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The American ideal:
individuals not government responsible for quality of our lives

by

Commenting this morning on “this analysis from Fortune editor and columnist Geoff Colvin that”, as he puts, “hits both Obama and Romney for offering agendas that are, he [i.e., Colvin] contends ultimately irrelevant to the problems generating anxiety and disappointment for America’s middle class”, Jim Geraghty concludes:

If we really can’t face the notion that we, and not the government, are principally responsible for the quality of our lives . . . are we even really Americans anymore?

Read the whole thing.

Comments

  1. I know that this is going to be a shocking thing for you rugged, tough guy conservative individualists to hear, but the government is everything. America is government. Civilization is government. Government is the reason human beings don’t live in caves and live beyond the age of 30. Government is the most useful invention in the history of mankind. Without a doubt, a powerful, efficient, and transparent government is our best chance for success in the future. I know you’ve all deluded yourselves into thinking that the free market is some product of determined individuals, but it wouldn’t exist without the government, and it’s going to self-destruct if the government isn’t permitted to regulate it.

    Our society is structured in such a way that people take advantage of government services and products dozens of times every day regardless of their political affiliation. This internet thing being a great example in our case – wouldn’t exist as we know it without the government inventing and regulating it.

    So enough with the petulance and grow up. If you think individuals are so great and the government causes nothing but problems, you can move your ass to Somalia and enjoy all the individualism you want.

  3. Without a doubt, a powerful, efficient, and transparent government is our best chance for success in the future.

    So we’re pretty screwed as long as we have your liberals around, right?

    I know you’ve all deluded yourselves into thinking that the free market is some product of determined individuals, but it wouldn’t exist without the government, and it’s going to self-destruct if the government isn’t permitted to regulate it.

    Regulate=tax. I’ll remind you that determined individuals made the free market work before we even had a government.

    This internet thing being a great example in our case – wouldn’t exist as we know it without the government inventing and regulating it.

    Funny you should say that right after the creator just trashed government for being too involved in it. Glad to see you think that the American people are just too stupid to have come up with it and only faceless bureaucrats can invent stuff.

    Next, I suppose you’ll be telling us that the automobile has failed and Obama needs to create the next volkswagen out of the flaming Volts.

  4. Oh my…

    So enough with the petulance and grow up. If you think individuals are so great and the government causes nothing but problems, you can move your ass to Somalia and enjoy all the individualism you want.

    Comment by Levi — March 30, 2012 @ 4:17 pm – March 30, 2012

    I’d comment on this young man’s complete ignorance (or is it loathing?) of the Constitution, but it pretty much speaks for itself.

    Do all liberals hate America?

  5. I always love the “Move to Somalia” argument the children bring.

    Right now I’d rather move to Texas, or Texas to move to Ohio.

    Now hush Levi, the adults are talking.

  6. Without a doubt, a powerful, efficient, and transparent government is our best chance for success in the future

    … said Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini.

    Without a doubt: Returning to freedom, including personal responsibility, for example, personal accountability in the form of the right to fail, is not only our best chance for success in the future, but our only chance.

  7. By the way, Levi: THANK YOU. I really love the way you’ve clarified your agenda beyond all doubt:

    Civilization is government. Government is the reason human beings don’t live in caves and live beyond the age of 30. Government is the most useful invention in the history of mankind.

    I honestly cannot imagine ever seeing a more Hitlerian line of argument on this blog. Be comforted that today, Levi, Hitler and Mussolini *are* smiling on you. (From hell, of course.)

  8. Now for a more realistic view of civilization. While it is nourished by government that impartially protects individual rights to life liberty and property, it is pretty much the opposite of a government that goes beyond those minimal duties (i.e., the opposite of a “powerful, efficient” government beyond the near-tyrannical government that we already have):

    Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

    The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force [ed: including proactive government regulation, as opposed to reactive government protection of rights] from social relationships—thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only by means of reason: by discussion, persuasion and voluntary, uncoerced agreement.

    The necessary consequence of man’s right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.

  9. The hilarity about it is, ILC, is that Levi’s statement nicely encapsulates both his incompetence and his malice.

    Without government, Levi truly would be helpless. He has no capacity to earn, no capacity to feed himself, no capacity to get from point a to point b, and no idea that suppositories are not to be taken internally.

    And of course he resents those who can.

    Furthermore, the little fascist has zero intention of living under his own laws. He is of the mold of Barack Obama, who can lecture us about home heating while hiking the White House to hothouse temperatures; Michelle Obama, who wags one finger at us about healthy eating while her others shovel burgers and fries into her gaping maw; and Nancy Pelosi, who has to cut short her harangues about evil insider-trading millionaires and their private jets because her own taxpayer-funded, gourmet-food-and-alcohol-stocked one is waiting to fly her and her donors to Europe.

    It is in Levi’s lazy, malicious, power-hungry interest for as many people to be on government dependence as possible — and for him to preach the doctrines far and wide so that the Party elite will reward his loyalty with a Daimler and a cottage at Berchtesgarden.

  10. So enough with the petulance and grow up.

    The idiot’s definition of “growing up”: surrender yourself to a life of utter dependence on and obeisance to the All-Powerful State.

    Because bureaucrats can run your life better than you can, I guess.

  11. Because bureaucrats can run your life better than you can, I guess.

    Comment by V the K — March 30, 2012 @ 7:31 pm – March 30, 2012

    That’s part of it, V the K.

    But the real reason is because the petulant child Levi doesn’t see why doctors are paid eight times as much as Verizon store clerks are and needs someone to “redistribute” wealth from them to him so they can be “equal”.

