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The Coup Attempt Continues


Sunday, October 6, 2013

Progressivism, Chaos, Tyranny, and the Community Organizer's Blackmail and Extortion

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called opponents "modern day anarchists,'' all because we do not swoon at the prospect of a phony government "shutdown" such as the one we now see. As long as the Senator from Nevada is going to go all early 20th century on us, we should return the favor and call him a modern day Bolshevik. There, I think that makes for perfectly civil discussion, and serves as lead in to today's topic: the chaos of progressivism.

One more thing before we get going. In the process of following Aussie politics, I have noted that one of the very many admirable things about that great nation is that,
conservatives in Australia have preserved the word 'Liberal' for themselves and not allowed it to be stolen and warped by the left. 
It is time we did likewise in our own beleaguered and increasingly less great nation. American "liberals" are just old fashioned "progressives," AKA socialists, who seek an ever growing state with more and more control over every aspect of our lives. There is nothing "liberal" in American "liberalism."

Everywhere we look in America we see the chaos and tyranny generated by progressive thought and policies. Without repeating all I already have written about the results of progressivism in our country, I note one item I wrote six months ago (substitute "progressive" for everywhere you see the now banned "liberal"),
Liberal welfare policies create havoc throughout our society. What slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, and racial discrimination could not do, liberal polices have done, to wit, destroy the black family and turn millions of blacks into permanent wards of the state and of the liberal political machines that control most of our cities. Liberal immigration policies, beginning with the disastrous 1965 Kennedy-Johnson immigration law, insure a constant stream of poor third world immigrants, altering irrevocably the nature of our society and ensuring that the struggling black (and white) American poor cannot compete with the ultra-poor pouring in from Mexico, El Salvador, Bangladesh, and so on. Liberal minimum wage laws ensure the disappearance of the starter jobs, once a platform for the poor to spring out of poverty. All of these people, the old poor and the newly arriving poor, need, of course, social programs and more and more government help. The liberal political machine dispenses jobs and money, and the productive sectors face rising taxes, a labyrinth of regulations, and the constant presence of "helpful" government regulators and enforcers. Let the poverty and misery spread!

Liberal gun control policies also target the poor. The poor in our cities must live with the drug dealers, gang bangers, and the other hoods in the hood. The comfortable liberals live in secure high-rises, and tony suburbs well protected by overpaid and over equipped police and fire departments and expensive security firms. The poor must put up with the inability to defend themselves; they must allow themselves to be murdered in the name of ridding America of gun violence.
In the last few days, we see even more examples of the chaos brought to our shores by progressivism, all highlighted by the phony government shutdown and the despicable boot-licking mainstream media--one knows, for example, that the government is shutdown is phony because the government's mouthpiece MSNBC is still on the air. The government "shutdown" has targeted much-frequented national parks and monuments not because it costs much if anything to keep them open--in fact, it costs more to close them--but to inflict discomfort, generate confusion, and, yes, chaos. As I wrote before,
a conservative's default position must be to oppose all new government programs, regardless of how high-sounding they are, and constantly seek to eliminate or reduce existing programs. Any government program in the "socio-economic-humanitarian" realm will get taken over by liberals [substitute progressives].
We see our National Parks, a Republican idea, used to further the progressive's notions of expanding government. The US Park Service, once a model of what a government agency could be, has become just another tool used by progressives to create chaos in furtherance of progressive goals. Park Rangers, once admired for their knowledge of American history, geography, flora, and fauna are now just tools of petty repression. They are used to roust elderly veterans out of the monuments built to honor those elderly veterans, and to prevent taxpayers from viewing the great parks and historical locations in our country, many of them partially, mostly, or even entirely built with private funds.

In sum, what do we see? We see the community organizer tactic of using lies, chaos, and the uncertainty that flows as tools of blackmail and extortion. The progressives have moved into almost every aspect of our lives, and when they encounter resistance to further encroachment, they threaten us by shutting down the other services on which they have made us dependent. It's blackmail, pure and simple. We have the extraordinary spectacle of an American President predicting economic disaster and warning Wall Street of tough times to come if he does not get his way. We have a President pushing the stock market to crash, and dissuading businesses from investing and creating jobs, all over a dispute about his seriously flawed health care policy. He, again, is the Chicago community organizer threatening the local landlord or McDonald's franchise with instability, violence, and disruption if he does not get what he wants. Imagine what he can do to you, if he controls your health care.

Chaos in the service of tyranny. The only way to defeat this is to stop the encroachment of government on our lives and begin a serious campaign of rollback.


  1. Replies
    1. We hope.

      ... but hope is not a strategy.

  2. The easiest way to bring down any institution is from within.

    1. Those within don't want to ... for obvious reasons. Even the legislators we most admire (or, if you prefer the locution, least despise).

