Occam's Banana
02-04-2014, 07:25 AM
For context, see these threads:
- http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?442806-Cass-Sunstein-on-quot-paranoid-libertarianism-quot
- http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?442058-Sean-Wilentz-%96-Court-Historian-NSA-Shill-and-Lickspittle-%91Liberal%92
How to Spot a Petrified Statist
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/02/karen-kwiatkowski/i-despise-cass-sunstein/
Karen Kwiatkowski (04 February 2014)
[... more at link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/02/karen-kwiatkowski/i-despise-cass-sunstein/ ...]
It occurs to me Wilentz, Sunstein and company have provided for us set of indicators for identifying the petrified statist. I am referring to petrified as in frightened, rather than petrified as in old wood, although both characterizations may serve. In fact, the latter may be the more accurate prediction, given what we know of historical tendencies of authoritarian overreach. In any case, consider this:
1) Statists come in all flavors. But the petrified statist is obsessed with trying to identify, and marginalize, the successful anti-state spokesperson or activities. Beyond government whistleblowers, the petrified statist is somewhat obsessed with peace, free market and limited government advocates from the so-called “right” like the Mises Institute and Ron Paul Institute. They are also alarmed by popular trends and activities that rest on a somewhat “left” leaning rejection of the state. This includes faith-based movements, liberty movements, and pro-Constitution groups as well as the anti-GMO, localism, tiny house, debt-free, and natural health care movements. Because many of these ideas are community-centered, network-driven, and results-oriented, they are spreading rapidly. Most importantly, these ideas, movements and activities seem to give hope and fulminate real change. For the petrified statist, hope and change are the responsibility of government, and any evidence to the contrary will be “wildly exaggerated” and fear-inducing.
2) The petrified statist is nearly always a defender of politicians and whatever they do, so long as those politicians advocate government authority, government spending, and government grants and favors that provide for a wide array of academic and media jobs. Accolades for Bloomberg’s silliness regarding the size of New Yorker’s sippy cups, and Chris Christie’s statism under the guise a strong conservative leadership are common and unquestioned among statists in general. These kinds of politicians are particularly honored and admired by the petrified statist in a way that is almost iconic, and worshipful.
3) The petrified statist is a secret military fetishist, adoring the military for what it can do for the state at home and abroad, and envying the top-down authoritarianism of a military organization. However, the military also frightens the petrified statist. Veterans specifically are not, and cannot be, trusted to support the blooming fascism that is modern America. The economics (poor), demographics (young), geographics (southern and western), and ideology (pro-constitution, pro-second amendment, and patriotic) create a large body of citizens who don’t like government much. In a way, the petrified statist feels not only victimized, but also strangely betrayed, by the kinds of people who serve and have served in the government’s standing armies.
4) The average statist is not reflective or pensive, and he or she rarely seeks conflict or to explain themselves. The lethargic momentum of can-kicking bureaucracy and status quo is quite enough for them. But the petrified statist is cursed with a need to explain themselves, and to have all of “us” whomever “we” are understand why we shouldn’t be, and to admit our error of, bowling alone, when in fact, we are not bowling alone at all. The petrified statist cannot admit and refuses to recognize that they fundamentally don’t matter to the rest of us. What do we think of them? Not to paraphrase Ayn Rand, but there is a reason she is viscerally despised by the petrified statist. The bulk of the country, and the entire liberty consortium, do not think of the petrified statists at all.
5) A fifth characteristic of the petrified statist, beyond his generalized and well-deserved anxiety about the collapse of the American empire, is an over-active imagination regarding the “enemies” of the state. A petrified statist has personalized the state, and sees “government” as an entity with its own rights, its own rules, a benevolent and uber-necessary conglomeration that has a mission unto itself. Sovereign immunity is necessary, because the godhead is always good. But when the state is personalized, then it can have personal enemies, and a battle of sorts may be waged. This is a false construct, but it drives the petrified statist of the modern era into a defensive mode. In fact, the state, and government, is as powerful as we the people allow it to be, and when we stop the obedience, the state begins to shift. If we desire, we can collapse the state much as a balloon shrinks inevitably in the face of pressure, temperature, disaster or time. Humans live, communities live, but government per se is not a living, breathing entity. Sadly, the petrified statist holds to the fallacy of the living and right-holding state, and naturally and constantly fear for its survival.
In summary, for every “paranoid libertarian,” that crazy canary or a doom-warning albatross, stoically suffering their curses, yet blessed with flight and an ability to see and know the environment below the surface and far above it, we have a petrified statist wandering in a medieval forest, unappreciated, underpaid, ignored, lost and scared silly. And whining about it.
