Tag: QotD

Quote of the Day – Robert Heinlein Edition ca. 1984

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From an interview in the WaPo from September 5, 1984, In the Strange Land Of Robert Heinlein:

You can go to a cocktail party on the campus of a major university and be asked three times what sign were you born under. And we’ve got citizens in this culture who honest to God believe that professional athletes and actors are important people with opinions worth paying attention to!

And

I’m not convinced that we’re going to make it. I’ll bet on the human race. I’m just not sure about the United States of America.

Analysis: Truer today than ever.

Education Quote of the Day

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Seen at Instapundit by Robert E. Wright of the American Institute for Economic Research:

As I recently argued elsewhere, America’s educational system has not prepared us for the government power grab because it does not create enough Emersonian independent thinkers or, frankly, even adult thinkers. Due to the extreme Left bias of higher education, many of America’s college graduates remain intellectually infantilized to the point that they can do little more than Tweet ignorant hate at any idea that does not accord with Progressive mantras.

 Analysis:  True. Read the piece in that second link.

Quote of the Day – Adaptive Curmudgeon Edition

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From his post The McDonald Girl’s Story:

For whatever reason, I’d never before understood the beatific wonderment of youth. This child, who was clutching a buck’s worth of sugar water, had a direct line to the joy of the universe. It was amazing; in the true sense of the word. I stood there astounded and speechless at the complete, naïve, guileless, joy of a happy child’s smile. 

It was then that I started to understand. This is why adults raised children. This is why they tolerated crayons on the walls and dirty diapers and Barney videos… this was a real, unfiltered, direct link to heaven.

She was so happy. And I was too. I was delighted to have noticed such a moment. I saw and truly understood… joy.

 RTWT.

Quote of the day – Not Real Socialism Edition

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I just recently had a “discussion” with someone on FB on the topic of “democratic socialism.”  He indignantly left the conversation when I posted this cartoon:

But that’s not the QotD.  This explanation – in its entirety – by Larry Corriea is:

I keep seeing this idiotic thing where “socialism” is used as a synonym for “government”. So if you like fire departments or roads, you’re a socialist…

BULLSHIT. These people drive me insane.

Government and its many programs all existed before Karl Marx. Socialism has an actual definition, and it isn’t this mealy mouthed, wishy-washy, nebulous, feel good, gibberish people use today. It actually means something.

Going back to the men who created the philosophy, socialism means that regular “value” isn’t what drives economics, instead production is coordinated through central government planning. That’s the key element. Duh.

In other words, you take decisions away from the people/the market who would normally make them based upon what they value, and instead put those decisions in the hands of government. This is why Bernie is offended by there being too many brands of deodorant.

It isn’t social programs. It isn’t roads. It isn’t fire departments. Or any other project governments have spent tax money on for thousands of years. If it was just that stuff they’d call themselves democrats/republicans in the US and this wouldn’t be an issue.

But Bernie calls himself a socialist for a reason, and words mean things. Socialism isn’t a blank slate for you to scribe your dreams on.

Which is why almost everybody who has actually studied history at all thinks actual socialism (as opposed to your fluffy magic unicorn version) is evil, while those who have studied history and still want it are wannabe totalitarians and statists who think it sounds awesome, because they assume they’re going to be the ones in charge. Then they sell the fluffy unicorn version of socialism to the useful idiots. They tell you it’s social programs and fairness, when actual reality is bread lines, inefficiency, and eventually gulags and firing squads.

Chris Matthews and James Carville are flaming liberals, but they’ve studied enough history to know that socialism is a terrifying evil. That should be a clue to all of you who normally identify as liberal, but who’ve been snookered into thinking socialism is innocuous.

And no, Denmark isn’t socialist, when even the PM of Denmark has to come out and say, Hey Bernie Bros, quit using us as an example of socialism, because we’re actually a traditionally capitalist nation with a lot of social programs.

