What’s Wrong with the World

WWWW is about "dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom". And that it opposes liberalism.

Yet it defends America.

Christendom is the Old Order, Throne and Altar. What does Throne and Altar and authority, Church and state, have to do with America, a Protestant country?

Anybody here read Plato's "Republic"? How can one read that book, and then praise democracy? Democracy is rule of the poor. Democracy is rule of extremes and then collapses into ochlocracy, mob rule; the rule of faction which is exactly happening now in America. "Freedom" and "liberty" is the cry of the Atheistic Enlightenment. America is the product of the Masonic Atheistic Enlightenment that destroyed Christendom. This site is pro-American, and is not about Christendom whatsoever. You are only fooling yourselves!

I don't know what is going on but the Republican party in 1860 was PROGRESSIVE, not conservative. Abolition was a progressive movement, in no way conservative. The Republican party is a progressive party for the longest time.

The American Revolution was nihilism. It was a continuation of the English Civil War. How can that be "conservative". And a 'conservative' is NOT for democracy! How idiotic is that? Socrates and Plato and Cicero were all "misodemos", haters of democracy. You all must have a screw loose.

Anybody here read Plato's "Republic"? How can one read that book, and then praise democracy?

Because, um . . . his view on rule by "philosopher kings" was flawed and it was Aristotle that was called "The Philosopher" for a millenia and a half for a reason? And for some bizarre reason you don't think anyone knows that "conservative" meant pro-slavery before the CW, or pro-segregration after. Is anyone really that dumb?

"I am a democrat because I believe in the fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in government. . . I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people -- all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters."

CS Lewis, "Equality" in Present Concerns (1986), p. 17

Now that we've identified the folly both of Plato and of Aristotle in just 2 1/2 posts, perhaps we could move on to folks who really understand human nature. To do that, we'll have to avoid the notions of those who spread "rumours" about fictions like "Christendom" and "the Old Order;" who think in catchwords like "Throne and Altar;" and who advertise Aristotle as "The Philosopher."

who advertise Aristotle as "The Philosopher.

Cool your jets Michael, I was merely stating a historical fact.

There's no cooling Prof. Bauman's jets when it comes to detestation of ancient philosophers, above all Aristotle.

What a short, strange thread. Everybody seems to be talking in some sort of code that I can't crack.

Okay, I've just run into a quotation that is so directly pertinent at least to the title of this post, though not to the connection Jaffa makes with slavery, that I cannot forbear posting it. Apropos of the behavior of the head of the IMF, leadership, self-control, and government:

Let us recall that DSK's most notable accomplishment as head of the IMF was to organize a trillion dollar bailout of the EU's more improvident members. A man with no sense of limits on his sexual desires, was put in charge of loaning money to countries with no sense of limits on their economic desires.

Remember that fact, when liberals and libertarians tell you that people's private morality has no public significance. It used to be understood (in America if not in France) that the proof that a man was qualified to govern others, was that he had demonstrated government over himself.

Lawrence Auster, here:

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/019422.html

Thread summary: Steve. Commentator #1, Wheeler, appears to be some sort of pro-slavery monarchist who thinks we're all wusses. He cites Plato in articulating this position. Mark responds, inter alia, by saying that Aristotle was a better philosopher than Plato anyway. In the course of doing so Mark happens to use the well-known phrase "the Philosopher" to refer to Aristotle. This sets off Michael, who detests both Plato and Aristotle because they are pagan philosophers, and Michael is opposed to all pagan philosophers.

There's no code going on, really. It's just that both Wheeler and Michael Bauman have, shall we say, major axes to grind.

"A man with no sense of limits on his sexual desires, was put in charge of loaning money to countries with no sense of limits on their economic desires."

Yet when Maximos used to argue that the liberation of lust and the liberation of greed were related, you jumped on him with both feet. Hmmm....

Or does this apply only to individuals and not to culture in general?

Thanks, Lydia. I'm almost sorry I asked - but that definitely helps.

Yet when Maximos used to argue that the liberation of lust and the liberation of greed were related, you jumped on him with both feet. Hmmm....

Maximos has a habit of taking a simple point and running with it without concern for the practical details of how it will play out. He also has blinders with regard to the liberation of greed. For example, at best he paid lip service to the greed of the common man who considers himself "poor" in America despite the fact that his quality of life is equal to the middle class in most of Asia (and certainly Africa and the Middle East).

Well, Rob G., I somehow seriously doubt that Mr. Auster was proposing the sort of policies Maximos would have advocated. Also, please see my comments on debt and bailouts in other recent threads. As I tried to tell you there, my debt-disliking form of free-market advocacy actually requires restraint, for obvious reasons. Not because the free market = greed = consumerism but because economics cannot possibly work well in a situation in which people believe (either literally or functionally) that the money supply is unlimited and that something can be created out of nothing. (I also second Mike T's comments.)

Actually, I think Max's beef with the right was that we tend to avoid self-examination of the negative side of our modernist roots like the plague. We do a lot of huffing and puffing about sex (as well we should, given today's pornocratic culture), but often we turn a blind eye to the vulgarity of our habits of getting and spending, as if there were no moral component there, or at least not one worth discussing. If someone like a rightist Christopher Lasch were to come to prominence in the movement how much of a hearing would he get from a group whose spokesmen dismiss even a mildly critical guy like Huckabee as "not really a conservative"?

I don't see much of value or substance in a movement which considers Wendell Berry a nut job while doing cartwheels over Ayn Rand.

I don't, in fact, do any cartwheels over Ayn Rand, though my economic ideas are on some sort of scale "closer" to hers than to yours, Rob G. From the little I've seen of Wendell Berry, he does look like a nut job. And I think I answered your question about my alleged inconsistency in approvingly quoting that quotation from Auster on DSK. Which is the only thing I'm really interested in in this context.

