"Man is born free and is everywhere in chains." JJ Rousseau

"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine", and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
— Rousseau 1754"

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I gave up my Friday Night trivial enjoyments to watch the Democratic Party debate in New Hampshire.  I did it for you, pilgrims, for you and because SWMBO forced me to do it.

As you can see, I support TG for president, whatever the odds, but she was not allowed on the stage.  This morning she was on the TeeVee with one or another of the babbling anchors and when pressed over Trump's expulsion from his household of Sunderland, the EU ambassador and the execrable Vindmans from the NSC staff said reluctantly (and correctly) that the president has a right to whomever he wants  as his subordinates in the Executive Branch.  BTW, something generally ignored is that the two Vindmans are still US Army officers.  What they have lost are their current assignments.

But, to return to the subject of last night's debate - it was evident that all of them (even Joe) are running on the basis of Rousseau's bald assertion that mankind has fallen from a "state of nature" in which humans existed in a classless economic equality and that said humans are hopelessly corrupted by the chains created by the notion of private property.  To one extent or another all the Democrats in the debate say they want "social justice," meaning a basic re-distribution of goods, (well, maybe not their own goods) as well as a way of life (for most people) in which Mother Earth is not despoiled of her treasures.  In such a world bison and bears would presumably roam Central Park in The Big Apple where they could be played with by shaggy men and women in costumes made from grass and other Vegan materials.  In that world there would a somewhat higher incidence of infectious diseases but there would be balance in the universe.

It is no wonder that the absent Bloomberg (the littlest one) thinks he can win the nomination.  pl 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

Comments

[oldman22]

My ancestors left Scotland after their family homes were "enclosed" in the Sutherland clearances. The rich took the common land for themselves and made fenced pastures for sheep, forcing the common people to go work in factories in the city. This is remembered by historians as the "industrial revolution".
I have sailed to places with no roads and no cars.
They were very nice hospital people, and would not accept any gifts from us. We left them a volleyball which they liked. There were no doctors or nurses or dentists there. If I had stayed there, I would have died long ago.
For better or for worse, there is no going back.

[oldman22]

excuse me, they were nice HOSPITABLE people
(not hospital people)

[turcopolier]

Sunderland, not Sutherland.

[Diana Croissant]

You have a much stronger stomach than I have. I dealt with far too many high school/ junior high school/middle school discussions of important problems. I always came away feeling no hope for our society.

Our education systems started into free fall shortly after "Nation at Risk" was published. I am not saying that document caused the downfall of logical thinking. I am just saying that is the time our public school system was already past repair.

Let's hope that the home school, charter school, private school, religious school movements keep growing.

At one time one of our state's major newspapers would publish the state test scores for all high schools in the metropolitan area. To use math scores for an example: the ONE school that had not thrown out its old math books to purchase the new math books was always the school whose math scores were high instead of abysmal.

Logical thinking is not something that we are allowed to teach now. We must just affirm the students' feelings and ideas as being the result of innate genius. High self esteem is the most important thing to have. Whether it is earned or not is not a concern we are supposed to address.

I have seen no indication that any in the Democratic Party's contenders have ever studied logic. I do agree that Tulsi has a far better understanding of logic. However, just that trait is the reason the current Democratic Party gives her the cold shoulder.

[Barbara Ann]

Long ago I read Huxley’s Island - written 30 years after and the counterpoint to his more famous dystopian vision; Brave New World. As I recall, the island was effectively a commune, everyone got along and I remember little of the events described. Why? Because unlike BNW, it just wasn’t a possible future one could believe could come to pass. The islanders were not characters, but automatons, devoid of any real flaws one could empathize with. They were not human.

So yes, the Dems' current sad crop of utopian thinkers are the direct intellectual descendants of Rousseau, as was Marx. IMO the future they describe is no more believable than Huxley’s island. It is simply incompatible with human nature, which inconvenient though it might be, is not Socialist. They want to populate it with automatons too. That is where Progressivism take us, once the State has guided us ever more forcefully to abstain from the unending list of taboo behaviors & thoughts that Progress demands. This is how we will come to be "everywhere in chains".

I have not the stomach to watch these people and you have my sympathy for having had to endure the spectacle.

[Barbara Ann]

Nothing says competent economic policy like quoting the work of the great economist "Milton Keynes". Take it away AOC:

https://twitter.com/QTRResearch/status/1226280771700371456

[oldman22]

begging your pardon sir:
"James Hunter said the eviction of communities from Sutherland was done a scale not seen before, or again, during the Highland Clearances.

Families were moved off land to make way for large-scale sheep farming.

Prof Hunter is emeritus professor of history at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI).

In his book, Set Adrift Upon the World: The Sutherland Clearances, he has described the depopulation of the Highland county within eight years as an "extraordinary episode".
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-34602284

[Franco]

Thank you Sir. Seeing that you support TG "whatever the odds" gives me a needed boost.

[Flavius]

The term "social justice", once one has gone through the looking glass, means whatever one wants it to mean. So, as TS Eliot observed, the term has no rational content but carries a powerful emotional charge. In any age, it is a useless expression; in a dumb ass age like the one we are in, the age of twitter, it is dangerous. It may even prove to be the velvet noose that government uses to lynch our freedoms.

[Andrei Martyanov]

Some Bloomberg's ads about environment are down right hilarious. Especially the one where Trump is accused of climate "change".

[turcopolier]

oldman2

He fired Sunderland.

[Seamus Padraig]

For the record, Tulsi is also pretty left-wing on economics, and she's probably a lot more sincere than people like Biden or Buttigieg.

[CK]

The faint aroma of Hillary in the morning. She will be nominated at the convention and will be the nominee. And she will go down again in another Trumpnami; but she is their only realistic choice.
At least that is how it looks to me after watching the dwarfs and tards on the debate stage Friday.

[turcopolier]

CK

As an actual old conspirator I can say that the aroma is more than faint.

[turcopolier]

Seamus Padraig

I could live with that if she were elected and I think a lot of that is simply the result of Hawaii politics. Common sense counts for a lot. We gave Sanders money last time because he seemed a decent person and the depth of his communist ideology was not so clearly shown as it is now.