- http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?442806-Cass-Sunstein-on-quot-paranoid-libertarianism-quot
- http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?442058-Sean-Wilentz-%96-Court-Historian-NSA-Shill-and-Lickspittle-%91Liberal%92
How to Spot a Petrified Statist
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/02/karen-kwiatkowski/i-despise-cass-sunstein/
Karen Kwiatkowski (04 February 2014)
[... more at link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/02/karen-kwiatkowski/i-despise-cass-sunstein/ ...]
It occurs to me Wilentz, Sunstein and company have provided for us set of indicators for identifying the petrified statist. I am referring to petrified as in frightened, rather than petrified as in old wood, although both characterizations may serve. In fact, the latter may be the more accurate prediction, given what we know of historical tendencies of authoritarian overreach. In any case, consider this:
1) Statists come in all flavors. But the petrified statist is obsessed with trying to identify, and marginalize, the successful anti-state spokesperson or activities. Beyond government whistleblowers, the petrified statist is somewhat obsessed with peace, free market and limited government advocates from the so-called “right” like the Mises Institute and Ron Paul Institute. They are also alarmed by popular trends and activities that rest on a somewhat “left” leaning rejection of the state. This includes faith-based movements, liberty movements, and pro-Constitution groups as well as the anti-GMO, localism, tiny house, debt-free, and natural health care movements. Because many of these ideas are community-centered, network-driven, and results-oriented, they are spreading rapidly. Most importantly, these ideas, movements and activities seem to give hope and fulminate real change. For the petrified statist, hope and change are the responsibility of government, and any evidence to the contrary will be “wildly exaggerated” and fear-inducing.
2) The petrified statist is nearly always a defender of politicians and whatever they do, so long as those politicians advocate government authority, government spending, and government grants and favors that provide for a wide array of academic and media jobs. Accolades for Bloomberg’s silliness regarding the size of New Yorker’s sippy cups, and Chris Christie’s statism under the guise a strong conservative leadership are common and unquestioned among statists in general. These kinds of politicians are particularly honored and admired by the petrified statist in a way that is almost iconic, and worshipful.
3) The petrified statist is a secret military fetishist, adoring the military for what it can do for the state at home and abroad, and envying the top-down authoritarianism of a military organization. However, the military also frightens the petrified statist. Veterans specifically are not, and cannot be, trusted to support the blooming fascism that is modern America. The economics (poor), demographics (young), geographics (southern and western), and ideology (pro-constitution, pro-second amendment, and patriotic) create a large body of citizens who don’t like government much. In a way, the petrified statist feels not only victimized, but also strangely betrayed, by the kinds of people who serve and have served in the government’s standing armies.
4) The average statist is not reflective or pensive, and he or she rarely seeks conflict or to explain themselves. The lethargic momentum of can-kicking bureaucracy and status quo is quite enough for them. But the petrified statist is cursed with a need to explain themselves, and to have all of “us” whomever “we” are understand why we shouldn’t be, and to admit our error of, bowling alone, when in fact, we are not bowling alone at all. The petrified statist cannot admit and refuses to recognize that they fundamentally don’t matter to the rest of us. What do we think of them? Not to paraphrase Ayn Rand, but there is a reason she is viscerally despised by the petrified statist. The bulk of the country, and the entire liberty consortium, do not think of the petrified statists at all.
5) A fifth characteristic of the petrified statist, beyond his generalized and well-deserved anxiety about the collapse of the American empire, is an over-active imagination regarding the “enemies” of the state. A petrified statist has personalized the state, and sees “government” as an entity with its own rights, its own rules, a benevolent and uber-necessary conglomeration that has a mission unto itself. Sovereign immunity is necessary, because the godhead is always good. But when the state is personalized, then it can have personal enemies, and a battle of sorts may be waged. This is a false construct, but it drives the petrified statist of the modern era into a defensive mode. In fact, the state, and government, is as powerful as we the people allow it to be, and when we stop the obedience, the state begins to shift. If we desire, we can collapse the state much as a balloon shrinks inevitably in the face of pressure, temperature, disaster or time. Humans live, communities live, but government per se is not a living, breathing entity. Sadly, the petrified statist holds to the fallacy of the living and right-holding state, and naturally and constantly fear for its survival.
In summary, for every “paranoid libertarian,” that crazy canary or a doom-warning albatross, stoically suffering their curses, yet blessed with flight and an ability to see and know the environment below the surface and far above it, we have a petrified statist wandering in a medieval forest, unappreciated, underpaid, ignored, lost and scared silly. And whining about it.