"And I think I answered your question about my alleged inconsistency in approvingly quoting that quotation from Auster on DSK. Which is the only thing I'm really interested in in this context."

The fact that you can't even see the inconsistency speaks volumes. You want self-restraint, except where you don't want self-restraint.

"From the little I've seen of Wendell Berry, he does look like a nut job."

Which would mean that all those conservatives who recommend reading him are too stupid to recognize a wacko when they see one. Or maybe they're just not really conservatives.

"A man with no sense of limits on his sexual desires, was put in charge of loaning money to countries with no sense of limits on their economic desires."

Except, of course, that the decision to make the loans was made by the Board of Governors (remember Paul's post on Ireland and your wondering why Geithner was able to veto parts of the IMF proposal, it's because he's the U.S. member of the BOG and, as such, has an effective veto). Rapists can likely be effective and efficient employees. It will be interesting to see if he can find a niche for himself in an environment where cigarettes are currency.

Not all sociopaths are ideologues (left and right) but all ideologues (left and right) are sociopaths (consider the damage done by the Objectivist (and Reagan appointee) Alan Greenspan.

"Remember that fact, when liberals and libertarians tell you that people's private morality has no public significance."

I don't think anyone claims that. In fact we on the left usually consider the various and sundry corruptions that seem to all too often come with being a conservative politician as very important.

"It used to be understood (in America if not in France) that the proof that a man was qualified to govern others, was that he had demonstrated government over himself."

When was that? I must have misses that day in history class.

"we on the left usually consider the various and sundry corruptions that seem to all too often come with being a conservative politician as very important."

Oh, come on, Al. There's enough graft and vice to go around on both sides of the aisle for either side to make lame accusations of that sort. For every Schwarzenegger there's a Spitzer, for every Rangel there's a DeLay. Neither side has you-know-what that doesn't stink.

It's very easy for Al to disagree with me and Rob G. Let him answer the question of whether he agrees with Abraham Lincoln.

"There's enough graft and vice to go around on both sides..."

Read my comment again, I believe that was my point - unless you are aware, that is, of that period in our history that Auster references - the one where all was perfect :-). Lydia and Auster seem to be asserting that liberals and libertarians give an automatic pass on the private sins of our rulers as well as implying that the ability of a functionary to do his job has something to do with his propensity to engage in unrelated criminal activities (which is besides the point as an affair is private while rape is by definition a public matter).

And the conflation of the challenges that individuals face in surviving economically with those that nations face in seeking wealth continues.

Which would mean that all those conservatives who recommend reading him are too stupid to recognize a wacko when they see one.

Rob G., if we're going to take it personally when people hold highly negative views not only of ourselves but even of the writers we admire, we might as well throw in the towel as far as finding any common ground, even among ourselves as conservatives.

If I can avoid taking personally the rather...strongly worded comments I've encountered from anti-capitalist, anti-modernist conservatives about Fr. Sirico of the Acton Institute, not to mention John Locke (!), you ought not to take personally what I think about Wendell Berry. I vigorously dispute these evaluations, but I don't say, "Oh, so you must think I'm an idiot for thinking well of this author, and so are other conservatives who think so too."

Forgive me if I find it irksome when a writer that many bona fide conservatives find valuable is casually dismissed as a nut job without having been read.

Not because the free market = greed = consumerism but because economics cannot possibly work well in a situation in which people believe (either literally or functionally) that the money supply is unlimited and that something can be created out of nothing.

There are other factors, such as this. As I like to put it to liberals in my family, "that's why we can't have nice things in America."

@ at Mark. Do you even know the meaning of "philosophy"? It literally means to be "Lover of Wisdom". So by your facetious and snide remarks you have just denigrated "Wisdom". Then, you castigate "Philosopher Kings". Plato saw that as important! So who is the font of Wisdom?

God.

So the Doric Greeks, i.e. The Spartans, where Pythagoras was trained, stated that they were NOT smart but Lovers of Wisdom, they, he were giving the highest compliment to God and then putting themselves under HIM who reigns. Central to Wisdom is Logos. The Scripture has it: "He made the world thru Wisdom". And so Mark doesn't want his political leaders to have Wisdom! Rather we are suffering under Ideology! Partisanship! Faction! and of course "The General Will" (which operates democracies)! What Plato was getting at, you (fill in the blank with explicatives), was that political leadership is to be guided by WISDOM, and expressly not by the General Will! Wisdom is what is needed and people, as taught in the Plato's Republic, are to be trained INTO Wisdom.

I really wonder about Americans. Are you people that stupid?

Maybe, I should start a blog with "What's Wrong with What's Wrong With the World Blog" and its commentators who seem not to have a clue.

Did not Jesus Christ allude to people as "sheep"? Did he not say, "I am the Good Shepard"? So, if C. S. Lewis believed in the Fall of Man, and people are sheep, (Aristotle, "Man is a social animal", meaning man is a herd animal) {That Jesus recognizes this fact by using the metaphor of sheep for people} [And knowing that Sheep are some of the dumbest animals in the animal kingdom, the dumbest animals of the barnyard), wouldn't that be conclusive evidence that if people are sheep----and sheep need shepards, that people need shepards? Is the Church constructed around Democracy or is it constructed around Shepards? Is the Office of bishop as a Shepard?

If the religious sphere is ordered thus, is not, and should not the secular sphere be so ordered? And what pray tell was the dominant form of government for Christendom and for Byzantium?

Monarchy. The King is the Secular, racial Shepard as the Bishop is the religious shepard. Mr. Bauman, it seems that you have not deconstructed Plato or Aristotle nor the Natural Order of things. It proves the opposite and know not the Old Order and the Wisdom that undergirds it!

Wisdom of the few and not of the many. The Natural Order is built on Wisdom. And Wisdom is far from any one here.

Plato said, "The full stature of a man is he who has the full use and grasp of Wisdom".

