal government's responsiblity.
The end result should be that those who must live with the consequences of legislation, should be given the choice whether to actually suffer the consequences. With the money and the decision staying closer to home, then people will become interested. And remain interested.

Jose Marquez| 7.31.10 @ 10:55PM

I agree with Old Joe 1000% .

JR| 7.16.10 @ 7:22PM

Jack...
It may very well be that revolution (bloody or otherwise) will be required to get back to our Constitutional form of government. The danger with this, however, is that we will get just another group of selfish and arrogant leaders.
I know there are lots of good men and women in our country that would do their best to start reversing our present course - some have shown themselves already and I'm waiting for enough of them to rise up and make themselves known to the "Country party". As mentioned in this article, we far outnumber all those elitist idiots that have control over us right now and we need to get with the program.

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 12:11AM

Whether it's a flat tax or fair tax it will be imperative to repeal the 16th amendment or these rascals will have us paying both, we also need a thorough audit of the Fed we almost got that except Schumer had Sanders come in at the last minute with a watered down version.

If we're going to get the gonads to do some amendment work we should also repeal the 17th amendment to help restore states rights, we should also pass an amendment regarding term limits for the Legislature if we let them do it by statute law any pack of rascals in the future could just repeal it.

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 12:01PM

Brilliant! You don't want the people of a state to actually elect their own senators. Much better to have corrupt state legislators make deals for the job. That will empower the people!

Tom Osterman| 7.18.10 @ 1:24PM

Much better to have elected-for-life corrupt senators like Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, is that what you're saying?

Rcv| 7.18.10 @ 10:13PM

Ha! You don't think the Mass. Legislature would have sent Kennedy to the Senate for as long as he wanted? The only difference is, they would have sent his son after he died! You think hack legislators have better judgment than you?

TerryC| 8.11.10 @ 8:04PM

But do you think that a Senator Kennedy who was beholden to the state legislature would vote for unfunded mandates which would cost the state money? Do you think a Senator Kennedy who counted upon a revote by the legislature every 6 years would be more beholden to the national Democrat leaders in Washington or the local party leaders in Mass? And for all of those places where the state legislatures go back and forth from Republican to Democrat it would be much harder to sit in the Senate for 47 years.

wyndale| 7.18.10 @ 9:48AM

"If we're going to get the gonads to do some amendment work we should also repeal the 17th amendment to help restore states rights, we should also pass an amendment regarding term limits for the Legislature if we let them do it by statute law any pack of rascals in the future could just repeal it. he ruling class won't let that happen."

We have to hit them where it hurts. Money. Without money, there is no power. At the rate those people are going, they will not only kill the economy (ours and everyone else's too), the bureaucracy has the look of rabid dogs running after phantom enemies. Eventually they'll maul their masters, and the entire edifice will simply impode.
Nature does not support too many encumbering complications. Witness the peacock.
I don't suggest we wait for that moment. I suggest that everyone reading this essay remember that the Founders wanted the States to be source of governance, not the Federal government. So taxation should be at the state level only. Taxes should be sent to the Fed, not the other way around.
The Supreme Court, the Executive have demonstated the same flaws as our former masters suffered (an avaricious Parliament and madman wearing a Crown), and therfore, we should, like good parents, remove temptation.

JimP| 7.16.10 @ 8:49AM

"... For its part, the country class's greatest difficulty will be to enable a revolution to take place without imposing it."

IMHO, an unavoidable "revolution" is coming because of the unsustainable Federal debt and entitlements. The financial collapse of the system will be the undoing of the 'Ruling Class' whether the 'Country Party' organizes and stages some kind of revolt or not. Once the money is worthless and no one has a job that can be taxed and we have devolved into complete financial chaos, the power of the Ruling Class will evaporate and then events begin taking on a life of their own. There will be a kind of American Bastille Day event, IMO, followed by localities taking control of their lives and governments and ignoring D.C.

My guess at this point would be a dissolution of the United States followed by independent states, for example Texas. If city-states like Singapore and Hong Kong can exist in the modern world and prosper so can independent former states of the Union.

I believe we are headed for upheaval. It may yet be avoided, but the Rulers in DC have shown that they haven't a clue, so I think the U.S. as we have known it is toast. It's just a matter of time. I also think it will be a good thing in the long run. American traditions and our Constitutional freedoms will live on in smaller political entities.

Silver Streake| 7.16.10 @ 12:06PM

We don't want dissolution of the USA. Our unity has been our strength and has made us the most powerful and wealthy society ever known. Our insistence on a common language, currency and free trade between the states keeps us strong.

Upheaval is on the horizon for sure, but it will take people of great strength to carry it out. Let's face it - no one wants the legal hassles that will come from ignoring the ruling class.

Wayne| 7.16.10 @ 1:48PM

As much as they have totally corrupted the political, economic, electoral, and information systems of this country it has become impossible for a legitimate, legal, overturning of our governing system at the ballot box or in the courtroom.

The ruling class know they have complete control over the governing system and are now focused on working as fast as they can to prevent the ONLY way that they can EVER be forced to relinquish their power over the rest of us - when we rip it from their cold, dead hands.

The horrors of the next 12 - 48 months will pale into insignificance those of every other similar period in all of human history. No one save the Lord can say how it will turn out in the end.

Charles Stevens| 7.17.10 @ 8:31PM

Wayne, you are absolutely correct. The progressives think that this is their time, the final nail in the coffin of traditionalist Amerika, the quintessential denoument. If they suspect for even an instant that events are not unfolding to support this metanarrative, then they will not hesitate for an instant to foment a crisis that will cement ultimate power. They are salivating with the prospect of goading Conservatives and Tea Partiers into some kind of violent response... if that doesn't work, then progressives will enact one of their own and blame it on the right, with the assurance that the corrupt Old Left Media will blithely portray it exactly the way they want.

Obama is a statist.
Obama is a redistributionist.
Obama is an arrogant liar, and a budding tyrant.
Progressives are reptiles, and Obama is the Lizard King.

JimP| 7.16.10 @ 9:19PM

Respectfully, I 'm not sure what you're saying or what you think I said. I wasn't advocating anything, I was merely expressing my opinion about what I see happening on the horizon. The upheaval I am refering to will not be something "carried out", it will be something/events that have a life of their own (in a manner of speaking). These will be events that no one controls. Something will happen which will lead to unintended consequences which will start dominos falling etc. If it happens, the fact that we don't want to be disunited will not matter because we will not be in control or able to take control, nor will the Federal government.

RabidAmerican| 7.17.10 @ 2:45PM

JimP, I pray you're right but I think the more likely scenario is Dictatorship.

The powers that be won't get this close and simply scurry under a rock. The sad thing is, many of our citizens will go along--you know, that "security VS liberty" thing (they deserve neither).

It could start as easily as "martial law" proclaimed in Arizona which is dang-near at a tipping point. As pockets of resistance grow with, then, further incensed citizens, the martial law "districts" grow. I can already hear some of the sheeple I know screaming, "it's 'cuz of you right-wing nut bags; the feds had to act."

JimP| 7.18.10 @ 12:05PM

RabidAm:

Respectfully, I don't think martial law would work. The country is too vast. The Ruling Class (RC) could pull it off in large cities for at least a short time, but never over the entire country or even one entire state, IMO. The RC's need Americans like us to exist. We won't cooperate. The Taker Class (those who don't pay income tax) won't work or can't produce enough to keep the RC's going. If they try martial law it will lead to 'civil' war (my guesstimate), which is one form of upheaval. I don't recall who said it but, "You can't conquer a map." That is what martial law would have to do, but would not for the reasons I outlined.

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:40PM

meh...I'm waiting for the first state that secedes. that's when things will get interesting.

aslo...everyone seems to assume that the military, national guard, etc., will line up with the oppressors. maybe...maybe not.

catch the little para in the latest AMSPEC issue (book review section) that a livid Obama recently demanded loyalty statements from Gates, McMullen and one other Flag?

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 8:51PM

It would be interesting to see the first state secede - but would the MSM media cover it at all?!

wyndale| 7.18.10 @ 9:53AM

My reading of the essay tells me that we are heading for economic collapse whoever is in power. The financial mess cannot be undone in time. When the collapse happens, then the only source of governance will be the states. The Fed is so bloated that bureacrats will have nothing to work with. I can assure you that destitution turns ideologues into realists almost overnight.

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 8:53PM

Their are no realist in DC that's for sure! I'm afraid that they will become communist dictators overnight.

CBDenver| 7.16.10 @ 7:46PM

I agree that the financial collapse will be the demise of the current ruling elites. What comes next is up-in-the-air. I hope we don't see a dissolution of the US into independent states but instead we see a "new birth of freedom" ensuring that "the government of the people, but the people and for the people does not perish from the earth"

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 12:33AM

The writings of our founding fathers show that they sought and believed in God's providence in the founding of this country, I think that's the nucleus component that we're lacking today. We have no chance of restoration without seeking his help, God says if we humble ourselves and seek his face he will heal our land but unfortunately modern America has allowed God to be watered down or even chased out of our national soul and now we have the specter of liberation theology (collective salvation) as opposed to the Gospel (individual salvation). I think it parallels the ideas of today about freedom, individual freedom and liberty is out as collective (group) freedom gains ascendancy.

Cycle of Bondage

From bondage to spiritual faith.
From spiritual faith to great courage.
From courage to liberty.
From liberty to abundance.
From abundance to complacency.
From complacency to apathy.
From apathy to dependency.
From dependency back into bondage.

By Alexander Tyler

bluecollarbytes| 7.16.10 @ 9:10AM

The ruling class strives to maintain and grow its world, and this seems to be its primary purpose. Without America's life-time spirit of rebellion, the ruling class would simply ride right over its subjects. It was nothing less than widespread outrage over Amnesty that prevented us from sealing our fate on illegal immigration. It will be the same outrage that pushes for repeal of ObamaScare , or not.

But Next time we hear our leaders claim that our economy is about to collapse unless taxpayers go on the hook for the dreadfully bad decisions of the 'titans of money-changing', I will be saying bring it on (a collapse). Politicians who make comments deemed offensive (by the Ruling class) , only to 'walk back the statement' 24 hrs later will not get my vote (or at least receive plenty of ridicule from this one voter leading up to the election). It's time to kick out both the leaders and the weanies who remain out of touch with the America the rest of us love.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:29PM

" But Next time we hear our leaders claim that our economy is about to collapse unless taxpayers go on the hook for the dreadfully bad decisions of the 'titans of money-changing', I will be saying bring it on (a collapse). " ---- Sad to say, many people, you included apparently, have to learn the hard way... alas we have few left to remind us what the Great Depression was really like. America might need another Great Depression to get us off our fat, lazy, opinionated asses and see what is really important.

Jeanette| 7.18.10 @ 4:28AM

Well, Purpleguy, it was WWII and war contracts from Europe that got the USA moving out from under Roosevelt's disastrous economic programs to end the Great Depression. So what exactly are you suggesting here? After all, it was federal policy that created the mess we're in now -- particularly federal policy around Fannie and Freddie, which have just been granted more power in the Financial Ruin Act recently passed. It was not "Titans of money-changing," which, frankly sounds like something from F. Scott Fitzgerald - rather dated and disingenuous, and something a bureaucrat would make up to sound important.

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 7:06PM

You really should read the chain of comments, before you open your trap - you obviously didn't read what was written by others that I took issue with. I cannot debate with someone that has such little ammunition, such as poor reading skills.

If you'd stop listening to the liars Glenn Beck and Rush about our history, you'd know that in 1934-5 the Roosevelt policies started to bring unemployment down from it's high of 25% to 11%. It was then the move to tighten the budget that cause the mini-Depression in 1937-39, which was THEN brought under control by the War, with it's huge GOVERNMENT SPENDING... ruh-roh - I guess Government can spend us out of a Depression/Recession - Thanks for helping me make that point!

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 8:24PM

yup...and all the price controls, rationing and internment camps FDR needed to pull it all together! I can see why a WW is so appealing to y0u - as it was to Wilson and further so to FDR!

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:35AM

Are you acting stupid, or is that your natural state? The point is that the GOVERNMENT SPENT it's way out of the GREAT DEPRESSION. Who else do you think spent the money on war munitions? Now, I'm not advocating a World War, like you obviously jumped to that conclusion, but the GOVERNMENT can spend it's way out of a recession, and then get back to the business of fiscal responsibility once the economy is chugging along. Come on, you can't see that?

Christopher Holland| 7.19.10 @ 1:57AM

Purpleguy, are you seriously proposing a world war, mass conscription, the arbitary arrest and internent of minorities and suspected social malcontents and the creation of a vast military-industrial complex as the solution to a recession? Maybe we should wear brown uniforms and swastika armbands and raise our right arms in salute when greeting fellow comrades? You seem to have sympathy for this idea. Take a deep breath and think for at least 30 seconds before you answer. I know that is 30 seconds more than you have ever thought about anything in your life, but there is a first time for everything.

Purpleguy| 7.19.10 @ 11:35AM

Trippy| 7.19.10 @ 12:08PM

Um, no. Unemployment for 1934-35 was 21.7, and by the time the WWII started ramping up, it went all the way down to 17.2 in 1939. It was lowest at 14.3, in 1937. In 1930? it was 8.9, right before FDR came in and started tinkering. I suggest YOU Read some books, mr pr=urple guy, instead of listening to what you were taught in school.
The Forgotten Man would be a great place for you to start.

Purpleguy| 7.30.10 @ 4:42PM

I have read that book, and it has some revisionist history in it .. nevertheless, Roosevelt didn't become president until March 4, 1933 - 3 years after 1930!!! You're numbers are all wrong - it's not hard to find - try Google - it works well.
So why do you think the Democrats were swept into office with overwhelming numbers.?

