The Top 40

The deal strikes me as a total disaster for the GOP.

If the Tea Party formally organizes and leaves the GOP, as I expect it will, we end up with DEM, TP, GOP in rough order of strength.

The Dems will be by far the largest and best financed. They will remain the darling of the MSM. When the deal is understood the left will be dancing in the streets. And the split of TP and GOP means Obama will be reelected.

The TP will grow fast with defecting Republicans but not enough to gain either house.

The pathetic GOP will sleep in the street near the dust bin of history. And I think it deserves it.

Economics and actual events will not matter. The overwhelming majority in the media will never blame the Democrats for anything.

Try to consider new ideas. Personally, I think governance is dead. Parties clearly don't matter. Violent reaction is only a matter of time and degrees. What will finally set the white folk to rioting?
If the Republicans can't and won't represent anyone but their own political hides, what's a partilesss body to do? Keep voting for Tweedle Dumber?

We shall see what happens, won't we.

Miss Barnhardt should switch to decaf.

One thing being discussed is that its much easier for a truly bad bill to be brought to the floor and passed with only 1/3 of members supporting it. That is a ramification of the function of the bipartisan committee; it could be a gun control measure, for instance, or a financial bill with such a rider. The way it works now is such a bill can be killed singlehandedly by the speaker or a committee chairman of a current committee. We've all heard of bills never making it out of committee. That's how a lot of bad legislation never makes it into law; one person can kill a bill - now. That was given up when the bipartisan committee was created.

Aside from that it is typical smoke and mirrors. Congress critters love to hide their perfidy in such. This is a bad bill born of GOP concessions and appeasement to the statists, a product of cowards perpetrated on a half dead electorate. The so called Tea Party members, 85 or so new reps swept in in 2010, voted for it in droves.

Don't put your faith in people.

Musket? Balls? Powder dry? Let's roll.

The tipping point is getting closer.

Except for the Pink Squirrel sipping individual leaning up against the mantle, people here have the finger on the pulse. Congress lost most of the cards in the deck and still dealt a hand.

Ah, at last an honest man(woman). Sister Barnhardt be using chumps! I'd like to see her go up to Capitol Hill with an oak stick a la Buford Pusser and clean house.
Gedalia, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Wait till the house of cards comes tumbling down and several million Ann Barnhardts are having a torchlight mark down Pennsylvania Avenue.

oops, make that "march" not "mark"

The state of the economy has nothing to do with the whole debt ceiling circus, but most think it does. So, as the economy continues to slide, the TP is likely to get the blame for that from the MSM and Democrats, because of the TP's supposed "victory."

It's all a clever trap.

When the Montana Uprising, or the Texas Incident, or whatever tag the Ministry of Truth puts on the coming civil unrest, Americans will say, like a teenager who wrecks your car, "Well, we didn't know." Yes, actually you did... Ann Barnhardt told you.

Gedalia, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Wait till the house of cards comes tumbling down and several million Ann Barnhardts are having a torchlight mark down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Oh please. I suppose you'll be the one to lead the charge, Bill, pitchfork in hand.

What nonsense.

This is the typical pattern that every political system goes through at the end of its life. The political establishment is now incapable of dealing with external shocks to the system. It literally can't do anything about what's coming.

Oh please. I suppose you'll be the one to lead the charge, Bill, pitchfork in hand. What nonsense.

Captain Dave, I'm sure the British thought the colonials' initial expressions of discontent were nonsense too. Just saying.

Well, the founders ensured that when things get out of hand, there was a clear pathway to power for any truly broad constituency sharing the goal to set things right.

The "tea party" is such a movement and it's on the march. The next step occurs in November of 2012. This debt deal, even though largely smoke-and-mirrors, cements the political agenda into the hands of the tea party, and this will be decisive in that contest.

To paraphrase psalm 72, our enemies shall lick the dust.

