Trump election anniversary and progressives' delusional race to save democracy

[EasyAce]

Some liberals think increasing government power will repair our broken civic life. But it would destroy the tattered remnants of federal legitimacy.
By James Bovard
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/11/08/trump-election-anniversary-virginia-new-jersey-how-to-save-democracy-jim-bovard-column/834427001/

Responding to the anniversary of Donald Trump’s election, The Washington Post Magazine
presented “38 ideas for repairing our badly broken civic life.” Post Magazine editor Richard Just
explained that “all of us ... should be able to agree that some future-pondering about the state
of our democracy is in order.”

Many — if not most — of the Post’s recommendations from experts, artists, and writers are insipid
or authoritarian. But they provide an excellent snapshot of progressive thinking after nearly one
year of Trump era tumult . . .

. . . There are plenty of other perilous reform proposals floating around nowadays – including banning
negative campaign ads (to assure that voters think well of their future rulers), shutting down the Electoral
College (thereby practically awarding California the prerogative to select the next president), banning
contributions to political candidates (thereby guaranteeing an even higher rate of incumbent reelection),
forcing television networks to provide free time for political advertisements (as if viewers were not
suffering enough), and creating a new federal oversight agency to replace the utterly dysfunctional
Federal Election Commission. Unfortunately, almost no one is proposing reforms that would compel
politicians and federal agencies to obey the Constitution — one reform that could do more than any
other to put a damper on mass cynicism.

Do some reformers still see average Americans as a “basket of deplorables” who need to be muzzled,
disarmed, regimented and force-fed correct opinions? The Washington Post’s new motto is “Democracy
Dies in Darkness.”  But democracy also dies from too many Iron Fists. At a time when only 20% of
Americans trust the feds to do the right thing, any reforms that sharply increase coercion will make
“consent of the governed” an even more distant mirage.

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Bovard, for the uninitiated, is the author of, among others . . .

[Bigun]

OH yeah!  Even MORE government is the answer to all our problems!  /s

[EasyAce]

OH yeah!  Even MORE government is the answer to all our problems!  /s

Expecting uplift from politicians is like expecting burglars to leave Gideon’s Bibles in every house they plunder.
---Bovard, from his book Public Policy Hooligan.

Regardless of how many crimes a government commits, it will have legions of apologists among intellectuals,
pundits, bankers, and politicians.
---Bovard, from the same book.

Government and politics are the nation's largest organised crime family.---Yours truly.

[Bigun]

Expecting uplift from politicians is like expecting burglars to leave Gideon’s Bibles in every house they plunder.
---Bovard, from his book Public Policy Hooligan.

Regardless of how many crimes a government commits, it will have legions of apologists among intellectuals,
pundits, bankers, and politicians.
---Bovard, from the same book.

Government and politics are the nation's largest organised crime family.---Yours truly.

You and Mr. Bovard seem to have a very good handle on things!   

[EasyAce]

You and Mr. Bovard seem to have a very good handle on things!   

Well, thank you! But I'm not quite in his league, even if I did figure out early and often that
a) the significant difference between a liberal and a mafioso is that, when you ask for your
money back, the mafioso will at least have the decency not to ask you what right you have
to want your money back, even as he's measuring your piano-wire garrot; and, b) actual
or alleged conservatives have too often been as George F. Will figured out in 1978, when
he observed, "Today's conservative has reached into his heart of hearts, prayed hard, and
decided it was high time that the government cut his neighbour's benefits.

Not to mention---and I'm pretty sure Mr. Bovard made the same reference, though in
different language, in one of his books---that for at least two decades, perhaps longer,
today's (actual or alleged) conservative has too often fallen into, "You can't do that
to the American people---only we can do that to the American people![/i]

[Bigun]

Well, thank you! But I'm not quite in his league, even if I did figure out early and often that
a) the significant difference between a liberal and a mafioso is that, when you ask for your
money back, the mafioso will at least have the decency not to ask you what right you have
to want your money back, even as he's measuring your piano-wire garrot; and, b) actual
or alleged conservatives have too often been as George F. Will figured out in 1978, when
he observed, "Today's conservative has reached into his heart of hearts, prayed hard, and
decided it was high time that the government cut his neighbour's benefits.

Not to mention---and I'm pretty sure Mr. Bovard made the same reference, though in
different language, in one of his books---that for at least two decades, perhaps longer,
today's (actual or alleged) conservative has too often fallen into, "You can't do that
to the American people---only we can do that to the American people![/i]

James Bovard is a man worth listening to and it's too bad that so few have chosen to do so!

Cleon Scousen was another!

[EasyAce]

James Bovard is a man worth listening to and it's too bad that so few have chosen to do so!

Cleon Scousen was another!

So is P.J. O'Rourke . . .

[Cyber Liberty]

Parliament of Whores was one of my favorite P.J. O'Rourke books.