Because again, socialism isn’t a synonym for government. Whenever you treat it as such, you’re being a useful idiot. When you say you prefer socialism, it’s actually you saying you want the government to be in charge of everyone’s business, because you think freedom is icky. (which is also why that declaration gets such a strong reaction from everyone who actually knows what socialism is)

This ignorance is partly the right’s fault for knee jerk reaction calling every government program socialist. However, they are right to do so if the program is designed to take freedom/decisions away from people/business, and instead have the government make those decisions for them. That would be socialist.

This is also why polls show young people prefer “socialism”, because they’re thinking of the fluffy unicorn version they’ve been sold. When you narrow it down and ask about specific policies, it turns out they don’t want the government telling them where/how/what they can do with their lives, while some unaccountable faceless bureaucrat decides what their time/labor/effort is worth.

If you’re just in favor of social programs and safety nets, the democrat party is thataway (and don’t blame me that they suck! That’s on them!). But don’t let the DNC’s suckiness confuse you into supporting a system which has been one of the greatest, actual evils in human history.

Quote of the Day – Progressive Agenda Edition

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This is going to be a long one, but it’s important.  From Victor Davis Hanson via an Epoch Times interview:

(T)he progressive project started in the 19th century. And it took hold with Woodrow Wilson in the early ’20s, and its basic belief was that the U.S. Constitution erred on the side of liberty rather than equality. We should have been like the French Revolution, more of a fluid concept that would change with the times and use the power of government not to ensure equality of opportunity but to mandate equality of result. And therefore, there were certain things in the Constitution that prevented that project.

Not to mention The Reign of Terror. Executions in the public square, etc.

And we’ve changed a lot of them. We now have senators elected by direct vote and not appointed by the legislatures. The states cannot have property qualifications. Some of these were justified as archaic in the 18th-century sense.

But given those reforms, we’re still not to where we want to be. And what do I mean by that? The Supreme Court can be an obstacle. And so we need to pack the court. Now, Democratic candidates no longer see the 1937 FDR effort to pack the court as disreputable, but an honorable attempt. So they’re all endorsing [this idea of] let’s pack the court and make 15 judges, if we can’t get our guys on the court. Let’s abolish the Electoral College and all the arguments that these people with powdered wigs in the 18th century came up with. Let’s just have a direct vote and let California and New York and the Great Lakes, big cities [like] Chicago, determine the election. And why do you have to go out in a place like Wyoming or Utah? And let’s get rid of this archaic idea of two senators from Utah or from Wyoming having as much clout as two senators in California. And here, we’re speaking in California. My senator represents 20 million people. A senator in Wyoming represents 250,000. One man, one vote. Let’s get rid of it, even though it’s in the Constitution.

What I am getting at is they want to streamline the Constitution continually in an effort to make a country of radical equality; that requires certain things like this impeachment or to prune the Second Amendment. Or to say that the First Amendment does not apply here at Stanford University, because we can say, “That’s hate speech, what he said. He has no right to say hate speech. I declare that ‘hate speech,’ therefore, don’t speak.” And so the First Amendment, the Second Amendment are being pruned. Due process on college campuses … If I say that I was sexually assaulted by that person over there … I don’t have to come forward to identify myself. That person is not given constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments as he would in a criminal trial off-campus. The ACLU, they used to be the champion of free speech, is now a grassroots organizer, it says, political organizer. You don’t see any ACLU outrage [that] Adam Schiff is now going into the phone records of members of Congress, even though when the U.S. government looked in the phone records of terrorists in 2001 after 9/11, the ACLU said that was a violation of residents’ rights—not U.S. citizens, but residents.

So what I’m getting at is that the progressive project is a multifaceted effort by intellectuals, academics, foundations, progressive members of the Democratic Party to change, formally, the Constitution and to change the mindset of the American people, so that we can make people all the same by the powers of government. We see what’s going on. We’ve seen it in Cuba, we’ve seen it in Russia, we’ve seen it in Venezuela, we’ve seen it in China. And we’ve seen a soft benign form in Europe.

And the United States is really the only major country in the world that says, “You know what, that process inevitably leads to an Orwellian totalitarian state, and it crushes liberty and individual freedom, and we’re not going to do it here.” That’s why we have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution.