My brother is a tattoo artist. He reports he is getting college girls who want the Obama O tattooed on them. (Is this better than a tramp stamp?)
Have you ever heard of people getting a tattoo of a politician's symbol? Did any Republican girls get W tattoos in 2000? Obama is an entirely new phenomenon. He brings a cult of personality into American politics.
Peggy Noonan notes,
...[The GOP] lost the vote of two-thirds of those aged 18 to 29. They lost a generation!
Two thirds of young voters voted for Obama. Most of these people, I suspect, did not question Obama when he said in his typically gaseous victory speech,
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.
It did not occur to them to ask, "Where? What the hell are you talking about, Obama? Exactly what is your goal?" Instead, they cheered. Wherever you want to take us, our leader, we will follow.
Some Obama supporters, like Peggy Joseph, who thinks voting for Obama means she won't have to pay for her own gas or mortgage, are the product of the welfare state. These people have been taught all their life to look to the state for handouts.
Others are the fruit of progressive education. These are socialized people. They are collectivists terrified to think for themselves. They want to be told by the group what is cool, what is hip, what bears the stamp of approval of the group. Obama is so cool! Let's get his tattoo!
Those who do not go along with the group will be denounced as unpatriotic, racist and selfish. The popular phrase, "They just don't get it" will be used. It's a convenient phrase for those who follow the vibe of the group, as it obviates any rational argument. You either feel it or you don't, you get it or you don't.
These people are ready for a dictatorship. They are a collective waiting to be told what to do.
You can't have a dictatorship without a significant portion of the population that is willing to follow orders blindly. Benjamin Franklin's words haunt us. When asked what they were creating in the Constitutional Convention, he said, "A republic -- if you can keep it."
We cannot keep it with a nation of people who are unquestioning, passive sheep.
UPDATE: Revision.
6 comments:
A liberal blog I read really seems to have taken the line "But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you" to heart. To hear her tell it, this is the biggest accomplishment in her life because she gave Obama some money and harassed her coworkers for a dozen months. It makes me want to puke: this cult of personality BS is truly the scariest thing about Obama. Dictatorships are born of this sort of crap. Look at how much power we ceded to Bush after 9/11; Obama's just one crisis away from finishing what Bush couldn't do.
Recent events have certainly made me rethink the old quote--attributed (falsely, I think) to Sinclair Lewis--that "if fascism ever comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
"Others are the fruit of progressive education." This is painfully true. As I commented earlier (on a slightly different, though related, topic), the public schools, teachers' unions, etc. appear to be succeeding.
"Recent events have certainly made me rethink the old quote--attributed (falsely, I think) to Sinclair Lewis--that "if fascism ever comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.""
I don't think we are past the point where that quote, whoever wrote it, is not potentially applicable.
Once people get a taste of what fascism under Obama is like - well, that is going to put a VERY nasty taste in some people's mouth. Leftists are VERY obnoxious people. More specifically, Leftists are nihilists and are profoundly anti-value. They regard offending people as an end in itself - "pushing the envelope" they call it. They are never happy for long even when things go their way and they are always in a rage about something. As soon as Obama's victory becomes yesterday's news and drops out of the very limited attention span of the tattooed sheep Myrhaf writes about, they will once again go back to their default of being enraged and when they do, decent people are going to be disgusted at their behavior. And, of course, in foreign policy, they are going to severely screw this country and make sure it gets "knocked down a peg" which is something they have been lusting to do ever since Reagan acted like a backward bumpkin and called the Soviet Union "evil."
Most Americans are going to be disgusted by it and there will be a backlash. The only question is whether the Democrats will be able to make enough of a power grab fast enough that the backlash will be quickly suppressed. If they are able to push through the Fairness Doctrine and find a way to silence bloggers, a great many people might not even be AWARE that there is a backlash. If they find a way to rig elections or if Obama creates an "emergency" and gets Congress to pass an "Enabling Act" such as the ones Hitler and Chavez managed to get or if elections are permanently "temporarily postponed" then a backlash might not even matter and those who are the most vocal about it will be quietly neutralized out of public view.
On the other hand, if the Democrats are not able to consolidate their power fast enough and do not get away with the censorship and the election rigging that they WILL attempt to foist upon us, then the backlash could become VERY powerful and throw them out of office with breathtaking speed.
Unfortunately, the rank and file of non-Obama people in this country are not all that much more knowledgeable about politics than Obama's sheep. The difference is they tend to be decent, productive people who quietly live their own private lives and are not concerned about micromanaging everybody else's lives. For the most part, they are PRO values and PRO virtue. Unfortunately, their symbol of virtue is pretty much summed up by the flag and the cross. They recognize that this country is profoundly special and wonderful but are unable to precisely articulate exactly WHY that is the case. To them, the cross is a symbol of everything that is good and decent. The aspects of Christianity that we associate with the Dark and Middle Ages - well, that is completely foreign to most such people. Their view of Christianity is a very benevolent interpretation influenced by the remnants of the Enlightenment. They are like the commentator to Myrhaf's posting on involuntary servitude who simply could not imagine how the Bible could be used to justify involuntary servitude. It can and, as another commentator pointed out, did so for centuries. But this person's own benevolent interpretation of it blinded him to that historical reality. The danger for people like that is that they are blind to and assume virtuous motives on the part of those who DO take the Christianity of the Dark and Middle Ages seriously and seek to bring it back.
So the danger is that if the Democrats do not consolidate power enough to maintain their rule by brute force and intimidation, a charismatic leader might possibly emerge holding up a flag and a cross as an alternative but who, in fact, will stand for nothing but a different flavor of the same old fascism the Democrats have implemented over the course of the past century and are about to push us into even further. People will be angry and demanding "change." The danger is that the "change" that they get might be little more than a change to slogans that are a bit more palatable to most people but, in practice, have similar results.
Dismuke: "Unfortunately, the rank and file of non-Obama people in this country are not all that much more knowledgeable about politics than Obama's sheep. The difference is they tend to be decent, productive people who quietly live their own private lives and are not concerned about micromanaging everybody else's lives. For the most part, they are PRO values and PRO virtue."
Exactly. It's not enough to be merely good natured and peaceful. The enemies of liberty are much more driven and enthusiastic about their cause than that.
The nice little peasant with his cute little family cannot stand up to the Evil Warlock. You need a mighty knight with the conviction of good and at least the same amount of strength to win.
It's too bad. All these good, benevolent, productive......non-factors of men. Ripe for conquest.
L-C
Yeah, so? My brother is a tattoo artist too. Everyone's is. We're all brothers now that Obama is kin - er, President. Didn't you know?
Hello mate nnice blog
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