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Kamala and the Kamikazes
“For in a republic, who is ‘the Country’? Is it the Government that is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” — Mark Twain (Letters from the Earth)
As Kamala and the Kamikazes officially launch their 2024 national tour this week, I wonder what they would make of the proposition Mark Twain advanced 118 years ago. The very idea that a government — whose vast domain and awful power now meddles with every facet of an American citizen’s life — should be “merely a temporary servant” whose “function is to obey orders and not originate them” is a concept so foreign and out of tune to progressive ears that it would take a United Nations interpreter to help them understand the meaning — assuming there’s anyone at the UN who isn’t an imbecile.
Then again, Twain also wondered, “…whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it?” For my part, I suspect we now have a conglomerate of both. Though he was quite enamored of the autocratic impulse, Barack Obama had the deft linguistic touch necessary to pull off the vaguely invigorating possibilities of “fundamental transformation,” which when put into action had all the charm of a chiffon-laced bulldozer leveling civil society.
Today, unburdened by what has gone before (including basic economics, national sovereignty, and national security), we’ve also transcended time and space itself as the soon-to-be crowned Democrat Presidential Nominee is on record as being both for and against a great many of her own policies on important issues:
- Despite casting the deciding vote in 2022 that not only allowed the IRS to tax employee tips, but funded more IRS agents to track down those employees, she now supports ending said taxes on employee tips.
- Despite saying in 2019 that, ”We have to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory gun buyback program,” Harris’ campaign said she would not pursue such a buyback program.
- In 2019 Kamala Harris wanted to ban fracking. Today she doesn’t.
- Having supported the decriminalization of illegal border crossings in 2019, she now supports more border security measures and vows to get tough on the deluge of criminal border crossings.
- She supported “Medicare for all” before she recently stopped supporting it.
- In 2020, Harris said, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, I have a history of working on this issue.” But she’s unburdened by this history too, as she promises not to ban fracking.
Kamala Harris is not only unburdened by the Kamala that prattled and babbled before, she’s also unburdened by philosophical coherence. It’s tough, after all, enjoying tax-free tips if one is unemployed, which will surely happen if Harris remains true to her kamikaze mission of implementing price controls.
You see, when starry-eyed utopians print money to pay off student loans for example, or to fly illegal immigrants directly into the country and then to pay for their meals and lodging, or to spend $7.5 billion for 7 electric vehicle chargers, it inflates the cost of goods and service, including groceries.
Unburdened by reality, Kamala proposes to lower the cost of food not by addressing the causes of inflation itself, but by wielding federal power to tell grocery stores what they will and will not charge for their merchandise. There is no problem too complicated or too simple that half-witted politicians won’t make worse using the wrecking ball of government intervention.
As CNN’s Scott Jennings recently noted:
If you like bread lines, product shortages, black markets, hoarding, if you want to recreate the happy economic conditions of The Walking Dead, then Vice President Kamala Harris has a plan for you.
Embracing the dictum that “No good deed goes unpunished,” Democrats gather in Chicago to construct a federal government that wields an iron fist over its own citizens while caressing violent criminals and terrorists with a velvet glove. Truly, there is no more appropriate nominee to lead such a party than Kamala and her Kamikazes.
Published in Election 2024
C’mon Dave, one man’s breadline is another man’s egalitarian utopia. (I think that’s how Walz put it, anyway.)
“It’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don’t line up for food: the rich get the food and the poor starve to death.” — Bernie Sanders
Dave! Awfully glad to see you again. Or read you again. Whatever.
Emerson told us that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Unfortunately, he never got around to dealing with the subject of foolish inconsistency. We may find out in a little bit.
Meanwhile, the walls that won’t work on the border are going up around the United Center.
“The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging his own garden–that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”
–CS Lewis
(Although I’d have to modify it to say that ‘the state *should* exist’ for those purposes, because the proportion of states that have fit his criterion has been fairly small)
David French thinks a true conservative must support bread lines in order to get rid of the Orange man
There can never be too many Daves on a thread…
Ok, so Kamala’s getting owned by everyone on her bad ideas, ignorance of history/political economy/etc. Does that mean anything? That is, will her promise of destruction sway votes away from her?
Or… is it about the promise of lies that assures voters that she will fight for these things, but it’s really all about the struggle and not the delivery? What matters is the continuous revolution without end in sight.
I guess it depends on which side of one of Bernie’s estates one stands.
Yes, and apparently no one gets inside the DNC without a government ID. It’s getting downright xenophobic UtopiaLand these days.
Is he still writing Sunday Castigations?
I think it’s the latter. And the continuing reaffirming of PT Barnum’s observation that there’s a sucker born every minute. Progressives know you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but they bank on being able to fool just enough of the people when it counts, which often keeps them within the margin of cheating.
This says it beautifully, Dave. Why pay attention to reality and truth??
Because it’s too hard?
The left is always looking for the next Kulak
Some politicians make it easy. When Ted Cruz, for instance, says something that makes no sense, I know he is pandering. He’s smart enough to know that what he is saying is BS. But many politicians say stupid things so frequently, you just can’t tell in any particular instance if they are genuinely that stupid, or if they are just faking it to appeal to the stupidest voters.
A poem
David, your link doesn’t work!
fixed
I do not concur with that poem.
on-topic… are America-loving, patriotic liberals (I am sure they exist) going to vote for the Kommmunist? Especially when their media calls it such? Maybe. I do remember a call-in show in 2015 on some station, can’t remember that, though, where a Hillary! supporter made a case against Bernie. “He’s a socialist! He wants to take your property away!” Hillary! was all about accumulating personal wealth, so hey: free-market supported welfare state yes, state-ownership of production, no.
Thank you ever so much, Susan. I wish I could write happier articles,…I’m working on one now. It’s about people I’d be happy to deport.
The list is old (circa 1995) and in need of updating. But as P. J. wrote “the fun part of McCarthyism is, as it always was, making out the enemies list.”
Love Twain.
Yes, there has to be a struggle, or they lose power, always a struggle against evil. Few bother to check out the claim because it makes them feel good to fight against evil.