In his essay Morals & the servile mind, published in the New Criterion, Kenneth Minogue suggests that the current state of democracy in the west is different than that of a hundred years ago in important ways. Our inherited moral values, he notes, are increasingly challenged by “politico-moral” public policies that are “both morally obligatory and politically imperative.”
…while democracy means a government accountable to the electorate, our rulers now make us accountable to them. Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns….many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us.
“Rulers are losing patience with us” – in Canada we see this whenever an out-of-power Liberal leader lectures Conservative politicians, and by extension conservative voters, about who we are as Canadians, and, especially, on what the Canadian view is on various “issues” dear to the brand – whether it be “our” view on global warming, or “our” view on aboriginal issues. This sort of royal ‘We’ attitude is, Minogue suggests, a misapprehension on the part of politicians:
Our rulers are theoretically ‘our’ representatives, but they are busy turning us into the instruments of the projects they keep dreaming up. The business of governments, one might think, is to supply the framework of law within which we may pursue happiness on our own account. Instead, we are constantly being summoned to reform ourselves.
In any democracy these politicians who summon us to reform ourselves are, of course, elected. When Minogue describes people who “forgive these intrusions because they are so well intentioned” he is describing of virtually every Liberal/NDP voter in the country. Even though he’s from London England, his own view is a reasonably accurate description of the essential views of the Tea Party movement, and of most Canadian conservatives:
The point…is that our rulers have no business telling us how to live. They are tiresome enough in their exercise of authority—they are intolerable when they mount the pulpit.
The problem being, not for me however, but the conservatives who subscribe to the views promulgated in the little essay, is that they really only make up a little over 1/3 of the popular vote in Canada, the remainder of the electorate are a more tolerant centrists or leftists (thank god). As for the tea party movement, it’s one of the best things to happen for the left, as it just fractures the right; moderate republicans will not abide such radical views.
“The point…is that our rulers have no business telling us how to live. They are tiresome enough in their exercise of authority—they are intolerable when they mount the pulpit.”
It wasn’t more than a two or three weeks ago that Kate was arguing against the decriminalization of marijuana.
“For, as Plato noted, constitutions are made out of human beings: as the generations change, so will the system.”
vs. the only remaining superpower, a Republic;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…”
>>As for the tea party movement, it’s one of the best things to happen for the left
NiceLame try. I s’pose that’s why the left is so terrified of the Tea Party movement. Because it’s so good for them.No one on the left is “scared” of the tea party movement. Concerned, yes, because some of the acts of violence and racial violence that some members of the tea party movement have been involved in, along with many of the radical extremist views held by some of the members of this movement. Don’t ever think that this movement is not being watched closely by the FBI as result of some of its more extremist views. Check out the Southern Poverty Law Center web site, you’ll learn something, other than tea party movement rhetoric.
more tolerant centrists
Tolerance of being kept in a state of servility is hardly anything to be proud of.
Would you mind listing, and linking to credible reports of, the “acts of racial violence” that you assert as coming from the Tea Party movement, T?
I agree with much of what ‘T’ has said. The Tea Party movement is scary only because it bears similarity to Germany leading up to the Nazi regime.
In Germany people had legitimate grievances, similar to those felt by middle Americans…government-corporate take over, declining wage:price, ect. The German gov’t used the frustrations of the people to turn the Jewish people into scapegoats. Now the Tea Party has directed the frustrations of millions of Americans against the Democrats with similar propagandist rhetoric (Obama = socialist and the like).
The article did, however, touch some interesting points concerning the intrusion of government into the rights of the individual…this wasn’t portrayed with much elegance though. The article fails to distinguish between private and public property and really just skims the surface of the issue at hand.
BTJ, you are quite possibly even more ignorant than T. Only a complete lunatic could conclude that the plight of the poor downtrodden Democrats, holders of power in the House, Senate, and Presidency in the US in 2010, could in any way be compared to a persecuted minority in Germany in the 1930s.
The article is a good description of the left or liberal ideology of governance. This is an elitist view, which sets up the Rulers as a superior class, destined and obliged to rule over every facet of life of the inferior class…the rest of the population.
It is interesting to see that this view of the Rulers-as-Superiors is similar to the 18th c view of the Landed Gentry. This class, the landowners, were deemed superior by birth, and looked down with disdain on not merely the peasantry but also those engaged in ‘trade’.
The left/Liberals of today are just like those landed gentry; they sneer at ‘the rural population’ and view with disdain those engaged in ‘trade’; or private enterprise – whether it be in small businesses or big corporations.
Wealth, you see, is expected to come, not from work, but from one’s inherited wealth. This inherited wealth for the new version of the 19th c landowner..is from the govt. So, the left/liberals are academia, they are the govt bureaucrats, they are the deputy ministerial group and so on. And they do indeed see themselves as superior to the ‘hoi polloi’.
Heh. Fascinating..how the left thinks they are all about progress, about equality, about ‘social justice’..and the reality of it is that they are simply clones of an outdated dried up 18th set of elitists. Fun.
The Tea Parties are a robust grassroots rejection of this self-satisfied, smug and isolationist elitist class; the Tea Parties are about individual work and responsibility – the values of those farmers, those rural people, those tradesmen and small businessmen.
The Tea Parties are the foundation of the great drive for freedom of the individual that is the basis of the USA and its exceptional technological and innovative capacity.
Power corrupts, and therefore, governments tend over time to move away from the people and elitism resurfaces in its ugly amoral nature of self-assumed superiority..as we see in the policies and views of the left and liberals.
We must always fight for freedom, fight against the left’s class-based society, against its elitism, against its authoritarianism.
Ya know, democracy means “mob rule” and Athens never had democracy in that sense during the Golden Age. You had to be a land-owning, educated, theater-attending male of a certain class in order to be a voting citizen. That’s right, you could get your status revoked if you sat at home all year and didn’t get out and about. Hah. Wish we had that rule nowadays.
And I will point out very forcefully that Athens was very, VERY concerned with morally policing their citizens. There was no line between the moral police and the regular police — the two things were inseparable. Remember, please, that Socrates was sentenced to death for the most heinous crime of all — corrupting the youth. Well, he was talkin’ smack about the gods, too. Said there was only one of them.
As well, your affiliation to Athens was the same as the affiliation to your parents. You owed Athens and its citizens for your safety and upbringing as much as your parents. The same love and affection were expected. Nowadays, we should love Canada and our communities for the role in our upbringings that allowed us health care and roads and the Liberal Party and whatnot.
And Aristotle’s reference to “natural slaves” can ONLY ever be read when you realize that Aristotle’s will FREED his slaves. Aristotle was rich and powerful and had many powerful friends. He can’t just go about calling them immoral.
…and I had to stop reading when he shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t know what the virtues are.
I wish he had footnoted it, I would have liked to see all of his passages in the dialogues so I could look ’em up for my own benefit.
• You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the industrious out of it.
• You don’t multiply wealth by dividing it.
• Government cannot give anything to anybody that it doesn’t first take from somebody else.
• Whenever somebody receives something without working for it, somebody else has to work for it without receiving.
• The worst thing that can happen to a nation is for half of the people to get the idea they don’t have to work because somebody else will work for them, and the other half to get the idea that it does no good to work because they don’t get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.”
Adrian Rogers 1931 – 2005
I think T and his BJ pal BTJ should go back down the basement to T’s room and continue doing what they were up to before they discovered somebody accidently left a computer on. They have concerns about the Tea Party movement but no concerns what so ever about the lunatic muslim factions cutting off peoples heads and stoning their women to death. If either of you had a brain you would be ashamed of yourselves.
“The people have lost the confidence of the government; the government has decided to dissolve the people, and to appoint another one.”
– Bertolt Brecht
To paraphrase Thomas Payne. “Democracy only works when you have strong civil rights”. The biggest enemy of the civil rights movement has been the Liberal party in Canada and the Democrats in the United States. I knew 20 years ago that the left would either have to start demonizing Martin Luther King or else try to change the dictionary meaning of civil rights. It seems they have chose to do the latter.
there’s the tea party…..and then there’s …..well….there’s the T party.
Looks like the Precedent picked a bad week to quit smoking .
Interesting times we live in. A person who tells or speaks the truth is called a hero by the right, and an extremist by the left.
There are some things that a good man should never be tolerant of: the denial or restriction of another persons freedom in thought or speech (we need to know who the bad guys are)- groups or political ideologies that seek to restrict another persons freedom in thought or speech. In other words – evil.
It is unfortunate that most of the trolls that come to this site are under 30 and have been protected from reality their whole lives, beginning with 3 inch bumper pads on all sides of their cribs, helmets and padding for riding tricycles and bikes, playgrounds built on soft sand, have not endured a spanking or the strap, antibacterial soap and hand cleaner for everything, yet they shout to the world that “tolerance” is what is needed. They haven’t got a clue what real tolerance or strenth is.
For evidence of acts of violence perpetrated by members of the tea party movement please search the Southern Poverty Law Center website and search tea party movement violence.
No, T. You made an assertion about racial violence coming from the Tea Party movement. I asked you to back it up – it shouldn’t be hard to do if you’re telling the truth – and instead you tell everybody else to look into it.
Either link to the source(s) of your information or type out selected passages from whatever that “source” is. Let’s see the hard evidence.
I suggest that you’re simply reasserting someone else’s assertion.
You’ve made a claim without providing any evidence for it. Either back it up, or shut up.
And may I add that the Tea Party movement is increasingly more radical and resembles the 1920s & 30s fascist movements. How long before the scapegoating & midnight arrests? Continue with your smugness, small dead hearts – the majority of Canadians and Americans want social justice and will stop at nothing to attain it. How long before a man of the people like Chavez rises up? Ah… fortunate Americans, they have their social justice leader in President Obama – now for a Canadian to wrest the reins of power away from fascist Harper and his coterie…. A true leader who will force the birth of a true, just society.
The delusional T chirps again…. Must be feeling bitter because he didn’t get his allowance this week.
I for one, welcome our new social justice overlords. The only way to provide for a just society is wealth redistribution by a democratically elected and wise government. President Obama is well on his way to reforming the cesspool of crass capitalism that once defined the US of A. Well done, Mr. President, and may you get four more years to bring justice to North America.
And may I add that the Tea Party movement is increasingly more radical and resembles the 1920s & 30s fascist movements.
You may lie as much like, you servile nutjob.
I may add that it takes a special kind of insanity to imagine that a group calling for smaller government is in any way “fascist”.
I like to cut through both over intellectualized issues and Politically correct soft soaping.
The bottom line is; ALL western democracies are plagued with a political ruling class that is increasingly intolerant of inclusive/participatory/grass roots democracy, accountability and public criticism in general. The political class holds the electorate and their vox populi in contempt – so do the establishment media.
We see an ever tightening noose of regulatory bureaucratic tyranny, authoritarian statism and suppression of public will in deference to establishment insider cliques and well funded NGOs.
It has become so bad there is really no difference between parties when it comes to ignoring public will for substituted agendas.
We languish in a devolved state of limited democracy that gives us what I term “happy face fascism”. Sure there is no open brutality like in German or Italian fascist regimes, but still your political opinions and exercise of free expression of same, can get you in trouble with the state or screwed around by indoctrinated state henchmen. THey visit you for ‘interviews’ or ‘monitor your communicatiobs’, or put you on watch lists – Goebbles would be so proud of the micromanaging efficiency of info collection and surviellence modern democratic governments have over their citizens.
Free speech and political dissent are dying in western democracies and it is a phenomena with it’s epicenter in the political class who embrace a new form of statism intolerant of diversity of opinion.
I was born in yje 60s and I can tell you, although there is mor material crap to clutter your life with today, we are far less freer than our parents were. That’s because our government fears our anger less.
Talk about a twisted and grossly distorted mind. Actually it is the “social justice” movement that seeks to enslave everybody in a meld of fascist/communistic socialism. All in the name of creating “a new socialist man”.
If the trolls that are promoting this new world order had to live under that system for a while, I suspect he would change his tune, unless of course he was one of the gauleiter/commissar class.
George Orwell warned us about this social justice crap.
T- there’s nothing about violence. Kindly provide the link as asked. The article on the Tea Party is a bunch of unverified subjective rubbish.