To be a "philosopher king" is to be one who has the "full use and grasp of Wisdom".

Democracy has nothing to do with Wisdom! Nothing.

Someone noted above that Bauman hates the "pagan philosophers" such as Plato and Aristotle. "Pagan" refers to European. The word "pagan" is used to denigrate and attack Western Culture and Civilization. Plato and Aristotle are European philosophers. Western Culture and Civilization is based upon Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. To denigrate their patrimony and caste aspersions upon them is to deconstruct Western Culture for the Basis of Western Culture is the "Graeco-Roman Culture". Throw this out----Western Culture disappears. So I don't know what is going on here. The dispargement of Plato and Aristotle does not abide with "Christendom". Locke and Thomas Jefferson, the two great founders of Americanism, were Socianists---anti-Trinitarians making them anti-Christian, anti-Christendom. Not one Enlightenment thinker was a Catholic. (Fr. Gassendi was a "catholic" but he was really an Atheist.) Most of the Enlightenment thinkers were influenced by Baruch Spinoza. The "Deist" title to most of the FFofA means being a Spinozist materialist where god and nature were one and the same thing. America is the product of the Enlightenment. Jacques Maritain, whose book, "Introduction to Philosophy" is the standard beginning book of philosophy in Roman Catholic Seminarians posits Socrates as the Father of Western Culture and Civilization. Maritain has the highest respect for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and they are the cornerstones of Hellenism that formed Christian doctrine, institutions, practices and prayers. The foundations of Christian philosophy is Socrates, Plato and Aristotle!

I want to read a "debate" between WLWheeler and Michael Bauman...I think by the end someone's head will explode.

The foundations of Christian philosophy is Socrates, Plato and Aristotle!

God (and W. L. Wheller) forgive me for saying this, but I always thought the foundations of Christian philosophy was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I recall St. Thomas Aquinas saying, roughly, everything else was an epistle of straw.

The Chicken

Should be:

foundations of Christian philosophy were...

The Chicken

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.

Aren't we supposed to be slaves of Christ and masters of ourselves?

The Chicken

I really have nothing thought-provoking to say on this topics, since every musician knows the truth of the title of this post in his guts. Music is a democracy that MUST know restraint. One could long for modern politics to be more like a Mozart Sonata and less like Chance Music.

Oh, well, going back to lurking...I must, in humility, be content to read the writings of my betters, since my highest political aspiration is to simply get through the day without sinning too much.

The Chicken

The term "conservative" was coined during the French Revolution for the monarchists and those Roman Catholics that wanted to preserve Church and State. Actually, there were two terms that were coined to describe the forces that opposed the French Revolution; the terms were "conservative" and "reactionary". The French Revolution was about creating "democratic republicanism", modern republicanism, which is really democracy. Equality is the leading indicator of, integral to, democracy. The "conservatives" opposed democracy.

To say now, to see American "conservatives" praising, advocating, defending democracy is a farce. The word "conservative" was coined expressly for those opposing democracy. In Classial Antiquity, what we would call conservatives, were opposed to democracy.

J. Salwyn Shapiro, in Fascism and the Challenge to Liberalism, states that :

In the English tradition, "England is the classic land of MODERN liberalism". He quotes Bertrand Russell to say that

"the Conservatives are liberals on the right, and the Laborites are liberals on the left".

(pg 21)

"When combined with faith in parliamentary democracy and economic laissez-faire, Benthamite utilitarianism made up the sum and substance of liberalism, as the term was then understood. What is today known as "conservatism" in Britain and the United States is a debased form of this early liberalism, whose doctrines took shape in England between 1820 and 1850." (The Origins of Socialism, pg 258).

Let me remind all here and sundry

"Democracy is the road to socialism." Karl Marx

"Democracy is indispensable to socialism." Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Modern Socialism is inseperable from political democracy." Elements of Socialism, pg 337.

"The view that democracy and Socialism are inwardly related spread far and wide in the decades which preceded the Bolshevist revolution. Many came to believe that democracy and Socialism meant the same thing, and that democracy without Socialism or Socialism without democracy would not be possible." Socialism, Ludwig von Mises, pg 67.

So, to have a blog whose stated goal is to "defend Christendom" but praises and glorifies democracies in its posts is absolutely ludicrious. So when George Bush and Bill Clinton and every other academic and media elite pushing democracy--what are they really pushing? Socialism for Democracy is the Rule of the Poor!

The Trinity is Theology. Masked Chicken do not confuse Theology with Philosophy. The Trinity is the most fundamental aspect of Christian THEOLOGY.

And what prepared the way for that theology, which isn't Jewish was Plato! For Plato divined that the Cosmos was ruled by three gods; the nous, the demiurge, the world soul. The last two under the Nous. This Platonic Trinity was infused throughout Hellenism and Hellenism was the dominant culture of the Mediterranean. It was Greek philosophy that brokered the concept of a "Three in One" Godhead that is the most basic dogma of Christianity. Almost all of the Church Fathers were steeped in Hellenism and were Platonists.

Prof. Lloyd P. Gerson argues in his book, Aristotle and Other Platonists, Cornell University Press, 2005, that Aristotle is a Platonist!

Mike T, I don't get your link. What does some British TV chef crying over eating habits in some Virginia town have to do with economic problems?

Jaffa writes (and the Masked Chicken rightly skewers)

Lincoln said he would not be either slave or master. But what was true of Lincoln’s will was a reflection of the conviction in Lincoln’s mind that “all men are created equal.”

And Aristotle pointed to a salient Law of Nature (or Natural Law, if you prefer)

"All things are either in Authority or in Subjection"

It is NOT conservative to uphold this. A conservative believes and upholds the Natural Order and that has Hierarchy. All things are either in Authority or in Subjection.

