OOPS, LET'S TRY THAT REVOLUTION AGAIN

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out?
—John Lennon

"Life is a corrupting process
from the time a child learns to play
his mother off against his father
in the politics of when to go to bed;
he who fears corruption fears life."
—David Saul Alinksy

The function of socialism is to raise
suffering to a higher level.
—Norman Mailer


IT'S A WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, but don't ask me about the details. That would take too much time away from the problems still at hand. Here's what we have in mind—a nice slice if argumentative heaven, as one rugged individualist to another. As some might say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I..."

Q: But aren't Anarchists just socialists?

A: In a greater sense, yes. Anarchists like Benjamin Tucker and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon were both Anarchists and socialists. Today, however, when one hears another refer to himself as a “socialist,” what the other person usually means is, “state-socialist.”

Though the difference seems to be lost in translation between Anarchists, socialists, and outsiders, it remains an important one to distinguish. As Ernest Lesigne, a French Anarchist of the 19th century, put it, There are two Socialisms and we here at the Two-Fisted Quorum have got both their numbers.

One is communistic, the other solidaritarian.
One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.
One is metaphysical, the other positive.
One is dogmatic, the other scientific.
One is emotional, the other reflective.
One is destructive, the other constructive.
Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all.
One aims to establish happiness for all, the other to enable each to be happy in his own way.
The first regards the State as a society sui generis, of an especial essence, the product of a sort of divine right outside of and above all society, with special rights and able to exact special obediences; the second considers the State as an association like any other, generally managed worse than others.
The first proclaims the sovereignty of the State, the second recognizes no sort of sovereign.
One wishes all monopolies to be held by the State; the other wishes the abolition of all monopolies.
One wishes the governed class to become the governing class; the other wishes the disappearance of classes.
Both declare that the existing state of things cannot last.
The first considers revolutions as the indispensable agent of evolutions; the second teaches that repression alone turns evolutions into revolution.
The first has faith in a cataclysm.
The second knows that social progress will result from the free play of individual efforts.
Both understand that we are entering upon a new historic phase.
One wishes that there should be none but proletaires.
The other wishes that there should be no more proletaires.
The first wishes to take everything away from everybody.
The second wishes to leave each in possession of its own.
The one wishes to expropriate everybody.
The other wishes everybody to be a proprietor.
The first says: ‘Do as the government wishes.’
The second says: ‘Do as you wish yourself.’
The former threatens with despotism.
The latter promises liberty.
The former makes the citizen the subject of the State.
The latter makes the State the employee of the citizen.
One proclaims that labor pains will be necessary to the birth of a new world.
The other declares that real progress will not cause suffering to any one.
The first has confidence in social war.
The other believes only in the works of peace.
One aspires to command, to regulate, to legislate.
The other wishes to attain the minimum of command, of regulation, of legislation.
One would be followed by the most atrocious of reactions.
The other opens unlimited horizons to progress.
The first will fail; the other will succeed.
Both desire equality.
One by lowering heads that are too high.
The other by raising heads that are too low.
One sees equality under a common yoke.
The other will secure equality in complete liberty.
One is intolerant, the other tolerant.
One frightens, the other reassures.
The first wishes to instruct everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to instruct himself.
The first wishes to support everybody.
The second wishes to enable everybody to support himself.
One says:
The land to the State.
The mine to the State.
The tool to the State.
The product to the State.
The other says:
The land to the cultivator.
The mine to the miner.
The tool to the laborer.
The product to the producer.
There are only these two Socialisms.
One is the infancy of Socialism; the other is its manhood.
One is already the past; the other is the future.
One will give place to the other.
Today each of us must choose for the one or the other of these two Socialisms, or else confess that he is not a Socialist.

THE AWAKENING

Always delighted to find opinions which articulate what we consistently inspire to communicate, Two-Fisted is honored to republish this comment by someone named CF Bleachers found at PajamasMedia. The number and poetry of clarifying points made by Bleachers is astonishing. Read on. Embrace fully one's awareness of the political environment. This will be a bumpy even dangerous ride we have ahead of us. Prepare thyselves.

JENNIFER, BACK IN OCTOBER, I wrote this response to one of Roger Kimball’s articles. I went back to survey my thoughts from that period to overlay them on today’s landscape. Roger had written about Chris Buckley leaving the reservation…(Ann Althouse had done the same), Andy had long ago left the reservation and I responded to Megan McArdle when she drifted into the Obama camp).

(At one point, I even remember a lovely Jennifer Rubin wondering aloud whether the gifted political orator and chessboard master was actually going to govern from the center, I hope it is not impolitic or discourteous to mention it)

Begging your permission, I would like to revisit my thoughts written to Roger and see how they overlay in today’s landscape.

In point of fact, Roger, I assume you do not disagree at all with what Christopher Buckley finds appealing in Sen. Obama, neither do I.

He displays a soft temperament, is at times inspiring with his delivery of ideas, soothing and calming in demeanor. Anyone who disputes this is unable to continue in the quest for principled disagreement.

We tend in this country, to overcompensate away the deficiencies of the last guy in office. Nixon was sort of brooding and had dark corners, Ford was affable and light. But Ford was portrayed as a clumsy oaf, so Carter was the nuclear engineer. But Carter was limp and cowardly, and Reagan was brave and heroic. But Reagan was sleepy, cowboyish and dim, Bush Sr. was erudite and gentler. But Bush, Sr. was a wimp married to his grandma, and Clinton was dashing and bold. But Clinton often ruled by polls and plebiscites and spent time chasing his tail literally and figuratively, (some of which he put on the payroll), so we closed the last chapter with the current President Bush, married to a sweet librarian and not leading by watching polls but rather, destroyed by them. Going it alone was a mantra, a badge of honor. Perhaps, most importantly, this President Bush, in a war of words…most often fought on a battlefield between his brain and his tongue.

So, the most eloquent speaker, who appeals to the “world court of opinion” and prodded on by a media in his pocket and not on his watch…will “cure” the ills that have befallen us.

What Christopher chooses to ignore, are all the signs of what we will have to cure in the next election. He glosses over them as if they are invisible. That is what surprises most, that is what deadens the heart and chips away at the soul.

Christopher is clearly brilliant enough to see and chooses instead to avert his gaze. The thuggery and mean-spririted henchmen who do the dirty work, keep clean the hands and the image of “first class” comportment. The abject slander heaped upon opponents, comes not from the mouth of the candidate…but from the bellowing rage of his campaign.

The crushing of dissent by teams of lawyers, calls to action and “in your face” aggression come not from written directive, but from the planning committee seeking to choke off relevant inquiry. Clearly, Christopher cannot be so mesmerized as to wash this grime away with a simple wave of the hand. He has fallen for the image and he has been distracted by the persona.

So far, up to this point, I’m ok with what I had written. I believe we had not yet seen the degree to which dissent would be ignored, unwelcome and crushed…utilizing Pelosi and Reid to cram down legislation with an in your face attitude of “We won”…many people, including Clive Crook were still holding fast to the belief that principled dissent would be received with open arms.

I love liberals, Roger…as I suspect you do. Many of them surround my daily life. But I despise leftists. A liberal is ruled by compassion, a leftist by deceit.

A liberal wants to try a different approach, a leftist wants to replace the system.

A liberal believes in fair play and honest disagreement, a leftist believes in hiding the truth and crushing dissent.

A liberal believes you may have a point, a leftist believes there are no points other than his.

A liberal says this country is great, but can be greater through dialogue. A leftist believes some other country is great and this country makes him puke.

A liberal wants equality for all persons regardless of gender, color or creed, a leftist wants class and racial warfare.

A liberal wants to take the poor and give them a chance to be rich, a leftist wants to take the rich and make them poor.

Here is where my overlay given today’s facts needs closest examination. Are we in the midst of a compassionate liberal agenda or does it contain the venom and windpipe crushing brutality of a cramdown of leftism? Does it gain height by stepping on the necks of principled dissenters? Does it seek elevation via the digging of trenches for those on the wrong side of class warfare? Does it seek racial warfare through name calling (cowards)? Does it seek to attack the wealthy and make them poor…in order to gain parity, but not equality? Does it seek to mask the truth…suggesting that newly created problems are “inherited”?

And if it does these things, does it suggest that the implementation of this new system is not classic liberalism, but entrenched leftism? I leave that to others to decide, but in forecasting the differences…I certainly wanted to see how this played out.

The liberals are gone, Roger. The leftists have consumed them. I love the liberals, I despise the leftists. What Christopher cannot see…is the leftist magicians on stage, not with their trinkets hidden up their sleeves…but dangling from them in plain view…and daring us to shout out what we see….because, if we do…they will scream that we are racist and paranoid and not nuanced enough to appreciate the trick they are about to pull.

And if a brilliant and informed man like Christopher Buckley can be taken in by the sleight of hand, what possible chance does that leave for those who stand to vote the difference in this election? I’m afraid this magician’s show will make many of our fondest liberties disappear. For that, we will all pay the price of admission.

That price, it appears…comes in the trillions.

LIBERALISM AND EVIL

Excerpts from David Solway's essay titled above.

THE ANTIDOTE TO LIBERALISM is not, as many writers and thinkers of the past have argued, authoritative control, but political humility—the conservative recognition that the world is insolubly complex, that topdown intervention in the social, political and economic life of the nation is often counterproductive, and that one must not attribute to one’s fellow man, and especially to one’s enemies, an a priori commitment to communal benefit or reasonable accommodation.

Broadly speaking, the conservative project is what is known in philosophy as an “axiological” ethic, in which the determination of the rightness of an action is contingent upon the value or goodness of that action as embodied in results, however deferred. It is concerned with consequences. The liberal ethic on the other hand is “deontological,” that is, it holds that an action may be considered right if it conforms to a prior set of values even if it does not bring as much good into the world as some alternative action may have. It is concerned with motives.

This is why “the liberal mind” seems incapable of learning from past mistakes or failed initiatives, why predictions that have not come to pass do not prevent it from making similar predictions in the future, and why Neville Chamberlains crop up in every generation. From its perspective, the hurdle to peace and understanding is the result of miscommunication. The liberal-left has taken aboard wholesale the trendy theories of one its most revered mentors, German social philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who argued, under the lemmas of “communicative action” and “explicative discourses,” that world conflicts stem from poor communication modes. Accordingly, the generic Left says talk, unperturbed by the fact that its enemies say fire!

One thinks, in this connection, of the film Cool Hand Luke where the naïve protagonist tells his pursuers, “What we got here is a failure to communicate,” and is immediately shot.

THE ORWELLIAN MEDIA

"After vowing to usher in a new era of responsibility, President Obama has shown a willingness to compromise between campaign rhetoric and the realities of Washington."

SUCH LANGUAGE IS THE SAFFRON lead in today's top New York Times story. Seems innocuous enough, and frankly had me thinking that perhaps the NYT was going to hold this president's feet to the fire after all. But what was I thinking?

Had this been a Republican president, the lead would have been something like this: Barely two weeks into office, the new president has backtracked on his campaign promises to clean up Washington. Will the hypocrisy of the Republican Party never end?

But the article is not a puff piece, or a slick apologia for the Barack Obama team. “This is a big problem for Obama, especially because it was such a major, major promise,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “He harped on it, time after time, and he created a sense of expectation around the country. This is exactly why people are skeptical of politicians, because change we can believe in is not the same thing as business as usual.”

Do you think? Truth in politics has never been more relevant than today, a day that is smack dab in the spotlight breathing heavily the fumes of the best of times and the worst of times with everybody watching, even those who usually require a pair of 3D gag specs just to get their attention. You'd think somebody'd finally get it right. My hunch is that the next "great idea" might not be an idea at all, but will quietly come in the form of simple truth.

Now I'd called THAT Lincolnesque.

SUNSHINE PATRIOTS AMONGST US

Picture this scenario—roving gangs terrorizing the neighborhood; residents and police act to curb violence. Gang members, adept at finding flaws in a system meant to work as a favorable policy, start crying foul that they are being picked on.

Who was "living" in the area of Israel in 1947? Nobody. It was unattended forgotten desert. Bedouins migrated through it, but it was a vast wasteland. Now with the help of pseudo-compassionate people we are supposed to believe that this turf was always inhabited by the so-called Palestinian people. Hey, I know, let's introduce a turf war. Many an Arab country could alleviate the problem by assimilating the Palestinians (pan-Arabs) into their cultures and societies, but no, it is much more convenient for the Muslim world for them to be 'a thorn in Israel's side'.

Others have said it before, but honestly, the more I hear the screams from the Left the more I am persuaded that unbridled liberalism is indeed some sort of mental disorder—to be unable to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and fiction, the real and the unreal is to be delusional.

Too many Americans digest too much of what the MSM reports as news, thinking that US foreign policy is utterly without redeeming features and that things have never been worse in the nation or the world at large.

But just like President Georgie Bush said yesterday—things during President Abe Lincoln's tenure surely weren't the rosiest of times, now were they? A nation crippled and divided where fathers fought sons, brothers fought brothers, and the blood ran red.

It's unfortunate our automobiles today can't run on the vitriolic fuel our political climate seems to produce in quite an abundant supply.