I'm a simple man, but if I didn't know better I'd think you were speaking condescendingly toward me, there Gedalia old bean. I ain't planning any insurrections personally (I have an 11 bravo mos in a long ago war, a combat infantryman's badge and a bronze star for valor as far as street cred goes, what did you do in the war, daddy?). Just saying this thing might get a lot crazier than we think if the political class doesn't start paying attention. Ann Barnhardt is definitely pretty edgy but she ain't the only one feeling this way.

Thank you for your service, bill. Yes, Ann isn't saying anything that I wasn't saying, or at least thinking, back in 2008. But she says it so much better than I can.

Just saying this thing might get a lot crazier than we think if the political class doesn't start paying attention.

For a fellow with your experience and self-described resume, Bill old bean, "might" is a pretty weak adverb with which to make your point.

Gedaliya, I told you homeboy, I was a simple man. I have no idea what your last comment was trying to imply. My "self described resume" as you so sneeringly describe it is what it is, light weapons infantry, Delta Co., 2/14th infantry 25th Infantry Division, Hau Ngiah province, Duc Hoa district,1968-1969 ( makes me too old for the barricades). Like I said, many in the heartland are feeling what Ann is. They're not (nor am I) Joe Biden's terrorists ,but they're the dying middle class of America, ripped off by venal politicians and corrupt Wall St. They're pissed off and scared . Whatever , I got better things to do than spar with you Einstein.

Bill, and his detractors, and Ann B., too.

Don't know if you've been to a Tea Party event. I've been to several and am here to tell you they will fight, IF they fight, with ballots, not bullets, or pitchforks. One, they are too old, but mostly, they are waaaay to freakin timid - the ones I saw/know.

I don't do tea party anymore. I don't think they in fact have the courage of their convictions. Period.

I too, Bill, had the picket fence MOS. Ann is eggin people on and I, for one, tend to be a detractor mainly because of her certitude; beware people with no doubt especially if they think they have a direct pipeline to divine revelation. She's playing a dangerous game.

Bill, Gedaliya has all the depth of a puddle of puppy piss on a sunny summer sidewalk. You got it, all mouth!

You may be right, Mr. Hinds, but it would sure do a world of good for this country if there were a bunch of leaders on the right who had the certitude of the fascist totalitarians on the left such as Obama, Schumer, Frank, the blessedly dead Kennedys, etc.

Only Franco can save us now. And yes, I'm being serious.

But I don't see a Franco anywhere.

Only Franco can save us now. And yes, I'm being serious.

You're mad.

Am I? We shall see.

The issues are the same as they were in Franco's day: liberty, equality, and fraternity versus tradition, family, and private property. Atheism and the deification of man versus Christianity and the kingship of God. Only two choices exist and in the end everyone will be forced to decide between them.

There can ultimately be no compromise, no political accommodation between these two worldviews. The time for reasoned debate is over. Ultimately, the order of the world will be decided by naked force. The only question is which worldview will be enforced at gunpoint.

It is almost July 1936. Where is our Franco?

Has it ever not been decided by such naked force? The more powerful win; the meek submit and grovel.

Name a time when this is/was not so.

Only two choices exist and in the end everyone will be forced to decide between them.

The United States was founded on Lockean rather than Manichean principles. Your worldview is sick, and your call for fascist dictatorship to solve our political problems is laughable.

But hey, even you can start a political movement based on your worldview. Perhaps your poster-boy could be Anders Behring Breivik and your leader Lyndon Larouche.

@gedaliya at August 4, 2011 7:37 AM: Lockean principles are philosophically flawed and do not work in the real world. Your worldview is evil, and your call for more disastrous and immoral liberty, equality, and fraternity is laughable.

I have no desire to start a political movement. Politics solve nothing. And Mr. Brevik's atheistic and humanist worldview bears no similarity to my own Catholic and Carlist political outlook. My worldview and that of Mr. Larouche are also completely dissimilar.

