Commenter John Flemming takes issue with Solzhenitsyn's vision of Soviet repression in "How we burned in the camps later". Fleming says, persuasively, that the Soviet way will not be 'the American Way:'
"It's not gonna be like that. It'll be more subtle, like the LAPD arresting the harmless Moroccan filmmaker for daring to make a crappy movie that disses He Who Must Not Be Dissed [HWMNBD].
"You're a maker. You'll do something... like not pay your ObamaTax on time. Maybe deliberately.
"Or maybe you're paying for things in cash too often.
"Or nobody has a right to make fun of HWMNBD, and you told a joke.
"They'll come and evict you. A moocher family will quickly move in. They'll have lists: takers and moochers. Don't you know, it's payback time? He promised them Revenge, remember? It's somebody else's turn to enjoy that home you have created.
"Will your neighbors defend you and chase the deputy sheriffs away when the come for you at 10PM? Not likely, they'll look out, see the police cars, and close their blinds and wait for their turn with a growing sense of dread.
"Once a week, the cops show up late at night, no flashing lights, and the neighborhood slowly changes.
"These are the local police, not the Federals. You obviously did something bad, and the Courts will sort it all out.
"Yeah, the Courts, where the cops, laywers and judges get paid no matter who is in charge. You know, those Officers of the Court who have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, that abstract old deeply-flawed document written by a bunch of DWEM's that doesn't have much relevance to the problems of today. And jeez, what can one judge do anyway, he can't stand athwart the train tracks of history and stop the speeding Federal express, and he has a family to feed.
"And what does "sworn" and "oath" mean anyway, it doesn't mean sworn sworn, where he has to put his life and family at risk to defend a flawed scrap of paper.
"You'll be alone, surrounded by moochers, and no one will lift a finger to help. Your friends and neighbors will turn away. Zimmerman in Florida, Moroccan film maker in LA, abandoned by their nieghbors, who all say "We'll let the legal process play itself out, if he's done nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear".
"You won't be able to get the word out on the Internet, because goohoobingbook will instantly claim it's hate speech or something and take it down.
"You'll be left with nowhere to go. They'll offer you the places the moochers just left. Or, they'll have "resettlement zones" for your wife and kids, and for you, nothing.
"Of course it can happen here. They're pruning the tree of Liberty one twig at a time. You never see it happen, but one day, the tree is dead, and you'll wonder how it even happened, it was such a glorious and strong tree. And then a golpe, the tree will fall, and you'll see it was hollow with rot for a long time.
"The time for taking a stand is coming."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 10, 2012 12:36 PM
Remember the scene in Doctor Zhivago, when his in-laws' house in Moscow is divided up among a horde of proletarians, and only the intervention of his half-brother, a Bolshevik (Alec Guinness) saves them.
Posted by: Punditarian at December 10, 2012 1:47 PMIf you can now tax one person whatever amount the majority wishes, what is stopping the police from issuing you a speeding ticket if you obey the speed limit?
Posted by: RPF at December 10, 2012 2:03 PMSimilar thoughts have been nagging at the back of my mind lately.
Those of us who own our homes outright and have absolutely no debt will become targets of wealth takeover. I fully expect to start receiving huge, outrageous bills in the mail for things I never purchased. Or we will discover our bank account balances drained, and there will be no clue as to how it happened. Oh, and FDIC will have long been exhausted . . .
One of the last Obama takeovers will be the utilities industry through cap & trade. We just finished putting expensive, new custom windows in our 1879 Victorian. Most likely it will still be targeted as inefficient for just two people; we will be forced to take in "moochers" as it would only be fair. Punditarian, somewhere I read accounts of Russians who fled their home only to find squatters there who said it was theirs. Only those who had DEEDS in hand could evict said squatters and regain their homes. So to my list of necessary papers I added "abstract & title".
Posted by: NeeNee at December 10, 2012 2:36 PMOh the irony Gerard. That picture you chose, IIRC from somewhere on the Net, it's Buchenwald, and those are the Communists who organized themselves and were at the top of the prisoner pecking order. The German guards were scared of those guys. The Gypsies, Jews, and other undesirables (protected classes in today's America) were in much worse shape.
Posted by: John A. Fleming at December 10, 2012 2:38 PMNobody has ever tried to do this to people so well armed. It looks like the end game is approaching and the enemies of The People still have their AR-15s. America is a powder keg.
