Imagine what it must have been like to pick up a newspaper and not read about a politician. Imagine government spending about 7 percent of a burgeoning gross domestic product (it’s currently over 40 percent). Imagine no income tax and gold-backed money that appreciated in value as the economy grew more productive. We have to imagine because, tragically, no one living has experienced such freedom; contemporary civilization does not even afford a glimpse of it. More tragically, humanity has adapted to its chains.

Think about the difference between doing something you want and something you have to do. Compare your enthusiasm and energy. That difference is the key to human happiness and progress. Ask people what makes them happy. They’ll list a variety of things, but doing what one wants to do makes almost all lists. That requires freedom and the qualities of character, energy, and enthusiasm to take advantage of that freedom. It works no differently for society as a whole.

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Southern Manners Are Expected From all.  As my mother would say, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.  Thank you.

The interests of Washington and large corporations have merged so completely they are now inseparable.

America’s large corporations and its government have merged. Or was it an acquisition? If the latter, who acquired whom? Unfortunately, the labels affixed to purely corporate combinations lose their analytical usefulness here. While the two retain their own distinct legal structures and managements, so to speak, such a close community of interest has evolved that it’s no longer possible to separate them or delineate their individual contours. Political labels are no help; the ones most often used have become hopelessly imprecise. The Wikipedia definition of “fascism” is over 8,000 words, with 43 notes and 16 references.

However, the conjoined blob is so big, rapacious, and intrusive that akin to Justice Potter Stewart’s famous non-definition of obscenity, everybody knows it when they see or otherwise come into contact with it. This article will use the term “corporatocracy.” It’s less letters, dashes, and words to type than “the corporate-government-combination.” No serviceable understanding of either US history or current events is possible without close study of the corporatocracy. Unfortunately, such study, like entomology or cleaning septic tanks, requires a stout constitution. But take heart, entomologists grow to love their creepy crawly things, and septic tank cleaners say that after a few minutes you don’t even notice the smell.

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The paragraphs below are from an article that was allegedly  published by the Huffington Post and then withdrawn.

I read discussion about the essay on ZeroHedge and followed the link to an archived copy from which the text below is an excerpt.

Are you concerned about the end of free speech by the alt-left at Berkley?  This is much more sinister.  You will have to decide for yourself how to act if this proposal is ever seriously considered.

The progressives and all their social-justice-collectivist allies are in a panic that their century of control and plunder may be ended.

Could It Be Time To Deny White Men The Franchise?

Some of the biggest blows to the progressive cause in the past year have often been due to the votes of white men. If white men were not allowed to vote, it is unlikely that the United Kingdom would be leaving the European Union, it is unlikely that Donald Trump would now be the President of the United States, and it is unlikely that the Democratic Alliance would now be governing four of South Africa’s biggest cities.

If white men no longer had the vote, the progressive cause would be strengthened. It would not be necessary to deny white men indefinitely – the denial of the vote to white men for 20 years (just less than a generation) would go some way to seeing a decline in the influence of reactionary and neo-liberal ideology in the world. The influence of reckless white males were one of the primary reasons that led to the Great Recession which began in 2008. This would also strike a blow against toxic white masculinity, one that is long needed.

At the same time, a denial of the franchise to white men, could see a redistribution of global assets to their rightful owners. After all, white men have used the imposition of Western legal systems around the world to reinforce modern capitalism. A period of twenty years without white men in the world’s parliaments and voting booths will allow legislation to be passed which could see the world’s wealth far more equitably shared. The violence of white male wealth and income inequality will be a thing of the past.

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Some may argue that this is unfair. Let’s be clear, it may be unfair, but a moratorium on the franchise for white males for a period of between 20 and 30 years is a small price to pay for the pain inflicted by white males on others, particularly those with black, female-identifying bodies. In addition, white men should not be stripped of their other rights, and this withholding of the franchise should only be a temporary measure, as the world rights the wrongs of the past.

A withholding of the franchise from white males, along with the passing of legislation in this period to redistribute some of their assets, will also, to a degree, act as the reparations for slavery, colonialism, and apartheid, which the world is crying out for to be paid.

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This Huffington Post article is archived in the WayBackMachine.

The following is a comment by Doug Casey from the ZeroHedge post:

But it goes deeper than that with this insane article. What these people really hate is Western Civilization and everything it represents. The question is: Why do these people think it’s virtuous to discriminate against white males? White males are largely responsible for Western Civilization. Which is shorthand for things like individualism, free markets, free thought, science, literature, industry, and about everything that’s allowed mankind to rise out of the muck and look to conquer the planets.

That’s what this article really hates.

So, it’s fascinating not so much that somebody wrote an article as stupid as that. But that a large outlet like Huffington would actually publish it. It’s a sign of how degraded things are. I’d say the author suffers from a serious psychological aberration. The editor who posted it is clearly a graduate of some PC US university, probably a major in Gender Studies.

It’s too bad that they took it down because it should be put on display, as a warning. Unless they repost it in The Onion.

Early this morning the local television station WRAL, Raleigh, NC, broadcast news that the first of “four Confederate monuments in New Orleans…honoring white supremacy” will come down today.

The fate of these monuments has been debated now for a number of years, with the majority black city government wanting to expunge these reminders of New Orleans’ history, while various heritage and preservation organizations have fought to keep them in place.

The one that comes down today is the “Liberty Monument,” an obelisk erected in 1891 to commemorate the overthrow of Reconstruction. Proponents argued that it is a symbol of “white supremacy” and racism, while defenders declared that, although it may be offensive to some, it also an integral part of the city’s history and, thus, should be kept where it is as a part of that history.

But it is the remaining three monuments that raise the most vociferous ire of traditionalists and those concerned about preserving the historical record: the city plans to take down statues to Generals Robert E. Lee and P. G. T. Beauregard, and President Jefferson Davis.

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h/t Cousin John