Meaning no disrespect, but your grasp of philosophical and political matters seems tenuous. For example, you claim Gmo. Franco was a fascist. He was not, in fact, as anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the Spanish Civil War knows. He did not meet the criteria of fascism, being neither a blood-and-soil tribalist, nor a pagan, nor an antisemite, nor a eugenicist, nor an ideologue. He had no utopian program, did not seek to establish any new order, and had no desire to reconstruct or modify human nature. He was a nationalist, a traditionalist, and a reactionary, and he did suppress opposition to his rule (and a good thing he did, too), but he did not institute a militarist regime nor did he seek to improperly expand the boundaries of the State. As a pious Catholic, Franco of course rejected the Völkisch paganism of the Nazi movement and the atheistic State-worship of Mussolini's Fascism alike. He was, in sum, simply not a fascist.

He was instead a man of principle, and one not afraid to do right as God gave him to see the right. Gmo. Franciso Franco believed in God, his country, the family, and his king, and felt not the slightest remorse about killing those who tried to destroy same. He was a hero.

That's all it takes to earn the label "fascist" nowadays, as you have proved.

Those who follow Locke and his ilk have bought into the revolutionary idea -- the Devil's lie, the original lie. They believe that individual liberty is the greatest good. They hold that man has the right to define reality for himself, to rule himself, to "become as gods". The world we have created is based upon this lie.

And as does anything built upon a lie, the world we have created is collapsing. As lie piles upon lie the weight of untruth become unsupportable. And when the Smash finally comes, we will each of us choose how to respond. We will choose to stand with the truth, with the eternal verities and the natural order, or to cling to the edifice of lies as it comes tumbling down.

I've made my choice. May God guide you in making yours.

@Robert. Re your interesting comment. Liberty not the greatest good, not G_d given? How about an aspect or facet along with truth, beauty, wisdom, courage, and other concomitants of sentient life? God descends into matter to reemerge a self realized spirit; isn't that the story of Christ? Man doesn't set the parameters of apotheosis but does have the power to make of the Real anything he wants, it seems to me. Isn't that the meaning of free will? Doesn't mean he's G_d; means he can BE a demigod.

Religion is a question to which there is no answer, ergo, Faith, which follows the suspension of Reason. The rest of us are left staring into the void, which, if you stare at it long enough begins to stare back. Pythagoras has it right. Man IS the measure of all things. Stated otherwise, all measure is taken in reference to man's being in as a physical form.

Franco...but he did not institute a militarist regime nor did he seek to improperly expand the boundaries of the State.

Oh? Someone forgot to mention this to Franco's tailor. And, um, interesting use of the word "improperly" there, fella.

Listen chum. Your argument style, which is but yet another tiresome example of counting angels on heads of pins, does little more than reveal you to be a mindless fanatic, perhaps even a psycho, and it won't benefit anyone to argue with you about your revealed truths.

...the world we have created is collapsing...

Yeah, well, perhaps. Yet, the world has never had a shortage of doomsayers. Today, for instance, you find yourself in league with a whole host of unsavory characters holding a parallel worldview, including (the late) bin Laden, the man you call "Mr. Brevik", and sunny Al Gore. Mankind, you see, has strayed from the TRUE PATH, and as a result its consumption in a holocaust of fire-and-brimstone is imminent.

The only thing missing from your boilerplate are the Jews.

@gedaliya at August 4, 2011 6:02 PM:

I am not your "chum". I chose to treat you with respect because I assumed that you were a person of gentle manners who wished to discuss the issues in a rational way. I see now that I was wrong on both counts.

Entertaining ad hominem rant, though.

Our conversation is at its end. Believe what you want. I don't care. If you choose to live in a fantasyland, that's okay by me. It won't matter a whit in the end. The natural order will reassert itself, and all the Internet cleverness and parliamentary posturing and supercongresses and UN resolutions and diversity workshops and emergent churches in the Universe will not stop it. The Gods of the Copybook Headings are about to limp up and explain it again.

The bill for our centuries-long whoredom with liberty, equality, and fraternity is going to come due, and we are going to pay it, all of us, to the last bitter penny.

May God bless you.