By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 7th at 04:29 PM  | 

…and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Critique of the Gotha Program – Karl Marx

It was 1875, and Germany was well on its way to breaking Marx’s wretched little heart by enacting just enough social welfare to pacify its proletariat and preventing idiots like Karl from making any important decisions. Marx wrote the on the Gotha Program in an effort to prevent his revolutionary ideas from becoming more co-opted than the DNC-sponsored anti-Iraq War Movement of 2006. He failed, but his motto remains the standard Twitterplate description of what Marxism is ultimately supposed to accomplish.

What Marx attempted to establish was thoroughly unworkable in a static or shrinking economy. That, in a sense was a saving grace. It had its own limiting factor, you ran out of other people’s money. What the United States has achieved through entitlements is worse.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  March 11th at 10:30 AM  | 

Step forward, Senators McCain and Graham: we hear That you are good men. You cannot be bought, But only because the McCain-Feingold Law prohibits those who would spend their money to inform the electoral process from speaking. You hold to what you said. But what did you say? Or do you even deign to address those who you consider to be silly, or hobbits? You | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  March 6th at 12:00 PM  | 

Time Magazine amazes me this morning. It prints one of the most intelligent and thoughtful descriptions of who and what Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez was during his brief, frightening and frenetic life.

Chávez called himself a “21st century socialist.” In reality he was a throwback to the dogmatic and authoritarian 20th century socialism of Castro, Cuba’s former dictator, and to the 19th century caudillo tradition of Chávez’s demigod, South American independence hero Simón Bolívar. Chávez hoped that being democratically elected would obscure the fact that he didn’t govern all that democratically. It didn’t. So it’s tempting to dismiss him as an anachronism, a vulgar populist famous for gratuitous yanqui bashing — for calling then U.S. President George W. Bush a malodorous “devil” at the U.N. in 2006 — an erratic and messianic retro-revolutionary whose country’s vast petrowealth let him indulge his Marxist nostalgia.

For many, Hugo Chavez was a living, breathing throwback to the Cold War Era. A fitting reminder of how dead, backwards and bereft of original thought the so-called Progressives truly are. This was their icon, their Homo Universale. Ecce Homo! That man was Hugo Chavez.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  March 5th at 01:00 PM  | 

So just how do we construct a valid set that that contains poorly-regulated immigration, unemployment, The Golden Dawn, and Beppe Grillo? If we’re lucky, here in America, we probably cannot. So, as Cliff Eastwood famously asked. “Are you feeling lucky?”

Now given the nice, violent intro and the unresolved rhetorical queries above, I should explain this all a bit. I’ll endeavor below. The governments of what we typically refer to as The West are following a set of economic policies and a set of immigration policies that are accidentally making the rise of a politically influential fascist movement more likely in the Western World.

If things work out really badly over here, we could easily be on our way to having people gain power in America like Governor Huey Long. We once had a President who thanked and congratulated Filmmaker D.W Griffith on his pro – Ku Klux Klan historical fantasy “Birth of a Nation.”

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  January 10th at 02:00 PM  | 

This time You People are gonna’ learn. Your betters have tolerated your quaint old-fashioned attitudes for longer than you deserve. But now they’ve grown tired of the (expletive)-dance. The Brilliant and Morally Superior Charles Blow tells you how serious serious can get in today’s NYT.

“The White House is weighing a far broader and more comprehensive approach to curbing the nation’s gun violence than simply reinstating an expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, according to multiple people involved in the administration’s discussions.” According to The Post’s sources, this could include measures “that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, strengthen mental health checks, and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors.”

This is obviously happening because Big Brother loves you. They want to protect you. This is because our government demands safe streets. It’s because, unlike evil gun makers, they care about the children.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  October 1st at 03:00 PM  | 

We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.

– Hilaire Belloc.

There are days I find myself utterly convinced that Modern Secular Leftism is dedicated to the goal of returning the entire world to a state of primeval barbarism. The cultural and political Left seems to mount an interminable assault on the fundamental traditions and values. This is done through a variety of institutions such as academic research and movie-making. The end point of all of this nihilism can only be our ineffible destruction as a functional society.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 29th at 02:00 PM  | 

MSNBC and the rest of hopelessly leftist media lost something when they fired Keith Olbermann. There were moments such as the night Keith covered Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley that I was convinced it was excellent self-parody. John Stewart can do funny artificial news but Keith just went out and killed it!*

So watching the likes of Chris Matthews, Juan Williams and Chuck Todd try and fill the void is sort of akin to watching AA Ball after an evening of seeing the Yanks play live. But the effort and determination to demonize the GOP is still there! You and 99% of the rest of America probably aren’t watching, but these guys know exactly which lines The Minister of Propaganda want them to trumpet. Only the idiots who vandalized Mia Love’s Wikipedia page have played the Race-Card in a more laughable fashion.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 27th at 03:00 PM  | 

….the US educational system is failing because it has a confused goal. It is too many things to too many people. To most parents, it’s free daycare. To sociologists, it’s a way to keep kids off the streets. To others it’s a chance for government subsidy to right social wrongs. Many view it as a force for equality. What is missing is a simple statement like “our goal is to offer education to those who can take advantage of it.”