I am Greek Orthodox. News to you people, the Greek Orthodox have not condemned slavery. The Bible condones slavery; of indentured servanthood of fellow Hebrews and chattel slavery of foreigners that was without end.

The Canons of the Ecumenical Councils are still in force for both the Catholic and Orthodox Churchs. Have any of you read these canons?

Several Canons anathemitize anybody who teaches a slave to run away from its master. St. Paul in his letter to Philemon, returns a slave. Early Christianity nowhere stopped slavery. That canon anathemitizing revolutionaries, abolitionists, is still in effect. All those supposedly Christians who were abolitionists, are NOT in heaven. They are condemned. Hierachy and that some people are born slaves as Aristotle said, is part of the Natural Order, part of the Old Order. A conservative upholds the Old Order and is obedient to the Canons of the Church. All those people who operated the underground railroad, all the military officers and generals that encouraged slaves to run and Lincoln's Emancipation, are in error.

All things are either in Authority or in subjection. That is the Natural Law. The Natural Law is very important component of Western Culture. As Plutarch said, "We are NOT in the world to give the laws, but are here in order to obey the commands of the gods". This is Western Culture, This is Christendom, this is the Old Order. You have NO right to make the law.

Mike T, I don't get your link. What does some British TV chef crying over eating habits in some [West] Virginia town have to do with economic problems?

They're the fattest town in the US. Their mortality rate from obesity puts them roughly on par with Russian men. Yet like many poor people, they want the right to do whatever they please with their bodies and have the gubmint pay for their health bills.

I apologize for the 6:23 pm post, which borders on using the Lord's name in vain, since I was making a point in a jesting manner.

I know the difference between philosophy and theology, but Christian philosophy would seem to blur the distinction.

The Chicken

"Yet like many poor people, they want the right to do whatever they please with their bodies and have the gubmint pay for their health bills."

True, but you might have added that wealthy people want the benefits of civil society without paying their fair share - and that includes sending the children of the poor and lower sections of the middle class off to war. Most everyone now days has no problem freeloading off the cultural and physical infrastructure that earlier generations taxed themselves to build.

True, but you might have added...

Guys like you and Maximos bring that up so often that it's practically background noise in any discussion about economics.

Here is a look at what happens when the wealthy don't want to pay a fair share, and it is only from the perspective of a tourist. Those who live there get to contend with an epidemic of kidnapping for ransom, rampant government corruption and drug cartel terror. I can't wait for our glibertarian future.
http://www.ricksteves.com/blog/index.cfm?fuseaction=entry&entryID=577

This is Western Culture, This is Christendom, this is the Old Order. You have NO right to make the law.

Obviously you are mistaken, since we already have. Quoting dead philosophers doesn't change that.

"All things are either in Authority or in subjection."

This sounds right but seems to lack something... ah, yes,

"Alle Dinge sind entweder in Behörde oder in Unterwerfung."

There we go!

Mike, you're choking at a gnat; our current and future economic problems stem almost entirely from the implementation of the conservative and libertarian economic agenda. Our present problems have nothing to do with debt, the deficit, or current Medicaid expenses and everything to do with lagging employment.

Step 2,

This got a giggle out of me: "Here is a look at what happens when the wealthy don't want to pay a fair share, and it is only from the perspective of a tourist."

Do you really think that Central America's current troubles can be traced to that one single root cause, "the wealthy don't want to pay a fair share" (for what, I'm scared to ask)? You are as silly as Rick Steves.

Meanwhile, the rich in this country pay plenty of taxes:

http://cafehayek.com/2011/04/taxing-facts.html

One could even say they pay more than their fair share :-)

"our current and future economic problems stem almost entirely from the implementation of the conservative and libertarian economic agenda. Our present problems have nothing to do with debt, the deficit, or current Medicaid expenses and everything to do with lagging employment"

Really? They've nothing to do with the massive spending of both the previous adminstration and the current one?

Jeff,
Do you really think that Central America's current troubles can be traced to that one single root cause, "the wealthy don't want to pay a fair share" (for what, I'm scared to ask)?

Of course not, it is one significant part of their trouble but not the entirety of it.

I think the tax rate for the middle and upper middle class is too low as well, so increasing those to fair levels (simply defined as progressive taxation correlated to wealth distribution that reduces the deficit to zero) will mean that the percent paid by the wealthy is reduced in relation to total receipts.

Btw, I hope 99% of the ads Democrats run from now until forever are nothing but attacks on the Ryan budget plan. Newt was right for once, but nobody in the GOP is listening.

(Correction the title to Schapiro's book is Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism.)

This is Western Culture, This is Christendom, this is the Old Order. You have NO right to make the law.

Step 2: "Obviously you are mistaken, since we already have. Quoting dead philosophers doesn't change that."

"A revolution in the state of civilisation is the necessary companion of revolutions in the system of government." and "It is a revolution in the state of civilisation that will give perfection to the Revolution of France."

Listen to this joker called Mark Levine, head pseudo-conservative here in America who wrote this piece of junk, Liberty or Tyranny, The Conservative Manifesto:

"The Statist Utopia can take many forms, and has throughout human history, including monarchism, feudalism, militarism, fascism, communism, national socialism, and economic socialism. They are all of the same species---Tyranny."

"[In America] there is no sign of either the traditions or the classes which give European ideas their meaning. Aristocracy, and the aristocratic way of life, were ruthlessly eliminated by the War of Independence." (pg 17)

"The first and most obvious item in the program of Nihilism is the destruction of the Old Order. The Old Order was the soil, nourished by Christian Truth, in which men had their roots. Its laws and institutions, and even its customs, were founded in that Truth and dedicated to teaching it; its buildings were erected to the glory of God and were a visible sign of His Order upon the earth... (pg 75)

Nihilism requires the destruction of every element of the Old Order.
Fr. Seraphim Rose continues:

"Realists everywhere envisage a totally, "new order", built entirely by men "liberated" for the yoke of God and upon the ruins of an Old Order whose foundation was divine." (pg 75)

Christendom is the Old Order. Christendom is HIS Order. The Aristocratic rule of life is the Old Order. They """ruthlessly""" destroyed European culture. As Fr. Seraphim Rose points out that Liberalism is the first stage of nihilism and Americanism is nihilist. It seems that there is quite a number of people here who are "ruthlessly" decieved. Democracy is nihilism. Democracy refutes the Order of the Logos.

