Everything old is new again
Bookworm on Dec 19 2008 at 6:45 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
Obama’s infatuated followers have taken to referring to him as a second FDR. They envision him lifting us out of the coming depression, blithely unaware that FDR’s economic policies almost certain extended the Great Depression far beyond its natural lifespan
Turns out that, back in the 1930s, not everyone was that thrilled with FDR’s accretion of power. Five years into FDR’s administration, H.L. Mencken, a once-famed satirist, decided to rewrite the Constitution to make it more consistent with the practical aspects of FDR’s presidency. Read the following (which is reprinted at Lew Rockwell’s site), and tell me if it isn’t remarkably descriptive of the plans Obama and his followers have for his 21st Century White House:
The principal cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift- moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover the whole program of the More Abundant Life, now and hereafter.
That is what I presume to offer here. The Constitution that follows is not my invention, and in more than. one detail I have unhappy doubts of its wisdom. But I believe that it sets forth with reasonable accuracy the plan of government that the More Abundant Life wizards have sought to substitute for the plan of the Fathers. They have themselves argued at one time or another, by word or deed, for everything contained herein:
PREAMBLE
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish social justice, draw the fangs of privilege, effect the redistribution of property, remove the burden of liberty from ourselves and our posterity, and insure the continuance of the New Deal, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
ARTICLE I
The Executive
All governmental power of whatever sort shall be vested in a President of the United States. He shall hold office during a series of terms of four years each, and shall take the following oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will (in so far as I deem it feasible and convenient) faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will (to the best of my recollection and in the light of experiment and second thought) carry out the pledges made by me during my campaign for election (or such of them as I may select).”
The President shall be commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia, Boy Scouts, C.I.O., People’s Front, and other armed forces of the nation.
The President shall have the power: To lay and collect taxes, and to expend the income of the United States in such manner as he may deem to be to their or his advantage;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to provide for its repayment on such terms as he may fix;
To regulate all commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and within them; to license all persons engaged or proposing to engage in business; to regulate their affairs; to limit their profits by proclamation from time to time; and to fix wages, prices and hours of work;
To coin money, regulate the content and value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to amend or repudiate any contract requiring the payment by the United States, or by any private person, of coin of a given weight or fineness;
To repeal or amend, in his discretion, any so-called natural law, including Gresham’s law, the law of diminishing returns, and the law of gravitation.
The President shall be assisted by a Cabinet of eight or more persons, whose duties shall be to make speeches whenever so instructed and to expend the public funds in such manner as to guarantee the President’s continuance in office.
The President may establish such executive agencies as he deems necessary, and clothe them with such powers as he sees fit. No person shall be a member to any such bureau who has had any practical experience of the matters he is appointed to deal with.
One of the members of the Cabinet shall be an Attorney General. It shall be his duty to provide legal opinions certifying to the constitutionality of all measures undertaken by the President, and to gather evidence of the senility of judges.
ARTICLE II
The Legislature
The legislature of the United States shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Every bill shall be prepared under the direction of the President, and transmitted to the two Houses at his order by their presiding officers. No member shall propose any amendment to a bill without permission in writing from the President or one of his authorized agents. In case any member shall doubt the wisdom of a bill he may apply to the President for light upon it, and thereafter he shall be counted as voting aye. In all cases a majority of members shall be counted as voting aye.
Both Houses may appoint special committees to investigate the business practices, political views, and private lives of any persons known to be inimical to the President; and such committees shall publish at public cost any evidence discovered that appears to be damaging to the persons investigated.
Members of both Houses shall be agents of the President in the distribution of public offices, federal appropriations, and other gratuities in their several states, and shall be rewarded in ratio to their fidelity to his ideals and commands.
ARTICLE III
The Judiciary
The judges of the Supreme Court and of all inferior courts shall be appointed by the President, and shall hold their offices until he determines by proclamation that they have become senile. The number of judges appointed to the Supreme Court shall be prescribed by the President, and may be changed at his discretion. All decisions of the Supreme Court shall be unanimous.
The jurisdiction and powers of all courts shall he determined by the President. No act that he has approved shall be declared unconstitutional by any court.
ARTICLE IV
Bill of Rights
There shall be complete freedom of speech and of the press – subject to such regulations as the President or his agents may from time to time promulgate.
The freedom of communication by radio shall not be abridged; but the President and such persons as he may designate shall have the first call on the time of all stations.
In disputes between capital and labor, all the arbitrators shall be representatives of labor.
Every person whose annual income fans below a minimum to be fixed by the President shall receive from the public funds an amount sufficient to bring it up to that minimum.
No labor union shall be incorporated and no officer or member thereof shall be accountable for loss of life or damage to person or property during a strike.
All powers not delegated herein to the President are reserved to him, to be used at his discretion.
Hat tip: Mark Levin
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12 Responses to “Everything old is new again”
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I don’t get what’s wrong with this. As Helen would say, this constitution will make people feel happy and loved.
Isn’t that all we really need?
We have some interesting times coming. We really do.
We have elected a genuinely not-very-smart-but-telegenic-as-hell guy with zero accomplishment to his name and, as far as I can see, zero knowledge of history. (What he does know about history, as in the example of how swell FDR was, he gets wrong.) History is at least vaguely important, in that if you know it you can learn from it and have some understanding of what worked and why – or what failed and why. He seems oblivious to this process. His econmic “plan” will fail, in part because he doesn’t know it’s been tried before – and failed.
But I think all that stuff is going to turn out to be by the way. The real war will be waged over Obama’s attempt to implement many terms of Mencken’s new constitution. He’ll be abetted in this by a congress and senate that seem at this juncture to contain more second rate (and that’s at best. Far too many of them are third rate) minds than anyone can remember ever seeing before. These are genuinely venal, small people. Far too many of them are outright stupid. The country and the good thereof comes a distant third in the estimation of such bits of flotsam as Reid, Cantwell, Dodd, the entire California delegation, Fwank, et al.
(And in the midst of these times, did you all notice that this roomful of the otherwise unemployable, [Oblige me. Try for a moment to imagine Barney Fwank, running, or even just working at an actual business], gave themselves a raise yesterday? [It's been 24 hours - I trust that by now you've all called and/or written letters to your representatives that were something less than flattering on that subject.])
I was gratified to see that the Ford Motor Company, looking at the terms for the loans, politely told the government to go to hell yesterday, too. They decided they were better off with Gettelfinger – which sounds like some kind of swamp rot – than they were with accepting the interference that would come with the money. Good for Ford, and if they do go under (except in their European operations) then they will have done so with honor.
The conflict will come in the collision between the people who want more government, and those who know government is too often the problem, and only rarely and by accident the solution. And it will between an attitude, and a sense of honor. It will be between the people who think the sun shines out of Teddy Kennedy’s ass – and those who think he should by now be just about wrapping up serving his sentence for vehicular homicide.
It’ll be between people who think we need endless government; and people who believe the people that brings into their lives are crap: who think Barney Fwank should have been thrown out in disgrace thirty years ago for allowing his partner to run a homosexual whorehouse out his basement office in DC. People who wonder why Rangel hasn’t been forced to step down – at least temporarily – while his ever-expanding list of tax games is investigated. People who wonder why Pelosi is allowed to roam the halls and run her mouth when she arranged a minimum wage raise for everyone except those people working in Samoa for her husband. People who wonder why Di-Fi isn’t in jail for having steered billions – with a “b” – of dollars of government business from the commitee she chaired to her husband’s companies. Why Harry Reid is allowed to avoid even an investigation of his appropriating millions of dollars to build a bridge to make some land he bought for nothing in the middle Hemorrhoid, NV worth something. Those of us who wonder why Robert Byrd, ex-assistant Grand Lizard of the klan was allowed to be in the senate for eleven thousand years with untainted honor, while Trentt Lott was forced to resign as chair for being nice to an old man on his birthday.
It’s a real long list of shitty people, and I regret to say that 95% of the worst of them have been and are democrats. We make Lott step down for being nice to an old man; they lionize – instead of throw out with disgust – the garbage I listed above. (Why is William Jefferson still outside of a cell? Why is Christopher Dodd, of waitress sandwich and friendly mortgage term conflict-of-interest fame? Why is Dodd not even investigated for it?) Why don’t these honor-free lowlives at least have the decency to resign, shut up and go away quietly? Are they – is anyone – genuinely that rotten?
The answer would seem to be yeah: they are. And young President Know-Nothing, a lifelong swimmer in the Illinois cesspool, wants to put them in ever-expanding charge of everything?
The conflict will be between people who wouldn’t swipe paper clips from where they work; and those who endlessly and mindlessly re-elect the garbage I listed above – and others. People with no apparent standards, honor, or decency are going to lecture the rest of us on how to live our lives and run our businesses? As I’ve said before: our legislative branch seems mostly to be people most of wouldn’t allow in our homes.
I think there’s a fight coming. I’m not sure it’s going to remain all at the level of conversation. Young Know-Nothing is instantly going to overreach, and I think there are a lot of really fed-up people out there in the middle, and in places like northern CA and eastern WA who are just disgusted with the whole thing, and sick to death of paying for it.
They’ll do one or the other: pay for it, or listen to these bloviating bastards. They won’t do both.
Isn’t that all we really need?
What happened to killing serial rapists and serial murderers, Charles? We can’t be happy without that. I wouldn’t be, at least.
Obama’s operandi modus is becoming more and more clear. We know a couple of things to use as data points.
1. Obama likes to disqualify his opponent based upon legal shenanigans and character assassinations (unsealing divorce records, for example). This is similar to how he decided to take on Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, for example.
2. Obama or simply his staff likes to sit back, with clean hands, while using cannon fodder (the Kos Wing) to do the dirty work. Obama didn’t solicit illegal donations, he just unlocked the fraud protection mechanisms on the donation credit card system…
3. Obama likes to wait until he knows where the wind is blowing (Kerry the wind surfer, except more charismatic). Obama will then take whatever side he thinks is more easily defended. When he opposed the Surge, it was when opposing the Surge was easy. When he supported the SUrge, it was after it was proven to have little risk of failing. This demonstrates Obama’s judgment, in that he can be consistently relied upon to “wait” until he knows which way benefits him. It also demonstrates that Obama does not care whose side he picks, which means he can also pick our side, if he thinks it is popular. But that won’t often be true. This does not demonstrate, however, which way Obama will go on any particular subject; Obama has no core principles here.
4. This either means Obama is ruthless like Pol Pot and Stalin or Obama is weak like Carter and McGovern. Either can be true, but not both. It depends on how much Obama shared with Ayers. Ayers is ideological while Obama may or may not be ideological (a true believer). If Obama is a true believer and his political judgments are calculated strategic choices, then America is in for big problems. If Obama is not a true believer and just a floater, then America will also be in for big problems, but not usually because of Obama’s goals. It will be because of the people around Obama, who attempt to destroy the US Constitution and strip us of our rights, while Obama sits around waiting to back whichever side he thinks will win (which, in this case, is usually the government).
Clinton, for example, was not ideological. He was a weak person who developed great charismatic abilities due to an abusive father. And he tended to abuse the office like his father abused alcohol: do whatever feels good, essentially.
Tiresias: Great, well-written post.
Ymarsakar: You need to understand that the Obama Reconstitution will eliminate all of the racist, classist, sexist inequalities in society that spawn these unfortunate serialists.
You think you should read these articles of Ross’, Charles.
http://john-ross.net/palin.php
http://john-ross.net/obama2.php
Tiresias #2,
What a fantastic, awesome rant! I agree with every word of it and wish I could have written it.
We have one slim chance with Obama Know-Nothing: His extreme self-centeredness, his complete narcissism, may cause him to have only one goal: To be a successful president. There remains a slim possibility that he will jettison his entire life of far-left leanings in favor of whatever he sees that has the best chance of making him look good in posterity. If I’m correct about this slim hope, Obama would throw all the leftists under his bus – to reuse that tired cliche – and how they will howl and gnash their teeth. But if I’m right, Obama has never really given even a thought to them anyway, since they were just the means to his own totally-self-centered, purely-narcissistic goals.
We can still have at least slim hope, then. I’m not holding my breath however.
In truth, I lean toward what Danny has said in other comment areas: Obama is a puppet of the Chicago machine, who have groomed him for presentation and who control him. He’ll dance solely to their tune. We’ll see.
>>Obama is a puppet of the Chicago machine, who have groomed him for presentation and who control him. He’ll dance solely to their tune.>>
I lean towards this view. However…as president, how will they pull strings? What’s left to control him? It’s not like they can threaten him – unless there’s something that could be used to impeach him…that could be interesting. But other than that, it seems to me that he now holds all the cards, and the Chicago Machine will be the ones coming to call with hats in hand.
As you say…we’ll see.
>>…ones coming to call with hats in hand.>>
See…another idiom. Who remembers that men removed their hats in the presence of their “betters”? or when approaching the gentry for favors? Heck…men hardly wear hats any more anyway!
Tiresias’s Triple-A quality rant brought up many things that I had forgotten. For those that are unsure of what he meant by “waitress sandwich”, Google it!
Who remembers that men removed their hats in the presence of their “betters”? or when approaching the gentry for favors?
*Raises hand*
Google it!
I’m afraid to, but I am too curious not to.
Btw, you peeps should check out this video I found, by accident. Link
Near the end, I think you will get a lot of the same sense as what you got from Tiresias’ post.
Okay, after I googled it, Danny, I just have to say this: this is why we need bouncers keeping the pigs in line. I volunteer for this job, pro-bono.
I have heard that the joints and muscles of a drunk man are extraordinarily flexible and limber, Danny. I would really like to test out this … trait.