(HT: Brett Stevens, Amerika.org)

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 23rd at 12:30 PM  | 

The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 47 percent of adults in the City of Detroit are functionally illiterate, with staggering rates recorded in some of the suburbs as well: Southfield at 24 percent, Warren at 17 percent and both Inkster and Pontiac at 34 percent illiterate. (HT: Detroit Regional Workforce Fund) I was just kidding with the provocative subtitle. The South should not rise | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 22nd at 03:40 PM  | 

There are certain oxymoronic clichés that get trotted out de tiempo a tiempo to tepid applause and politely forced laughter. Military Intelligence, honor among whores and rank among Civil Servants are an indicative subset. We can now add credibility among climate scientists to the burgeoning list. Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University’s proud and illustrious faculty was made livid by the acerbic and satirical | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 21st at 11:30 AM  | 

Nobody in their right mind would vote for (fill in the blank). Gray Davis, Patrick Leahy, or Claire McCaskill pretty much fit that description. All three are (or were) useless intestinal parasites on the bowels of state. But what if they ran for re-election against The Gimp? Or at least an opponent who held held delusional beliefs in something called a “legitimate rape.” This is | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 17th at 11:30 AM  | 

Hey, I’ve got good news and bad news this fine and wonderful morning. The good news is that there may well be a new investment opportunity for those of us eager to improve our financial means. The bad news is that it consists of a hedge fund run by none other than Jon “I simply do not know where the money is” Corzine. If this | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 16th at 03:00 PM  | 

Famous Physicist Enrico Fermi once described a paper he was grading as “so bad that it wasn’t even wrong.” Something similar perhaps describes the fascinating career of Vice President Joe Biden. He’s awful. He’s gafftastic. Picking Joe Biden for any important position would be like having Rex Grossman at QB in the Super Bowl! That would never happen. Except that Rex Grossman really did QB | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 15th at 12:30 PM  | 

Whether they work for Goldman Sachs, or the United States Government, the people who wield power in Modern America have less and less respect for you as a human being and a citizen with each passing year. Former GS boss-turned-whistleblower Greg Smith offers us the following description of how the venerable firm viewed its clientele. “It makes me ill how callously people [at Goldman Sachs] | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 13th at 01:00 PM  | 

At the core of the manifold paradoxes swirling around American governance is the harsh reality that we just can’t keep running our (stuff) the way it has evolved to run. Neither candidate for president is honest enough to spell this out and indeed both act as though easy work-arounds exist for sustaining the unsustainable. – (James Howard Kunstler) Mr. Kuntsler’s description of the two candidates | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 10th at 11:00 AM  | 

Patrick J. Buchanan predictably gets it wrong. He claims that Barack Obama’s attack ad (that he had nothing to do with) featuring some guy named Joe Soptic (whom he barely knows) diminishes both Barack Obama and the Presidency. He may be correct about the office, but I can’t imagine anything much that could diminish Barack Obama further as a human being.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 9th at 02:00 PM  | 

Daffyd over at The Big Lizards Blog begins an excellent post on some of the problems of Modern Leftism with a timely reprint of the opening paragraph of the Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. short story Harrison Bergeron. THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  August 7th at 01:30 PM  | 

If you believe the propaganda our major networks label as news Mitt Romney personifies the Big, Bad White Devil. He denigrates the achievements of diverse foreign cultures. He picks the scabs off of centuries old grievances over racial injustice just because he gets off on making it bleed. So how does Mitt Romney work such horrible and iniquitous injustice? He egregiously tells the truth. Here | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  July 30th at 06:30 AM  | 

So who here believes the media spin that The Tea Party is done for and kaput? Anyone? If such is the case, you can relax. Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst is going to dispatch State Solicitor General Ted Cruz in the Texas Senatorial Primary this Tuesday. The Good Old Boys have this one well in hand. Dewhurst even offers up polling that supports that contention. | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  July 27th at 12:00 PM  | 

North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-un is amazing! He is their dear and respected leader! It seems King Kim III just saved 60 flood victims from death. The N. Korean News Agency reminds us of MSNBC’s balanced coverage of President Barack Obama in the report filed below. “Isolated incommunicado, they did not find a way out, in panic at rising water. At that time a | Read More »