Penguin| 7.28.10 @ 12:39AM

You want some facts Purple? On several occasions history has shown us the obvious way out of a depression. Just to mention a few: the depression of 1893 produced four million unemployed, violent strikes, and marches on Washington demanding government intervention and help. President Cleveland refused their demands and instead reduced burdens on all taxpayers, cut tariffs, and blocked an income tax, stating "Federal aid in such cases encourages an expectation of paternal care on the part of government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." The depression ended within two years. In 1921 Warren Harding inherited one of the sharpest recessions in American history from Woodrow Wilson. Harding immediately cut government expenditures by 40 percent and in 7 months the economy was booming again which spurred the long period of growth and rising living standards in the '20's associated with the "Roaring Twenties". In the 1930's, the liberal administration of FDR and an overwhelmingly Democrat Congress successfully penetrated the walls of the Constitution with federal projects, entitlements, taxes, and regulations known as the "New Deal". It went beyond the limits of constitutional authority, interfered with state sovereignty, abused private property rights, etc. The Supreme Court rightfully struck down the New Deal programs as being unconstitutional for the aforementioned reasons. So, instead of seeking to expand the government through the amendment process, which probably would have not passed states ratification, Roosevelt threatened to "pack the Court" with sympathetic justices who would go along with his counterrevolution. His plan failed initially, but in time, Roosevelt succeeded in adding new justices who shared his liberal views and it was not long before the Court became a rubber stamp for Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt was now free to begin passing laws and creating government agencies as never before, thus increasing government control over economic activity and individual liberty. The government began using taxes not only to fund constitutionally legitimate activities, but also to redistribute wealth, finance entitlement programs, set limits on prices and production, create huge public works programs, etc, etc. According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Roosevelt raised the top income tax rate to 79 percent and then to 90 percent. He instituted the NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act) in 1933 forcing industries to comply with the fed's to dictate production and pricing standards covering 2 million employers and 22 million workers. The result? Industrial production dropped 25 percent within 6 months. According to Amity Shales, "A new History of the Great Depression", All evidence suggests that government was crowding out the private sector and for every "state relief" job created, one-half of a private sector job was lost. Nothing was done to improve the unemployment problem in the country. In 1929 the unemployment rate was 17.4 percent; in 1939 it was 17.2 percent, and during the 8 years of the Great Depression the unemployment rate never dropped below 14 percent! After seven years of the New Deal, the stock market went from 250 in 1930 to 151 in 1940, remained in the 100's through all of Roosevelt's four terms and didn't return to 1929 levels until the '50's. During this time, federal spending as a percent of gross domestic product increased from 2.5 percent in 1929 to 9 percent in 1036, a staggering 360 percent with no measurable benefit to the economy! Even Arthur Schlesinger, a New Deal historian who idolized Roosevelt, wrote in "The National Experience", "The collapse in the months after September, 1937 was actually more severe than it had been the first 9 months of the depression. National income fell 13 percent, payrolls 35 percent, durable goods production 50 percent, and profits 78 percent." The Roosevelt Administration passed hundreds of laws, regulations, policies, and spending programs then created numerous agencies to enforce them. It is now clear that Roosevelt prolonged unemployment and despair by prolonging the depression. By artificially inflating salaries and prices, New Deal policies short-circuited the free market's self-correcting forces. And so the result is that Roosevelt's legacy includes a federal government that became the nation's largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider, and bank guarantor, etc., all by using other people's money (our taxes).
[More recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that when Obama's stimulous and bailout spending money is combined, federal spending as a percent of GDP will climb to 27.5 percent, and $1.00 of every $4.00 produced by the economy will be consumed or controlled by the government.] Ironically, industrial expansion created by productivity and employment during the war effort of World War II, ended the depression, not the New Deal!
How can we forget the extreme economic turnaround that Reagan brought in the early eighties? Jimmy Carter crippled the economy with double digit inflation and interest rates in his legacy of "stagflation". Reagan cut all taxes dramatically and immediately which began the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history. Other instances of the same remedy were in 1958 during the Eisenhower years and 2000 when Bush inherited the Clinton recession. In both instances taxes were cut, with no new government initiatives or interventions. Government just got out of the way and allowed the free market business cycle to take its course. Yet, the liberals in Washington D.C. along with their "water-carriers" in the main stream press conveniently ignore and bury these historic truths. It simply does not fit their liberal-socialist agenda. Can you blame them? After all, by allowing citizens their Constitutionally ordained liberty which permits them the freedom to make their own choices, keep more of their hard-earned money, and thereby decide their own destinies, citizens would not need big, intrusive government. Power hungry liberals would not be needed and their jobs would be in jeopardy. After all, socialists get their power from the people in the form of taxes and freedom limiting laws; so should we not have a say in how our money is spent instead of having obscenely expensive programs (which aren't even read by our elected representatives) shoved down our throats and up our asses at a record-breaking pace? makes me wonder where you get your history lessons. I can understand why you would believe that if you, like like many Americans, are getting your information from the main-stream-government-endorsed media, liberally indoctrinated teachers and professors, or left-wing blogs financed by George Soros, etc. From Roosevelt's time forward, the usurped power of the Democrat Party has intertwined with the federal government, resulting in power that is being used to sustain a liberal (socialist) agenda by circumventing the Constitution through judicial appointment and creating/controlling a society dependent on a so-called "benevolent" government and it's programs. Far too many of our citizens will continue to vote "Democrat" in order not to lose their "entitlements" and their complacent position of economic dependancy on an all-powerful government financed by us, the taxpayer! Do you not think that is why the immigration situation is so far out of control? The more people allowed into the good ole USA who are unable to support themselves will vote for the politician who promises the most benefits, thus becoming democrat voters, adding to the democrat base, thus assuring job security for those with an agenda for an ever-growing controlling government (socialism). It feeds on itself . . . Far too many of our citizens will continue to vote "Democrat" in order not to lose their "entitlements" and their complacent position of economic dependancy on an all-powerful government financed by us, the taxpayer! Do you not think that is why the immigration situation is so far out of control? The more people allowed into the good ole USA who are unable to support themselves will vote for the politician who promises the most benefits, thus becoming democrat voters, adding to the democrat base, thus assuring job security for those with an agenda for an ever-growing controlling government (socialism). It feeds on itself . . .
But the liberal Democrats have an insatiable appetite for control and are not stopping there. Democrat politicians are constantly "agitating" for more government actions and controls. They continue to create one "crisis" and "grievance" after another in order to manipulate public perceptions of fact and truth in order to put forth another government program that they assure us will solve the problem when in reality it creates an opportunity for them to more of our tax money while at the same time acquiring power that will be difficult to reverse. Their fear-mongering crises include - (racism, global warming, class envy, homeland security, evil corporations, health care, outsourcing, etc). In the words of President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, "Rule number one: Never let a crisis go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things". I bring all of this up because we realize that your mostly illiterate rantings are entirely false and makes me wonder where you get your history lessons. I can understand why you would believe that if you, like like many Americans, are getting your information from the main-stream-government-endorsed media, liberally indoctrinated teachers and professors, or left-wing blogs financed by George Soros, etc. I’m sure this won/t change your mind, because you are not capable of understanding your disorder.

Purpleguy| 7.30.10 @ 4:39PM

What a rambling mess...

First, It is clear that the U.S. went through a severe economic depression during the period of 1893 to 1898, but the statistical apparatus did not exist at the time to precisely document it, so you don't really have any facts.

The answers aren't as simple as you pose.

I know it's hard, Chuckie, but we don't live in the Founders era.. we live in a globally instantly connected world with worldwide competition. Multinational corporations do well, even if one country (US) is doing badly, so they are no longer connected or beholden to one national well-being.

There's a reason we call it the Great Depression - it dwarfed all others previously - so the difficulty are getting out of it was much greater - similar to what we are experiencing now from the Great Recession. But the times you note were recessions, not Depressions, there is a very BIG difference.

Just for kicks, Can you explain the success of Germany, a Social Democratic Society? How about China, a Communist Government dabbling with Capitalism? How about Brazil, a socialist country?

jg20| 8.8.10 @ 10:33AM

If you think China is so successful why don't you go live over there? Go live in Brazil, or Germany. We can crunch numbers all you want. I think you have to ask yourself a question. What kind of life do you want to live? Do you want to live a life of freedom and liberty, of self-determination and accountability, a life where you control the outcomes of your life through the decisions you make and the work that you produce, or do you want to live a life where the outcomes of your life are dependent upon who won the last election, what legislation was passed, what government subsidy will best benefit me, how much tax we can pry from someone else? Either you control your life, or government controls your life? Here's the difference between the private sector and the public sector. I think that Wall Street is filled with lying, deceitful, corrupt crooks, so I CHOOSE not to put my money into Wall Street. I also think that the government is filled with lying, deceitful, corrupt crooks, but if I CHOOSE not to put my money (taxes) into the government, I will be thrown in jail for 20 years. That is a perfect example why I will always favor the free markets over government control. When motivated, the people will always self regulate the free market.

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 9:06PM

So do you just keep these same questions somewhere so you can cut and paste? You've posted this same exact wording on other conservative sites, so you're obviously not actually reading the articles or you would know more things.

fred17| 10.14.10 @ 9:45PM

Read Henry Morganthau's diary in 1939 P-Guy. You might learn how ignorant you are!

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.16.10 @ 9:21AM

Mr. Codevilla,

I'm sorry.
It simply rubs me the wrong way to be labeled in a "class". Also, it rubs me the wrong way to be labeled "Country".

In fact, the more I think about it, the entire article seems a little snooty and "over-intellectualized".

You spend two, or even three paragraphs, (long paragraphs), of pedantry as if we are all freshman students of yours to whom you have to spoon-feed the baby-food in little tiny bites.
In fact,
the title of your article might well be:

"Let Me 'Splain It All To You Idjits"

...Two or three long paragraphs where a simple declarative sentence would suffice.

ie: "The citizens of our nation have delegated too much authority to bad people."
Or,
"The citizens of our several States, by one sort of "referendum" or other, must begin systematically de-constructing the corrupt bloated bureaucracies that have destroyed our constitutional republic, and our liberty."

Or,
"American citizens must demand a district wide...published... "referendum" on every single spending bill that their "Representative" in the House of Representatives is called to vote upon."

Mr. Codevilla,
The next time you write an article of this importance, may I suggest you title it something like.
"DEMAND A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY, SOLIDLY LOCKED INTO OUR CONSTITUION".
(or else)...

RCV| 7.16.10 @ 12:15PM

Mr. Codevilla is the same brilliant analyst who, in his 2005 book, "No Victory, No Peace", claimed that the US Government's conclusion that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for the 9/11 attacks was highly questionable.

Gill O’Teen �?✡$| 7.16.10 @ 1:54PM

I have no problem being part of a COUNTRY class. After all this fight is about the future of OUR COUNTRY: whether we will remain some sort of dope-crazed hippy’s utopian worker’s paradise, or whether we will restore the nation to a strong foundation built on solid ground that “(ALL) men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.�?

Though I have long lived in or near major centers of population, and have my degree from an institution with flaming kommies on its faculty, I have long felt more at home with COUNTRY folk. One of the pleasantest afternoons I ever spent was perched on an Appalachian cliff eavesdropping on some of the local good ol’ boys opining about hunting b’ar. I’d rather eat breakfast at Waffle House than the toniest restaurant in town, and consider lunch at EATS manna from heaven. The best meal I ever ate was a hot dog roasted over a campfire in the mountains above Taos. Though I am familiar with the works of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and their like, I greatly prefer the works influenced by disciples of A.P., Sara and Mother Maybelle, Mississippi John Hurt, Bill Monroe, Robert Johnson and The Stanley Brothers.

The problem is not with COUNTRY folk, it’s with their self-anointed betters looking through their arrogant nostrils and snorting their disgust at their imagined inferiors.

COUNTRY FOLK provided the bulk of the sweat, blood and tears that made us once the greatest country ever. Our task is to put our feet firmly back on the path through the wilderness of elitism they courageously blazed for us.
Gill O’Teen �?✡$
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“I'd play Sally Goodin all day if I could
“But the Lord and my wife wouldn't take it very good
“So I fiddle when I can and I work when I should
“Thank God I'm a country boy.�? - John Denver
Only 919 days to go.

Margie| 7.16.10 @ 6:54PM

Corn on the cob wrapped in foil and roasted over a campfire is unbelievable delicious as well. :^)

bobbcat| 7.17.10 @ 1:40PM

Corn on the cob wrapped in foil (seasoned with butter, spices and a little salt) and baked is the only way to eat it. JMO.

Texas mom| 8.6.10 @ 4:33PM

Don't forget the course ground black pepper!

Gill O’Teen �?✡$| 7.16.10 @ 2:53PM

I neglected to point out that a certain Man named Jesus, the Son of a carpenter, was quite adept at reading deep within the souls of men. When it came time for Him to go about His Father’s work, he chose his assistants not from the Temple, nor the Herodians, not even from the Romans. Instead he chose from the Country folk who labored with great toil fishing the local lake. Overall, I think those rednecks did a pretty good job building His Church.
Gill O’Teen �?✡$
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“Now as He walked by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed Him.�? - Mark 1:16-18
Only 919 days to go.

Margie| 7.16.10 @ 6:59PM

"For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost." Lk. 19:10.

~The arrogant have no need for a Savior. They're too good (and too smart) for Jesus. Only the lost and humble need apply.

JimP| 7.16.10 @ 9:25PM

Jesus and the Redneck Disciples. I like it!

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 12:48AM

Amen brother!

Wilson| 7.26.10 @ 6:05PM

Jesus was a Socialist.

Granny3| 8.5.10 @ 7:00PM

you have to read the whole thing & just not the verses you approve of

scotchieguy| 7.17.10 @ 12:58AM

Mr. Tex, you are too much of what they call down 'der in ole Texas a "simpl' ton." Maybe, you need everything spelled out in idiot terms, but this guy had some things to say. It just might take you and your ADD types a little longer than thirty seconds for it to register.

The author is saying we as a nation are in serious trouble. The people representing us, really are not representing us in the least. It is all a "good ole boys club," and if you don't belong, well, screw you. That means most of us citizens.

Most people have no idea how laws get passed. The people who pass the laws--congressmen and senators--simply don't waste their time "reading the laws." They delegate that to the "bureaucrats" that make our lives miserable. Nixon, when he passed EPA, had no clue as to what would specifically be in the details. Barry is the same. He couldn't care less what specifically is in the health care bill or stimulus bill. This is the truly worrisome part of how it all works out...the people you elect are really not even aware of what is in the laws they pass. They are too busy chumming up to the other elites (business and corporate types) to care for much of what us peasants really want in life.

The problem is something is eventually gonna give...the system will burst...people will freak...best cover your arse.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:33PM

You do realize that all of Congress spends 75% of their time chasing dollars for campaigning ? Take the money out of politics and you'll have a Congressional class worthy of America. Until the almighty dollar loses it's power in politics, nothing will change. Whether by corruption, cheating, or stealing those in power will find a way to override your vote every time.

Gabe| 7.26.10 @ 9:25PM

You might as well propose cleaning up porn films by taking out all the nudity.

Gabe| 7.26.10 @ 9:26PM

Unless you are one of those people who hates the 1st amendment.

Pecos Pete| 7.16.10 @ 9:26AM

Excellent analysis.

AMENFRO| 7.16.10 @ 6:36PM

BRAVO, BRAVO BRAVO Abasolute Dynamite Sir Sincerely thank you. I remain in your debt!!!

Finally mine thirst for something Relevant has been posted. Not that it matters to anybody but me but I'm estatic.

A real thinker not merely parroting the daily line with their little tidbits of purported knowledge shaping a story easily grasped by far less than their bloviations exhaled flatulently!! Crassless & cravenlessly devoid of caps enough for you ignoramuses???.

It is so good to know that somebody understands exactly what the hail we are going through out here.

It tisn't what ya know its who you blow. Right Mr Intern. I remember my morbidly obese boss telling me in my annual review exactly that. Its not that you do a good job & full well run your ship like a well oiled clock, you don't know that being good is not what it is all about. You don't kiss my buttocks & take the bullet for junior down there screwing up. His DADDY has been with the company allot longer than you.

Did I strike a nerve junior. Not you Pecos. I agree with you I'm just just tweaking our hall monitor chosen from thousands probable due to exactly what this excellent analysis infers.

AMENFRO| 7.16.10 @ 6:40PM

The Twerp has deleted my post three times due to me pointing out a few things to his young thinskined most likely connected personage

ds80| 7.16.10 @ 9:33AM

Quit yer whining. I strongly suspect the author did not consider, for even one single moment, to write his article to please only you.

hardcard| 7.16.10 @ 9:35AM

FYI: Old Texican we live in a democratic republic, and take that chip off your shoulder.

Ret. Marine| 7.17.10 @ 8:20AM

Wrong numb-nuts, We live in a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC, educated idiots are many aren't they?

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:37PM

Wrong, idiot brain - we live in a Representative Democratic Republic Government ... You do know what the terms mean, right? As opposed to what the brain children, Beck, Rush, Hannity feed you with at the trough of revisionist history and political histrionics.

GavInTucson| 7.18.10 @ 12:56AM

Actually, it's just a Republic (read Article 4, section 4 of the Constitution). The founders never made mention of a "Representative this" or "Democratic that."

It's a Republic, folks. Throwing descriptive words in front of Republic is just useless grasping at semantics.

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 7:01PM

Thank you, you made my point - you DON'T know what the terms mean.

If you care to understand more about the details, knowing that the Founders philosophy of government came largely from Locke and Rousseau - follow this link:
http://library.thinkquest.org/.....cracy.html

"Modern American democracy is in the form of a democratic republic or a representative democracy." Take your pick... it's NOT just a Republic, that is simply a political distinction, not government structure.

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 9:31PM

Great source PG - that's a childrens site. It says its a site for students, by students. Why not try the founders instead or the federalist papers!

Granny3| 8.5.10 @ 7:02PM

Yes, by reading the original documents. That's revisionist, all right!

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.16.10 @ 9:38AM

A perfect example of what the author was referring to just unfolded and gets little mention in the press, who are part of the elite and part of the problem.

Warren Buffett, who feels you need to pay more taxes, and also happens to be a major investor in Goldman Sachs, stops by the White House for a visit.

Shortly thereafter Goldman Sachs agrees to pay a 550 million dollar fine, a four day paycheck for Goldman Sachs.

They should have been on the hook for at least a trillion.

In the meantime, a financial regulations bill was passed which does not lead to transparency and the American public is still on the hook for 24 trillion in covered obligations.

The author is dead on.

AMENBRO| 7.16.10 @ 10:33AM

And so are you. The list far exceed the limits of the abilities our intern monitor grasps.

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 1:09AM

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were to a large degree responsible for the initial collapse and now they're the architects for the new financial reform bill? Great, that's just great!

“Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God [Exodus 18:21]. . . . If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.�? Noah Webster, The History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1832), pp. 336-337, 49

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:00AM

That's it, right there, that's all of it, in Noah Webster's history. The people were happy to be led astray and neglected their duty. The churches went liberal in the 19th Century, and it's been downhill ever since. There is no fear of God among the people at large.

Just bread and circuses. But the bread is running out fast.

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 9:36PM

Luckily, they and Soros all invested early in the Brazilian oil Petrobras so they can profit when Obama shut down drilling here.

Chalkdust| 7.16.10 @ 9:42AM

Thanks so much Mr. Codevilla for a real life "Erecka so thats how the pieces fit together!" moment. I know I'll keep a copy close by to remind me to prepare always.

Bob K.| 7.16.10 @ 10:01AM

This is a seminal article in the history of American Political Science!

The American Spectator deserves the highest accolades for printing it!

Grzmlyk| 7.16.10 @ 10:04AM

The craven and corrupt nature of the GOP should be indisputable after the disgraceful acquiescence to Sotomayor and the impending panting prostration of Republicans before Kagan (the few token rumblings of disquiet notwithstanding).

I could pick dozens of examples in the last congressional session alone, but for the sake of brevity, those two instances of the GOP folding like a three-dollar suitcase are more than enough to pronounce them guilty as accessories to the willful destruction of American Exceptionalism in the name of political power.

And why have we allowed this?

The popular culture of this country has, in a mere 60 years, so corroded our values and inflicted the morality of a vanity-inspired false consciousness that, as a people, we are now invested in a wholly fictional mythos, a Potemkin construct that our wealth and our self-satisfaction have seduced us into believing we can abandon reality for.

It is too late to turn back; when even the "good guys" (the GOP) are in on the grift, and have no problem with burning down our sovereignty just so they can keep flying in their private jets and be treated like royalty instead of the abject morons most of them are, there is nowhere to turn.

Just as Rome collapsed after enduring a series of increasingly balkanizing, corrupt and inept leaders, so too America's nadir has been reached with Obama and the handwriting is on the wall. The fact that there still a single person on this planet who doesn't see through this utterly corrupt, adolescent, destructive malevolent IDIOT shocks me on a daily basis. Truly.

But hey, he hardly stands out among the puffed-up morality fops, crooks and true believers who populate our houses of congress and, increasingly, the growing litany of tumescent and illegitimate bureaucracies that are choking the life out of this country even as I type these words.

Hence the inevitable collapse of a once-great culture and a once unequalled republic.

As a people, we have turned this country into a tower of Babel. The last fifty years have seen our elitists mistake the sham Marxism that undergirds their academic theories about social engineering and platitudes about social justice and diversity and saving the planet for a god-like mandate to "improve" those of us who are beneath them even as they live in unprecedented decadence and luxury on our backs.

We are about to pay the price for our collective folly and, sadly, it is richly deserved.

scotchieguy| 7.17.10 @ 1:13AM

Yeah, well what about Bush? He started it! Shouldn't we blame him? Afterall, Barry--er, prez Obama...ah f*** it! I can't even be a smart ass...I'm flaming fast........aaaaaaahhhhh! We're all gonna die! Save us, Barry, save us!

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 1:31AM

Grzmlyk, well said. We've been on this road since the beginning of the 1900s I like your analogy to ancient Rome it would seem collectively we are disregarding the lessons of history so I guess we're doomed to repeat. As the Visigoths came through the gates of Rome and began stacking it the citizens were being entertained in the arena, today many of our people are entertained by the bachelorette and dancing with the stars while their country may very well follow the Roman civilization onto the trash heap of history.

Grzmlyk| 7.17.10 @ 12:33PM

Yes, Achilles, it seems the bread and circuses always become more inane the further down the tubes a country goes. And as we go down the rabbit hole of moral vanity and free lunches, we flush our country down the toilet.

Among its many pathologies, liberalism is a cancer - when it succeeds unchecked it kills its host and dies with it. It is a nihilistic, suicidal, hypocritical canard.

There are three, and only three, kinds of liberals:

The fools - true believers who don't know what the word "utopia" means in Greek;
The pawns - the ignorant and duped grunts in the system who enjoy the short-term benefits of the "largess" of redistribution even as the long-term ramifications spell destruction (see LBJ's Great Society and the current black out-of-wedlock birth rates);
The crooks: These are the ruling elites, the crony capitalists and the realpolitik ideologues whose unholy alliance allows them to exploit the fools and the pawns with impunity.

They have won the day, and for proof you need look no further than today's emasculated GOP.

America used to be a sturdy structure, able to withstand hardship, demographic changes and the viscissitudes of global politics.

Liberalism has compromised that structure and it is, without question, doomed to collapse. And within one decade.

Human nature never changes, and unfortunately, there's a reason why the truly good people are vastly outnumbered by the miscreants who pose as good people.

Franklin| 7.17.10 @ 6:39PM

The Republicans are lost ... they lost their way in the pursuit of power and forget why they were really elected.

the rifleman| 7.27.10 @ 1:14PM

Read the Article again-it was the ruling class George Bush who told commie Gorby that Reagan was in effect, the enemy. Let me see-2 Bushes ,1 Bobba, 1 Dumbama-4 ruling class jackasses.

Bob K| 7.16.10 @ 10:13AM

Ken (Old Texican),
Respectfully (and sadly), I don't believe you spent enough time on this article.

Mimi| 7.16.10 @ 10:16AM

Yes, the article was long. It gave the ruling class too much POWER! The question simply is.....where are we NOW? It has taken the " Ruling Class " at present to go to the extremes of the extreme to awaken the American people.... we all know about the non-voters....Are they going to go to the polls this year?.....Has registration rolls increased? ...By how much?....I believe, and hope and pray the massive , non-voterof 2008 will be the ones to save AMERICA! Why? Because the " Country " side need a profound, historic, huge......VICTORY

Anthony| 7.16.10 @ 10:16AM

I wholeheartedly agree that this article is spot on. Whatever moniker one chooses to place upon the ruling elites and those of us who consider ourselves common sense Americans, the ruling elites had better understand that we will not go quietly into the night.
It's happend before in this great country, it can happen again.

scotchieguy| 7.17.10 @ 1:16AM

Sadly, not when half the country is busy watching American Idol and reading about Bristo Palin in Us magazine...admit it, we're screwed.

Blackwatch| 7.17.10 @ 6:45PM

Hey cuz! How's the highlands?

The brain dead population of America will go along with whoever wins the comming struggle. By definition they don't plan ahead, won't participate, and they are willing to be lead to a slaughter as long as they believe that their leaders are "good" and that there will always be a "rule of law." It will be a sad day for them when the Progressives fangs are shown.

Now with that said let's get too it. Only about 10% of the population in this country is willing to fight. The union/anarchist/statist crowd vs. the Patriot/Conservative crowd. We had better prepare ourselves locally for direct action. When the putsch comes from the left will you be ready?

Your foe will come for you with someone you trust, or with a local uniforned cop--because they want you to believe that the rule of law is still in effect. Courage and preparation citizens the time grows close.

Texas Mom| 8.6.10 @ 4:40PM

If they come, I am not giving up my rights or my guns or the bullets they have tried to price out of my reach.

james wilson| 7.16.10 @ 10:27AM

It is not a revolution you describe, it is a rebellion. The revolution took place in The Great Depression, peacefully, almost without a struggle, but government will not give back that power peacefully. You will not out-revolution the revolutionaries, you will only be playing a version of their game. There is not one Republican pretender that has shown himself willing to step outside of that box.

Kellee| 7.16.10 @ 12:37PM

"There is not one Republican pretender that has shown himself willing to step outside of that box."

So what do you do? Most people know we need a change, a serious change, but most of the candidates are spewing the same old crap.

You have one kind of Progressive vs. another kind of Progressive. You vote for the lesser of two evils, but you still get a Progressive. When the only people running for office are in the "ruling class", how can you expect things to change?

Sure, some may try to repeal the health care bill, but as this article has made clear this is just one of many things that need to be changed. Who out there is willing to even attempt to take on all of these issues? On top of it all, a person who is willing to fight for term limits, a person that is willing to say we do not have the right to give ourselves raises without a vote of the people, we do not have the right to make ourselves exempt from those taxes and laws that we require of every other American citizen.

This person (that is any person running for office) doesn’t exist. So what do you do?

pugsley| 7.16.10 @ 5:16PM

I will tell you what you do. First you take back congress and jam the lawn jockey. Then you start to illuminate the public to what has been done to them for the last 100 years (the reason for dumbing down the schools) and get the people involved in this revolution everyone is barking about. It isn't this group or that group but the American People that will do this heavy lifting. The article quite rightly points out we are the majority so start acting like it people. You can not be ruled unless you allow yourselves to be ruled. Can it be done? As I have said before, tell me which side the military will come down on and I will tell you what will happen. Do I know? Yes I do, I have many friends in the military and have been assured they are watching and ready to step in if need be but they will not sit idly by and watch this great nation be turned into Russian 2.0. So there it is, take it or leave it but the time for sitting on the sideline is about over for everyone. The goal of these freak progressives is to break the middle class emotionally, financially, spiritually, physically down to our knees. You see, people on their knees broke and hungry are very easy to rule with very small incitives, food, shelter and health care. Make no mistake, one election will not do the job this is a fight for the ages and we are all in it. Soon our money may not be worth the paper it is printed on so trying to stay in the shadows because of monetary concerns will not matter. Soon everyone will be forced to take a side and then the fireworks will begin. Again, waiting on some bolt of lightning to strike and make it all better is not an option so get ready because there is a storm coming to every town or city in this country very soon.

scotchieguy| 7.17.10 @ 1:25AM

Unfortunately, you are preaching to the choir--maybe 10% of the nation. The rest are sitting on their fat arses, eating doritos, and watching cartoons. You overestimate the intelligence of whomever remains in this once great republic. Too bad. Your argument would be so much more persuasive a hundred years ago....

Bigfoot| 7.17.10 @ 12:26AM

It cannot be done by reforming the federal government or electing revolutionary figures. The powers are too deeply entrenched and the opposition too diverse and disorganized. An armed uprising of the citizenry would bring anarchy and then a despot would come to power. The way it will be done is by states reasserting their rights under the 10th amendment and refusing to obey federal mandates and federal beaurocracy. I could see Texas leading the way, followed by South Carolina and then by the rest of the Old South. Many of the western states would join the rebellion. As the scenario plays out it might go as far as the secession of some states, but this time there would not be the taint of slavery. The issue would be federalism and the role of government. The union would once again be split. Would another madman like Lincoln then send the army to invade and start another bloodbath? Would the army do it this time?

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:21AM

This is what I hear being discussed on other sites as well, Bigfoot. Since the Left won't leave us alone and is intentionally smothering all that remains breathing of our Founding ethos, it is time for the states to act. The central government will either be put in its place and whittled down to size by the states or there will be secession.

Nuff said for now.

bobbcat| 7.17.10 @ 1:50PM

"The central government will either be put in its place and whittled down to size by the states or there will be secession. "

Who will put the central gov't in its place, and how exactly is that to be done successfully?

The time for secession is now. JMO.

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 12:12PM

I can assure you, with absolute certainty, that we Americans who love this indivisible nation, will not allow any traitors to divide it. Any effort to dismember the Union would be met with swift and decisive action by our loyal men and women in the Armed Forces, police and national guard. Period.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 2:26PM

The traitors, RCV, are the Left and their useful idiots (see grzmlyk above) who have for a century worked relentlessly and insidiously to undermine this once indivisible nation. One entitlement after another at the hands of the federal kleptocracy -- leading us now to the very edge of bankrupcy, anti-Constitutional decisions handed down by the courts undermining our inalienable rights, and a determined and deliberate attack in our public schools to undermine the authority of parents and to teach children a statist and godless worldview in direct violation of the parents' Constitutional right to pass on to their children their Christian faith, this is what has DIVIDED this nation.

While our side has been complacent and many families struggle from dawn to dusk to make ends meet, the termite Left has been destroying our country. They are the traitors. And now that our side is finally awakening to the Left's long march through our institutions and recognizing the almost certainly suicidal damage they've done to this country, we are are coalescing for action -- within the law -- to reverse the tide. And of course we're going to see the Left and its cronies all a dither and in a sweat. We expect you to try to beat us down and try to intimidate us, to marginalize us, mock us, and thoroughly trash us as you feel threatened. Well, hell, it's about time.

The more talk like yours, RCV, I hear from people like you the more hope I have that our efforts are having the desired effect. So keep it coming. We're going to be giving you plenty to complain about as we work INSIDE the system, just as you guys did when you wrecked this ship upon the shoals.

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 2:46PM

Darcy: There's nothing new about apocalyptic reactionaries like you. You've been around since the birth of our glorious republic. Washington had to deal with you during the Whiskey Rebellion, your Know-nothing movement railed against Catholics, Jews and immigrants, you fought to keep the vote from women and tried to keep Asians out of the West. Your America-First movement tried to stop FDR from fighting Hitler, and then you fought against civil rights. Your latest manifestations are militia movements, fighting the teaching of evolution, and trying to convince Americans that the sky is falling. In fact, we live in the freest, most prosperous and greatest nation on earth. Thank God you do, and stop your pitiful whining.

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 2:47PM

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 5:12PM

Americans don't need me to convince them the country is falling apart. And if YOU can't see it it is only due to your willful blindness or agreement with it.

