Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
The Morning Report — 12/11/24
Daily Tech News 11 December 2024 Overnight Open Thread (12/10/2024) [scampydog] The Running of the Hounds Cafe Leftwingers Now Making Death Threats Against Altoona PA Cops for Arresting Their Murderer-Boyfriend Luigi Mangione Quick Hits Democrat-Media Party Assassin Luigi Mangione: "This is clearly unjust, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people, and its lived experience!" Mitch McConnell Falls During Senate Lunch and Injures His Head Kerry Picket: Wray Wants to Avoid Being Fired by Trump, Plans to Resign Before the Inauguration White House Officials: Trump Has Cucked Joe Biden So Completely He's Now the Currently Serving President Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Old Married White Male Who Likes Wal*Mart and Chick-fil-A Says That There Was a Major Ommission from Administration's Reporting on Benghazi |
Main
| And Hillary, Too, Accepts an Award for Her Public Service »
May 09, 2013
Mayor of London: England's Departure from EU Would be "Shot in the Arm" for DemocracyEven this guy gets it, and he's British.* Note he doesn't just get the conclusion -- he gets the underlying principle as well. Democracy is about people having control over their political fates. The more remote actual political power is made from the people, the more convoluted the pathway between citizen wish and government action, the less democratic a state is, and the less empower the citizen.
Government never admits its real agenda. I don't mean this conspiratorially, though I suppose it reads that way. But every institution has its Stated Mission and its Real Mission. Teachers unions speak forever about their Stated Mission, to educate the young; they never announce their Real Mission, which is ever-escalating salaries, even for -- especially for -- its worst performing teachers, who are, due to their very incompetence at their jobs and their utter reliance on the union for their daily bread, the union's strongest supporters and shock troops. The Real Mission of any government, democratic or tyrannical, is to insulate itself from the "whims of the public." Every person, every institution, seeks autonomy, freedom of action, freedom to pursue his or its own wishes. Every single one. Politicians will say they love getting input from voters; they are lying. What they wish is to do as they please without having to answer to anyone about it. This isn't really a "bad" impulse, as every person, every person who's ever breathed air, wishes to have maximum freedom of action and minimum responsibility to others, minimum restriction on freedom of action. This is why we praise people -- like parents -- who undertake the vital mission of putting the needs of others ahead of their own. Because it's hard. Because every parent is giving up a little of himself in order to give his child life and instruction. Every parent is choosing to make himself responsible to his child -- a very heavy responsibility. But people do have the feeling that they'd like to be free of obligations and utterly free to do exactly as they will. We envy Silicon Valley millionaires who retire at age 36, not because they are now living lives of sloth, but because they have attained a significant amount of personal freedom. They've made enough money to be free of the requirement of working for a living. They can work -- as it pleases them, as it interests them. But they are shorn of the obligation to work. One would have to be an idiot, or a leftist (but I repeat myself), to imagine a government made up of human beings, each of whom privately wishes to have maximum power, maximum freedom of action, and minimum oversight, minimum responsibility to others, would somehow fail to gain this aspect of its constituent members. If you collect up a thousand balls, each of which is more or less red, you know what you have? A big pile of red balls. The collection reflects the aspects of its individual constituents. The secret mission of all government is to become free of the "whims of the people," to become self-empowered, to become self-willed, to become, itself, free. And that we can never permit. For citizens to be free, the government must be a slave. Every attempt by the government to escape the shackles of responsibility to its citizens must be firmly repelled and rebuked. The yoke should be tightened, not loosened. The EU is a massive effort at making the government as remote and insulated from the people it ostensibly serves. It has worked misery already; it will work greater miseries. Because it must. A government which does not answer to its people answers only to itself. Like I said, this idiot gets it, and he's a British mayor of a left-leaning city in a country which has long ago given up its vitality and heart in exchange for the shabby promises of socialism. What is it about this simple principle that so eludes the American political left?
But I checked, and he's actually a conservative. But he's still British, and a British conservative is just a guy who wants some fox-hunting along with his socialism. And yet, he still gets it: People feel empowered when they feel they are actually adult free citizens, in charge of their own political destinies. I have a theory that political responsibility goes hand in hand with personal responsibility: Treat people as responsible free citizens as a political matter, and they will also tend to behave responsibly in their personal lives. And the opposite is true as well: Treat them as children politically, and they will tend to behave as children personally. Just a theory. But one can't look at the decline of American Democracy and fail to notice that the most free and politically-responsible people seemed to be the most personally-responsible and mature-behaving people as well. And one can't help but look at the basket-cases of the world, where the public has been politically infantilized, without noticing that the people behave in a juvenile or even infantile manner in their personal lives as well.
| Recent Comments
TeeJ:
" - So, what's the big deal with any of this?
I me ..."
blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1): " However, the supplier has insisted the additive ..." Soothsayer: " Anyone watch the Roddenberry scifi tv series And ..." Hadrian the Seventh: " [i]However, the supplier has insisted the additi ..." Chuck Martel: "Arla is facing growing calls for a boycott of its ..." blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1): "Morning, Sponge. How is the First!!! Lady? ..." Sponge - F*ck Cancer: "I'm confused. I thought Owebamacare was supp ..." Boron Cobbie - women can't be incels, it's impossible: "Watch The View and explain to me how any of that s ..." Sponge - F*ck Cancer: "FIRST!!!!! ..." Hadrian the Seventh: " [i]Or am I confusing those commie fascist shithe ..." Braenyard - some absent friends are more equal than others: ">>>No one on the left seems to know what it is tha ..." rhennigantx: "Swalwell said, “I do. I will tell you I had ..." Recent Entries
The Morning Report — 12/11/24
Daily Tech News 11 December 2024 Overnight Open Thread (12/10/2024) [scampydog] The Running of the Hounds Cafe Leftwingers Now Making Death Threats Against Altoona PA Cops for Arresting Their Murderer-Boyfriend Luigi Mangione Quick Hits Democrat-Media Party Assassin Luigi Mangione: "This is clearly unjust, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people, and its lived experience!" Mitch McConnell Falls During Senate Lunch and Injures His Head Kerry Picket: Wray Wants to Avoid Being Fired by Trump, Plans to Resign Before the Inauguration White House Officials: Trump Has Cucked Joe Biden So Completely He's Now the Currently Serving President Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |