If this is life under socialism, it feels more like Germany in about 1932. The left still appears confused, uncertain, hesitant while the right is increasingly shrill and strident.

One comes to the point where one understands the limits of reform are determined by the limits of will. The right in America is willing to go further, to perpetrate violence, to flaunt the law, to throw out any and every principle in order to win even a tactical victory against its declared enemy, while the left forswears violence, reveres the law, and clings to its principles even at the cost of defeat.

Those old enough will understand this. It's why the civil rights movement became the black power movement. It's why the SDS split. It's why people took to the streets. Not because of the nobility of the cause but because of the utter hopelessness of the path of moderate reform.

The trouble with the radical solution is that is splits. It splits the nation, it splits communities, and in the end it splits even its own members into increasingly marginal factions. It's like a great wave that begins with seeming overwhelming power as it crashes into the shore, but ends in a hundred rivulets and tiny pools, isolated and evaporating. But while mighty, it can sweep away much.

It has been a very long time since those who genuinely want reform have held real power in this country. They don't seem to know quite how to handle it. I wish them well. In the wake of three decades of bonehead politics, this country can benefit from even the most modest tune-up.

The Tipping Point

I wonder how socialist a country has to be in order to be socialist. I mean, maybe we already are, and all this kerfluffle is wasted breath. What a relief that would be! We could all just acknowledge we're socialists, or else go underground and start to work on the great capitalist revolution. Now that's a delicious thought, isn't it? Capitalist revolutionaries? Stock brokers at the barricades, overturning file cabinets and setting them on fire! Throwing safe deposit boxes at the tanks!

Where was I?

Oh yes, the tipping point. Assuming we're still capitalist, will it be health insurance? Is that the deciding factor? How many corporations does the government have to bail out? Or is it total money spent versus number of corporate entities? I'm not sure. I've looked around at the conservative blogs, but can find nothing. You'd think they'd have a list. A guidebook.

Maybe even a threat level with its own color spectrum.

Part of the problem here, of course, is that socialism is just a word. It's never been clearly defined. Same as capitalism. It's more a matter of self-definition: we is this; they is that. As long as we are we and they are they, then this ain't that. And there can be no tipping point, but only the eternal threat of tipping.

Clear?

American Know-How

We're really proud of this. We don't seem to be very clear about the specifics (just try searching on 'american "know-how" ' and see what you get), but we're very clear that we have it and that it's American. A couple of points occur to me.

First, it's curious that people implicitly assume that American know-how magically evaporates in the halls of government. Indeed, "American know-how" (often presented as "good old American know-how") is set as the counterpoint to American government. American know-how exists in the individual, in the family, in the independent business, in corporate business -- everywhere, in fact, except in government. No one seems willing to explain this strange sociological phenomenon.

Second, I deeply object to the notion that "know-how" is American. This is an especially bizarre notion given that America is a nation of people from almost everywhere except America. So "know-how" cannot possibly be American, either in character or in location. Are we to believe that no one else on the planet is clever? Persistent? Resilient? Inventive?

I wonder if Russians speak of good old Russian know-how. Or if there's a similar phrase in Sri Lanka or Senegal or Luxembourg. (I actually would relish speaking of Luxembourgeois know-how). This is another instance of where nationalism is just plain wrong. Not just factually wrong but inimical to the human condition. Think how much better, how much healthier it would be to speak of human know-how. To do so would be to confer confidence upon all our brothers and sisters, not merely to those who happen to serve under the same flag.

*meh*

I'll go on a nationalism rant another time.

Socialized Medicine Has Arrived

It's been tough keeping up with the blogs, but I had to put this one out.

I've discovered a secret Socialist wedge into American free enterprise. It's completely government run -- paid for by your hard-earned taxes, and totally under government supervision. Competition isn't even allowed, and literally millions of Americans are subjugated to it without any voice in the matter.

What is this pernicious cancer eating at our free world?

It's the school nurse. Ah yep.

We need to dismantle this hateful aberration. Let the market determine which children get what sort of care. Clearly the government can't possibly do as good a job of taking care of the health of the Future of America as can locally-owned doctors' consortia under the direction of a business manager.

End the school nurse and think of all the tax money we will save, especially those of us who have no school-aged children. As for the others, you'll only pay for the care your child receives. No more will Big Government reach into your pocket and fling millions of dollars at ne'er-do-well kids who have a "headache." Hey, you wanna stop bleeding kid? Hand over your lunch money.

I'm telling you, it's high time we gave Government Nurse the boot. End socialized medicine in our public schools!

Proof Positive

In the Idaho Statesman today came the proof, in black-and-white and it must be true-cuz-I-read-it-in-the-papers. What proof? Why, of the burden imposed on us all by socialism.

It was right there on the front page. How much our taxes have gone up. We knew it was going to happen. Those tax-and-spend socialists would dip their filthy fingers into our wallets and it only took them a few days to get to it.

In a bravura performance of reportage, the Statesman gives us the bill: sixty-one cents per Idahoan.

I feel oppressed already.

A War on Two Fronts

Obama has taken on too much, they say. He should concentrate just on for now.

I'd love to hear these Republicans in 1941. We can't possibly fight Japan *and* Germany. We should fight one and then the other.

Fools. They envision our challenges as arriving like bad-guys in a 1970s kung fu flick: one at a time, each waiting its turn to get decked.

17 Socialsts

Rep. Bachus (R -- as if you hadda ask) has declared there are 17 Socialists in Congress. To which I say, well, 17 beats 16.

I R A Socialist 2!

We iz all socializt.