130 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities? Oh? You didn't see that story? or the one about homosexuality being mainstreamed through our elementary school curriculum -- thank you safe-schools czar Kevin Jennings and your boss the diabolical Obama. Maybe these are examples of CURRENT fractures of which you approve?

Yes, it would be so much better for you and yours if we conservatives would just roll over and play dead, keep our mouths shut, tune into American Idol, and let you have your way with us.

Not Going To Happen.

And while we're at it:

. . . "fighting the teaching of evolution" . . . This one little phrase demonstrates perfectly and proves my point about the liberal assault on religious freedom. Parents have a right to train up their children in orthodox Christianity; but the Left -- whose god is reason and science -- seeks to IMPOSE its worldview on students in our public schools (thank you John Dewey and the ACLU, to name but two).

But instead of respecting our First Amendment Right to free exercise of religion, nooooooo -- you guys seek to nip religion in the bud all together by inculcating in American students of public schools a disrespect for the values and beliefs of their parents. You people stink to high heaven.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:48PM

Perhaps you missed this part in school, but schools are neutral with regard to religion. It is you who is upset that you cannot inculcate your own because reason and logic must be winning out.
The Founders of this country were men of the enlightenment and believed in science and technology as drivers of the economy. Benjamin Franklin was a premier scientist of his day and Alexander Hamilton laid out industrial policy for the fledging nation in his Treatise on Manufactures.

Sure some were religious men, but religion did not drive their daily regimen, nor were they slaves to their religion. In fact, Thomas Paine remarked "My church is in my own mind" ... he was not beholded to any human intervention, whether Christian, Jewish, or Turkish(his words) - The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine, 1794.

"Stink to high heaven" - what a lovely, blasphemous Christian belief. If THOSE are your values, I'm glad no one is being inculcated with them.

granny3| 8.5.10 @ 7:09PM

You are delusional then. My daughter was forced to stop saying a blessing over her lunch by the high school principal. This person told her not to pray there anymore. So my daughter moved to a different spot in the cafeteria and prayed there. Good thing she wasn't caught again.
Government is supposed to protect religious freedom, but apparently not in our schools.

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 10:26PM

You absolutely have the right to the free exercise of religion, a right I would vigorously fight to defend. I've represented churches in free exercise cases and consider that right fundamental to our liberties. You are free to teach your children any religious tenets you believe, orthodox or otherwise. But schools and government are not vehicles for you inculcate others with you particular religious beliefs. It is a place to teac science and math and literature and history. If the teaching of those disciplines somehow contradicts you religious orthodoxy, in this country at least, you are free to send your children to religious schools. We had an election in 2008, and your side lost. That happens. Get over it. Work to convince your fellow citizens of the rightness of your cause. If you've read any history, you know that political winds blow back and forth. But the Republic will endure, Darcy. Count you blessings and relax.

Nick| 7.17.10 @ 2:37PM

RCV,

I wouldn't be so sure, if I were you.
Have you served in the military?

Remember, the former Soviet Union broke apart without a shot being fired.
If lefties keep pushing us, anything is possible.

By the way, did you read that article on Galileo yet?

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 2:49PM

I missed the cite, Nick. Can you repost it? Thanks.

RCV| 7.17.10 @ 2:52PM

...and we're not the Soviet Union, which was a pastiche of disparate nations and cultures incorporated by force by the Tsars and the Bolshevik thugs.

carnot| 7.19.10 @ 10:23AM

sir...you are a clown......your notion of "The Union" begins to lose all content at some point. What is there to "The Union" if i is changed beyond all recognition IRT its original precepts? People ultimately risk their lives for principles - not some temporal poltical associaiton labeled "The Union".

Union of what?

texas mom| 8.6.10 @ 4:41PM

Look for more Gov Christies! Support them around the country and never give up!

Petronius| 7.16.10 @ 10:34AM

An excellent analysis of the engine of Federal oppression. Too bad that even a wholesale turnover of every elective office will not stop them because those who wield real power are not in the government. They run it from their K St. suites. Those committee chairmen running the hearings are their donkey show whose mission is to confuse and misdirect the public while concealing their malfeasance. Lobbies, law firms , unions, foundations, academics, consultants, and their media pimps cannot be voted out.
These people and the government they own are using Winfield Scot's anaconda policy of slowly squeezing all nonconformists to death. And when it comes they will say it was self inflected. So long as we are comfortable in our little corners, there will be no revolt.
In order to maintain the little Freedom we have left we must build an underground economy to sustain ourselves and a communications network structured in small groups which overlap. This one won't be around much longer.

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.16.10 @ 10:41AM

Bob K,
I am cursed with an eidetic memory in something I have read. (smile) I have very few books I can bear to read again...only a very few fiction books as well except when the characters become my fantasy friends. WEB Griffin's soldiers and Marines are some of my closest friends of that nature.

Damn it, Bob...I simply refuse to acknowledge that we have a "Ruling Class". As Grz stated above,

""It is too late to turn back; when even the "good guys" (the GOP) are in on the grift, and have no problem with burning down our sovereignty just so they can keep flying in their private jets and be treated like royalty instead of the abject morons most of them are, there is nowhere to turn.""

Bob, it is fairly shocking to me that none of you really bright and articulate readers have not picked up on my conclusions concerning "citizen referendums" as a possible solution, and never that I read did Mr. Codevilla. Did I miss something?

I was hoping someone might pop up with "Yeah and how about a constitutional convention that votes upon "recall" of Representatives as well?"
Best regards

Bob K.| 7.16.10 @ 2:43PM

Ken,
We did have something like a referendum for the US Senate every 6 years. But then, in 1913 I believe, the 17th amendment was passed allowing them to be elected by the populace and then came the age of Television where the Media was the Massage and we ended up with the likes of Specter, Schumer, Kennedy, Dodd and McCain et al who fancied themselves princes in the American Kingdom and were treated as such by a fawning media. We could start with a constitutional convention containing a provision in it to repeal that odious mistake and then move on to an amendment to recall House members.

But in all societies throughout history there have been ruling classes and there was always class warfare and the rulers devised methods and subterfuges that divided the under classes and drew their attention away the rulers maneuvering to retain power. The revolutions and rebellions happened when the forces of history and economics came about in such combinations that the ruling classes could no longer maintain their powers by traditional methods. And the genius of Professor Codevilla's essay is that he recognizes that this is one of those historical times. And he illustrates it with the examples he cites.

"In the nightmare of the dark,
All the beltway bassetts bark,
And the voters out there wait,
Each sequestered in their hate!"

Apologies to W. H. Auden.

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 1:48AM

Bob K, the idea of opening up our Constitution for revision in the convention causes me great concern considering how easy it has been up to now to deceive and manipulate the American people after decades of being dumbed down by our government schools and media propaganda, we could risk losing more than we could gain. I would like to trust the majority of the American people more than that but I guess we'll see come November how much the people have woken up and if they've learned anything.

Angelo Codevilla| 7.16.10 @ 5:18PM

Citizen referenda are fine things. Switzerland lives by them. Thereby it has limited much harm fromon high.

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.17.10 @ 12:20PM

Mr. Codevilla,
Thank you for dropping in.

I apologize again for my harsh words above. I have been studying our nation's situation very hard the last couple of years.

Your article certainly nailed down the many thorns on "the cactus", but due to my studies, I had already pretty much gotten my hands around the darned cactus.

Obviously, many fine folks here soaked up your in-depth article like a glass of cool water, at the edge of the desert.
I have written some forward leaning/looking articles at www.myteamusa.org I hope you will sip a cool drink there.

Sir,
I am desperately trying to head off a national blood-bath/die-back.
I am trying to imagine peaceful roads back to liberty and prosperity for our country, but every one of the alternative roads I can chart are terribly steep uphill climbs, with LOTS of dangerous curves, switchbacks, and crumbling verges.
(I am very afraid that widespread dislocations of the basic necessities of life are on the immediate horizon. Picture in your own mind millions of starving citizens boiling out of our cities, and the anarchy/gubmint crackdowns, that would ensue.)
Perhaps what frightens me more is the seemingly purposeful actions of the present administration toward those kinds of breakdowns.

Please note the article here linked, and kindly suggest some methods of stopping the hemorrhaging. So far, I have not discovered a method. http://townhall.com/columnists.....as_it_gone
I don’t have the numbers and descriptions at hand, but in the 1930s…a HUGELY…larger percentage of Americans made their living on family farms. Those farms could be operated with horse drawn plows…or even human drawn plows for subsistence living….and the farmers knew how to sustain their farm with next year’s seeds etc. (If you want to have nightmares for the next couple of months, read the new book, “The Last Centurion�?, by John Ringo. )
PS: Folks “preparation�? is not defined as “hoarding�?. It is merely prudent saving for the rainy day.
Please, Mr. Codevilla, help us chart a course into the future in your next article.

Ralph| 7.17.10 @ 9:58PM

You are spot on. We are in a very difficult mess. With the loading up of the supreme court with more liberals this will not turn around unless it is the time for Our Lord and Savior Jesus to return.

bobbcat| 7.17.10 @ 1:54PM

"Yeah and how about a constitutional convention that votes upon "recall" of Representatives as well?"

Who has the courage to do that? I cannot think of a soul.

TG| 7.16.10 @ 10:42AM

a wonderful cogent thesis. I've been saying for years the "red state/blue state" dichotomy is false. Instead this is an "urban" v. "rural" mindset or cultural divide.

My problem is I reject Codevilla's two-thirds v. one-thirds argument. It's probably more 60/40 and out of our 60% how many are happy in the comfortable cocoon? How many are truly willing to do what it takes to affect real change? I fear not enough. Not at least until some horrible game-changer.

No, as per Derbyshire, I think we should teach our kids something useful: like gun-smithing or growing potatoes. We're in for some dark days.

Pete| 7.16.10 @ 11:35AM

TG,

I am with you on the split and it is terriying to see what lengths the current regime will go to tip the balance. The massive increase in government jobs, the renewed push to unionize, illegal amnesty, etc.... They know that once they hit the tipping point, they are on easy street and then only path out is armed revolt. It never ceases to amaze me how the disciples of the ruling class don't realize that the joke is on them, too. They get to feel good, I suppose, that they go along with the ruling class "approved" views on this or that, but at the end of the day, they are just being used like everyone else.

bobbcat| 7.17.10 @ 2:00PM

"How many are truly willing to do what it takes to affect real change?"

Good question. The entitlement mentality is so deeply entrenched (even among those in the 'country' class), I am afraid the percentage of those willing to stick their necks out is far too low. Not to mention the widespread ignorance that pervades out there, prompting even more people not to do 'what it takes' to effect real change.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 10:45AM

Tea Party Patriots Mission Statement and Core Values

Mission Statement
The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.

Core Values

* Fiscal Responsibility
* Constitutionally Limited Government
* Free Markets

The Tea Party Rebellion Escalates .

Rise Up !

Andy Texan| 7.16.10 @ 11:55PM

For the first time have I sympathy for the Paris masses during the French Revolution. Generally, I have been with the aristos. The anger is now palpable with a longed for desire to re-establish Madam Guillotine in Washington DC.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 6:59PM

The Founders weren't afraid of Government - they were afraid of absolutism - the Monarchy and the King. They gave us the tools to create the union we have today through the Constitution and it's institutions spawned by it.

Limited government gave us a limited country. We changed that after the Civil War and this country has been better for it. The Transcontinental Railroad, the Interstate Highway system, the Manhattan Project, the Moon Landing, the National Park system - none would have been possible without the concerted efforts of a strong central government partnered with business. Not a totally free market, but regulated free market capitalism is what has made this country great and prosperous (it didn't hurt we were self-sufficient in many raw materials and energy).

So the Tea Party principles are an outdated, romantic reminder of a time none of us lived in, but dream about how much better life was when life was at a slower pace and papa was the king of his castle. Also true though was that disease was rampant, the life expectancy was barely past 40 year of age, and life was hard. You can still live that kind of life - just give up all the creature comforts and securities the government you hate so much has put around you; so much so, you take it for granted - just move to a remote area of the country and practice colonialism. But leave the rest of us moderners alone.

Blackwatch| 7.17.10 @ 7:40PM

sure we'll leave you alone. what is your address? during the purge I'll make sure you aren't bothered. :)

you certainly have cherry picked all of the "good" of the last century. too bad almost all of that was paid for by deficit financing.

too bad for you that we are out of money boy. europe is out of money too. China has money--but they are wising up and will shortly not loan us money. So we the common everyday folk would like our master race leaders to please just stop spending our unborn grandchildrens money like there is no tomorrow.

for example $20,000,000 was just spent on $10,000 each "propaganda" signs for all that great Obama DOT work that is occuring. I have noticed several in my general area. Why did we spend money on this? Because the government could. So they did. I for one would like to take that sign and make a cell out of it for my Senators Boxer and Feinstein. Too of the most corrupt women ever to scourge this planet.

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 6:42PM

I would take your arguments more seriously, if you were touting it for the last 3o years, when Republican presidents and congresses were adding to the deficit like drunken sailors - yes, that includes Reagan, who said deficits don't matter, along with his buddy Dick Cheney. They didn't care if the bankrupt the country, just so they could "kill the beast"- their words, not mine.

Oh, and $20MM was spent on signs - who do you think made the signs? A magician? - someone was paid for them, which put people to WORK - not that you could figure that out, you're so blinded by selfishness and greed. So Christian of you.

Penguin| 7.28.10 @ 12:53AM

Yes, reagan added to the deficit, but mainly in reinstituting our national defense, (the military) which carter had devastated. However, he did shrink the size of government. But why go to the past like all you progressives (marxists) do today. Obama has tripled what GW Bush did and he spent way too much. And those signs? How on earth do they contribute to the economy? they employ some peaple for a limited amount of time, do not produce anything that adds to the economy and they are paid for by our tax dollars. How in hell does that help the economy long-term?

Purpleguy| 7.30.10 @ 4:24PM

So your program would be what? Tax cuts?
Stop all government spending? No Soc Security, No Medicare, No defense, don't pay the debt interest? That's 75% -80% of the government's budget.

You, sir, will never have to worry about being asked to join Mensa ...

Tom Osterman| 7.18.10 @ 1:43PM

I must respectfully disagree that "Limited government gave us a limited country." The industrialization of the U.S. took place without any help from the government. The major inventions, like the airplane, the electric light bulb and computers, got here without subsidy or direction from the government. The achievements you mentioned have all come at the come at the price of a bloated bureaucracy, a mass of complicated and contradictory regulations, and a legislative branch that, in defiance of the people's wishes and sound fiscal policy, refuses even to hold the line on spending, much less cut back.

The "limited country" you hold in contempt may or may not be as good a place as one could want, but at least it's a viable country. The government we have now is driving itself and the rest of us over a cliff!

Purpleguy| 7.18.10 @ 6:53PM

You need to read more about your history buddy. You do know the first computer was created by the Government, called Eniac (or was it Univac?)? In any case, they were both government owned and operated. As is the Interstate Highway systems, and the Internet was started by DARPA, closer to our own times.

"The government we have now is driving itself -and the rest of us over a cliff! " - I'll agree that the government we just got rid of under Bush WAS driving us off the cliff, not paying for anything and tripling the debt, but you do realize that if the country has a balanced budget for 15 years, most, if not all, the national debt is paid off? You do know that when the government stops borrowing, as bonds come due, they are paid off, and if no new bonds are issued, slowly we simply become completely whole again. You do know that, right?

The chicken little scenario is the typical Republican scare tactic - OMG, we have to invade Iraq, those WMD's will git us! OMG we can't pass healthcare reform - we'll kill grandma! Helping the Banks and Auto companies is nationalizing the industries.... Ah, quick Socialism, be afraid, be very afraid. And, now, quick, the country's gonna crash, stop Social Security and Medicare, don't raise taxes - be afraid of that at all costs! Don't you people have better ammunition? Do you really think the American people fall for your crap?

Penguin| 7.28.10 @ 1:08AM

What drove us off the cliff in the 90's was the socialist belief that everyone should be able to have their own home. so, in a nutshell, the democrat congress lead by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank got the bill passed and forced banks to overlook credit problems and gave loans to those who never could afford them. banks then sold these loans to freddy-Mac and Fanny-Mae; dodd and Frank profited imensely, Bush warned against the debacle but was in a minority. another attemmpt to spread the wealth that failed and has brought us to where we are. Iraq was approved by a democratic congress who were given all of the same so-called intelligence. Bush was president so he gets the blame? Your democrat congress a;;roved! as well as most all other nations. Nobody is advocating the end of social security. We just think most folks could do better investing their own money for a better return than the federal govt who by the way has bankrupt the program, or soon will. Medicare is already bankrupt. Yes, we all are becoming wise to the crap that you and the main-stream media who carry your water are bloviating . . .

Purpleguy| 7.30.10 @ 4:21PM

No, you are wrong. I don't know why you brought up the '90's, but here in America, we almost went over the cliff in 2008, after 8 years of Bush policies.

You can blame the little guy in buying a house without the proper ability to pay, but the professionals are the ones at fault for allowing the risk. In "House of Cards", a book and a documentary, often seen on CNBC, explains that the serious problem started when Wall Street got involved creating CDOs from mortgages. With the removal of regulations, the Banks did not have any skin (capital) at risk in the game and sold off mortgages to be packaged by Wall Street into financial instruments (CDOs). Mortgages were sliced and diced, packaged and sold. Huge fees were collected and they couldn't care less what happened later.

Encouragement for home ownership is not the same as gaming the system, leaving the taxpayer holding the bag.
Not that everything at Fannie and Freddie was good, but we almost went over the cliff because of the money brokers on Wall Street and Big Bankville. The Republicans let Fannie and Freddie run wild, one year of Democratic control of Congress didn't cause this debacle, it was 12 years of Republican Congresses that did it, bud.

As far as Iraq, you are living in denial. Whether Congress, Republican or Democrat, green lighted Bush to make the decision to go to war, BUSH made the decision to go to war. It's his war, and the House was Republican, the Senate evenly split.

You want people to invest their Social Security $$$ - where, in the stock market? Please... let the government invest Social Security proceeds in the Stock market, if you believe that one. Soc Security is not broke, and won't be for nearly 30 years - it's a red herring, that since the Congress has borrowed the Social Security Trust fund and has to pay it back, doesn't mean it's broke. We just can't afford to be World Policeman anymore.

You really should learn something other than Fixed News blather - they have an agenda and you have drunk the Kool-Aid bud...

Bilwick| 7.16.10 @ 10:54AM

Decades ago I thought statists should stop misusing the old and honorable term "liberal" and start calling themselves "the New Tories." That was never truer than in the Age of Obama.

R Martin| 7.16.10 @ 11:19AM

An important and provocative piece by Mr. Codevilla which should prompt much comment. I’ll restrict mine to just two areas.

“…only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well.�?

This is alarming, and it focuses on an issue AS article commentary often address—Republican candidates. While we all have our views on specific candidates the polls, if accurate, suggest our choices have been weak. I’m not sure how to fix that, but it does need fixing and, as a start, we should demand better congressional leadership after the 2010 election, competent management in the Republican National Committee and a candidate in 2012 who is not a retread with baggage.

The other area that bothers me is how badly the ruling class has destroyed our faith and confidence in institutions which should command respect. Government in general and politicians in particular have become so dishonorable as to deserve disdain, the judiciary is overtly political-- unworthy of either trust or respect, science has become ideological and corrupt and the news media are so biased they no longer deserve constitutional protection.

There is a growing mood in the country to address and correct these problems, but the task is daunting and the urgency is great.

Franklin| 7.17.10 @ 7:02PM

The Republican Party is lost - they are trying to pre-empt the Tea Party and it's voters to their cause, which as the article clearly proves, is power for power's sake.

They need to be purged as do the Democrats, but as closer to our own, they must be held accountable for the Bush years, and the Tea Party candidate must win.

Cris Worth| 7.16.10 @ 11:28AM

You made an oblique reference to guns hence the ruling elites favor gun control. They view a well armed citizenry a threat to their existence. Also you forgot to mention the role of the Federal Reserve, the epitome of the ruling class living off the carcass of the middle class. JFK was a rebel too he tried to bypass the Federal Reserve by issuing debt free silver backed treasury notes in lieu of debt ridden federal reserve notes then died.

Ed| 7.16.10 @ 11:35AM

Thank you Professor Codevilla, you hit this one out of the park. If you are going to cure a disease, you have to understand the root causes of the disease before you can cure it. And the Democrat-Socialist regime that is now in power is a disease. My only quibble with the article is naming us the "Country Party", it just doesn't sound right.

The GOP might go the way of the Whigs; we need a political party that is dedicated to a small, limited, federal government. As Professor Codevilla has noted, too many professional Republicans are wedded to the idea of a ruling class.

Don Francisco| 7.17.10 @ 1:24AM

Again, the Patriot Class and the Patriot Party. It makes sense all the way around.

Len| 7.16.10 @ 11:59AM

No prominent republicans??

The writers here are guilty of the same "sin" they have accused others of, to disdain someone they see as not part of their establishment. Typical of the writers at this site to not want to bring attention to the one man in the congress who consistently seeks to uphold the US constitution.
There are those who have for a long time been aware of the ruling class and been opposed to it, they are for the most part libertarians, unfortunately the right wing progressives called social conservatives oppose these folks, because they also believe that they are a select class who should be making rules for others and guiding them in their life.
Amazingly they believe this despite their so called belief in the God of the bible. That God who sent his son as a SERVANT, not as a RULER. That God who as far as government is concerned emphasized his anger at injustice and oppression by the rulers, not establishing a government of this world that told people how to live. Paul and the apostles were dragged before the rulers, the so called christians here want to be the rulers dragging others before them.

Oh yeah, let's not forget conservatives desire to impose democracy on the rest of the world through the use of force.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 1:04PM

well said. thank you.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:37AM

Hogwash.

CalMark| 7.16.10 @ 2:23PM

Ron Paul is one of the primary Earmarks guys. What about that?

Also, Paul has been in Washington for decades. What about that? And yes, there are several true-blue conservatives who promised to leave the House after 6 years and did did so.

Ron Paul is a con man. He is just as much part of the establishment elite as anybody. He just has better PR.

Len| 7.16.10 @ 5:27PM

A good example of a lie. Ron Paul only votes on the allocation of earmarks AFTER they have already been voted for. He opposes them beforehand, but once the money is already going to be spent, he then makes sure that his district gets a percentage.

Thank you for providing an example of stupidity.

Gill O’Teen �?✡$| 7.16.10 @ 3:07PM

For those among us who are not as knowledgeable as you, would you please name “the one man in the congress who consistently seeks to uphold the US constitution.�? Appreciate it.
Gill O’Teen �?✡$
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
Diogenes still seeks an honest man.
Only 919 days to go.

Len| 7.16.10 @ 5:10PM

Ron Paul

Angelo Codevilla| 7.16.10 @ 5:21PM

Tom Coburn?

Len| 7.16.10 @ 5:37PM

Answered above.

Ken Smith| 7.16.10 @ 6:09PM

Yes! Tom Coburn may indeed be our best bet to find an honest - and I think competent, too, man. Thanks for this exceptionally enlightening explanation for "what's going on here?" But, a question which you didn't address if you will permit. What are we going to do about the committed debt of about 12-14 trillion $ even if we do forego the benefits of the "unfunded" entitlements?

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 7:04PM

Harry Reid.

Blue Strat| 7.28.10 @ 11:00PM

"Harry Reid"

...And they say Progressives don't have a sense of humor! :D

granny3| 8.5.10 @ 7:16PM

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

BS61| 8.14.10 @ 10:53PM

Jim DeMint I trust. And he is definitely an outsider in his own party.

JimP| 7.16.10 @ 9:37PM

Oh sheesh! Give us a break. You Paulistas are not going to convert anyone by bad mouthing people who are not Paulistas. I'm mostly a libertarian, but you Paulistas are so obnoxious that I would vote against Paul in primaries because of it. Also, what does Jesus have to do with the GOP, huh? This is just a way of trying to condemn those who are different than you and using God to do it. That is blasphemy. Judge not, lest you be judged... and Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Remember those? I guess I missed all the comments condemning Ron Paul on this thread NOT about Ron Paul where NO comments were made about Ron Paul. Just say no to drugs and go away.

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 2:14AM

I don't think it's entirely fair to say that conservatives desire to impose democracy by force, Bill Clinton in Bosnia for instance. I have never been supportive of so-called nationbuilding in the model of democracies I think it's a waste of money and American lives you can't buy freedom for someone else they have to earn it or they will not value it. I didn't like it when Clinton did it and I didn't like it when Bush did but in all fairness we had 9/11 and then there was those weapons of mass destruction Saddam had? But then the mission creep started and here we are.

The founding fathers had an eight step plan to bring freedom to the world but they envisioned it as doing it by example, unfortunately the United States was stalled out on step seven and now regresses from there. Every patriotic American appreciates and wants to support our troops once they're fighting but I'm afraid it would just be a matter of a few years after we leave the Middle East there will emerge in Iraq and Afghanistan democratically elected sharia law and oppression all over again and all the money and blood would be for nothing, a heart wrenching thought considering the sacrifices that were made.

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 7:06PM

Please tell us what the 8 step plan is ...

davelnaf| 7.16.10 @ 12:16PM

This well encapsulated history of how America got to the place it is in reads in places almost like a satire.

Maybe God has a sense of humor and has used the incompetence of the intellectually inbred ruling class to shock the rest of us (the majority) out of our complaisance about this country and ourselves. I would not go so far as to say that the hand of God Himself is behind Barack Hussein Obama’s ascendency to the presidency. This would be carrying the joke too far.

GOD| 7.16.10 @ 2:20PM

Dear David: Yes. I do have a sense of humor. Trust Me. I will make it tough on the American ruling class. I'm going to send an enemy to give them a good whipping. I haven't quite decided whether it will be the Muslims or the Chinese. Maybe both. Just keep your powder dry. GOD.

JimP| 7.16.10 @ 9:40PM

Dear Big Guy in the Sky,

I sure would like an M-60, with replacement barrel and oh, say 20,000 rounds of ammo. Think you could swing that for me? Just asking.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:42AM

We're already getting our whipping from the radical Left, aka liberals, aka Progressives, as they have re-branded themselves. Slow torture and then death.

russel| 7.16.10 @ 12:32PM

The key word is ' leash '. Our Founders used a good deal of Greek in the Constitution so as to keep the Republic representative and not morph into what we have now . A revolving door , if you will , of the people . A short term with no re-election . The ' career ' pol can't exist , therefore no ruling class . Repeal the 17th ammendment which will yank the Senator back under state control as our Founders intended . Problem solved .

Purpleguy| 7.17.10 @ 7:07PM

Actually, I agree with that....

dw| 7.16.10 @ 12:43PM

Excellant article. Spot on. The ruling class elitist think of themselves as the brain and the rest of us as their body to control as they see fit. We are to be socially engineered, while at the same time they confiscate our wealth. Obama has ruled against the will of the people with a disdain and arrogance that can only be a result of this kind of superiority cognition. Those who blindly support his rule represent the successful manipulation they have set out to install and only serve as minions to help continue their rule. Those people have no clue that they have succumbed to this brainwashing and have thus lost all ability for independent analysis of what has happened to them. Obedience to the ruling class is mandatory and resistance becomes futile.
Somehow, someway we the "country class" must reinstall our heritage and get our nation back on track. We must stop confusing highly educated fools as those who neccessarily understand the base concepts of our founding principles and actually care about the America our founders left to us. Most of the elitist produced by our colleges today have accepted the indoctrinations of the liberal class who have gained control govenment education. That has become the paridigm which must be broken and the continued election of these types will not allow that to happen. We need to stop automatically equating an attorneys accomplishment as someone who should represent us. Most of these types have been overly educated beyond their capicity to handle it. They just become part of the group think of the rulling class whose self absorbed destiny is to control our lives through their government intervention. That action they know will ultimately keep them in power and wealth and the rest of us slaves to a monster bureacracy. We must stop being naive and look for those who are willing to stop their take over of this country.
No American who understands our heritage and its reason for its birth could support the dictatorship of obama and his democratic party. The are ruling against the will of the people and in direct conflict with the intentions of our countrys most important principles; They are supposed to work for WE THE PEOPLE... we got rid of Kings over 200 hundred years ago...

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 1:01PM

please-you're logic is underwhelming. you could easily say the same for the Bush cabal and every regime preceding it. so it sounds like what you're really saying is that the Constitution is flawd by even providing for the executive branch and for democratic elections You know where the door is - don't let it hit you on the ass on your way out.

carnot| 7.16.10 @ 3:18PM

ummm...he did you nitwit.

Louis Jenkins| 7.16.10 @ 1:01PM

"pollsters add the preferences "undecided," "none of the above," or "tea party," these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind."

This proves that the Republican party has fallen far behind. How can they regain some of the public trust? For one look to new leadership, newer (actually older) ideas, and throw some of the bums out. That's for starters. While I don't adhere to a new party that could be a last resort. The Democrats have a steady lead when we look at the plurality, but overall, the Conservatives have a conclusive win in the make for this fall.

George S| 7.16.10 @ 1:04PM

After reading the entire piece, I asked myself how does this so-called ruling class impose its will on us? After all, the People are sovereign and wrote the Constitution, and the Declaration affirmed the right of an active defense against tyranny. So why not just pull rank and say no? Two things:

First is the nature of people when it comes to power over others. As an example, you see this in schools when some kids are given authority to watch over and "report" others (to which the Nazi's made into an art) or when a group of old ladies form a bake sale committee. The individual changes his attitudes towards the others, they become dictatorial and intolerant of dissent or their opinions, and they carve out their own power niches. All you have to do is sit in on a condo board meeting to see what that is about. Multiply this by ten and you get a local government; by a hundred and you get county government; then state government and finally federal government.

Second, it is the applicators of deadly force. Without the threat of deadly force hanging over your head, why would you pay taxes to support the ruling class and their pet projects? And the ones who are empowered to do the muscle for the state are your neighbors, the cops. The police are sworn to uphold the Constitution, but they also uphold the law as written. But a cop -- a normal person cop -- will not blindly enforce any law that is obviously un-American (for a better word). But the state can do a couple of things to bend his will. First is to indoctrinate him at an early age to be loathsome of certain behavior. Today's young cops loathe the drunk driver because of the preaching and conditioning from MADD campaigns during their childhood whereas the cops of yesteryear found drunks to be a source of entertainment. Today, the state is working on poisoning the minds of children to hate free market capitalism, and you can see why.

