The other day I linked to an item about Donald Trump’s economic illiteracy. Today, there is an item in the Daily Telegraph by Emma Barnett (whoever she is). She piles on Trump for the endorsement he has received from Sarah Palin. Her article is about how deranged most American voters, and by extension, much of the political class, are and is. But the article itself is an example of a different kind of stupidity, mixed up with a generous loading of condescension and superciliousness. And I just loved this about the approach Brits are supposed to take to what is going on Stateside:
If the US political stage were solely split between the reasonable wings of the Democrat Party, a socialist Bernie Sanders and hawkish Hillary Clinton, we’d probably be better able to relate.
So let me get this straight: the UK would be fine with an election between an economically illiterate fool (Sanders) and a probable criminal (Clinton). OK, we currently have an official opposition led by a terrorist-supporting sub-Marxist (Corbyn) and a government led by a patrician Tory of mixed accomplishments (Cameron), although “call me Dave” is probably not as venal, or as congenital a liar, as H. Clinton (we are talking in relative terms, in case people object that DC isn’t particularly honest). So yes, there is much about American politics that a lot of Brits, marinated in mixed economy juice and decades of socialism, cannot relate to, but please, don’t let’s assume that we’d all be quite content with a race between Sanders and Clinton for ultimate power any more than most Americans would.
Oh and by the way, if H Clinton is “hawkish”, I am not sure how that assessment fits with the running sore that is the siege on the Benghazi Embassy, and her behaviour over said.
I think the first sign was the appointment of someone with a name like Sarah Sands as the editor of one of their publications, I forget which. Anyway she was obviously some kind of progressive not remotely a Conservative. Since then it has become obvious that the Telegraph has been sunk by the Gramscian tide. Of the once much hated and feared “Tory Press” it’s really only the Daily Mail that remains.
The Telegraph is a Statist paper, their stories are littered with Marxist slogans such as “islamaphobia”
Obviously some readers here will disagree with me but I’m posting a comment I made on my blog about another idiot:
Seriously, The Stupid is strong with this one. In apparent fact The Stupid is so strong that the peace activist fools that provoked Robert Heinlein into writing Starship Troopers are effective geniuses in comparison.
So why did he write it?
Heinlein wrote the novel to be the part of the juvenile series of science fiction novels published by Scribners and as a response to pro-Soviet peace activism. In the novel a young man grows from a naive high school student to a junior officer in the army. The narrative of the novel also serves as the framework for a series of lectures about the nature of man, morals, war, and government. The most controversial concept in the novel is that not everyone should be allowed to vote. In the place of universal suffrage Heinlein proposed the idea that the legal status of Citizen, who is a member of the sovereign class of the nation with the authority to vote, has to be earned.
Then as now there were people who clearly didn’t understand the concept of government. Then as now there were those who sought to exploit the ignorance of the mere voter in order to obtain political power. And worse to obtain power without restraint. Heinlein had proposed the idea of earning the sovereign franchise as a filtering mechanism to prevent obvious fools–such as peace activists–from influencing government.
The idea of the restricted franchise is not new. In the Polis of Athens the franchise was restricted to property owning members of the tribe but there was no legal restraint on the state. As history had shown this led to dysfunctions such as legal murder of Socrates.
It was not enough to restrict the powers of government but to restrict who could actually participate in the process of governing. In effect to idiot-proof the system.
So is it actually necessary to fully implement the system that Heinlein proposed?
The fact is that all forms of authority are based on knowledge and political authority is no exception. But in the present system political authority is granted to any warm body without regard to their the actual state of knowledge. As a result some warm bodies have traded their votes for a material object such as an IPad or a wad of cash. Or worse they have traded their votes for the warm and fuzzy feeling of having been compassionate.
The result is out present state of our nation. Those who lack knowledge or simple concern for consequences should not have authority over another person, let alone the fate of a nation.
My solution to the problem is simply proper education in the obligations of citizenship.
The course would be similar to a driver education course as presently taught. The first part of the class covers The Constitution, the proper functions of each branch of government, the function of each clause and amendment, the duties of the citizen as a member of the sovereign authority of the nation, and what is expected to happen when the Federal Government enters the failure mode.
The second part of the course covers the function and use of the instrument of political authority, the personal weapon. This covers rifle marksmanship and maintenance. Also covered is the basic organization and tactics of the citizen militia unit.
While the citizenship course will not be mandatory, completion and a passing grade will be required to exercise the authority to vote.
Leslie, thanks. Robert Heinlein wrote of a period called “The Crazy Years”. Required reading.
I would put in a good word for the Daily Express, which, if you can forgive its obsessions with phantom cures for dementia and cancer and phantom freak weather, still puts in some counter to the Marxian drivel of the Telegraph. I completely agree with Lee about the Telegraph, although the obituaries still show flashes of lucidity.
Nothing wrong with TRUMP! Can’t wait til he’s the next Prez. Call a constitutional convention, repeal the 22nd, 18th, and a whole lot more!
It seems perpetually to amaze most of the British public that the USA is actually a foreign country, and that the people of the USA do not share the standard left-wing received wisdom that the brainwashed British public takes for granted.
AngryTory, huh? The 18th Amendment (prohibition) was, so I thought, repealed before WW2. The 22nd prevents a person being POTUS for more than two terms – seems entirely reasonable in acting as a check on power.
Given the choice between Trump, H.Clinton, Sanders, and Obama, i’d choose Trump as the LIKELY lesser evil. I stress LIKELY because, while we might be able to compare one of the first 3 with Obama, we’ll never know for sure which of the first 3 is the least bad choice.
Indeed, without it, Obama would almost certainly be the Dem candidate this year, in which case he might even get reelected.
Good post J.P.
Benghazi was a gun running operation gone wrong. The military wasn’t allowed to go in because they didn’t want soldiers figuring out what was going on. Hilary is a hawk, but she doesn’t want her illegal operations noticed. This is an education guess, but look at ISIS and whatever Sunni radical group that shows up in a region- often they have American military stuff. In fact, I wonder if the recent Iran deal upsets her. Wasn’t much of a whisper of it when she was around.
Can we just class the Barnett article as ‘I don’t understand these people, so they must be wrong’, a common view amongst commentators? There are a small number of journalist-opinion piece writers who do make attempts to understand others (Owen Jones’ best work (there is some – his interviews of right-wing figures are quite interesting) and John Harris, also in the Guardian, are good examples of this – people who are up front that they do not agree with those they are talking about, but make an effort to explore the differences), but mostly they start from a set of assumptions of their own and move no further.
As you might tell from the above, I do not advocate sitting in an echo chamber and only repeating what I believe. This means I have a slightly concerned view on Trump, but an even more concerned view on people who do not seem to understand what drives his (or Sarah Palin’s) support.
It’s OK. We feel the same way about UK voters and the UK political class. :p
The problem is that Britain is faced with exactly the electoral choice that this idiot is suggesting.
Given that the so-called “Conservative” Party is ideologically about the same as the centrist wing of the Democrat Party. the UK is faced with this electoral scenario, roughly speaking:
Corbyn = Sanders
Cameron = Hillary
Farage = Trump
There is no Ted Cruz in the Conservative Party, nor even a Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. The UK has no gun-supporting politicians (i.e. a Second Amendment proponent) — in fact, Britain’s gun laws are Hillary’s wet dream. The fact that Trump has so large a degree of public acceptance while Farage (and the UKIP) have almost none speaks volumes about the difference in the voting populations of the two nations. The fact that the British public is overwhelmingly in favour of the death penalty, yet there is NO chance that it will ever be reinstated illustrates the degree to which the democratic process has been undermined — and the amount of power willingly delegated to a foreign entity (that would be the EU) is just emblematic of that same phenomenon.
The plain fact is that there are no longer any small-c conservatives in the British polity, only a few thousand libertarians who are too few in number to influence any elections beyond the small-town council level.
The State in Britain has actual police powers that would cause revolution if imposed in the US, and in true totalitarian fashion, those powers increase almost annually.
I’m not saying that the US is in any way perfect — in fact, as a real conservative, I’m appalled that we seem to be headed down the same path as the UK. But to persist in the belief that Britain has any chance of pulling itself out of the mess it’s in strikes me as being hopelessly naïve if not outright delusional. At least we in the United States have the political machinery to reverse the tide of statism — whether we’ll use it is a question for another time) — but I’m hopeful that we’ll at least make an attempt.
In Britain, however, you’ll need another Margaret Thatcher to even attempt the change, and I don’t see any British politician or public figure remotely fitting the description. Good luck, because that’s what you’ll have to rely on.
Johnathan Pearce’s response to AngryTory is correct (the 18th was repealed in 1933). I suspect AngryTory really meant the 17th (direct popular election of senators) and the 16th (permitting a federal income tax). That combination of structural changes (the legacy of William Howard Taft, of all people) is the direct cause of the monster our federal government has become.
The only sensible way to reform the Federal Government is to limit its fund-raising powers to making a levy on the States, with the Federal Government taking say, at most 5% of the lower of a State’s annual expenditure or revenue. Let the States issue passports (just as the Isle of Man issues its citizens their passports), and let the House determine where the money it gets is spent, not how much, as that would be determined by the States’ aggregate budgets. No import duties, no Federal excise, no tariffs. In effect, the Federal Government would have no interaction with a private individual other than one who works for it, sells it stuff, is in a legal case in a Federal Court, or seeks consular assistance overseas. What’s not to like?