Their attempt to try to define the Tea Parties as racist is invalid. You cannot declare a movement racist because it might have only 1% black members while the ratio of black Americans is, according to their data, 12%.
Their attempt to declare that the group is racist is invalid. It’s like saying that the Democratic Party is racist because 64% of blacks define themselves as Democrats.
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=750
Since these two ratios does not reflect the overall population ratios where whites are 80% and blacks are 12% – then, do you consider that the Democratic Party is racist because it does not have 80% white membership?
Again, kindly provide evidence of violence carried out by Tea Party members.
Jim Horne – nice quotes; very accurate.
At the rate Obama does things, he will need twenty more terms.
Social justice is freedom from the government teat and freedom of speech.
Continue with your smugness T, how long before the scapegoating and midnight raids headed by Obama’s National Civilian Security Force, modeled after Chavez’s militia, knocks on the door of American Tea Party members?
“Venezuela’s socialist worker militias have grown to nearly 150,000 members since their formation in 2009. Organized by President Hugo Chavez in May 2009, the “workers’ militias” are intended to allow Chavez’s political party to assert control over key economic sectors…“There need to be many more,” he said, “because they represent the idea of the integrated worker who is capable of producing and also of defending the people.”
The workers’ militias are an ideological remnant of the Communist coup d’etat in Russia 1917, whose leaders Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky created the groups and used them to overthrow the Czarist government, eventually turning them into units of the Red Army.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61004
Seems to me I just read somewhere that Ignatieff’s grandfather was a count in Russia – responsible for kicking the Jews out of Russia. I bet T has pictures of Chavez, Obama, and Ignatieff in his bathroom.
That some of you continue to recite facts and realities to T and similar puke chunks is completely futile. They are Leftist Liberals, living the lies and believing their owners/leaders.
That is a mental disorder. In fact, it is easy to prove that many are outright insane. Better to ignore them. They will hate the lack of attention.
Good point Abe Froman. I certainly do detect a childish acting out for attention coming from certain trolls. I’m having an off day, bored – must not feed the trolls.
The Southern Poverty Law Center.
Wonder what the socialism meant in the Nazi or Nationalsozialismus, National Socialism Party? Strange name for a rightwing organization, no? Well I guess it makes sense when the Liberal Party stands for all the rights they want you to have and none of the ones they don’t.
Social justice – what does that mean?
Does that mean, as a leftist and someone like T suggests, that you should not receive your wages from your work? Does it mean that you, who work, should hand over the results of your work..to someone who doesn’t work? Why is that just?
T- kindly define ‘fascism’ and explain how the Tea Party is ‘radical’ and ‘fascist’. I don’t think you understand the terms. What is radical about small government? Well? What is radical about not developing massive trillion dollar deficits? Well?
T – wealth redistribution is not about democracy and social justice but the lack and denial of both. After all, democracy asserts that all are equal, therefore, why should someone who works and studies hard, and is compensated for that..have to hand over that compensation to someone who does neither?
Redistribution is found in two-class elitist societies with the clear intention of DENYING power to the people. Redistribution is an act of ‘leveling’ all the people to one level of power. The elite class are exempt from this redistribution of course; they live very well…with their benefits and power. And they enforce redistribution to maintain their power.
T- could you explain how the Tea Party is ‘radical’?
Oh, and explain your phrase ‘the majority of Canadians want social justice’. First, provide the data base to substantiate your use of the word ‘majority’. Then, define ‘social justice’. Then, link the two terms. This is called substantiating your subjective opinion, T. Try to do it. Try.
Oh, and if this ‘majority’ will ‘stop at nothing’, does this include violence? There IS plenty of evidence for leftist violence, T.
Now, provide the data base for Obama’s reforms. I’m afraid I’m unaware of them.
It’s easy to chatter, T, but maturity requires evidence and logic – and you display neither.
O’green’s parenting.
O’s KatrinaBP: a killer of birds.
“Experts advise parents answer kids’ questions about the drilling rig disaster in age-appropriate terms”:
Who killed Cock’Obama?
O’s Gulf Oil Spill killed Cock’Obama.
“It’s a tricky line.”
…-
“Parenting
Mommy, is the oil spill going to kill that bird?
