Says Scott Adams, criticizing Hillary Clinton's new slogan "We are stronger together."
I was thinking of the Hillary slogan this morning as I wrote that post about Ken Starr quoting LBJ quoting God saying "Come, let us reason together."
The thing about God's "together" was that He was going to run the show and drastically punish the people if they didn't get together and do things His way.
And that's the problem with a leader or would-be leader using togetherness. We're supposed to get together into the obedient mass that can be ruled over by this power seeker.
On Sunday, we were talking about Hillary's new slogan — which she'd just unveiled on "Meet the Press" — and many of the commenters saw the problem. Henry said it first, without using the f-word:
We are stronger together could be symbolized by a bundle of sticks.Ah, I was just reading about the Oval Office yesterday — quite by chance in a book about LBJ:
THE ORNAMENTATION OF THE ROOM— an oval thirty-five feet, ten inches long and twenty-nine wide at its widest point, with a ceiling rising in a gentle arch from a cornice sixteen feet high— was restrained. The symbols of power in it— on the ceiling, in plaster, the presidential seal; above French doors classical pediments and representations of “fasces,” bundles of bound rods with an ax protruding, that in ancient Rome symbolized a magistrate’s authority— were muted, subtle, in low relief and painted to blend in with the ceiling and walls.ADDED: "We are stronger together" really means: I will be stronger when you are together under me. As John Lennon sang long ago: "Come together, right now,
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106 comments:
Hillary wants to get back to the Oval. She will have it redocrated with that bundle of sticks theme.
"Come let us reason together" was originally God's line? Who knew?
I always thought that LBJ came up with it. When he used it, it usually meant that he was going to make someone an offer they could not refuse. In the Godfather sense.
Of course, that piece of shit (LBJ) thought he was God so what's the difference?
John Henry
I thought the Lennon line was "Come together right now over me."
'Over' and 'Under' differ, as Vegas will attest.
I am Laslo.
David,
Little sticks and lots of bowls of those balls woven from vines.
John Henry
Wasn't it "come together OVER me"?
I redepicted the under/over concept.
In the words of Bernie Sanders: "it's going to be messy... Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle...."
The unspoken corollary of "togetherness" is "shut up". If togetherness doesn't include this we're already together we just have different ideas.
People rightly reject this nonsense and recognize her instincts.
Hillary Clinton's new slogan "We are stronger together" is just another appeal to collectivist authoritarianism that is rife in the Democrat Party.
Democratic 'togetherness' is some people having power and other people having responsibility. And some people having a voice and other people shutting up.
That's not what God means. God is Wisdom standing in the marketplace. If you don't agree with her, you will be objectively wrong, and that is your punishment. If you think of God as a punitive, authoritarian old man, you are metaphysically very confused and misguided.
And Roger Stone, Who is Trump's favorite source of conspiracy books, published a good one proving that LBJ had JFK killed.
Together? With Hillary? I just want to be left alone.
Adams misused "comprised."
I hate that word. It's mostly used wrongly. Why not just say "composed"? If "composed" works, here's a clue: You'll be using "comprised" wrongly. If you don't understand why, don't worry about it. Just know that you're not one of the people who should be messing with "comprised."
If you do know how to used "comprised" correctly AND still want to, you are probably too boring to be read, so no one cares.
"Compare that to making America greater, which is all good, all the time, to all Americans."
What does that mean? Greater...how?
Cook, as is Trumps way, he leaves it up to you to answer "how".
No one wakes up with a passion to pursue togetherness.
My morning wood says otherwise. Although maybe he has a different type of togetherness in mind...
This is just a variation of some 60's -- ish attitude, feel good, it takes a village pablum. Means nothing beyond sounding good in a children's sermon way.
And, in the Trumpist technique, he expects you to assume your "how" is what he meant.
A shared terrible experience makes a community come together, like 9/11 did.
Trump is leading a community of American Middle Class workers who share the terrible experience of becoming dependent refugees after China and Mexico de-industrialized the USA with the full cooperation by Bush and Obama who were bribed to do allow it
Minutiae ~ slow news day?
Your S. Adams fetish may be affecting your cruel neutrality bs.
No one wakes up with a passion to pursue togetherness..
Socialists so long as everyone understands there's a pecking order?
Hippies that want to start a commune?
It all boils down to individualism versus collectivism. The United State of America was founded on individualistic ideals and values. Things like personal responsibility, personal freedoms, not expecting assistance, the right to say what you want and live your life the way you want... these are all very American concepts. And they're completely antithetical to collectivism and all its intellectual offshoots like socialism, communism, and modern progressivism. Those are all predicated upon expecting help, the idea other people owe you something simply by virtue of your existence. That is the core of all the philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives.
David Begley said: "Hillary wants to get back to the Oval." As does Bill, in a very large way.
He is right. Excellence, diversity, and inclusion are all mutually exclusive concepts. A racially diverse ANYTHING tends to have lower unit cohesion and seldom is better than one that is not. Intellectual diversity might help, but lord knows that isn't what they seek.
The unspoken corollary of "togetherness" is "shut up". If togetherness doesn't include this we're already together we just have different ideas.
There was more togetherness in the 1950s than now. They aren't seeking a return to that. You're right --- all they want is to stifle opposition at this point.
"Compare that to making America greater, which is all good, all the time, to all Americans."
What does that mean? Greater...how?
How are we "better together" when she is proud that her biggest enemies are about half of the country?
It's not like collectivism is somehow LESS corrupt. How many of the elite in Socialist or Communist countries somehow do way better than the proles?
Humperdink said...
Together? With Hillary? I just want to be left alone.
This. With a 60% disapproval, she should know better.
Burning Sticks is the latest way to replace coal power in England. They import Pelletized wood as fuel needed because solar and wind are intermittent at best and have to have a carbon based fuel secondary system.
The delusion is that cheap coal fires are dirty, but clean wood fires are OK.
That is not The Onion. They really do it that way. Burn the living trees and refuse to burn the fossil trees. And play pretend.
As does Bill, in a very large way.
Depends on the intern.
Can I just eat my waffle?
The senator from Vermont and his supporters don't sound like they are into this "togetherness" thingy. Maybe I am misreading them
All your base are belong to us.
***If you don't believe that all transgenders, veterans, people of all races, activists, people in public housing, 'fat-cats,' the umma, workers of the world and Guatemalan kids...
can't all do perfectly equal things together under the watchful eye of activist cum bureaucrats, by the magic money tree in Gaia's National Parks....
What is wrong with YOU?
Adams is clearly missing the ways in which the slogan is carefully tailored as a response to Trump. "Stronger together" plays on the divisiveness which, rightly or wrongly (I say rightly), is part of the narrative surrounding Trump's campaign. The target is, in part, right- and center-leaning independents who might ordinarily vote Republican but find Trump's tactics and style off-putting. To that extent I think it's pretty effective, if bland.
As for Adams, he claims to be a master analyst of "persuasion," but if he thinks that "Make America Great Again" presents "no targets for disagreement," he hasn't been paying attention. The obvious, and often made, response is that America was only "great" if you were white, male, and otherwise WASPy. I think Hillary's new slogan might be effective on exactly the kind of people who feel like Trump's slogan ignores them--which is a lot of people.
I hate that word. It's mostly used wrongly. Why not just say "composed"? If "composed" works, here's a clue: You'll be using "comprised" wrongly. If you don't understand why, don't worry about it. Just know that you're not one of the people who should be messing with "comprised.
As I learned in my Journalism class, the whole comprises the parts. White light comprises red, green and blue. Always put the whole thing first, then the parts, if you're using comprise.
If there is something wrong with you, it's nothing empathy classes, diversity training, the National Confessional Celebrity Couch, some pop-neuroscience/psychology and a brain scan won't fix.
If still not cured, well, then, you're against the arc of history you racist, sexist, classist; Patriarchal, xenophobic, freedom-phobic, hate-speech lover.
Hillary has a new slogan? Yeah, that's the solution.