  3. Today, Instapundit notably used the term "Transgressives."

    If you consider the definition of a Transgressive as describing person who advocates or conspires to reduce the individual relative to the state; one who advocates against the individual and their enumerated rights under our Constitution; one who advocates subordination or directly transgresses against our Constitution, then we may have a new working term that better describes the supremacist cult of ill-described postmodern progressives in government today.

    Transgressors. These are the Transgressives. Champions of selective due process, racialism and supremacism.

    They live to transgress, if only to mask the predatory psychosis and fatal conceit that drives them.

    You can see it plain as day in this clip of Milton Friedman debating the supremacist Michael Harrington, the father of American Progressivism and the principle movement leader under which Obama's politics were shaped.

    Note when Harrington smugly declares at 2:58 who "the best people" are. It lays bare the fatal conceit and supremacism that illuminates the psychosis now animating a generation of American politicians who are self-appointedly better than you because.

    That's why I like this term Transgressives to correct the misbranding of this supremacist movement with the victorian era term "Progressive."

    To call them Transgressive speaks to the social product of their fatal conceit.

    It's 4:31 long. Friedman provides an exceptional instructive contrast.


  4. The reason I oppose all new programs is because once in place, they are never evaluated to see if they work. Head Start was a small successful program started in the Washington DC area. After the initial trial, it was expanded nationwide and has grown over the past forty or so years. No one has dared to ask if the initial encouraging results were scalable or if the current program follows the blueprint of the original. No, the government just continues to pour more money into a program of no proven value, yet no one dares question it's value or utility, lest they be labeled racist.

    No doubt, most if not all federal programs work the same way and no doubt that is the design and intent of all of them. I fear Obamacare will be the same, an ever growing boondoggle that can be "fixed" with just a few more billion dollars here and there.

    It's all a scam.

    1. Most of it is, yes.

      But if you have a better alternative to government and law as institutions to keep the even-worse predators off us, which has been tested and works, you need to publish.

    2. Every federal law and the related regulations promulgated thereunder should include a sunset clause (I suggest 20-25 years, i.e., ~one generation) at which time it automatically expires unless extended for a like term. Vote required to extend should be not less than that required to pass initially, and the bill to extend may not be "bundled" into some omnibus legislation: it must be renewed/extended by a dedicated vote in favor.
      Something like that might generate a bit of cost/benefit analysis and a taste of accountability. ...worth a try.

    3. Not a bad add to the accumulating list of I-wish-for constitutional amendments, Mr. Ment.

      ... for what that's worth.

    4. Two things I would add to the growing list are:
      1. Repeal of the 17th amendment, let senator represent the 'sovereign' states again.
      2. Eliminate so called baseline budgeting.

  5. By my count it looks like the few of us against three hundred million. California, New York, the entire Eastern seaboard are all lost. Even Texas is feeling shaky at the grass roots level. Continuity has been lost. There is no basis for recovery.

    The fact that Park Rangers are part of the tyranny should tell us how primed the system is to crush us all.

    1. "The fact that Park Rangers are part of the tyranny should tell us how primed the system is to crush us all."

      The "system" serves a self-perpetuating state and it will absolutely crush anyone that threatens it. Note how the courts treat those whose "crime" is against the state vs. its treatment of crimes against individuals.

      I am convinced that people like Ted Kennedy and Obama hate the people of the USA, no one could be so stupid as to believe their policies would do anything other than harm.

    2. Sure they could. No doubt even Stalin was sincere, for what that's worth ... i.e. nothing.

      It's easy to believe that which profits you. All you need is a little intellectual dishonesty; and relatively few people even *know* how to be intellectually honest.

  6. Not blackmail -- it's extortion, pure and simple.

    Blackmail: the action of demanding money from a person in return for not revealing compromising or injurious information about that person.
    Extortion: the practice of obtaining something, esp. money, through force or threats.

    Obama and Reid have been using the word "blackmail," which (if actual definitions count for anything anymore) means that someone has injurious information that is being kept secret. When they accuse the Republicans of committing blackmail, they imply that perhaps the R's have Obama's school records, passport records, or other injurious information that they are threatening to expose if the Dems don't knuckle under. That scenario is clearly not the case.

    No, this is extortion, with the full threat of government force. It's used for relatively minor and bearable acts now, like the petty tyrannies of barrycading memorials and kicking out people whose homes are built on federal land (Lake Mead). The threat of much greater offences is ever present, though, warning us that if the Republicans don't knuckle under, then we can expect worse.

    If the Republicans DO knuckle under, however, we can still expect worse. Worse everything is Obama's goal, and nothing we do one way or the other will ever make him alter his course. So what do we have to lose by fighting back?

    I'll note, too, that the Republicans should have stood up to Obama's numerous over-reaches back in his first term. Serious breaches, like his interference in the auto industry's bankruptcy, in which he stripped bondholders of their rights, should have been stopped cold at the time. Instead, his voiding of the separation of powers, his rule by diktat -- well, everyone here can add to the list -- were allowed to stand with virtually no protest, much less effective action to restrict him to the lawful role of the executive. A serious wing-clipping then might have prevented, or at least weakened, the full flight of the tyrant we now see.