Posted by: Tim at December 10, 2012 3:34 PMI don't know. I can't imagine people actually standing up to the cops, armed or not.
Sure there will be a few firefights, but it is very easy to vilify some old guy like me.
When I'm dead I'll have been a racist or a homophobe or some kind of right-wing religious nut like David Koresh. My farm house will have been a compound and the few guns in my safe will have been an arsenal, and I will have had it coming for years.
Posted by: mushroom at December 10, 2012 4:12 PMThe most startling moment for me in my clandestine visit to a small island ruled by a Communist dictator was walking into a grand, pillared house on a main boulevard. The entrance hall was massive, surrounded by balconies that led, not to bedrooms, but the individual families living in the bedrooms of the once grand home. Blankets over makeshift door frames extended out to the edge of the balcony as each family sought to expand their tiny portion. It looked like a scene from Dr. Zhivago, only moreso. Stunningly indescribable.
One family had dug out from the back of the home into a rise of rock behind it, to expand their quarters. They had to sneak the rubble out into the night streets, lest the diktat find out that they were striving to be something more than their neighbors.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh at December 10, 2012 5:48 PMNENE: "One of the last Government takeovers will be the utilities"
FTFY
If you think this crap started or ends with Obama you are a fool. This has been happening long before Obama every got in office, maybe even before he was born.
And everybody who voted for Woodrow Wilson is responsible for this.
And everybody who voted for Woodrow Wilson is responsible for this.
I wants mah rep'riations, then, Apache warrior.
Posted by: Jewel at December 10, 2012 7:29 PMI see it a little less draconian, but not by much. We are a nation of laws. Lots and lots of laws. So many laws, in fact, that you are surely in violation of about 50 of them right now.
We are really more on a Fascist model, but who notices?
Posted by: Casey Klahn at December 10, 2012 8:26 PMNo one knows how many Federal criminal laws there are:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304319804576389601079728920.html
It is probably correct to say that if the Feds want something on anybody, they can find a statute to suit.
Posted by: Lorne at December 10, 2012 8:42 PMIf you are a married man/head of household, you would have to consider the consequences of an act of defiance on your family. If you were incarcerated and lost your income, are your wife and children prepared for this sudden change? For young children, the loss of a father in the home may be for them a huge loss of freedom, amongst other things. I think this would be a huge consideration for a family man should push come to shove.
Posted by: Jim at December 10, 2012 10:28 PMI'm not a doer or a joiner, but I sent George Zimmerman a check.
Rousseau wrote the winning path to despotism. Then Rospierre and Marx fouled it. The winning path was resurrected after the First World War when the more savvy of the revolutionaries demanded that the Bolshevik stopped scaring people, put away their funny hats and goatees, get a suit and tie, speak moderately, and take over academia and journalism. These revolutionaries made it inside the gates in 1933, the defenders were left outside. Garet Garrett: A government that had been supported by the people and so controlled by the people became one that supported the people and so controlled them.
Rouseau
There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom, for in that way one captures volition itself.
Robert Nisbet
Of the subtle alchemies of thought performed by Rousseau and by the guiding spirits of the revolution, the subtlest and most potent was the conversion of absolute power into the illusion of mass freedom.
Walter Bagehot
A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.
Tocqueville
Princes had turned violence into a physical thing but our democratic republics have made it into something as intellectual as the human will it intends to restrict. The consequences of this state of affairs are dire and dangerous for the future.
Theodore Dalrymple
When words become the test of virtue they also become the masks of vice. That is why sanctimony and ruthless self-interest are such powerful allies.
Aldous Huxley
Great is the truth, but greater still is silence about the truth.
Lincoln
To keep silent when we should protest, makes cowards of us all.
The British social fascists have already started agitating for the confiscation of private homes whose excessive space is being squandered by their elderly owners, selfish "housing hoarders," unfairly denying young moochers the lebensraum they need.
Posted by: Punditarian at December 11, 2012 1:39 AMGod tells us not to bear false witness. Surely this is not just to refrain from knowingly casting blame on the innocent: Isn’t all deviation from the truth, false witness? Isn’t silence in the presence of deceit, false witness?
Henri Amiel: “Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be outraged by silence.”
This was beautifully written. It could not have been more chilling.... and truthful.
Posted by: T at December 12, 2012 12:22 PM
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