Not Lennon. Lennin. That's what the slogan makes me think.
Looks like the Rev. Al Green will have as gig @ the Dem Convention.
"And all you middle-class white Christian heterosexual men? Come together and pay your damn taxes so I can buy off all my voting blocs!"
I'm pretty sure Jews and gays pay far more in taxes than the average American.
Unreliable sources claim Hillary had "We Are Stronger Together" tattooed across her thighs after her wedding night.
"Come Together" is the Beatles best song. It was pure genius. The beat drives, the words hallucinate, and John Lennon's voice is at its best. I truly love this song. Lennon claimed it meant nothing, but somehow it does mean something: this call to "Come together ... over me."
Great, great song.
A family is most often better off together, but with Hillary kept as far away as possible.
Just watched the Lennon video. Definitely not his best. Is this the key he sang the original in? Seems too high, especially for his voice. Actually, this was a horrible rendition of a great song. Disappointing.
Adams is wrong, of course. Most people wake up with a yearning to purse togetherness, in exactly the herd fashion that Ms. Clinton proposes.
Politics is one example. Sports is another. Commerce, religion, pop culture.
This is one of the most prevalent themes in the work of Eric Hoffer. For example:
“The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.”
“Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.”
And while I was checking my kindle highlights, I found Roger Angell talking baseball:
"It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look—I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring—caring deeply and passionately, really caring—which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved."
"We are stronger together"
There are a couple of things we know for a fact about the Clintons. They have copious quantities of campaign loot to spend, and one way they spend it is focus-grouping the hell out of everything they say before they say it. I'm betting this slogan appeals very strongly to women, a cohort not known for rugged individualism.
I really don't want to live in a 'collective', which is what Hillary wants. She wants us to all be subjects of a big government-controlled country, where citizens are all turned toward government, viewing it as the leader and director of our lives. She wants us invested in government, both giving it our attention and our money.
To me, this his hell on earth.
Quite frankly, it is hard to comprehend Donald Trump except as the desire of a great number of distressed people to attach themselves to a power seeker. The biggest problem with Hillary Clinton's slogan is that it describes the other campaign.
During the run up to the Scottish referendum, John Oliver noted that the slogan of the pro-UK side, "Better Together" didn't actually sound very good. It sounded like something you said to keep together a loveless marriage. "Stronger together" sounds much the same.
Also, someone needs to do a commercial of a bald Hillar! impersonator in a Dr. Evil costume ranting to a crowd about how they are "stronger together".
@MadisonMan: You took a Journalism class? What were you thinking? Needed an easy A?
I think J. Handy has some prototype slogans for Billary, just need to shrink 'em down:
To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And, at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between, plus some things I can't remember, all rolled into one big "thing." This is truth, to me.
Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, mankind should be thinking about getting more use out of the weapons we already have.
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
I wish everybody would have to have an electric thing implanted in our heads that gave us a shock whenever we did something to disobey the president. Then somehow I get myself elected president.
And that's the problem with a leader or would-be leader using togetherness. We're supposed to get together into the obedient mass that can be ruled over by this power seeker.
When even a socially liberal university professor recognizes this, then entire meme is in trouble. However it's pretty easy to see why Democrats on the whole don't see what's wrong with the slogan because the left is deep into groupthink. A negligibly small number of 21st century liberals are open-minded enough to tolerate divergent opinions. Hillary's slogan merely ratifies what they believe.
But intolerance for divergent opinions is not a strength; it is a weakness.
Uh oh Brando, maybe as a percent of income Gays and Jewish people pay more taxes but collectively I don't think that 7 percent of the population pays more than the sum of the "average" taxpayers
One more thought. "We are stronger together" has exactly the same meaning as "you didn't build that." The marketing people worked long hours to turn that turd inside out.
@MadisonMan: You took a Journalism class? What were you thinking? Needed an easy A?
I wanted a writing class, and it fit in my schedule. Of course, I knew nothing about structure for News Writing, so my first grades in the class were atrocious, but by the end of the class my writing was better than everyone else's. I got a B, though (Grrrrr....) because improvement was not considered. The highest grade in the class -- I think they were trying to weed people out of Journalism.