    1. You make some excellent points. You are absolutely right, I should have used the word "extortion" in addition to "blackmail." I was so fixated on the NSA and IRS data mine and how it could be used to blackmail opponents, that I did not factor in that extortion would be more common in most cases.

      Thanks for your insightful comment. We have the best readers here!

    2. Ah, I did not think of the potential for blackmail with data gleaned from the NSA and IRS, although I do believe the Dems have already used that method with carefree abandon. I was thinking of Obama and Reid's charge of blackmail being committed against themselves specifically in regard to the defund-Obamacare showdown, an attack that is clearly not happening. Would that the Republicans had a commitment to all-out war that could hope to equal or beat that of the Democrats.

      Thank you for the compliment! Methinks I wish I had used my fake screen name instead of choosing the default Anonymous as the easy alternative to signing in.

      J Motes

    3. If you notice, I have taken your suggestion and added "extortion" to the post. Many thanks and full credit to you.

    4. Now you mention it ... a James Bond conundrum. What does counter-intelligence, often a very good thing and a significant part of 007's job, have to do with terrorism, revenge, and extortion? And why would an organization be built for terrorism, revenge, and extortion in the abstract, rather than terrorism, revenge, and extortion in response to a specific thing, like "Black September"? Who would join such an organization if not for the money? But wouldn't better money be available for lower risk by joining something evil but legal, like Google?

      I wonder if these issues are discussed in evil medical school.

  7. At one time the National Park Service, and their Rangers, may have been the model of government.

    Today, they are simply proof that anybody who values a paycheck over principles can be turned into a Brownshirt Nazi with almost no effort at all.

    I'm pretty sure there will be blood in the grass somewhere - probably the Vietnam War Memorial - before all this is over.

    1. I wonder if there is--or will soon be--an evil park ranger academy?

  8. Dip:

    Amen and Amen. God Bless Us Everyone.


  9. All is not yet lost. Our WWII hereos are at it again, this time with a Million Vet March on the Memorials:


    Wish them all Godspeed!

  10. glad to see obama threw his former homeland a bone with that raid on shabab to nab the nairobi mall attack planners... that'll teach them to mess with Kenya again.
    Just kidding.. :)
    - reader #1482

  11. paul_vincent_zecchinoOctober 7, 2013 at 10:05 PM

    To know what the Left is doing and planning to do, merely listen to its endless accusations against its many enemies. Whatever the Left accuses non-Marxists of doing, that is in fact what the Left is doing.

    The Left is hate, a crime-syndicate Deth Kult false religion whose false idol is the almighty collective state. As such, in manner of criminals, the Left projects what it is does and what it plans to do onto its many targets.

    Another quick & easy way of extracting truth from the Left's relentless bilge is to invert it. Whatever the Left says, simply invert it, turn it around one-eighty degrees, and you'll at least be very close to the truth, if not dead on it.

    The Left says you can keep your doctor under the Affordable Genocide Act? Expect the opposite, that you'll lose your long time doctor, and you won't be surprised when it comes to pass.

    That's called "Zecchino's Leftist Truth Extraction Tool", no pulling fingernails with pliers, no electrodes inserted into the pancreas, no bashing over the head with phone books so's not to leave a mark. Nope. To get the truth from a Leftist, listen to what they accuse others of doing. If they're not accusing, but instead merely making statements and promises, simply invert them and you'll have the truth.

    "Zecchino's Leftist Truth Extraction Tool", buy one today at no cost. Buy two and you get free S&H. No batteries necessary and absolutely no annoying instructions translated from the original Banshee dialect. Simply invert, and know the truth!

    Get yours today!

  12. This is the face of tyranny, Shutdown preventing payment of “death gratuity” to families of fallen troops. Cede your liberty and money to the government or we will hurt you. Mark

  13. The government gets angry when we peasants won't hold still so they can take care of us.

  14. Well done. Excellent . ( Yip )

  15. 'Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called opponents "modern day anarchists"...'

    Reid is thinking of late-19th-and-early-20th-Century left-wingies of the Sacco and Vanzetti sort, crazy uncles in his own intellectual family tree.

    He doesn't know enough to even mean anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard and David D. Friedman. You could reasonably list Thomas Jefferson, too, although the Democrats have posthumously elected him a founder of their party.

    We should be so lucky as to have a few anarcho-capitalist Republicans. Not involved with foreign and military policy but for domestic policy.

    (The Louisiana Purchase pretty much fell in Jefferson's lap. Luckily, he abandoned his principles to grab it.)

  16. I'm still shocked about the national parks shutdowns. It was like the scene in Star Wars, where Darth Sidious issued his "Order 66." In an instant, our friendly neighborhood park rangers were transformed into "Imperial Parktroopers." The NPS issue is the proverbial tip of the Iceburg of Tyranny, because not only were parks closed, but private property was and people were forced out of their homes.