    Once you figure out that liberals believe in their heart of hearts that there is no relationship whatsoever between hard work, honest living, and success, their worldview becomes understandable. They honestly believe, as we see in Levi’s case, that a janitor should be paid as much as a doctor. If they had actually studied history, they would realize that the Soviet Union tried it, with less than ideal results, but again, those who are too lazy/foolish to study history are doomed to repeat it.

  15. and why do you good people respond to it?

    It’s fun. Sorta like teasing dimwitted blondes. Actually, a LOT like teasing dimwitted blondes who ate paint chips as a kid. It is tedious, when you think about it, because Levi can never defend his comments. He’s only capable of spinning the same thing he’s said over and over so it sounds new-ish.

  18. Thank you for your responses.
    I’m first out of Logan airport tomorrow morning – I’m going to Somalia to experience the life-affirming liberty and individualism that they’re famous for.

  21. The problem with people like Levi and jman isn’t that they hate freedom, it’s that they want to deny freedom to people like me, NDT, TGC, and ILC who just want to make our own choices in life.

    In an ideal Federal System, California or New York could become as progressive socialist as they wanted; taxes through the roof, gay marriage all over the place, middle school dances that look like the Folsom Street Fair, businesses regulated to the hilt, and the sluts get all the free contraceptives and abortions they could wish for. And states like Texas and Montana could be freer, with lower taxes, less regulation, and more personal responsibility.

    But jman and Levi can’t have that. Nope. They have to impose their progressive socialist secular utopia on everyone, whether they like it or not.

    Because they know slave societies can never compete with freedom societies. So, the only solution is to enslave everybody.

  22. What’s the LGBT community going to do when, Obama, pulls his “October Surprise” and comes out in support of “gay marriage” legislation for his second term?

  23. Richard,

    The LGBT “community” is already going to vote for Obummer as many times as they can.

    The LGBT “community” is exclusively made up of leftists with the gay agenda being ahead of everything else.

    People on this site are constantly attacked by or fighting against the LGBT “community.” The leftists who come here, come here to attack “wayward” gays first and the political views second. Think Al Sharpton hustling the boys in the hood over Trayvon or Twana or Shashana Cevelle or Formica Dinette or whoever.

  24. @#21 – This is one of the reasons I have (virtually) stopped posting on the internet. Moods and tones and facial expressions can’t be transmitted.
    VTK – please look at my 1st post on this thread @#12 and your response @#16.
    Now look at my #18. You can’t tell that’s sarcasm, just 6 comments away from my opener (and a reference to that infantile prick Levi @#1)?
    Not to worry, I’m not offended.
    But now I have to take another shower due to your having lumped me together with one of the western hemisphere’s All-Star douchebags!
    Please be more careful the next time that I post. Soap and water are precious commodities. ;^)
    Thanks!

  25. heliotrope – “The LGBT “community” is already going to vote for Obummer as many times as they can.”

    This is what my “real life” experience living here in Stalinist NYC shows me to be true. One can be seduced into thinking otherwise when reading GP on a daily basis however.

  26. jman, a thousand apologies. It was really early in the morning, and I have seen the lefty “Why don’t you move to Somalia” idiot remark so many times I failed to mark it as a sarcasm.

    In penance, I will beat my filipino houseboy extra viciously tonight.

    FWIW, before it fell into anarchy, Somalia was run by progressive socialists devoted to “scientific socialism.” That sounds like Levi’s kind of peeps, doesn’t it?

  27. No apologies necessary. But I will, as good manners dictate, accept ONE of the thousands that you have offered.
    As an alternative to beating the houseboy, I suggest that you find the execrable commenter at #1 (or a reasonable facsimile) and beat the crap out of that miscreant. If you would like to send up a pinch-hitter, I am available.

  28. And the hilarity of Levi’s rants about Republicans/conservatives being factless know-nothings is, as one might expect, more of an indictment of Levi’s projections than it is reality.

    In a scientific survey of 1,168 adults conducted during September and October of last year, respondents were asked not only multiple-choice questions, but also queries using maps, photographs and symbols. Among other subjects, participants identified international leaders, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, nations on a world map, the current unemployment and poverty rates and war casualty totals.

    In a 2010 Pew survey, Republicans outperformed Democrats on 10 of 12 questions, with one tie and Democrats outperforming Republicans on just 1 of the 12. In the latest survey, however, Republicans outperformed Democrats on every single one of 19 questions.

    Amusingly, the Pew report attempted to soften the stark partisan knowledge disparity:

    “Republicans generally outperformed Democrats on the current quiz. On 13 of the 19 questions, Republicans score significantly higher than Democrats and there are no questions on which Democrats did better than Republicans. In past knowledge quizzes, partisan differences have been more muted, though Republicans often have scored somewhat higher than Democrats.”

    And, as mentioned therein:

    Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

    Of course, why Levi would make such foolish statements is also answered by research:

    What can explain liberals’ widespread failure to anticipate the Court’s wariness of the mandate? Research conducted by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt suggests one possible answer: Liberals just aren’t as good as conservatives and libertarians at understanding how their opponents think. Haidt helped conduct research that asked respondents to fill out questionnaires about political narratives—first responding based on their own beliefs, but then responding as if trying to mimic the beliefs of their political opponents. “The results,” he writes in the May issue of Reason, “were clear and consistent.” Moderates and conservatives were the most able to think like their liberal political opponents. “Liberals,” he reports, “were the least accurate, especially those who describe themselves as ‘very liberal.’”

    The hilarity of Levi’s statements is monumental. I happen to know the background of quite a few of the regular commenters here, and quite frankly, little Verizon clerk Levi is blown away by every single one of them in education, experience, and personal success.

    But of course, the child Levi is the one calling them idiots.