"We are NOT here to give the laws; we are here in order to obey the commands of the gods".

We have Cultural Marxism. Political Correctness is Marxist. Democracy is Marxist. America is Marxist. All of the West is Marxist. Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevism.

Right, it's all a big conspiracy.

If you are going to indulge your desperate nostalgia, just put this Russian movie on a loop and get it out of your system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dweiGyjxhHs

Al,

Mike, you're choking at a gnat; our current and future economic problems stem almost entirely from the implementation of the conservative and libertarian economic agenda. Our present problems have nothing to do with debt, the deficit, or current Medicaid expenses and everything to do with lagging employment.

You present a false dichotomy here because you don't want to acknowledge the left's hands in creating the problems we face.

Rob,

Really? They've nothing to do with the massive spending of both the previous adminstration and the current one?

Of course not. Al believes anyone who thinks that "kitchen table economics" is similar to "economics at the national level" is an idiot. He thinks any country that has "control over its monetary system" has the ability to borrow and inflate its way out of its problems if it does so intelligently.

Please ignore the fact that that doesn't apply to over half of the Western world, since no EU member has control over its monetary system...

I think the tax rate for the middle and upper middle class is too low as well, so increasing those to fair levels

And yet you liberals wonder where the middle class has gone. You blame it entirely on outsourcing instead of acknowledging that "progressive" federal income taxes are hopelessly unrealistic. $122k in Manhattan is the equivalent of about $50k in Houston; $80k in Northern Virginia the equivalent of about $30k in rural Virginia. Yet the middle class in Manhattan and Northern Virginia pay substantially higher federal taxes than the middle class in other areas of the country.

~~Of course not. Al believes anyone who thinks that "kitchen table economics" is similar to "economics at the national level" is an idiot~~

Yeah, Mike, I know. My question was rhetorical. Remember also that Al doesn't find it morally problematic that we're saddling our children and grandchildren with a mountain of unsupportable debt. "In the long run etc., etc."

You laugh, you snicker, ...

Fr. Hardon, S.J., a student, researcher of Marxism from the age of fourteen, writes:

"In the light of what we have just seen, can anyone doubt that the United States has been deeply infected by Marxism. However, I believe we can say even more. Our country is a Marxist nation, Dare I say still more? The United States of America is the most powerful Marxist country in the world."

He wrote that back in the 1970s!!! Read the rest of his article and his reasons why here:
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Communism/Communism_002.htm

Here is William Lind on the Origins of Political Correctness which is practiced in every Catholic Church and school especially the colleges and universities:
http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html

The Frankfurt School, a school dedicated to transforming Marxism into cultural contexts, moved out of Germany and set up shop in America at Stanford University in California. It has since changed its name to "The Institute for Social Research" and has satelite campuses everywhere across America. Conspiracy nut? The Institute for Social Research is everywhere undermining with its "radical critique of society". It brought us the Hippie movement of the 60's, that cultural revolution that destroyed WASP America. It teaches and holds seminars for teachers all the time. Conspiracy anyone?

Egalitarianism is the central feature of democracy and Marxism. The first thing "conservative" George Bush did in Iraq and Afghanistan is give women the vote. Is that "conservative"? No, that is Marxist and liberal. Women have no business voting, have no business being in politics, policemen, firemen, soldiers, or as lawyers or business execs or as altar boys, decons, or reading from the pulpit!

A conservative stands for Tradition, Custom, and the Rule of Law and the Laws of Nature. The Republican Party is Progressive. It is just Lite Liberal. I don't know what you people are thinking, don't deceive yourselves; you're not conservative in any stretch of the imagination. And you know absolutely nothing about "Christendom" whatsoever! A conservative doesn't do false advertising.

Thomas Paine was, Thee, major ideological framer for both the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) Anglo-American political philosopher, whose writings influenced the American Revolution (1775-1783), the French Revolution (1789-1799), and freethought movements ever since; but, unfortunately, Paine could not awaken the Americans to the destruction that was their love affair with the biblical institution of human slavery until after Abraham Lincoln had read Paine's writings as a young man, and had thus been duly inspired to struggle for change

Yes, Thomas Paine, Atheist, Founding Father of America. Abraham Lincoln read an Atheist. And notice another oxymoron, Thomas Paine as a "Anglo-American philosopher". Philosophy is "The Love of Wisdom". Wisdom is defined as "The Knowledge of DIVINE and human things". So NO, no Atheist can be a "philosopher". Only a God-believer can be a philosopher.

So the basis of Lincoln's motivation is an Atheist. Not the Bible, Not Divine Scripture, Not the Canons of the divinely inspired Ecumenical councils, not the Holy Tradition of the Church, Not the Natural Law (or laws of nature), but an Atheist. Just all made up gobblydegook in his head. Yes, Thomas Paine made up his own world just like Fr. Hardon points out central to marxism is messianism, recreating the world to suit yourself. Or more, Gnosticism; the rejection of reality for a dreamworld.

Yeah, Mike, I know. My question was rhetorical. Remember also that Al doesn't find it morally problematic that we're saddling our children and grandchildren with a mountain of unsupportable debt. "In the long run etc., etc."

Not that it's going to matter. Within a decade or two, the US will be either an anglo Argentina or will have repudiated its foreign debt with a "come get me, motha effa" attitude toward our Arab and Chinese debtors (one does not send a collection agency to deal with a nuclear state).

"Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers..."

I'm afraid it won't be pretty.

"Really? They've nothing to do with the massive spending of both the previous adminstration and the current one?"

Really. The current focus on the deficit and debt (two different things, which distinction seems to elude some in these parts) is a tragic fraud which will harm our nation forever.

Here's a nice chart,

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/05/bush-tax-cuts-wars-major-drivers-of-projected-government-debt.html

"You present a false dichotomy here because you don't want to acknowledge the left's hands in creating the problems we face."

To deal with Mike's point in the context of the three main components of our current deficits - the Bush tax cuts, current wars, and the Great Recession.

1. If you are asserting that there is conservative support for repealing those tax cuts (including the middle class ones - Step2 is right) please share. If we do nothing and let the Bush tax cuts expire that solves a goodly chunk of the part of the deficit that is structural.

2. While we will be paying for our two wars until the next century, the sooner we disengage the sooner that part declines. While Afghanistan was likely regardless of who was in office (that leaves out the likelihood that a Gore Administration would have taken AQ seriously from the start and hence no 911), there is no way a Democratic president (and certainly a Democratic Congress) would have gone into Iraq.

3. The other component, the Great Recession, was the result of conservative policies and personnel decisions dating back to the Reagan administration. As the right has been politically ascendant since the late 1960s, there isn't much to lay off on the left. There no doubt would have been other problems we would be facing had the left not stumbled back then but it did so we have the ones from your side to now deal with. To the extent that the left is complicit it is in being too timid in the face of the conservative onslaught.

Deregulation and the ascendancy of the financial sector happened on the right's watch and was its program. While the costs of TARP and the auto bailout will be minimal, the recession did cause a serious downturn in governmental revenues (at all levels) while increasing the costs of automatic stabilizers such as unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and food stamps. The Obama "stimulus" was far too small and did little more than offset the decline in state and local government cutbacks. The poisonous and dysfunctional state of our current politics which made an effective response to the downturn impossible is largely the result of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of American conservatism (the other components being a cowed and stupid media and a left that hasn't figured out how to deal with the other two.

We risk the current level of unemployment becoming structural at which point the resulting deficits become structural.

"Of course not. Al believes anyone who thinks that "kitchen table economics" is similar to "economics at the national level" is an idiot."

Idiots, except for folks like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, no; macroeconomically ignorant, yes, which is understandable as one can choose ones attitudes quite widely as an individual and live a comfortable life - as long as one has a good job. A person who stretched to buy a home in the 1960s or 70s (and kept their job is likely doing quite well. A person who eschewed debt but has a secure position with a six figure salary and benefits can easily be all self-righteous about debt.

"He thinks any country that has "control over its monetary system" has the ability to borrow and inflate its way out of its problems if it does so intelligently."

The record is there and "intelligently" is apt - examine the experiences of Canada, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland (pre-Euro), etc. If a nation that has its own currency devalues and gets its finances under control, it can do ok.

"Please ignore the fact that that doesn't apply to over half of the Western world, since no EU member has control over its monetary system."

Ignoring the fact that Germany and France control the Euro, what's your point - that we should be in thrall to their poorly planned monetary union?

Currently we can borrow forward cheaply and put a lot of people to work. At the same time we can build on HCA and fix our debt problems. We are idiots if we don't.

"My question was rhetorical. Remember also that Al doesn't find it morally problematic that we're saddling our children and grandchildren with a mountain of unsupportable debt. 'In the long run etc., etc.'"

The debt isn't unsupportable unless we keep the Bush tax cuts and fail to fix health care. The grandchildren thing is an emotional crock.

"Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevism"

Sigh! It's always the Jews, isn't it?

Your Keynesian just-so story is one that Keynes himself would probably reject. No matter how complicated you try to make it it still ultimately boils down to tax ("keep the Bush tax cuts") and spend ("fix health care").

"The grandchildren thing is an emotional crock."

Maybe you're right. If not, I hope you're around to explain it to your grandkids.

"Your Keynesian just-so story is one that Keynes himself would probably reject. No matter how complicated you try to make it it still ultimately boils down to tax ("keep the Bush tax cuts") and spend ("fix health care")."

Not sure what you mean here Rob. We were somewhat on a Keynesian track in the late 1990s - the budget was actually counter-cyclical. Do you want to keep the cuts or like Step2 9and moi) let them expire across the board?

We have an aging population. No matter what we do we are going to be spending more on health care until mortality solves the current demographic bulge. We can learn from the experiences of other nations or we can continue on our current unsustainable track. Mere cost-shifting (like the truly idiotic Ryan plan) won't solve this problem.

"Maybe you're right. If not, I hope you're around to explain it to your grandkids."

If we don't focus on our current unemployment problem and deal with the deficit as the medium term problem it actually is and the debt as the long term problem it actually is our grandkids will likely be cursing us. I'm lucky as I will likely have made the local turkey vultures very happy by then - unless we keep screwing with the debt limit, in which case I have a well and a garden.

Your Keynesian just-so story is one that Keynes himself would probably reject. No matter how complicated you try to make it it still ultimately boils down to tax ("keep the Bush tax cuts") and spend ("fix health care").

Al reminds me of developers I know whose solution to every performance problem is to throw more hardware at it. It never occurs to them that the logic itself may not be able to efficiently use the resources given to it. Our health care system is much like that. The liberals don't want to admit that the entire system has to be thrown out and rebuilt from the ground up because it's a rat's nest of legal, financial and bureaucratic kludges that only an idiot savant could hold cohesively in his mind.

We have an aging population. No matter what we do we are going to be spending more on health care until mortality solves the current demographic bulge.

