Quotes

"Fascism and communism both promise "social welfare," "social justice," and "fairness" to justify authoritarian means and extensive arbitrary and discretionary governmental powers." - F. A. Hayek"

"Life is a Bungling process and in no way educational." in James M. Cain

Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. Sir Winston Churchill

"summum ius summa iniuria" ("More laws, more injustice.") Cicero

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.”

"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"Law is where you buy it." Raymond Chandler

"Why did God make so many damn fools and Democrats?" Clarence Day

"If I feel like feeding squirrels to the nuts, this is the place for it." - Cluny Brown

"Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have." Owen Wister "The Virginian"

Oscar Wilde said about the death scene in Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth.” ~ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ~ Jonathon Swift

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Rule of law, or rule of the powerful? The New Feudalism

There has always been the rule of the powerful to varying degrees, but limited government based on the rule of law kept it checked.

Now, were are jeopardy of being controlled by a purely fascist state with the crony big corps and powerful friends are making the laws to fit their arbitrary needs at the expense of individual liberty. 

Make no mistake, Feudalism, Fascism and Communism are linked, hand in hand. m/r

The New Feudalism | National Review Online

By Fred Bauer  7-9-14

It’s not too late to stop it from undermining our liberal republic.

There is a specter haunting America — the specter of neofeudalism. Especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, many Americans have felt considerable anxiety about the trajectory of the nation’s affairs, fearing diminished economic prospects, a heightening of social strife, and the possibility of the powerful making themselves less accountable to, and more removed from, the body politic as a whole. This anxiety can be seen on both the left and the right, fueling the rise of Elizabeth Warren and grass-roots Tea Partiers alike. Americans on both sides of the aisle worry about institutional dysfunction, an out-of-touch self-dealing elite, scorched-earth cultural controversies, the implications of the rise of post-national ideologies, the deification of tribalistic identity, and the failure of our economy to recover as threatening the civic compact of the Republic. The concept of“neofeudalism” offers one way of grouping together and understanding these major contemporary tendencies. The realization of a neofeudal vision could pose significant challenges for economic opportunity, free-market principles, and the traditional aspiration of a unified yet diverse American body politic.
In 2013, demographer Joel Kotkin warned that California was slipping into a condition of neofeudalism. According to Kotkin, the Golden State, once a citadel of the American middle class, has become splintered into four classes: the oligarchs (the super-wealthy, especially in tech and finance), the clerisy (government regulators, the media elite, and the academy), the yeomanry (the middle class and small-business owners), and the serfs (the working poor and government dependents). Kotkin claimed that the yeomanry has been eviscerated as California has moved into a neofeudal era, while the oligarchs and the clerisy have gained increasing power and the serfs have grown in number.
Kotkin’s analysis focuses on the demographic structures of California, but we can explore more broadly some of the underlying tendencies of neofeudalism. It might be helpful to contrast the neofeudal state with the traditional liberal republic. The latter is composed of individuals (and organizations of individuals) coming together to form a nation governed by laws, and it aims to be in accordance with certain foundational rights. The neofeudal state, on the other hand, is anti-national. Rather than the unified body politic of the liberal republic, the neofeudal state slices and dices its residents into discrete subsets, each with its own unique rights and responsibilities. Solid economic and social divisions were a key part of feudal society, and they also play a role in present-day neofeudalism. Moreover, the institutional dysfunction characteristic of neofeudalism undermines the efficient functioning of the republic and makes the nation more vulnerable to the whims of executive diktat.
The hardening of divisions in society is the backbone of neofeudalism. Some of these divisions are economic. The breakdown of opportunity and the weakening of the middle class divide American society while also harming economic growth. …
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