Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Recent Entries
In the Democrats' Latest Masculinity Pageant, Democrat Missouri Senate Candidate Lucas Kunce Plays GunBuddies With Noted Heterosexual Adam Kinzinger... and Shoots a Reporter Due to Complete Lack of Safety Training
Pro-Transgenderism-for-Children Partisans Receive $10 Million from Federal Government to Prove Puberty Blockers Help 11-Year-Old Children. But Now That the Data Show Children Aren't Helped -- and May Be Hurt -- They Refuse to Pubish the Results. Kamala Harris: Trump Is So Old He's "Exhausted" and Cancelling Events Also Kamala Harris: I'm So Tired of Working a Job for the First Time in My Life I'm Taking Two Consecutive Days Off Just to Memorize Fake Answers in a Fake CNN "Interview" Do I Really Have to Talk About This Bullshit? Whistleblower: The Harris-Biden Administration is Paying NGOs to Fly Unaccompanied Minor Children Around, Knowing They're Being Sexually Trafficked Wednesday Morning Rant Mid-Morning Art Thread Early Morning Open Thread Daily Tech News 23 October 2024 Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (10/22/24) 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
steevy:
"349 Broke even in 1973 according to IMDB. Budget w ..."
Avi: "This is just like how they withheld the results fr ..." Weasel: "At least it wasn't $50 million! ..." Aetius451AD Work Laptop: "Is that the Village People, Queen or the London Bo ..." Duncanthrax: "[i]This sounds serious. That means there will be c ..." Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle : "Boeing-made satellite explodes in space after expe ..." Stateless: "333 I can pretend to be Cleofuckingpatra and ..." Aetius451AD Work Laptop: "That is a very short range. ..." Common Tater: "I talked to an old hippie I hadn’t seen in a ..." steevy: "This from IMDB , ah the good old days A group o ..." Tim "Born to Kill" Walz: "I am living proof Puberty Blockers really work !!! ..." The Central Scrutinizer: "343 My neighbor is a new grandma and her granddaug ..." Recent Entries
In the Democrats' Latest Masculinity Pageant, Democrat Missouri Senate Candidate Lucas Kunce Plays GunBuddies With Noted Heterosexual Adam Kinzinger... and Shoots a Reporter Due to Complete Lack of Safety Training
Pro-Transgenderism-for-Children Partisans Receive $10 Million from Federal Government to Prove Puberty Blockers Help 11-Year-Old Children. But Now That the Data Show Children Aren't Helped -- and May Be Hurt -- They Refuse to Pubish the Results. Kamala Harris: Trump Is So Old He's "Exhausted" and Cancelling Events Also Kamala Harris: I'm So Tired of Working a Job for the First Time in My Life I'm Taking Two Consecutive Days Off Just to Memorize Fake Answers in a Fake CNN "Interview" Do I Really Have to Talk About This Bullshit? Whistleblower: The Harris-Biden Administration is Paying NGOs to Fly Unaccompanied Minor Children Around, Knowing They're Being Sexually Trafficked Wednesday Morning Rant Mid-Morning Art Thread Early Morning Open Thread Daily Tech News 23 October 2024 Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (10/22/24) 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) |