Friday, January 24, 2014

Liberal Patronage and Fugitive Slaves

I'm not quite ready to leave The Betrayal of the Masses behind. There's just too much fine insultainment to let pass, such as the crack that liberalism is the doctrine that dedicates itself "to preserving the problems for which it presents itself as the solution."

For example, there are some major cities that have had uninterrupted Democrat rule since, I don't know, World War II, or even World War I. A quick search reveals that most of the poorest cities in the country -- i.e., those with the highest poverty rates -- have been controlled by Democrats for over fifty years. This has to be the ultimate instance of the Butterfield Fallacy: Urban Poverty Soars Despite Liberal Governance. Ironic, no?

Consider the spiritual home of our Dear Leader, Chicago. Let's call in Mr. Butterfield again: Leading the Nation in Murdered Blacks Despite Powerful Black Political Establishment. But for the left, politics is a patronage machine dressed up in an ideology. There is no ideology per se, in the sense that Democrats must cobble together electoral groups based upon the gift of victimization, not the truth of ideas.

To put it another way, the only way to unify such disparate groups is through the vehicle of oppression-entitlement. Otherwise, an ovary tower feminist, say, has little in common with the Central Park thug who would just as soon mug her for her jewelry.

According to Siegel, the largest employers in Chicago are the federal government, its abysmal school system, the city government, the CTA, the Cook County government, and the Chicago Park District. And you can be sure that the machine hires only the very best and brightest parasites!

It's the same in my failed state, California. Yesterday we spoke of the iron triangle of Big Government, Big Media, and Big Stupid. Regarding the latter, Siegel notes that in the Cal State University system, there is a ratio of one administrator per one professor. And we all know their political affiliation. That is what you call grotesque and in-your-face patronage.

In fact, every couple of years we see student demonstrations over the high cost of tuition. Ironically -- ironically? -- they always direct their ire at the greedy citizens who don't want to waste more money on public education, instead of toward a corrupt system of political patronage that stocks our universities with mid-level hacks and free-riders.

Back in 1981, when I graduated from Cal State Northridge -- the Harvard of the west San Fernando Valley, the same venerable institution from which the great James Taranto nearly graduated -- tuition was like $105 a semester. Now it is $5,472 per year, which I believe represents a what -- 2,600% increase? Did I do that right? I should know this, since I received a Gentleman Loafer's C in Business Math at CSUN, which means I was definitely breathing in class.

At any rate, liberal governance is an expensive proposition, and not just because of taxes. Those parasites don't suck themselves, you know.

Speaking of irony and fine insultainment, Ann Coulter, in cataloging the wondrous deeds of feminist icon Wendy Davis, notes how very ironic it is that she left her sugar daddy-husband the very same day he made the last payment on her Harvard Law School loan. Iconic and ironic! -- as in It's ironic -- my car stopped running right after I ran out of gas.... It's ironic -- my house was broken into, and the next thing I knew all my valuables were missing.... It's ironic -- I was punched in the face right before my nose broke.

Ironic, isn't it, that a feminist hero should get to the top the old fashioned way, by sleeping with a wealthy or influential man? That's how Hillary did it, except for the sleeping part.

When we consider the list of Failed 20th Century Ideologies, only liberalism has survived. Why is this? Again, it must be because of its most excellent system of patronage, not because of the ideology, because when Americans hear the ideology in its naked form, without a fogleaf of pandering, bogus compassion, or intellectual dishonesty, they don't like it.

Thus, without the constant payoffs, liberalism might have gone the way of its cousins, fascism, socialism, and communism. The problem with those latter three is that they didn't involve enough people in the scam; or, to be precise, they didn't allow enough pigs at the trough.

Now, we all know liberalism is a status-centered belief system rooted in snobbery, moral superiority, and intellectual one-upsmanship. But again, in America, that just won't sell. And from the elite side of things, it is understood that not everyone can be an elite. Besides, if everyone can be one, then the elitism has no status value.

What to do? This is one of the themes of the Betrayal of the Masses, that in contemporary liberalism we see this otherwise inexplicable alliance of wealthy status seekers and overeducated mediocrities at one end, and various victim groups at the other. The latter have no personal identity, only a group identity. Only the people at the top are permitted to be pseudo-individuals, whereas the rabble is only permitted to go along with the elites. (Rush touched on this very theme in yesterday's program.)

As such, the greatest threat to the left is rampant individualism in the boobeoisie, because then they are not subject to top-down control by elites. This is why uppity blacks who stray from the liberal plantation are treated so cruelly, in an intellectual version of the old Fugitive Slave Laws. If you find one hiding somewhere, by all means turn him in! The same goes for fugitive women, fugitive homosexuals, fugitive journalists... and fugitive filmmakers, for revenge is a Dinesh pest served a cold indictment.

Then again, I suppose D'Souza could be just another victim of liberal irony. Nevertheless, it does resemble one of those Libyan film reviews we've heard so much about.

*****

Via Maggie's Farm, we are number two in soft tyranny. All others are number three or lower (click to embiggen):

Looks like the first seven are perma-blue states. Ironic!

19 comments:

mushroom said...

In addition to D'Souza, non-minority James O'Keefe is claiming he's being subpoenaed by Cuomo. That's via Jim Hoft, which is kind of like getting it from WND. This one doesn't sound that farfetched.

This is how government works for those who believe in the power-makes-truth paradigm.

I've already ranted elsewhere this week about the money that gets wasted on drunk-in-public eduKshun. I just hate it.

Tony said...

Corker of a post.

Gagdad Bob said...

Better be, because I don't think there will be one Monday. Have to leave at like 7:30 AM. Oh the humanity!

julie said...

I could be wrong, but if memory serves, quite a few conservatives back in '08 were predicting exactly this sort of thugocracy being ushered in by an Obama presidency, but they were written off pretty much as fringe nutcases. Nobody really wanted to believe it could get this bad.

And it's still not over yet. Yeesh.

julie said...

I wonder how long it will be before people are silenced not only by the possibility of drawing federal attention to themselves, but also to their families and friends? I hear it works pretty well in North Korea...

That's one of the things I find amazing about the American revolution, actually - hearing the stories of those whose families suffered because of their roles in fighting the British, but who remained steadfast in their resolve.

Gagdad Bob said...

I know. I can't help wondering if I would have been a Tory-ish moderate in '76, or if in the Civil War I might have just advocated secession from the South. I don't like to get all fired up. Too stressful.

mushroom said...

I'm no warrior myself. I'm happy with a draw -- get as many of them as they get of me.


Whatever the rest of us think of people like David Koresh, that's how the lapdog media will portray us. A lot of people will be hindered by family concerns. Somebody said, a man's enemies will be those of his own household. He also said that when they turn us over to the authorities, they will think they are doing God's work.

mushroom said...

State Department warns that Team USA gear could make Olympic athletes targets.

Those outfits would make them targets anywhere. I'd worry less about the Muslims and more about getting dragged into an alley for a gang-makeover by a flash mob of good-taste vigilantes.

Gagdad Bob said...

Oops! New York mayor quickly learns lesson about offending liberal elites. Also, why conservatives understand liberals, but not vice versa. Ironic!

julie said...

Mushroom, those are just awful. I'm reminded again of the many reasons I don't watch the Olympics anymore.

Joan of Argghh! said...

D'Souza. O'Keefe.

What do libs have against
Apostrophe Americans?

julie said...

:D

That's an excellent question, Joan...

NoMo said...

They just prefer hyphenated.

julie said...

Apropos the snobbery of leftist intellectuals, Thomas Sowell has some observations:

"Leftists like Rousseau, Condorcet, or William Godwin in the 18th century, Karl Marx in the 19th century, or Fabian socialists like George Bernard Shaw in England and American Progressives in the 20th century saw the people in a role much like that of sheep and saw themselves as their shepherds.

Another disturbing pattern turned up that is also with us to the present moment. From the 18th century to today, many leading thinkers on the left have regarded those who disagree with them as being not merely factually wrong but morally repugnant. And again, this pattern is far less often found among those on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum.

The visceral hostility toward Sarah Palin by present-day liberals, and the gutter level to which some descend in expressing it, is just one sign of a mindset on the left that goes back more than two centuries."

Van Harvey said...

"I'm not quite ready to leave The Betrayal of the Masses behind."

I'm ready to dive into it, my copy should arrive tomorrow.

Van Harvey said...

Mushroom said "...via Jim Hoft, which is kind of like getting it from WND..."

Now, now, Jim may... make the most of his headlines... but he's way above WND.

Van Harvey said...

Julie quoted "Leftists like Rousseau, Condorcet, or William Godwin in the 18th century..."

Godwin's one of those who is rarely noticed anymore, but whose impact was huge, played a major role in misaligning the British branch of the Enlightenment, with the beheading branch of the Frenchie Endarkenment, and being "...regarded those who disagree with them as being not merely factually wrong but morally repugnant." is one of the major traits of that Frankenstein's monster.

Joan: "What do libs have against
Apostrophe Americans?"

LOL.

Bob's Blog said...

"Now, we all know liberalism is a status-centered belief system rooted in snobbery, moral superiority, and intellectual one-upsmanship."

Let's be honest: those are also qualities many conservatives display.

Van Harvey said...

bob said "Let's be honest"

Yes, lets. There's a big difference between someone who behaves snobbishly, and someone whose ideas are rooted in snobbery, moral superiority, and intellectual one-upsmanship.

The first may believe sound ideas but fail to practice them well, while the second not only believes such ideas, but practices them the only way they can be.

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