But the best way to bend the will of cops is to apply the philosophy of medieval kings: make sure the palace guards are well fed. That's why local and county cops can make six figure salaries with enormous retirement benefits -- compensation nearly impossible to find in private sector employment for a minimum of a high school graduate. So when the confiscatory property taxes bankrupt a retired senior citizen, the cop can weight his sympathy with his benefits when he's ordered to evict grandma. Had the cop and his bosses told the tax assessor to piss off, that would cause the whole house of ruling class cards to come tumbling down.

But don't bet on it. Police chiefs can earn more money than a chief of cardiac surgery. It is by deliberate design for the ruling class to hold their noses and invite him in.

Blackwatch| 7.18.10 @ 1:07PM

Yes they will use the local cop to arrest and detain us when the time comes. They must always maintain the fiction of Rule of Law when they practice the Rule of Men.

Your enemy will approach with a friend, relative, or local cop when they come for you. That's done to keep your neighbors ambivalent or fearful to help you. When the Progressives bare their fangs we must be ready.

Courage and Preparation citizen.

Petronius| 7.18.10 @ 11:27PM

Wanna bet purple guy was hall monitor of the decade when he was in jr. high?

confused| 7.16.10 @ 1:18PM

This is a terrific article and all I can say is thank you, thank you. These elites assume we want their life style and life decisions, but I do not. I like the simple life and am more than willing to live with my wrong decisions, as that is how I learn that decisions have consequences as do elections. Most of these people have never lived in real povery and so have no idea how to really survive. They think those of us reared in true poverty are idiots and ignorant. My parents went to work full time at age 9 and 10 years old as they had no option. My siblings and I graduated high school the first in our family. We knew how to stretch a dollar and how to get many meals from little. We did cling to The Son of God and he helped us get through the worst of times. We always had 25w bulbs in our house except for one room when we had 60w so we could do our homework. Hand me downs were new to us. Our entire extended family depended on each other to survive and guess what? we did. Experience is the greatest teacher of life and when The Son of God is invoked we all make it.

God Bless America and God protect us from elites.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:51AM

confused: You don't sound confused at all to me.

Jack Kinch(1uncle)| 7.16.10 @ 1:38PM

Bailing out their 'campaign contributors' with borrowed money to maybe someday someone will pay back or maybe with more freshly printed money.
Also. a reach for more power for the
demorat/socialist/communist dictatorship.
We must stop this power grab by breeding no more demos on welfare or allowing them to come in illegally or legally. Be very careful whom you vote for.
Know whom you vote for unless,of course, you are voting for more handouts.

hope| 7.16.10 @ 1:44PM

You did not go back far enough. How about the elite ruling classes surrounding Horace Mann and the founding of the Free American Public School. I believe that the actual purpose of the Free Public Schools was to create a subservient, docile, materialistic class that would no longer be self-sufficient or independent and would need to take their marching orders from the government and a few years later industry. The American public school system is the most successful organization in history-it created what it was designed to create. A subservient class to attached to it's material goods, and pleasure, so much so, that they will give up all their freedom and liberty to keep today's goods knowing that tomorrow they most certainly won't be allowed to use them....

John Gatto-Weapons of Mass Instruction
Classical Liberal Arts Academy for a taste of what real education used to look like....

hope| 7.16.10 @ 1:45PM

Pardon the typos, I have a baby on my lap.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 1:47PM

all men are the same when they unzip their pants (more or less). the only thing that differentiates them is money, family background and a privileged educTion when it comes to the 'ruling class'. they can just as easily be toppled and destroyed as anyone else. having said that, i would rather be 'ruled' by an educated, discerning slob than an ignorant, right wing closed-minded slob.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 2:21PM

sanrita is The Newest President of The She-Mam Manhaters Club International .

Want some more Chew Tobaccie , Butchie ?

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 6:32PM

Too bad men like you have to call women like me who think independently and have a brain manhaters and lesbians. Sounds to me like you're a real bad case of closet want it up the butt mentality and are a true woman hater. Any mature and confident male would probably laugh at my comments rather than try to paint me as someone you obviously can't handle. So butt out butthead.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 6:53PM

To Quote The Calm & Peaceful Mohandas Ghandi , " Get Bent You Ignorant Slut ."

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 9:43PM

Well I have to say this you dickless wonder - you are creative in your comments.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 9:53PM

Obviously, crab nest ,you're not creative.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 9:59PM

To quote Will Rogers (guess I'm not creative): "There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves. " Ground yourself.

Tim*| 7.17.10 @ 2:38PM

"Women should be obscene and not heard."
Groucho Marx.

carnot| 7.16.10 @ 3:14PM

and ruled you shall be...by both the dimwitted and the educated.

you're mindset is already predestined for servitude.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 6:34PM

And where are you on the scale between dimwitted and educated a**wipe? It is obvious that I am able to think for myself and say what I want, as opposed to your brainwashed mentality which parrots the pharoahs you bow down to.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 6:56PM

To quote the sainty & loving Mother Teresa , " Yo sanrita , Bite Me " !

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:48PM

sure you are Francis....sure you are....:-)......

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 2:44AM

Sanrita, please define right wing as opposed to left-wing? You said "you would rather be ruled?"

Personally I agree with the founders and think that people are capable of being self-governing but that becomes impossible in the absence of morality and religion. But then there are always people who are incapable or rather unwilling of being self-governing they would rather be taken care of in the warm arms of the benevolent state.

The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion" ...and later: "...reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle..." George Washington farewell address.

"Christianity is part of the common law" James Wilson, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice appointed by George Washington

bobbcat| 7.17.10 @ 2:11PM

The fact that you imply that you'd rather be ruled than be the master of your own destiny speaks volumes.

Petronius| 7.18.10 @ 11:39PM

What the libtrolls really want is a government that will order the world totally to their liking, as they all view it as the Deus ex machina for getting their way.

vladdy| 1.10.11 @ 8:30PM

How about an educated, discerning slob vs. an ignorant, left-wing slob?

Herman Maier| 7.16.10 @ 1:50PM

Corrupt? Elite? Try Tyrell and Regnery.

From Wiki: American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. was paid by the Carmen Group on behalf of the Kazakhstan government to visit Kazakhstan in 2000 and write favorable articles

Regnery Publishing Inc.
In the 1980s, Alfred S. Regnery, son of Henry Regnery, took control of the company. In the 1990s, the Regnery family sold the publishing company to Phillips Publishing International, which put the book publishing company into its Eagle Publishing subsidiaryj. Regnery has published Hitler apologist and pro Joseph McCarthy books.

Elite indeed.

Grzmlyk| 7.16.10 @ 2:19PM

Ah, yes. The zephyr of truth must have wafted over to the garbage dump that is the Huffington Post and briefly deprived its denizens of the sustenance they take from the rancid, stale, squalid, fetid air over there.

Because here they come. A little late, but nevertheless, they are here to share some of their toxic exhalations with us.

Joy.

Let's all enjoy the show as these morons to stand on their heads and tell the world it's upside down.

Pete| 7.16.10 @ 5:37PM

Not to worry, there won't be many as this article is too long for most of those types to read. When you are used to a talking point, followed by a smug look, knowing nod and some condescending laughter, an article of this length just won't do.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 6:30PM

Sounds like you're already standing on your head because what's coming out of your mouth sounds like it's coming out of the other end.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 7:02PM

To quote the serene and patient Dalai Lama , " sanrita , I think you should shave your heinie and walk backwards ".

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 9:44PM

Well I don't know what book of quotes you're reading from, but you are making me laugh. Thanks.

Tim*| 7.16.10 @ 9:55PM

We aims to please mam .

vladdy| 1.10.11 @ 8:32PM

Well, one thing is, you can tell the popularity of a blog (and how much it scares people) by the number of rigid, ideological left-wingers who visit to insult us. ('Tho, of course, there are great, conservative blogs that monitor carefully and have an extremely high standard for comments.)

hoppy| 7.16.10 @ 2:16PM

I have been using the phrase "ruling political class" in my conversations with friends and relatives for 10 or 15 years. For me, this concept certainly did not originate in 2008. It is far too late for a revolution at the ballot box - the majority of the electorate has been bought, if not paid for. Republics do not last forever, friends, and I consider my self fortunate that I don't either. I do pity my descendants.

Seek| 7.16.10 @ 2:26PM

This article gives all the appearance of scholarship. But if read carefully, it's just another version of "people vs. power" Marxism-in-reverse that undergirds "Red State" populist partisanship. Every paragraph virtually breathes resentment, and even the facts aren't necessarily in order.

Codevilla (whom I've read in Commentary for many years) is more nuanced than, say, Glenn Beck or Michelle Malkin. But all in all, he's selling the same product.

Grzmlyk| 7.16.10 @ 2:47PM

How, exactly, does "Marxism-in-reverse" work?

How about this: it's not your job to tell me how to live and make me pay you for the privilege so that you can live in grandiose luxury.

Is that clear enough?

Seek| 7.16.10 @ 3:05PM

Radicalism of the Right, as much as Radicalism of the Left, posits the idea of oppressed multitudes rising in revolt against a ruling class, thus triggering a long overdue civil war. The cast of heroes and villains is different; the organizing principle is the same.

Is that clear enough?

Grzmlyk| 7.16.10 @ 3:20PM

Except that the right in reality - not in some faux, self-congratulatory syllogism - the right respresented by the Glenn Becks and the Michelle Malkins and the tea partiers - does not aspire to have its boot on the throat of an oppressed class. That is the exclusive domain of the left.

Today's right understands that it is not YOUR place to US how to live, it is not YOUR place to spend OUR money on YOUR corruption. And, in fact, the entire rubric under which the left operates - coercing others into adherence to THEIR principles of "justice" - is inherently the exact opposite of what it claims to be.

And liberals - those who aren't naive fools - know it; that's why they invariably swoon over totalitarian dictators such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ortega, Chavez, etc. They embrace oppression; they crave domination over others; the real right embraces freedom, and does not seek to subjugate others to its will.

Hence the construct you posit - beyond the facile concept of rising up against oppression (and this is the commone denominator of every poltical "movement") is really quite vapid and decidedly beside the point.

Curly Smith| 7.16.10 @ 5:44PM

Exactly right and that's the problem with the GOP. They wouldn't have grown the government at all levels if they truly represented the right. At best, they've worked as a center-left balance to the far-left Democratic Party. At worst, they've been slowly advancing a common agenda.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 4:14AM

I believe the latter, Curly Smith. Inside the Beltway, they become part of the ruling class -- changed by Washington instead of changing Washington -- and put up only token resistance, for show. There are exceptions -- but not enough to stem the tide.

carnot| 7.16.10 @ 3:10PM

no...that's your twist on a theme. and if one really wanted to be nuanced about it...it is likely more accurate to state that the theme is "a majority class of individuals who believe in limited power that serves the people vs. a minority class who claim leadership authority by dint of superior insight".......or perhaps...."people who believe in representative government vs. a class that believes in ascendent right to govern"

Ray| 7.16.10 @ 2:34PM

I'm ready for revolution, secession, civil war. It makes me sad to say this, but, the time has come.

carnot| 7.16.10 @ 3:06PM

don't know about that...but I do know those in the military should think long and hard about ending their careers at the next opportunity. Why serve a class whose values are anti-thetical to their own and whose children don't share in the risks?

RCV| 7.16.10 @ 5:20PM

To answer you both, people continue to serve in the military because they, like many of us, deeply love this country, and are perceptive enough to be thankful to God that we live in the most properous, freeest and greatest nation on earth. Take a deep breath and a step back and get over the alarmist self-pity you feel.

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:54PM

no...they're being used.

and I served a full career...so save the bumper sticker material for someone else. it's time to reconsider the commitment. no one is arguing for disloyalty. follow lawful orders, maintain the integrity of the unit, look out for your comrades. and then exit at the first opportunity (i.e., end of obligated service) if you do not believe in this President, this Congress and the WILLFUL undermining of the Constitution you swore to uphold. It's the principled thing to do - act on core beliefs.

jonc| 7.16.10 @ 2:43PM

So we have the Ruling Party and the Country Party. What do we call the huge ingnorant mass of people that just follow along like sheep? Unfortunately, they fall under the Country Party by default. So, we had better hope they wake up soon!

carnot| 7.16.10 @ 3:03PM

then you miss the point in the article about conforming to Liberal convention..no matter how detached from reality... in order to obtain status & acceptance.

Ike| 7.16.10 @ 2:59PM

Well said! This article ought to be published across the nation by print and the internet. Should be required reading for all the Tea Party groups.

It shouldn't be necessary to convince any of the two-thirds of the population that they have superior technical skills or knowledge. The core issue is NOT about technical competence to manage our own personal lives and affairs. The core issue is this: WHO WILL DECIDE? The choices are: an unelected irresponsible non-responsive bureaucrat and his supposedly representative Congresscritters; or, we ourselves, left alone to exercise our God-given rights.

Find a copy of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and listen to the words. It's on Youtube, just search for it. Organize, vote, thrown those elitist tyrants out and repeal all of their laws, rules and regulations that have the object of reducing us to their obedient slaves.

carnot| 7.16.10 @ 3:00PM

fantastic compiling of decades of critical thought on Liberalism/the Left.

One curious gap: for a coterie of individuals claiming the authority of their conclusions/policies by virtue of rational, scientific process....why is the predictably of their models so flawed when it comes to human behavior? For example, once one strips away all the quasi-science behind micro/macro economics there stands the edifice of assumptions about human behavior. Why is it Libs so often appear to be off the mark...way off the mark...in that regard?

Andy Texan| 7.17.10 @ 12:15AM

Liberals in the common parlence are ideologues and liberalism is an ideology, the ruling ideology of our time. Such systems of thinking and thought are self-contained vehicles that are oblivious to reality. An excellent essay on the topic is Frank Burnham's, "Suicide of the West."

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:15PM

Excellent recommendation. I am in another window now reading the reviews of ~SotW~ on Amazon. I'm sending for a copy today. Thank you.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 3:25PM

If you get back here, Andy Texan, to read this post, please take a few minutes to wander on over to Amazon and read the ~SotW~ review by Jack Maybrick of July 6, 2002, and take note especially of his concluding paragraphs.

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:56PM

thanks...will check it out.

Jubal Biggs| 7.16.10 @ 3:25PM

While I agree with your over all point; you go too far in your initial page, lumping Republicans together with Democrats on TARP. The Republican leadership were all in on TARP and, amazingly McCain passed up an opportunity to paint Bush and Obama together against himself and 80% of America by favoring it also, but you forget the "Republican revolt" in the House that killed the first attempt to pass the bailout.
I was there, as a Congressional staffer, and I remember my boss, Thad McCotter, along with young guns like Hensarling and a lot of others all standing up, making impassioned speeches against the bailout, and actually getting enough votes together to kill it the first time it was brought to vote in the House. The Dems were stunned (Boehner had promised he could deliver his caucus for TARP). A huge section of Congressional Republicans were just as outraged as the American people at large. Unfortunately, it was a brief victory, and the rebels weren't numerous enough to fully win.
Just don't lump the entire Republican party in with the Dems on the "political class" thing. Yes, plenty of RINOs are just diet-cola Democrats, but the Republican party is polarizing just as the Democratic party did under Bush. The Dems have become thoroughly progressive and purged any real moderate voices from leadership; the Republicans are becoming much more libertarian than before.

Andy Texan| 7.17.10 @ 12:21AM

Let's give a Bronx cheer for "Leader Boehner" (as Michael Medved so obsequiously declaims) SOB.

darcy| 7.17.10 @ 4:26AM

I've been watching Thad McCotter (with admiration) almost a year now, ever since I watched his interview with host Peter Robinson over at NRO's Uncommon Knowledge. I really appreciate reading your take on the inside story of the TARP "incident." You have also confirmed me in my distaste for Boehner.

Your comments give me hope. With time, tenacity, and the will to fight (this side of open revolt), we may be able to begin the long road back home to the Founding.

CopyKatnj| 7.16.10 @ 3:31PM

Bravo !

John D. King| 7.16.10 @ 3:33PM

So every paragraph breathes resentment. So what? Unfortunately, most of the letters praising Codevilla display wishful thinking in their praise of the commonality as personified by the Tea Partiers. The trouble is that they too like a generous government and all too often one imbued with imperial fancies. How many tea partiers want Bush's Rx-drug subsidy repealed? How many of them in the farm belt want the ethanol boondoggled ended? How many want our troops pulled promptly out of Iraq and Afghanistan and and scores of other countries where our interests are little at risk? Ike said that Nato was okay but that it ought to be a temporary measure, yet few mainstream conservatives would not protest if America withdrew from, ie abolished, Nato. No, we would hear a chorus of "these colors don't run" if we cleared out of our nonsensical crusade in Afghanistan and then cut the defense budget by, say, $300 billion a year.

Lots of complaints about high taxes at Tea Party rallies but few specific suggestions about where to cut spending that would take the tin cup out of the hands of middle Americans. Worshipful praise of free trade without any second thoughts about what imports subsidized by exporting foreign governments do to American manufacturing and its workers.

Another Constitutional Convention? Really? One written by the same electorate that put Obama and the current Congress in Washington? No, the American people, whether on Wall Street or on Main Street, are often not wise at all. Just look at the moronic TV and movies they watch and the books they read and the politicized churches they attend and the fragility of their marriages. No, mankind is not made over by new crops of rulers or new Constitutions. It was always inevitable that some day the American empire would decline and fall, and that day is close at hand.

As Candide finally concluded, it is vain to dream of the best of all possible worlds in place of just cultivating our gardens.

Len| 7.16.10 @ 6:00PM

Concerning your pessimistic outlook concerning a constitutional convention, I think you forget that a con-con is not a mere majority vote, but needs 3/4 of the states to approve any amendment, and thus even were a crazy amendment to make it out of the convention itself, it is unlikely to be approved by enough states to take hold.

Animator Girl| 7.16.10 @ 6:35PM

After reading your comment, I have to conclude that you didn't read the entire article. Mr. Codevilla specifically addresses the hard decisions that you mention: namely, that truly reducing the tax and bureaucratic burden that has built up over the decades will require removing privileges from one's neighbor and, frequently, from oneself. Furthermore, these privileges have been around so long and have expanded and become so deeply ingrained in our culture and daily life that a huge swath of the population may have no idea how to live without them. Result: abject chaos.

The point that Codevilla makes, and makes well, is that the "Country Class" will have to decide if this potential chaos is such a threat that pursuing freedom is not a worthwhile endeavor. Simply, should we bother with an ideal that's too difficult?

Finally, suggesting that Tea Partiers have not considered all the factors and potential consequences of their proposed solutions is disingenuous: it's fair to say that no dismantling of bureaucracy (short of the violent and chaotic variety mentioned above) has ever been attempted, so it is impossible to know all the potential outcomes. Furthermore, it suggests that a middle-of-the-road solution will continue to be possible, whereas many of us feel that it is a lack of integrity and ideological consistency that has led conservatives to where we are now. Trying to be sufficiently "nuanced" for the elite's tastes is not going to help pull us out of the mire.

This is not to say we should plunge ahead without careful consideration. I am only trying to point out that you seem to be exhibiting some of the same arrogance that defines the author's "Ruling Class."

Rascal69| 7.16.10 @ 4:17PM

This article by Mr. Codevilla is so well thought out and written that it has led to a decision that I must subscribe to this publication. My own beliefs are mirrored here and I thank you for sharing the benefit of your research and thorough explanation.

robert h| 7.16.10 @ 4:30PM

and there i thought nothing right of left could come out of boston.

i'm ashamed, and pleased...

i've been telling people for years - mainly in canada where i spent the last 26 years - that the tax system is the ruling (political) class' primary tool for keeping the ruled pacified. when you are having to work your arse off just to keep a roof over your head, you just don't have that much energy left at the end of the day to fight the injustices that are so evident in the way you are being ruled.

i am sorry to see the same mess has arrived in the united states.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 6:25PM

Where have you been? It has always been this way in the U.S. only the brainwashing of Americans leads them to believe they have a shot at the so-called 'American dream'. pure BS - the American dream is based on money, pure and simple - no soul and no justice. If you are spawned by the wealthy, or are willing to play their game, you get, if not you don't.

George True| 7.16.10 @ 9:42PM

So it's the government's job to provide "justice" and "soul" to everyone??? Nanny state, anyone? And who staffs the agencies that decide what constitutes "justice" for the unwashed masses, and doles it out in unequal doses based on whether you are a member of a group who subscribes to the ideology of the deciders and the doler-outers? Auto unions or SEIU anyone?

There would be a hell of a lot more real justice if the f-ing government didn't steal a third of everything we make every year of our lives. It would be a hell of a lot easier to build a substantial piece of the American dream if the government would would just leave me the f**k alone!! That, in a nutshell, is the cri de coeur of the country class: LEAVE US ALONE!!!

But why try to explain any of this to you. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing. It doesn't work, and it just annoys the pig.

robert| 7.16.10 @ 4:43PM

i'd be a libertarian rather than a conservative if i could just get myself to accept the level of selfishness and hedonism necessary to be a true libertarian.

if you are a libertarian and i pissed you off, i intended to do so. i wish libertarians would stop pissing on conservatives, especially those of us who consider ourselves Christian conservatives. we're not perfect, but then i haven't met anyone else who is perfect either.

Len| 7.16.10 @ 5:55PM

If you were really a christian you would be concerned about justice and oppression, not people's personal lives, at least governmentally. Libertarians, despite your maligning them (bearing false witness, you are correct, you have sinned and are not perfect) are concerned about people using force to rule over others, rather than to protect people in person and property. Throughout the Tenach God spoke out against leaders taking advantage of the people, and in the time after Yeshua arose the apostles spoke of secular governments using the sword to do good. The sword is force employed for protection or justice. Please show me where people under the new covenant were to use earthly weapons to bring about righteousness? On the contrary nowhere was the church instructed to attempt to use earthly governments to bring about the heavenly kingdom.

You seem to me to be closer to the pharisees who were the leaders in Israel,but rather than shepherding the people, they sought to rule over them and did so on the basis of outward morality. I can hardly see Paul going around urging the church to erect a government that would punish people for sinful conduct, when he was trying so hard to preach the gospel to them.

jrjr| 7.16.10 @ 5:21PM

I too am ready for a rebellion or revolution but I am not a true leader and am 3 score and 19. So far I have not seen one politician pounding the table for Obama’s head. Using math, I conclude there must not be one in Washington. If there was one, he or she would be on Fox’s news. The article is excellent. But it is far too long for most people to read or even browse. The ordinary voter must be hit in the head with a 2X4 to get his/her attention. Perhaps being out of work or play money will convince them that the last Prez vote they gave away was very wrong. I keep asking myself “what is going to be the trigger for the uprising.�? And my answer is always “ it ain’t going to happen.�? No one is shooting at us or arresting innocent bystanders – it is the quiet progressive revolution, planned for decades. Still – I hope. I saw a TV preacher, Stanley, about a week ago, asking all to pray for 140 days that the Obama thingey would be stopped. I wonder about the 140 days and can only relate it to the rain.

J.P. Travis| 7.16.10 @ 5:45PM

Awesome piece, Mr. Codevilla. While the subject is discouraging, I found it heartening that somebody in the university environment still has a mind and is willing to use it.

Sheila| 7.16.10 @ 5:50PM

John D. King - I'd applaud your rational, cogent, and accurate comment, but my approval would make you complicit in the evil sin of racism according to Maggie, or defeatism according to Old Texican. Ah, what the heck - you can take it! Well done and well said. Diversity + proximity = war. Tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy. Decline and fall.

rdman| 7.16.10 @ 5:55PM

I wrote the following paper two years ago and got kicked off AS for awhile. Let's see if this second posting gets me the boot again...

The Rise of the Government Class
After decades of progressive incrementalism, the United States Government has finally surfaced to reveal a culture of Godless and soulless tyrants, thugs and bullies. Cynically disguised as distinguished, articulate, self-appointed elitists, these despotic vacuous, narcissistic, image-oriented hypocrites emphasize symbols over substance and reality. The pursuit of excellence is being replaced by the celebration of the artificial. Politicians are more concerned with the display of personalities and pursuit of personal power than with principles or the use of power for the common good.

This generation of politicians has become experts at deceitful duplicity, selling their calculated positions to the public to the point that voters can no longer tell the fabricated image from a real person. The voters are so seduced by the slick package that they often do not realize that there is nothing in it… the slick package is the message.

The shallow values and beguiling oratorical skills have become the norms by which everything is measured. The only guideline is the ability to gain attention… what is noticed has value. Calculated images successfully masquerade as reality. Exhibitionism and self-promotion is now acceptable as Government Class factions compete to be the winner… to be famous and celebrated.

Once elected into government, the ungodly and soulless politician embarks on an unbridled and unprincipled pursuit for power and control, incrementally eroding the private free market sector, our Constitution, and our freedoms and liberty. They launch vicious, personal attacks to destroy any person or any organization demonstrating genuine leadership and patriotism that strives to protect our magnificent Constitution and our magnificent Country.

The root cause falls at the feet of the “Good Old Esquire’s Club�? who make up the majority of the Government Class. With very few exceptions, these greedy leftist lawyers turned career-politicians and career-bureaucrats have never managed a P&L, never had to meet a payroll, never managed a company or corporation, never started and grew a company that created jobs and more jobs.

They are, in fact, despotic, partisan hacks and tyrants (many who were former predator prosecutors) now believe they are a law unto themselves; cynically living in the world of realpolitik where what matters is to prevail, regardless of their constituent’s best interests or their sworn duties to the Constitution and the Country.

Conscience, Dignity, Integrity, Leadership, Statesmanship, Public Service and the Lessons of History are totally absent within the emerging Government Class. The Founding Fathers must certainly be turning in their graves. Our magnificent Constitution, our magnificent Country and We, the People are in mortal danger.

We, The People are being sold a narcissistic fantasy and a cruel charade. Behind the politician’s shallow facades, there is an ulterior agenda…

The Government Class Agenda
The real agenda of these career-politicians is to create a central command and control socialist/fascist government to enslave and rule the dirty, unwashed, uneducated masses who get stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, then forced, under penalty of law, to pay exorbitant taxes to finance the politician’s deceitful, deceptive and evil corruption.

The tactics employed by these entrenched gangsters with law degrees are nearly identical to the rise of the Nazis in the late 1930’s, with one distinct difference. This generation of Government Class thugs employs weasel-lawyers and subversive socialist/fascist tactics to complicate straightforward issues with double-talk to compromise the Constitution with nebulas legal-eze trash language that means anything they want it to mean and to politically destroy anyone and anything that will not fall into the step.

The Only Solution… Constitutionalism & Federalism
Its time to stand up, find these career-politician tyrants in gross violation of their Constitutional Oaths and purge them from the halls of our government.

Eliminate the Washington DC snake pit of entrenched appeasing, expedient, placating and crab-walking despots by voting these delusional, parasitic, megalomaniac realpolitiks out our government… they are not worthy to represent We, The People of this magnificent Country. They are, in fact, a scourge upon the land.

1. Establish term limits by organizing States to convene State’s Conventions for the sole purpose to modify Article I, Section 2, Section 3, Amendment XVII and any other pertinent parts of the Constitution to read: “Citizen Representatives will serve a maximum of two terms in the Senate and three terms in the House. Ex-incumbents may run again after two terms have transpired.�?

2. Reject all career-politicians running for re-election. They have become corrupt and no longer fit for Leadership or Statesmanship.

3. Recruit and elect true representatives of We, the People… Citizen Representatives who demonstrate strict compliance to the Constitution and Federalism in every respect. Citizen Representatives whose attributes include excellence in management performance, integrity, patriotism, pride and optimism, chivalry and civility.

4. Institute strict compliance and governance to Amendment X… the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.

The intent and purpose is to re-establish the public service model of our Founding Fathers… Leadership, Statesmanship, Integrity, Dignity, Honor and Duty, leading to restoring our country to that “Shining City on a Hill.�?

Summation
Over 100 years ago, the Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, after dealing with government lawyers, proclaimed with eloquent simplicity and clarity, “Whiteman Speak with Forked Tongue.�?

Contemporarily stated, despite their duplicity and deviousness, the career-politician-bureaucrat trip themselves up because part of their perverted need for vindictive triumph includes the desire for their opposition to know who victimized them. Their need for attention becomes their nemesis. However, the career-politician-bureaucrat doesn’t care. Public adoration by the unaware or condemnation and notoriety give them the attention they crave… being admired by the uninformed useful idiots or feared and despised affirms, in their perverted minds, that they exist with Godly power and control.

Robert D.
American Citizen Taxpayer
Retired Free Market Corporate Executive
Reagan Conservative
Viet Nam Combat Veteran (1965-1966)

Texas Mom| 8.8.10 @ 7:55AM

I would also add that we need to revise and limit the commerce clause to stop the fed's out-of-control power grab from the states. This is the chief way the fed govt has usurped power and control from state and local govt.

Melvin| 7.16.10 @ 6:00PM

People, we are merely being punished for an alleged largess at the expense of the rest of the world through our imperialistic ways.
The Progressive Statists believe that we in this Country have raped the world of it's resources long enough and now through these enlightened Progressive Statists we who are completely unable to think like them will receive our comeuppance.
It doesn't matter that we have freed more humans across this Globe from tyrannical bondage through the purchase of these Countries goods and services which allowed them to prosper and grow themselves out of poverty.
But this philosophy doesn't fit very well in the Progressive Statist mentality of oppression and victim-hood.
Only they and they alone have the capacity to create the Utopian Nirvana that came about through the Hash bars of Berkeley California, and the Acid trips of Haight-Ashbury in Pelosi Land.
Through all this drug induced vision during the 60s of LBJ's Great Society, Detroit, Columbus, and Chicago to name a few were going to be the next cultural centers of tomorrow land.
Has Detroit turned into Nirvana, or even Chicago with it's standing Monarchy of King Richard Daley?
I asked the Progressive Statists, where is our Nirvana that you were going to build for the unwashed ignorant masses?
Trillions upon trillions of tax payer dollars spent on a acid/hash induced political philosophy that Marx though of any way.
Progressive Elitists, Liberal Democrat Socialists were never much on originality anyway, because Detroit, Chicago and the other failed Progressive environs are still living in their third world crap hole existences.
Timothy Leary wants his money and stash back. "Sorry Timmy, Nancy Pelosi smoked it all up long ago, hence the stomped on bull-frog look that she emits.

sanrita| 7.16.10 @ 6:20PM

You said "It doesn't matter that we have freed more humans across this Globe from tyrannical bondage through the purchase of these Countries goods and services which allowed them to prosper and grow themselves out of poverty." Perhaps you are not aware that many of 'these Countries' were put into poverty by our exploitation of their resources, pushing unwanted mega projects to benefit global corporations etc. etc. So take your idiot apologist mentality and put it into your mental crap hole or at least fill it with reality, not warmed over and regurgitated history as you present it so that you can justify your empty souls and stock portfolios.

Melvin| 7.16.10 @ 9:12PM

Temper, temper, temper. Posts like yours full of vitriol is always a sure sign that a nerve has been struck, when the truth has been spoken.
These mega corporations that you have mentioned, may I inform you that many Progressive and Liberal Democrats sit on these very boards of these eeevvillll corporations and own gazillions of stock options.
Saint Hillary Clinton earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on a ten thousand dollar investment. Just a little insider trading there mind you.
Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of, that is until he became President and all changed didn't it.
And the pièce de résistance: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the reverend mother of all the the worlds poor and destitute, stuck a special provision in the raising of the minimum wage bill that became law, but expempted Pacific Islanders who work in Bumble Bee Tuna factories in which her and her millionaire husband like own major, major amounts of stock from receiving this minimum wage increase that citizens received here.
Nancy Pelosi decided that these poor buggers could continue to work for $3.00 and hour.
Also here is a another little tid bit of knowledge. The majority of politicians who hold the title of Millionaire is held by Liberal Democrats.
The only thing that I apologize for Sanrita is that your a product of government run education and you just don't know any better. So run along like a good little drone and take your Ritalin so you can focus.

Achilles Toejam| 7.17.10 @ 3:04AM

Melvin
"The only thing that I apologize for Sanrita is that your a product of government run education and you just don't know any better. So run along like a good little drone and take your Ritalin so you can focus."

Touché man touché, it's like trying to talk to a teenager when they're in the stage that they don't know that in fact they don't know.

I know that you think you understand what I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant....

Bydand76| 7.18.10 @ 9:05AM

Sanrita.

would you care to give an example or two to back up your nonsense?

Pro Libertate!

carnot| 7.18.10 @ 1:58PM

speaking of regurgitating warmed over tripe!

Cicero| 7.16.10 @ 6:05PM

This piece was revolutionary. Absolutely brilliant and penetrating insights logically laid out and arriving at an inescapable conclusion. I am deeply moved by what you say. Perhaps this might become a modern day American Crisis.

Ironically, Hank Williams Jr. hit on exactly this theme with his song "A Country Boy Can Survive"

"Well you can't starve us out and you can't make us run, cause we're them old boys raised on shotguns..." Perhaps our good country stock will once again save the land. I pray it will be so.

Paul Ashley| 7.16.10 @ 6:28PM

The most importatn point in this great article is that to defeat the ruling party, the Country Party must be as audacious and as bold as the ruling pasrty has been, yet only temporarily. This we can, and must do. The true America has shown this ability time and time again. What other country, after relectantly but with purpose throwing aside ... See Morecivilized behavior to conduct all-out war on evil, in victory returns to civilized ways and with magnanimity lifts up its defeated enemies? To re-establish what the Founders envisioned, to keep the lamp of truly liberal governemnt burning, will require great will and courage, but where there is a will there's a way. Will the GOP have that will - the will to act - should they see victory in November? Or will the Country Party have to stand and fight?

Longplay| 7.16.10 @ 6:31PM

[fixed mistyped post]
The most important point in this great article is that to defeat the ruling party, the Country Party must be as audacious and as bold as the ruling pasrty has been, yet only temporarily. This we can, and must do.

The true America has shown this ability time and time again. What other country, after relectantly but with purpose throwing aside civilized behavior to conduct all-out war on evil, in victory returns to civilized ways and with magnanimity lifts up its defeated enemies?

To re-establish what the Founders envisioned, to keep the lamp of truly liberal governemnt burning, will require great will and courage, but where there is a will there's a way.

Will the GOP have that will - the will to act - should they see victory in November? Or will the Country Party have to stand and fight?

Sheila| 7.16.10 @ 6:32PM

Sanrita, you are incoherent, irrational, rude, and probably black (a tautology, folks!). Ooh, let me predict cries of "RACIST" are on the way! Diversity + proximity = war. Tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy. Decline and fall.

Pete| 7.16.10 @ 6:49PM

Jeez, I was just going to call her/it a dirty hippie and leave it at that, but I like your post better.

MotherTeresa ,Dalai LamaGhandi| 7.16.10 @ 7:12PM

Our Personal Secretary Tim* has ( Above In The Thread ) delivered our thoughtful and understanding messages to the lovely sanrita .

Go in Peace & Share Our Wisdom .

Bob K.| 7.17.10 @ 10:17AM

Sheila,
I don't know if Sanrita is all of the above: Certainly "she" is rude, but I suspect "she" is not female. I suspect she is a male troll hiding under an ambiguous name. I don't know who it could be, but it might make for an interesting guessing game!

Gerald Stephens| 7.16.10 @ 7:06PM

WOW!

That damn well says it all including the critical question of how to begin restoring constitutional governance. It is the sole mechanism against which the ruling class has no defense.

They are clever bastards amassing power nibble by nibble, law by law while the ‘country’ folk yawned. Thus the starting point is dismantling the nibbles and laws.

The initial step, oddly enough, will require a new law creating a congressional entity to review ALL existing public law to determine the constitutionality of each piece. Administration of the entity shall consist of appropriate constitutional scholars. Those laws not passing scrutiny will be repealed along with the associated regulatory apparatus. Some may only require constitutional modification.

This process presumes control of the Senate and House with an ability to override an executive branch veto. I suspect funding such a new law will be supported gleefully. I also suspect it will create significant demand for the expansion of law school constitutional law curriculum.

This responds to a further question raised. What will be expected and demanded of the newly elected representatives of the people?

It has an additional benefit. Aside from national security and other constitutionally mandated federal functions the new congress will have limited time on their hands to jerk things around. The last four Congresses in only 7 ½ years passed 1,516 Bills, and signed into law. It is now public knowledge that the representatives had scant understanding of their content. SCARY?

Thom| 7.16.10 @ 7:57PM

This is why I typically refer to all the flavors of Marxism as just Feudalism dressed in pajamas. The MO of the top 1-3% of any civilization is always centered on the acquisition of power to obtain the wealth that brings. No matter how benign or malicious the ultimate aim of the elites at the top is their collective interests rest on controlling the rest in society in order to protect their wealth. People obsessed with the acquisition of wealth will generally sacrifice anything and anyone eventually to achieve their goals. Such people typically see life as a zero sum game where someone has to lose for there to be gain. Therein lays the central tenet of all of Marx’s ideals about his Utopian Ant colony. King Obama is and the Clintons were clearly in the game for the wealth of it.

Given how long we’ve been going down this road to serfdom I’m not optimistic the collective will of what the author calls the Country Party will be strong enough over enough time to undo a meaningful amount of this using existing political means. Basically I don’t think this will end well for the Nation. Somebody’s Ox is going to get slaughtered. Somebody has to lose. Endless compromise has gotten us to where we are today after over 70 years of continuous loss of liberty. Compromise isn’t going to save us.

Russ| 7.16.10 @ 8:24PM

First of all, I have a great deal of respect for the depth of the article. I have lived this elitist role and found that there is a point in time when a member can get thrown off the bus! When done, I can only illustrate that the experience of being among the elite is an elixir of enormous pride....but God has shown that pride can be a failure. Not just America, but the rest of our world looks to us a a leader. Most are comfortable with their lives (that is the way it is supposed to look) but when achievement is tempered, the reality of who and what is in control comes into view. Just as 2008 was a "lifetime opportunity" to those on the left, 2010 and 2012 is another. My kids and grandchildren deserve better....and so do I.

Susan| 7.16.10 @ 8:51PM

Dear Angelo M. Codevilla,

Thank you for writing this.

Dear American Spectator,

Thank you for publishing this.

I hope this article goes viral. I hope more and more Americans will wake-up, roll up their sleeves, and help our nation regain the historic American way of life we country folk cherish.

Clinton nee Publius| 7.16.10 @ 9:16PM

This is perhaps the best article I have read on this site. Professor Codevilla is to be commended for this work and we are challenged to take it to the next level. Personally, I vacillated between my desire to murder every liberal-progressive and the desire to move forward with the alternative government program via an Article V Constitutional Convention.

That's what they really fear and that should be our singular goal. As long as we are willing to play the game by their rules they will be willing to mop the floors with us. Believe me, I know. If we have a Constitutional Convention we can put an end to them - once and for all time. There our numbers and rights will far exceed their corruptions and we can restore the hopes and dreams of America.

Kirk Farrar| 7.16.10 @ 9:41PM

And it is an open secret that "the best" colleges require the least work and give out the highest grade point averages. No, our ruling class recruits and renews itself not through meritocracy but rather by taking into itself people whose most prominent feature is their commitment to fit in. The most successful neither write books and papers that stand up to criticism nor release their academic records. Thus does our ruling class stunt itself through negative selection. But the more it has dumbed itself down, the more it has defined itself by the presumption of intellectual superiority.

You had me eating out of your hand, sir, until I read the garbage above.
These words are total bullshit, Professor. And until you can provide solid facts to back them up, they will continue to be bullshit.
"Open secret", my ass!!

Carl Peter Klapper| 7.16.10 @ 10:26PM

As to how the people can regain control. see my article:
http://johnsonvillepress.com/2.....r-klapper/

Though the article argues the economic advantages of pedestrian development, it should be clear to the most casual observer that our motorist developments slice and dice our communities into separate and powerless residents. Another way to look at it is to compare the hours watching national television broadcasts to the hours talking with neighbors.

The Clintidote| 7.16.10 @ 10:44PM

Force these parasites to wither and die. Avoid, evade, ridicule, revile and oppose these useless cretins. Deal with useful people directly, avoid government parasites. Strangle the cashflow, strangle the useless class as a result.

F'em. F'em all. Let 'em starve in frozen alleys for all I care.

Robert| 7.16.10 @ 11:13PM

This was a great article all things considered...

JMC| 7.17.10 @ 12:27AM

Damn skippy! Anyone other than me for the guillotine? These radical bastards want 'radical', we'll give them radical!

JP| 7.17.10 @ 2:49AM

I wrote on other threads that the voters in general are not nearly as conservative as we might think. The Reagan Revolution in retrospect was just a coda between LBJ (and FDR) and Obama. The GOP, as a party, is in general just Liberal Lite (and we must include Palin as one) who has no problem with the "ruling class" (as opposed to governing class). When one gets down to brass tacks, they all wish to rule - that is, they wish to control.

This isn't a clarion call to Libetarianism (not in the modern sense -modern libertarianists haven't a clue. They're just wierd). But it is a call to Convervative Libertarianism. Every single GOP leader, when it comes down to it loves the ruling class; they all wish to be part of it (Just wait and see how many vote to keep ObamaCare intact). True Conservatives wish to destroy the modern edifice of what Wilson and his acolytes created. One cannot begin anew; but one can learn from past actions.

This nation will learn (if we have the time) what is takes to build a true Federalist Society. It will take time, and we will make plenty of mistakes. This November will be a small, very small beginning. Our future leaders are not in the limelight yet. But events will force them (and us) to think and act as our Founders wanted us to.

Carl Peter Klapper| 7.17.10 @ 9:02AM

We are a curious admixture of people, some partisan, some non-partisan and some anti-partisan. This article tried, like so many from both liberals and conservatives, have treated us as falling into the first camp. If we don't like the Democrats or the Republicans, we must be considering a Third Party, with the Tea Party being the Third Party du jour. Since the Tea Party has been adopted or taken over by conservatives, we must now be conservatives. Such is the specious reasoning and it gets in the way of any true reform. For now, instead of fixing our political apparatus where it needs to be fixed, at the local level, we are again to place our hopes in yet another national party. Then when our current Washington Generals again lose to the Globetrotters, another segment of the electorate becomes disillusioned and alienated so that they even give up voting.

The problem is not so much in our leaders but in our looking for leaders, not so much in the federal power grabs but in the mass abdication of local power. Yet, that abdication is understandable. Community in America is dead and the automobile killed it. Developments must become neighborhoods and claim their own power, allowing their neighbors to open shop, closing roads and setting up parking at their borders. Then we will see the absurdity of getting local news from a national broadcaster instead of opening our doors and talking with our neighbors. Then we will cease to be swayed by national media and their national messages.

NC Ken| 7.17.10 @ 10:10AM

At least we can begin to limit their exposure. We by-pass the near impossible legislation of term limits, and challenge each and every candidate to bond his pledge of specified limits on time in office (if re-elected, and there is an average 88% likelihood of that), by bonding that pledge with a 'credible' portion of their personal wealth. Go to http://www.bondedtermlimits.org/support. View the brief video, download the Bonded Term Limits Candidate Pledge Packet; join us; donate to our non-profit, non-partisan cause to help restore representative governance to America. Make them put their money where there mouths are.

proreason| 7.17.10 @ 11:30AM

This isn't going to end happily.

The criminal class isn't going to give up their wealth and power without a fight, and Americans will ultimately have only one choice. We are going to have to show them wherein the real power lies.

jfxgillis| 7.17.10 @ 11:32AM

"The money thus taken and directed is money that the citizens themselves might have used to pay for medical care. "

God is that stupid. Most "citizens" don't have $800,000 laying around that they can "decide" to spend on a brain tumor, and if they do have all that cash handy, the "choice" isn't really a "choice" is it?

Bob K.| 7.17.10 @ 5:22PM

jfxgillis,

These following words were written to enlighten people like you.

"In the Carboniferous Epoch, they promised
abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul.
But though we had plenty of money there was nothing our money could buy.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'if you don't work you die!" ........................
......................................................................
........... "There are only 3 things certain since social progress began.
The dog returns to his vomit. The sow returns to her mire.
And the burnt fools bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire.
And after this all is accomplished and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins;
As surely as water wil wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook headings with Terror and Slaughter return!

From "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." by Rudyard Kipling

Kipling wrote these words in 1919 right at the end of the "War to end all Wars," when Woodrow Wilson was our Presidant. Like Obama he had all the answers, but he was much better educated.

Read what Professor Codevilla has to say about Wilson in this essay.

jfxgillis| 7.17.10 @ 7:22PM

Bob:

And how'd the whole "British Empire" thingy work out for your buddy Rudyard?

I did read Codevilla's essay. If you want to discuss it with me further, go over to Dan Riehl's thread on this subject. I don't feel like making the same argument twice, nor having it get lost in this tidal wave of AmSpec comments.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/.....right.html

Bob K.| 7.17.10 @ 8:09PM

Why the British empire was going, going and almost gone by then JF.

It's all about the big picture! You can't fine tune human nature! That's what the Professor's essay is all about.

Read the poem! You will enjoy it!

Ed| 7.17.10 @ 12:51PM

If we hold a new constitutional convention, we will have to find a way to make sure that it is not dominated by the ruling party. If they do manage to dominate it, we will be well and truly doomed.

Jesse| 7.17.10 @ 1:01PM

It is good to remember that Hitler and his National Workers Party was representative of the Country Party, standing on its support from the farmer and worker allegedly, but gaining enormous secretive support from the industrialists, and of course the small businessmen, doctors, lawyers. All with grievances, all seeking change for their own ends. Always a minority party, the Reichstag fire opened the door for the suppression of all other parties, and so began the odyssey into madness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded

Martine Z| 7.17.10 @ 2:20PM

Two words: Chris Christie.