Give this man 38 minutes and he'll make the baby Jesus open your mind and shut your mouth.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at March 9, 2013 1:54 PM
Preach it, Bill! Wow, it's men like Bill Whittle that gave me hope that conservatism and small government have a future.
Posted by: Jimmy J. at March 9, 2013 2:48 PMMeanwhile in Obama's America
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21636723
Posted by: Bill Jones at March 9, 2013 3:58 PMI really like all the things Bill says. Very positive. VERY logical.
One small problem though:
Sheeple.
Sheeple who cannot be reached by logic. Sheeple who listen to their Overlords (whether its Comedy Central, their professor or some newscaster) and believe what they are told verbatim whether it contradicts the very thing the same guy said last week or whether it undermines even their own existence:
They will believe it and they have their marching orders.
Many people have forgotten how to think for themselves. They want their free stuff and believe whatever their leader says is true. Besides its too difficult - have the Intellectual Elite do the thinking. I have my TV to watch and my food stamps to spend.
I'll still listen to Bill, Gerard, but I think the country is entering a very turbulent and uncertain era.
Posted by: Cond0011 at March 9, 2013 5:23 PMHe's good. Now, to solve the problem that Cond0011 raised: dragging the slack-jawed masses away from American Idol for long enough to take an interest in their own liberty.
Posted by: waltj at March 10, 2013 8:03 AMHaving been a huge fan of Bill's since long before it was cool, through the present day, I am long past the point of questioning either his motives or his ability to make his case. He's still my favorite virtual acquaintance, speaker, writer and personality. I just wish he'd had the motivation AND a way to be so widely persuasive back when we started to realize how truly dire things were getting... way back in the 90s.
Unfortunately, however, I must observe that Bill is in Denial. As Cond001 points out, and many others have observed - electoral results notwithstanding - we have clearly reached a critical mass of illiteracy, innumeracy, indolence, dependence, incompetence, lawlessness, lack of accountability, apathy and unsustainable debt in this country, all directly or indirectly attributable to the breakdown in our educational institutions at the hands of so-called "progressives". That can not be overcome with revised debate rhetoric, a good story or by 'winning' elections. A corrupted citizenry is simply not capable of governing itself, no matter how dispersed it is. A corrupted citizenry is not capable of engaging in a functional economy, no matter how dispersed it is. And trying to drag slack-jawed masses ANYWHERE is a fool's errand at this point, even with home-schooling.
Bill wants to create a parallel economy and Go Galt, and I'm right there with him in spirit. In reality, however, given the populace we're talking about, that is not a viable proposition.
Also, since no one else has pointed it out, I'm forced to note that in the context of this Denial - as long as one is cognizant of the prevailing sensibilities of the 1860s, and NOT judging by the far more enlightened morals of our time - Bill actually makes the Confederacy's case in his segment on Abortion.
TODAY we ALL believe/know that enslavement - of ANY race - is and was morally wrong. That was not universally the case in Lincoln's time, however. As clear, compelling evidence we see that it was STILL IN WIDESPREAD PRACTICE in roughly half the country then.
In his adulation of Lincoln as an American leader, and his rush to oversimplify the factors that led to the Civil War, Bill misses a pretty critical point. That is this: if Abortion presents a social policy question that should be determined by whether or not THE LOCALS think a human being is involved (a position with which I happen to wholeheartedly agree), then the exact same condition held true for the social policy question of Slavery, as it was understood and practiced in the 1860s. The Constitution of 1860 gave the central government no more authority over issues involving Slavery than it does today with respect to Abortion.
As such, acting as Commander-in-Chief of federal military forces on January 1, 1863, Lincoln had no more business dictating social policy on that issue to the States, at the point of a gun, than the President of today has in dictating to Americans how they should deal with the question of Abortion. And that's true even WITHOUT considering the utterly disingenuous nature of the Proclamation Lincoln used to impose his will.
Ironically, in usurping the authority to dictate this policy, the first Republican President essentially destroyed the future of the Republic - at least as it was originally designed and implemented by the Founders. Sadly, and contrary to his own wish and the rewriting of history by his apologists, Lincoln DID NOT 'preserve' the Union. He forced the States of the Confederacy back under his control with the threat of an artillery barrage. Simply put: a union is no longer a Union if it can only be maintained by military force. In that case it becomes an Empire, not a Union. And THIS empire has been fraught with racial strife, regional animosity and irrational, cultural resentment as a result of Lincoln's overreach from his time to ours. Just ask Al Sharpton or Rev. Wright.
As if that wasn't bad enough, what Lincoln also did, sadly, was to establish a precedent that put the central government in complete control (i.e., by military force) of social policy throughout ALL of the "United" States, irrespective of wether THE LOCALS agreed with its dictates. This change heralded the effective end of the Republic as it was originally conceived, and was the primary enabler for the monolithic monstrosity that rules the U.S. today.
But we are trained unceasingly, from childhood, to idolize Lincoln without question, because... HE "freed" the (black) slaves. So these truths are all considered blasphemy (see the quote that frequently pops up at the top of the AD site).
I feel like goy does about Bill Whittle, but goy is wrong when he says "irrespective of whether THE LOCALS agreed with its dictates". If you define THE LOCALS as including the local population of the enslaved, I'm sure you would have gotten an overwhelming sentiment in favor of emancipation.
Also, if you include in the definition of THE LOCALS the unborn population that is about to be aborted, again I'm sure you would have a majority sentiment in favor of banning abortion.
The one place where my argument falls down is that if you take a place that is full of illegal immigrants and define them to be included among THE LOCALS, you would have a majority sentiment that wants to grant them full citizenship.
Posted by: Random Person at March 10, 2013 11:35 AMRandom Person, I don't see how your hypotheticals (i.e., 'if you include') can possibly apply here.
In observing that Bill makes the Confederacy's case by using Abortion as an example as he does, I'm using HIS argument and his assumptions here. And he clearly doesn't include the social groups you mention.
That is, by THE LOCALS, Bill is clearly referring to the voting population. In 1860 that didn't include black slaves.
And today, it's not possible to ask an unborn child whether or not it really wants to be brought into our declining world, even if it IS considered a person with rights under the Constitution.
So your argument here doesn't really hold. You may just be falling into the trap that Bill does (and many others do), of using today's sensibilities to rationalize Lincoln's Republic-destroying overreach in a time when those sensibiilties did not universally apply.
He's optimistic, but naive and wrong. The internet age doesn't make us any less urban-dependent, and it doesn't make people any more ruggedly individualistic. It just makes folks selfish and hedonistic, demanding, and lazy. Being able to order steel from Japan from your phone doesn't make you any less dependent on factories to make anything with it.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at March 10, 2013 5:35 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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