You're assuming that the unemployment in my generation (I'm 28) and the next, which is substantially higher (especially among the college-educated) than the general public, doesn't cause the federal government to have to choose between a replay of Egypt and Tunisia on our soil and maintaining the status quo. College-educated people with no future, working $15k-$20k jobs while servicing a mountain of debt that is the only form of loan that bankruptcy cannot eliminate, is a demographic problem in its own right.

"Do you want to keep the cuts or like Step2 9and moi) let them expire across the board?"

I'm not of the opinion which states that if we keep any of them we have to keep all of them. I'm not of the "soak the rich" school but neither am I in principle averse to a progressive tax. I'd argue to keep the tax cuts intact at least below a certain income, ($250,000 for a family of four, say) -- since I believe it's the middle class that generally gets hosed, between the Dems catering to the dependent class in order to maintain votes and the GOP catering to the wealthy and the corporations.

But I also believe that the gummint needs to do some major belt tightening when it comes to the budget; I'm not of the opinion that the pork is negligible.

"You're assuming that the unemployment in my generation`..."

Read again. Current underutilized capacity and the resulting unemployment is a disaster in the making. Folks in the age group you reference will never recover relative to what they would have earned had the GDP trend line continued. A lost decade is in the offing and folks obsess on problems that are years away (and will never be solved humanely unless we get people working again).

We need to solve the educational debt issue. While the European model of essentially free tertiary education has problems that need to be worked out, our model has evolved into a sort of indentured servitude that keeps too many in debt for too long. Unlike medical care where there are a number of successful models that do way better they our current system, educational models are lacking.

Rob, we did just fine with the Clinton tax rates. I'd keep the middle class cuts until the economy recovers but the multiplier for the upper income cuts suck and the rates need to go up when the current extension expires.

"The liberals don't want to admit that the entire system has to be thrown out and rebuilt from the ground up because it's a rat's nest of legal, financial and bureaucratic kludges that only an idiot savant could hold cohesively in his mind."

Fine, there are all sorts of models that work better, what do you want to do? Medicare is more efficient than private insurance. The VA works better than private insurance. Most liberals would go for some sort of single payer although a serious discussion might tilt towards some other Eurpoean plan as they all deliver care similar to ours at lower cost and cover everyone. What would you replace our present system with?

You laugh, you snicker, ...

It's okay scarecrow, I hear there is a grand wizard in oz, just follow the yellow brick road.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b8j19vyOGk

"You laugh, you snicker, ..."

No, we guff-haw, we scoff, we mock, and we think of Eric Cartman.

What would you replace our present system with?

It would have the following requirements (I have neither the time nor energy to present more than a list of requirements)

• The role of government in the provision of services will be limited to...
  1. Automatic provision of emergency health services and natural disasters where public-private coordination is needed to render aid to an unusually large body of people in need of immediate medical care.
  2. Provision of all health care for veterans of the armed forces injured in the line of duty or who completed at least 20 years of military service.
• The role of the states and federal government in reducing the cost of services shall be...
  1. Provide a program, through Americorps and the military, where 100% of the education expenses of a medical or nursing student will be paid by the federal government after four years of public service.
  2. To create an open accreditation program for new medical schools that is controlled by the federal government, not by private medical interests such as the AMA.
  3. To provide a program to enable the expansion of all medical schools student bodies and faculties by 50% within 10 years.
  4. To reform medical malpractice statutes by removing it from the tort statutes and placing it exclusively under criminal law. All fines and proceeds from any criminal prosecution of a provider of health care services for malpractice shall be divided between the victims with the government taking no cut.
  5. Health care providers shall be entitled to a tax credit, based on their published rates, for any services which a patient is unable to pay them.
• The states and federal government shall reorganize the marketplace for health care services and products in the following ways...
  1. It shall be required of all health care providers and manufacturers to provide their customers with a pricing guide for their products and services.
  2. It shall be required of all health care providers to stick to their published prices except where they offer a non-discriminatory price reduction to all customers.
  3. It shall be required of the same to not offer price incentives to any recipient of health care services based on their method of payment (cash, insurance or government plan). Any price discrimination shall be a class 1 misdemeanor (in Virginia, a class 1 is punishable by up to a year in prison).
  4. When an individual moves between employers, if they choose the same insurance provider, the provider shall not be permitted to deny them coverage or raise the cost to their employer.
  5. No emergency service provider shall be required to render service for a non-life-threatening medical incident to an indigent patient.
  6. No insurance provider shall be permitted to deny coverage to a customer at reasonable market rates unless the insurance provider can show that the pre-existing conditions are directly caused by freely-chosen behaviors which a medical professional informed the individual would directly lead to their condition.
  7. It shall be legal for health care providers and consumers to import pharmaceuticals and equipment from any country in the world.

You may note that I left out any automatic provision of coverage for non-emergency care for the general public by the government. The reason I left that out is that as we see in many areas of America, people want the ability to do whatever they want with their bodies and then get the public to pick up the tab. I reject the notion that there is any sort of moral, religious or civic duty to provide for the general maintenance of such people once their health is destroyed by their own freely chosen behavior. The price of freedom is personal responsibility. If you don't want to be responsible, then you must by necessity become the property of the state. In that sense, the hard left is absolutely correct in their thinking.

Mike, thanks for the detail and serious policy approach - refreshing from the philosophical tail chasing we are used to (not directed at you, BTW).

The thing that struck me about the proposals is that a fair number would pass a Democratic Congress and would be signed by a Democratic president. None would pass muster with a Republican Congress. Some were enacted, in whole or part by the ACA (Obamacare to some of you).

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/about/order/byyear.html

Some would have constitutional and/or serious cultural problems.

* The role of government in the provision of services will be limited to...

1. Automatic provision of emergency health services and natural disasters where public-private coordination is needed to render aid to an unusually large body of people in need of immediate medical care.

