A minority awakening in America

The welfare state has sectioned off large portions of different minorities within big cities across the country. Hispanic and Black mostly, these welfare enclaves are noticable and distinguished by poverty, drug use and crime. Sociologists claim many reasons for poverty and crime, and everyone knows the history of racism. Clearly much still needs to be done to erase the damaging effects of racism in America, but it's now clear that the welfare state is making the situation worse for many Blacks and Hispanics.

It's as if society as pushed this problem aside. People avoid the enclaves and they act as if they don't exist. If someone blames the welfare state that person is accused of rightwing zealotry, but it's clear that government has created a bigger problem than it intended to fix. Critics of the welfare state still insist that's its necessary and must be reformed rather than dismantled. The idea that a certain portion of minorities can't fend for themselves and must be wards of State is true of only a very small percentage -- certainly not in the numbers we see in inner cities. I don't buy that the State is their only solution. Reform is not possible through the current welfare system. This system exists for the people who make a good living off of it or gain votes from it, not to help minorities rise up out of the enclaves and become independent. Clinton's welfare to work reform is now being rolled back -- it's the nature of the State in general and the welfare system in particular to grow and protect the fiefdoms and voting blocs.

Successful minorities are now speaking out against the welfare state, and this is how change will come about.

It gets worser and worser and worser

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/presidential-medal-of-freedom-awarded-to-republican-bashing-chavez-admirer-dolores-huerta/

Obama awarded the medal of freedom to someone who supports a freedom-denying dictator. Today, Obama has Eric Holder browbeating black pastors by trying to scare them into believing that the GOP will take away their right to vote. This is the most unethical and anti-liberty administration the US has suffered in quite awhile. I can't imagine what a second term would look like. I'm not sure we can survive a second term with our dignity intact. Obama got a free ride because he's a historical president, but he's in the process of making history in ways many of his supporters didn't suspect when they pulled the lever. Now, they're regretting that choice. Will enough wake up?

With minorities, they'll have to learn for themselves. Surely, this tactic by Holder isn't working. African-Americans can't possibly believe that the GOP wants to take away their right to vote. Do they mind that Holder is insulting their intelligence? Or, will minorities vote for Obama regardless of how many insults the administration throws at them, taking their ignorance as a given, or how many jobs are lost because Obama is blocking economic growth? If minorities will vote for Obama regardless of what he does, then our nation has a very big problem that will be difficult to solve.

State under attack

The US State machine has been powerful for a long time, starting in earnest to become a superpower at the turn of the 20th century. Now the State is under attack from a faction of the public, from States who would love to see us fail, and from reality. As the State flails about, it relies on interventionist/coercive government to repel the threats, thus Obama arrogantly said today that America is a triple A State regardless of what S&P says. It's defiance.

Too much is invested in the State machine for it to weakly decline into irrelevance, and the whole liberal/progressive movement on the Left depends on a very strong State -- so does the Big Government, Republican establishment. Media giants of the past are floundering, and judging from Newsweek's front-cover photo of Michelle Bachmann, they've run out of ideas -- all they have left are adolescent pranks and talking points.

The 21st century is log-jammed by government intervention in the economy and the slog of mideast wars, yet we have a nation of productive people ready to expand the economy and compete in the global market, although many are poorly prepared due to the failure of public education and welfare policies. It's evident at the State level no one is ready to give up control, and the representatives the people sent to Washington in the midterm elections to break up Washington political business as usual are under attack from all components of the State machine.

Our government has set up a system that has made trillions of dollars of entitlement promises on which they can't possibly deliver, yet there's no will to admit to the American people that entitlements were a terrible mistake and have to be reformed or transformed. Although some politicians have admitted that the entitlement situation is untenable, they say that a fews tweaks will fix the problems. But with HCR coming on line, it will require much more than tweaks to avoid a future of nation-crushing debt.

American businesses are afraid to invest in such a risky economy, yet many of these businesses, especially large corporations, are dependent on a powerful State, and they have partnered with government to prevent a free market. In essence, companies like GE and Goldman Sachs are parts of the State machine, as newer companies like Google jump on board. Unions and minorities play a supportive role in maintaining the State machine, yet they're losing ground in this economy. Each of these parts of the State machine blame the Republicans, especially the limited government representatives, but the State has not been rolled back, so blaming supporters of limited government makes no sense. There are not enough limited government representives to stop the establishment in our two party, statist system.

What the component parts the State machine are experiencing is statist decline, a failing system they've built and supported. This blindness to systemic failure is blocking the nation from going forward. Just as in Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, America is in statist decline, and if we don't do something soon, half the world is going to be in the biggest financial collpase the world has ever witnessed. It doesn't have to be this way.