Experts advise parents answer kids’ questions about the drilling rig disaster Experts advise parents answer kids’ questions about the drilling rig disaster in age-appropriate terms
Tania Tomilko was at home watching a news item about the BP oil spill when her oldest son, who is 8, came to her with a question: “How did the explosion happen?” That was two weeks ago. Since then, questions about the spill and its aftermath have been bubbling up among Ms. Tomilko’s three children, everything from whether or not birds soaked in oil will die to what would happen to other creatures if they were covered with oil.
Each time, the Toronto stay-at-home mom tries to give answers that are open and honest, while avoiding the sort of excess detail that may do more harm than good. It’s a tricky line.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/mommy-is-the-oil-spill-going-to-kill-that-bird/article1601442/
Y’all should enter the next bass fishing contest…. as bass…. you bite the trolling hook like no one’s fed you for a century… the left is for all intents and purposes devoid of humour – try not to emulate them, lest you be lumped in with them, a fate to avoid – a little thought as to what you are replying to would help. Being serious when the other party is yanking your chain only makes you look the fool
And that includes you ET – for all your professorial posturing, you’re one of the biggest bass around. Why you’re so revered by the lemmings here is beyond me – but then, this place is filled with troll bait.
speaking of servility, here’s a US customs border guard being ‘servile’ (or is that just ‘vile’) to his americant masters.
and so much for free trade eh?
3w.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/03/16/bc-borderprotectionism.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g4:r2:c0:b0
I see that T and others read and post on this site as if it were a govt sponsered blog.It is’nt.If I ran this blog every one would be free to read it, but you would have to SUBSCRIBE to it to post.As my late father used to say”talks cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey”.Maybe then T would understand the term”redistribution of money”.
This is a great blog with some great discussion on it. Let’s not turn it into T’s blog. It’s starting to be like a low rent discussion group.
Let’s ignore him.
A bit late for that, isn’t it?
A bit late for that, isn’t it?
Indeed. The essay manages to be both profound and humorous, and I’ve already forwarded it both to friends and to a couple of other blogs, with due credit to SDA.
I’m actually beginning to think it’s a necessary limitation of the structure of the medium.
I often learn something by reading the excellent responses to the trolls wild assertions.
Russ
ahh, so T, who consistently refuses, always, to provide evidence for his pompous empty posts, now admits he’s nothing but..a troll. Heh. And shouldn’t be taken seriously..because he has nothing to offer. Heh. Finally, he admits it.
Me thinks many of you need to re-think your take on conservatism and the left. So quick to make irrational statements about ‘liberals’…and even democracy. Democracy is not mob-rule on it’s own, only if applied as such.
Waterhouse: your reading comprehension skills are lacking. I compared the people affiliated with the Tea Party movement, especially those who display irrational thinking (comparing Obama to Hitler), to the non-jewish German population. Both had/have legitimate and real concerns/grievances and are therefore susceptible to propaganda/idealism…leading to ‘group-think’.
As a conservative I would expect you to be concerned by that.
Bill Elder: I completely agree with everything you said. At least there’s one person on here who sees things with open eyes.
Two truths;
You cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.
Abe Lincoln
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting onwhat to have for lunch;
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin
President Obama is more than just one huge dissapointment, He has squandered a super majority, he is not at all what he pretended to be. The Media who gave him a pass, who attacked his opponents for their “lack of experience” ignoring the fact that Barrack Hussien Obama had not had even a paper route, let alone a real job are culpable.The people are not amused, or cowed by the rhetoric and name calling from the left. America is stirring, the people want their Government back, they shall have just that. God bless America.
Canadians servile? You think?
As in: high time we replace the lion and the unicorn with a jellyfish and a sheep; suitably neutered of course.
I can easily juxtapose T’s comments.
T: June 13, 2010: And may I add that the Tea Party movement is increasingly more radical and resembles the 1920s & 30s fascist movements.
T: June 12, 2010: Hitler was a great leader. Give it up you small dead hearts – you wouldn’t know a humanitarian if he gassed you in a shower room. Chavez, Castro, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot… all shining examples of true social leadership focused on justice, social justices that is, not the bourgeois kind