On CNN’s “State of the Union,” reporter John King asked President Obama about the criticism he’s received, mostly from the right, about his policies, and asked if his race had anything to do with it, as suggested by former President Jimmy Carter.
“As I’ve said in the past, are they people out there who don’t like me because of race, I’m sure there are,” Obama said. “That’s not the overriding issue here… I think we can have… passionate disagreements about issues without resorting to name calling.”
Obama also added that “the easiest way” to get on TV in this era of 24-hour cable news “is to say something rude and outrageous.”
Hans-Hermann Hoppe,
“Given that the characteristics and talents required for political success – of good looks, sociability, oratorical power, charisma, etc. – are distributed unequally among men, then those with these particular characteristics and skills will have a sound advantage in the competition for scarce resources (economic success) as compared to those without them…Therefore entrance into and success within government will become increasingly impossible for anyone hampered by moral scruples against lying and stealing. Moreover, even outside the orbit of government, within civil society, individuals will increasingly rise to the top of economic and financial success not on account of their productive or entrepreneurial talents or even their superior defensive political talents, but rather because of their superior skills as unscrupulous political entrepreneurs and lobbyists. Thus, the Constitution virtually assures that exclusively dangerous men will rise to the pinnacle of government power and that moral behaviour and ethical standards will tend to decline and deteriorate all-around.”
Sounds interesting. Who is HHH, and where did you get that?
No one should be surprised that a constitution that defined “the people” so narrowly would produce benefits for that group at the expense of the rest of us. The business model of America was “plantation” back then; now we have industrial-strength nuclear-powered feudalism.
In our modern world, have the people who HHH would expect to succeed taken the place of royalty?
Feudal institutions were removed from definitions of government, but do they remain in our collective unconscious? Is that what shows like American Idol are tapping into?
I don’t think it very surprising, to see the recapitulation of feudal patterns produced by people who believe the cosmos itself to be the fief of The Big Man Upstairs, the king of kings and all that. Our myths, about what the cosmos is and our proper role in it, shape the world before we go out and act in it, and they operate almost completely unexamined.
My favorite expat British philosopher, Alan Watts, very often remarked on the oddity of people who live in an allegedly democratic republic governed by self-sovereign citizens all the while worshiping a cosmic tyrant. If we believe the cosmos is a monarchy; that the world is governed by the force and fiat of an ultimate Lord of Lords; then that’s the government we should have. This is the source of a profound schism in the American psyche.
We need a modern organic political philosophy, we really must quit the feudal Newtonian-mechanism model for even our own most intimate organic systems. Just try going a day without using inappropriate mechanistic analogies for organic systems, even your own, and you’ll see how mechanized our world is.
If the cosmos is an artifact, a construct, a mechanism, then so too are we, and mechanisms, you know, have no free will, they are governed from the outside by kinetic force and verbal commands; this is the mythos that creates the cosmos that grows the psychos whose only ethos is more power.
Beings, or machines? Citizens, or subjects? Didn’t we settle these questions at the Constitutional Convention?
They were not settled at the C.C. as you claim or question, to look at this in light of your observations one needs only look at what “human” stands for.
Literally in it’s definition, given from the civilization known as the Sumerians. The word “human” comes from the cuneiform script written thousands of years ago. It’s original meaning from that time is “worker, laborer, in the service of.” To suggest that something lies in the difference between beings or machines is aggregate to our definition of the human construct simply implies that an internal conflict lies within ourselves.
Feudal patterns are inherent, once our designs are given their true meanings regardless of individuality. Be it the creator, god, or whatever horned being that some worship they all essentially preach the same system of worship, that THEY are the ultimate position of authority, divinity.
What is in America is so far removed of the principals instilled by the framers it is only expected that the people rise up to defend the original intent, not in contradiction to any previous occurances that would hypocratise the peoples efforts, but to remove the government mechanism that stood in the way of progress. Until that time it was the freedom of religion.
It does seem idiotic that the people of America worship a “cosmic tyrant” but this does not classify all of the American people. What about Athiests? And wasn’t the Constitution signed by atleast 50 professed freemasons?
If there is such a confusion of logic engrained within the people then it is because of the lack of education, interest, and omission of the facts. Any combination of such and power is easily attained for the benefit of the pressure group.
I only recently discovered HHH at the Mises Institute and on numerous other blogs. Thanks for the mention of Alan Watt, never heard of his work but will research him.
Here’s a good link that covers some, if not all, of his work:
http://www.stephankinsella.com/
Thanks for the link. And that’s Alan Watts, I hope you enjoy his work as much as I have.
As Jon Stewart might say, no disrespect, but I couldn’t disagree with your disdain for mythology more if I tried. You generalize from your apparently limited sample to a gross mischaracterization of American history. You don’t really think all was hunky-dory until we went astray from the work of the ‘framers,” do you? You do know that there were thriving civilizations here when you Euros showed up, right?
And, no disrespect, but you seem confused by my dialectical approach, taking my extremes for ends in themselves. A clue to my own beliefs is to be found in my user name.
BTW, if I may offer a word of advice: put down the thesaurus, amigo. That’s some strained verbage. Concision and brevity will say more than purple prose ever could. No disrespect.