For the sake of my sanity

I'm going to stop commenting at left-leaning blogs. I'm not going to call out any one particular blog, but the left, and the moderates, are getting worse. I'm beginning to pick on up on an underlying irrational anger aimed at the right, worse than before, that's futile to argue against. I would love to understand this anger, but I don't think psychologizing a group of people is very helpful.

What's important is what they do. I don't think all these people really believe everything they're saying, it's just become a social status game and they're ragging on the yahoos (everyone to the right of David Brooks is a yahoo). But many do appear to believe what they're saying and they're backing the progressive agenda no matter what. The good news is that they represent only 20% of the population. Ordinarily, numbers wouldn't matter at the level of right and wrong, but these people are just flat-out wrong.

This is why I'm ending my participation at the left-leaning blogs -- these 20% are not worth the energy -- they're more about winning a battle than making reasonable judgements regarding principles, political philosophy and policies. For this portion of the left, reason and objectivity don't matter -- they're using political tactics and strategies, any means necessary, to win for their cause. Their cause is to prevent limited government and a free market, and to support a powerful State which redistributes wealth to achieve "social justice", whatever that is. When you try to drill down to the specifics of how this redistribution and economic intervention is good for anyone, they get fuzzy and sometimes vicious -- they just know that progressive statism is the answer. If a liberal government can manage the economy and smartly engineer society in the right direction, everything will be fine -- that's about as far as their thinking goes.

This wish-thinking -- Yes, we can -- is an emotional position that doesn't respond to reason and economic facts, and it has no regard for Constitutional limits. You could say it's a socialist influence, but it's a unique American socialist influence which isn't ideologically pure. It's more of a pragmatic, technocratic management, utilizing whatever methods are necessary to maintain liberal government control -- not to be mistaken with the original liberalism of the Founders. American progressivism in 2010 is modern liberalism pushed to its extreme, the point where principles no longer matter. The progressive players obviously believe they will benefit, even if it means dependence on government. The leaders of the progressive groups fighting the war most likely will benefit, if they win, but the foot-soldiers will all lose -- like union members, environmentalists at the group level, minorities who follow civil rights leaders and can't demand speaking fees, extortion fees from companies or contributions to line their pockets, young people who aren't hired by government-run universities as professors and are left on the streets with a sign and slogans but no jobs.

Like I said, though, they make up only 20% of the voting population, so unless voter turnout is real low, or America goes crazy again, they don't have much of a chance.

The Road to Freedom -- Part V

The sharpened minds in the private sector can no longer make sense of government -- the government represents the antithesis of efficiency, fairness, innovation and common sense. This could cause a break in the coalitions which support a powerful State machine. Young people on college campuses are becoming politically active to reveal the emptiness of modern liberal indoctrination -- they realize the progressve agenda is putting them in debt and they will have to pay at some point, but it's hard to pay anything when you can't get a job. This realization is not directed solely at modern liberals, but toward all statists both left and right. Ron Paul is drawing younger people to a different point of view, and the ideas are spreading. Union members are talking with friends in their communities and realizing the union leaders are out of touch -- they didn't sign up for Democratic Socialism, and they didn't agree to have their union dues used to destroy the economy. Women are looking at the gains they made in the last few decades in the workplace and are realizing they need less political power and more economic power.

Minorities are, in large part, still dependent on government, but many are moving up to the middle class and upper class, or desire to, and they see unemployment rising among their people. Each party can blame the other only so long before everyone catches on to the diversion. Without a vibrant economy and the creation of new wealth, government welfare programs will suffer, so minorities will likely realize that progressive policies are killing the economy and, therefore, hurting them. They will also likely realize that politics create racial divisions which can be bridged in a free market which rewards effort.  The coalition on the left is fragile, and the coalition on the right is pushing for limited government agianst the Republican establishment. There appears to be a natural move to the economic realm, but it's more than just transitioning to economic means -- this type of utilitarian thinking is what gets the nation in trouble. It's also about spiritual means, intellectual means, cooperative means, innovative means, compassionate means, visionary means, private realm means that once again achieve great things. Under the political oppression of the State, the American people have been temporarily weakened by the lure of dependence and false promises of security, but, now, many are nurturing the seedling of an idea -- social power -- a State stripped of political power and a society empowered with self-governance.

The next step is for intellectuals to break free from their State-dependence and begin putting these ideas in conceptual forms which can inspire and create a deeper understanding. Cynicism and skepticism and subsidized mental laziness are intellectual viruses which have sickened our greatest minds -- regardless of what some populists say about the intellectual elite, there is an elite group of thinkers who play an important role during major social and political change -- in times of turmoil, they supply perspective, but it requires courage. The difference from the past is that the new intellectual should not be justifying the exploitation of the State, but, rather, revealing the greatness in freedom. 

The State veil has been lifted and the face is not pretty.

More later.