Mr Ed, that’s pretty much how the Articles of Confederation were structured (minus that thing about passports), and originally under the Constitution import duties and excises were pretty much the federal government’s only sources of revenue. That wasn’t a bad setup.
I think Watchman is correct: Ms. Barnett clearly doesn’t understand mainline Americans. I guess that’s understandable if her primary sources of information about this country are Sesame Street, Judy Blume novels, and family living in the heart of hard-left territory (i.e., New York and Washington DC). Still, give her credit: her characterization of Trump-Palin as an “hallucinogenic combination” is pretty accurate. Of course, whether it’s a good trip or a bad one is for each individual to decide. But Barack Obama’s “gentility“? Give me a break!
Some eight years ago when I was preparing to emigrate to New Zealand, one of my friends asked my why, at my age (I was 53) I was giving up a good job, selling a house and moving to the other end of the world.
I wrote a reasonably detailed reply but I addressed the issue of the Daily Mail (Hawk! Spit!) as a more representative opinion of mainstream Britain. Excerpt below:
“I had an interesting discussion with a Guardian reader here in the office. His bleeding heart, typically left wing and intolerant rant ended “Is there really a place in Modern society for such a venomous, negative and overtly xenophobic newspaper as the Mail (after calling me a Daily Mail reader). My reaction was to visit the Audited Bureau of Circulation website and look at figures – the Daily Mail has an average daily circulation of 2,308,325 whereas the Guardian has an average daily circulation of 358,142. A 13:2 discrepancy in the Mails favour. Even factoring in the Daily Mirror (average daily circulation of 1,875,554) and adding it to the Guardian readership, the Mail still beats the combined left wing newspapers by 74,629.
“I think this typifies the Guardian reading elite – we are right, the proles do not understand the issues, if only our policies were properly funded, if more resources were poured into the problem, then everything would be fine. And if you disagree with their “progressive” policies (another piece of political correctness hijacking and perverting the language), then you want slavery brought back, children working down mines and people to die of disease etc. ad infinitum. In short, one of those horrible Daily Mail readers.
“I would argue that the Daly Mail more closely aligns with the attitudes of people in this country but the Guardian readers have the reigns of power and their social engineering experiment proceeds apace, with the results we see today. As Kevin Baker says, the doctrine can’t be wrong. It is only because it wasn’t implemented with enough conviction, force, money, resources etc. that it isn’t working. After all, if the theory is wrong, then the whole of their system of belief is wrong and they are wrong. So do it again, only harder! He calls it reinforcing failure, singularly apt in my opinion.”
Note thast this was 8 years ago so the nimbers might have changed (particularly as he Daily Mail publishes an on line edition which is an unknown quantity as far as verifying the number of people reading it but FWIW …
I’ve sometimes wondered if we could have some sort of free state movement in the UK. Even if only one constituency.
“Hawkish” as long as none gets on her, I’m sure.
So being quoted in the Guardian isn’t such a big deal?
“Apparently they haven’t noticed that the path to peace for a free nation invariably goes over the dead bodies of would-be conquerors and their pet quislings [traitors].”
Apparently some American country singer recently said that Hillary ought to be hanged over Benghazi, and this was reported as “shocking”. Personally, I think hanging is far too good for her. An alternative would be to have her taken to Syria and left behind without armed escort. The Islamic nutters over there will surely provide a lengthy video of the proceedings.
At least we in the United States have the political machinery to reverse the tide of statism — whether we’ll use it is a question for another time) — but I’m hopeful that we’ll at least make an attempt.
Yep: the 2nd amendment!
I suspect AngryTory really meant the 17th (direct popular election of senators) and the 16th (permitting a federal income tax).
yep. both clearly unconstitutional and against the aims of the founders and framers. I’d take out everything except the 2nd, and clarify the text of that to duty, rather than right.
The only sensible way to reform the Federal Government… What’s not to like?
Some states would retain unconstitutional communism. The same restrictions need to apply to the states!
After all: the Constitution guarantees “Republican” government not “Democrat” government!
We should treat communists, socialists, atheists as the unconstitutional illegals they are.
@Phil B: And you left Britain to move to New Zealand?!
Emigrating from the UK because of all the lefties is entirely understandable.
Emigrating from the UK to New Zealand because of all the lefties is like migrating from the UK to Saudi Arabia because of all the Jihadis. Or like migrating from the UK to New Zealand because of all the sheep-shaggers. Or like migrating from the UK to New Zealand because of all the inbreds. Or like migrating from the UK to the USA because of all the RKBA enthusiasts (in the former. Or like migrating from the UK to France because of all the British cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Or like #$! [carrier lost]
It is the Telegraph, most are disguised Socialists.
AngryTory,
As I was an atheist for about ten years before I started reading Ayn Rand I would have to strongly disagree with you.