It did help my writing, but I'm still -- 30 years later -- bitter that I could write better than the TA (maybe I shouldn't have corrected him in class) but received a B. :)
"We are stronger together" coming from Hillary means "I could win if there were no opposition."
What does that mean? Greater...how?
Ummmm...maybe getting some of the 10% permanently unemployed an economy that generates productive jobs instead of more dictatorial bureaucratic busybodies with underfunded retirement systems?
We don't get to decide how America responds to this slogan. We only get to speculate on how we think America will respond. We all know it's been carefully focus group tested.
We are stronger together."
I wonder if she and Bill ever had a threesome with another power-hungry hooker.
"We are Stronger Together" strikes me as one of those totalitarian phrases you expect to see in wrought iron above the gate to a concentration camp.
Here are some other fasces in American political culture:
Mace of the House. Very Roman with its shaft made in the form of the fasces and the head in the form of a spread eagle. Cato would have loved it.
Reverse of a Denver minted 1943 dime. A bit embarrassing considering the US was at war with Italy in 1943, but wisely it wasn't changed. To change it would acknowledge the corruption of the symbol as legitimate. The obverse featured the profile of Mercury, commemorating the god's role as the patron of commerce.
Quite frankly, it is hard to comprehend Hilary Clinton except as the desire of a great number of distressed people to attach themselves to a power seeker.
FTFY.
" No one wakes up with a passion to pursue togetherness. Half of the country is comprised of introverts, loners, and competitive a-holes. "
It's like he has a window into my soul.
But "Make America Great Again" sounds like a lot of work, and I'm pretty busy.
"We are stronger together." sounds like someone will offer me soup in a nice homeless shelter, and I can wake up whenever I feel like it.
How about "Make America Bullshit Free"? It's kinda meta-pseudo-irony with a wink and a tongue-in-cheek poke in the ribs.
I don't care for Donald Trump. But I do believe, on the scale of sincerity, that he wants America to Be Great Again more the Hilary actually wants us together.
Brando said... [hush][hide comment]
"And all you middle-class white Christian heterosexual men? Come together and pay your damn taxes so I can buy off all my voting blocs!"
I'm pretty sure Jews and gays pay far more in taxes than the average American.
Huh ?
"Quite frankly, it is hard to comprehend Trump or Hillary Clinton except as the desire of a great number of distressed people to attach themselves to a power seeker."
It's like one of those drawings where if you stare at it, it changes into something completely different, but it's still the same thing. It's the magic of the mind.
@MadMan, I did better than you because I took a creative writing course. You have no idea how many hoops I had to go through as an engineering major to be allowed to take the course -- I had to go all the way to up the ladder to a face to face with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, who actually was tickled that an engineer wanted to take a creative writing course.
As it happened the instructor taught us to map out the plot using an approach similar to flowcharting a program, so I was already well-schooled in his way of plotting thanks to my introductory programming classes. In the end I got my A while English majors were struggling to get a B or C.
Next semester I left engineering for mathematics, but what I learned later helped me write white papers and technical articles for journals during my career.
The Treasury should return to the tradition of using classical allegorical images like Liberty with her pileus and sword, Athene armed as a hoplite, Mercury, etc. That way we can avoid these stupid debates about which historically insignificant, but politically correct female to stamp on our increasingly worthless money.
The scale of sincerity is measured in bogosity.
But I do believe, on the scale of sincerity, that he wants America to Be Great Again more the Hilary actually wants us together.
Hillary wants us together, all in one place, and enclosed in barbed wire.
Coming together in the political realm basically means "Shut the fuck up," to one's opponents.
I don't want togetherness. I want to be left alone.
I am surprised that on Bob Dylan's 75th birthday, Althouse has no reference to him and his songs. "Together through Life" was one of his albums, which had "Forgetful Heart" and "I Feel a Change Coming On."
A panzer division comprises two tank regiments and one infantry regiment.
It is composed of many other units and support troops in addition to tank and infantry formations.