Agreed and that is what FEMA did under Clinton and Obama, not so much with Katrina and "Brownie". Republicans and Democrats used to agree on the "automatic" part. The current Republican majority in the House has done away with that and used the current spate of tornado disasters to leverage policy gains.

2. Provision of all health care for veterans of the armed forces injured in the line of duty or who completed at least 20 years of military service.

Agreed and under Clinton the Veterans hospitals became a model for care delivery. Formally support was bi-partisan but recently Republicans have sought to underfund and cut. Once again the Dems are with us.

* The role of the states and federal government in reducing the cost of services shall be...

1. Provide a program, through Americorps and the military, where 100% of the education expenses of a medical or nursing student will be paid by the federal government after four years of public service.
2. To create an open accreditation program for new medical schools that is controlled by the federal government, not by private medical interests such as the AMA.
3. To provide a program to enable the expansion of all medical schools student bodies and faculties by 50% within 10 years.

Agreed. These are incredibly important and we could stop right here and have done much to bend the currently unsupportable health care cost curve. Some of this is in the ACA and all would be supported by all liberals/most Democrats; Republicans/conservatives - not so much.

4. To reform medical malpractice statutes by removing it from the tort statutes and placing it exclusively under criminal law. All fines and proceeds from any criminal prosecution of a provider of health care services for malpractice shall be divided between the victims with the government taking no cut.

Would be a disaster. No one would be a doctor if an honest mistake could land you in jail or give you a criminal record. The whole malpractice thing is overblown anyway - its a minor part of costs not a major driver.

5. Health care providers shall be entitled to a tax credit, based on their published rates, for any services which a patient is unable to pay them.

Interesting but I see administrative problems and continuity of care issues. I'm not sure that tax expendatures are the best way to deal with the poor and uninsured.

* The states and federal government shall reorganize the marketplace for health care services and products in the following ways...

1. It shall be required of all health care providers and manufacturers to provide their customers with a pricing guide for their products and services.

Agreed, the ACA may make a start here.

2. It shall be required of all health care providers to stick to their published prices except where they offer a non-discriminatory price reduction to all customers.

Agreed but the logical result would be a single payer system.

3. It shall be required of the same to not offer price incentives to any recipient of health care services based on their method of payment (cash, insurance or government plan). Any price discrimination shall be a class 1 misdemeanor (in Virginia, a class 1 is punishable by up to a year in prison).

Again, this is the way to single payer.

4. When an individual moves between employers, if they choose the same insurance provider, the provider shall not be permitted to deny them coverage or raise the cost to their employer.

Agreed and in the ACA I believe. L/D=Y, C/R=N.

5. No emergency service provider shall be required to render service for a non-life-threatening medical incident to an indigent patient.

Current law. - EMTALA

6. No insurance provider shall be permitted to deny coverage to a customer at reasonable market rates unless the insurance provider can show that the pre-existing conditions are directly caused by freely-chosen behaviors which a medical professional informed the individual would directly lead to their condition.

First part is now law (rejected, of course by conservatives and Republicans) and the the second would create litigation nightmares as well as being unacceptably intrusive.

7. It shall be legal for health care providers and consumers to import pharmaceuticals and equipment from any country in the world.

Agreed, and once again supported by L/D and opposed by C/R.

What we agree on would end insurance as it was pre-ACA and significantly alter the cost curve. The logic of others would lead to single payer.You could have a serious discussion with liberals, liberalitarians, most Democrats, maybe a few conservatives, and no elected Republicans on the national level.

What a short, strange thread. Everybody seems to be talking in some sort of code that I can't crack.

Posted by steve burton | May 22, 2011 9:57 PM

Talking in code. This is a site dedicated to preserving Christendom, and this gentleman sees us talking in code because he obviously knows nothing about "Christendom".

That says it all. Amazing. How long has this site been up and yet someone has not educated people in Christendom, its ideals, traditions, customs, and teachings. The words and concepts that have been broached on this thread are "code"?! We don't even know the basic vocabulary of Christendom.

The first thing is "Old Order"; what is that?

What is the Natural Order?

What is the Natural Law or The Laws of Nature? (This is central to Western Culture; where is that concept?)

What is Monarchy? (All the basic good forms of government are Monarchy, Aristocracy and the Classical Republic which in Western Culture were all started UNDER KINGS! Sparta maintained a classical republic for over 400 years or more and always had kings!) These three forms of government Monarchy, Aristocracy and the Politiea (which is Classical Republicanism, or Mixed Government) are the Good Forms of Aristotle!

Democracy is a BAD form of the Politiea. Democracy is against Wisdom. Democracy is against the Natural Order. Democracy does NOT comply with the Laws of Nature!

A Conservative is a Traditionalist. A conservative is one who upholds the OLD Order. A conservative stands for ORDER which Hierarchy is integral to. Democracy has NO order whatsoever. Democracy can never exist because there is always a ruling elite. Always. Democracy is about fooling the people.

A Conservative is for Authority. Authority is a central feature of Western Culture and Civilization. A conservative is about Church and State. Cuios regio, eius religio.

A conservative stands up for Graeco-Roman culture that is married to Christianity. That is Western Civilization.

If this is "Code" then someone is dropping the ball. Someone is fooling someone. Someone is putting out false concepts. The True conservatives of America were the Loyalists who were driven from this country at the conclusion of the Revolution!

Preserving Christendom? How about using and talking about the concepts and ideas and traditions and society of Christendom! Let's educated people into Christendom!

Americanism is a Heresy. Americanism is an Error. The "Star" is the symbol of Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevism and when you wave that flag---you are waving a World Revolution Masonic Symbol of Liberty.

Not me. I wave the Cross of Jesus which was on the Flag of every Old Order European country.

They also don't know that he and his lieutenants Pierre Moscovici and Jean-Chrisophe Cambadélis were in charge of raising funds for the Socialist Party from the National Endowment for Democracy - a legal CIA front