See how easy that is? Not boring either!
She, like Obama, cannot understand why we don't just let them do the thinking for us and stop struggling. We would be so much happier!
Together, like in a fun camp?
Hillary wants to pick and choose which sticks get the protection of il fagotti, and which are to be broken by it.
Google joy camp for a laugh
"I'm pretty sure Jews and gays pay far more in taxes than the average American.
Huh ?"
Jews and gays as demographics tend to earn above the average American, so presumably would pay more in taxes. Or is that not the case? If I presumed wrong, I retract it, but I seem to recall reading those stats some time ago.
A reincarnation/variation of the famous "It takes a village" theme introduced in the 1990s.
"Quite frankly, it is hard to comprehend Donald Trump except as the desire of a great number of distressed people to attach themselves to a power seeker."
It's only hard for a small or bigoted mind to comprehend. Therein lies your problem.
And yet it is comprehended.
@ DDH - she has abandoned Dylan for Scott Adams.
Fiefdoms and a lot of planning.
"And yet it is comprehended."
No, it's not. Your "comprehension' is but a distorted, bigoted notion than only passes as comprehension because you lack the capacity for a more engulfing vision. The problem with ignorance is that you don't know what you don't know. Pity.
Henry,
The problem is that while "[m]ost people [may] wake up with a yearning to purse togetherness, in exactly the herd fashion that Ms. Clinton proposes..." the "togetherness" is not aligned, profoundly not so.
Hillary dislikes and is opposed to rights of individuals, inherent and inalienable to the individual person. These rights limit government authority.
She prefers collective rights, granted by government to groups, revocable at whim, which allow political powers to pick winners and losers in life, because that allows graft and corruption to enrich her.
She has no shame in doing this, and should be banished from political life in the US for her collectivist nonsensical beliefs. Yet Obama got elected and reelected believing the same thing, and Sanders is pretty popular with totally discredited, 20th Century Socialism. God help us all.
"Everything I said is contained in a single word--collectivism. And isn't that the god of our century? To act together. To think--together. To feel--together. To unite, to agree, to obey....Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it?....We've accomplished what he couldn't accomplish. We've taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash."
--Ayn Rand
Considering the analogy to a bundle of sticks, I am surprised that the connection to Fascism has not been made since fasces is the origin of the word fascist.
Will there be a faux outrage by the liberal media over the use of fascist expressions by Hillary?
The constitution starts "we". And goes from there to: "in order to form a more perfect union"
Seems to me the founders were promoting "together"...
she has abandoned Dylan for Scott Adams.
I was going to comment sooner, but I clicked the link to youtube on John Lennon which eventually sent me the rooftop of 3 Savile Row for 27 minutes.
The answer: Dylan
The question: Other than The Beatles, who's the most best musician of the 60's.
'better together'
No. Tons of people in this country are clueless, useless morons. I want nothing to do with them and I claim the right to choose for myself who makes my endeavors better. Most people wouldn't. I also claim the right to be left the hell alone, and to opt out of bullshit (including but not limited to SJW crusading) that others want to rope me into.
Liberals completely lack empathy for those unlike themselves, unlike the original liberals, who just wanted people to be free.
Progressives see humans as just a bunch of mice in a maze that should be manipulated--or genetically engineered--into conformity.
I can't imagine being together with Hillary in anything. Not in a class, not as Bridge partners, not on a team, not even rooting for the same team. The ambition pours off her like the clouds off the Himalayas.
I find this notion that the fasces, the bundle of sticks was used by the fascists in Italy as a symbol of their government. The socialism of both Obama and Hillary is closer to fascism than communism. It extols a sort of corporatist socialism where big companies do the government's bidding, and get special privileges as a result. in the case of the Third Reich, of course, the special privileges included below market and free (I.e. slave) labor. This has become so engrained, esp under Obama, that we sometimes forget that this isn't the way it used to be here. We now have the Too Big to Fail banks shoveling money to Democrats, and getting Dodd-Frank in return, which makes competing with them even harder. And Google spending millions in DC, and getting control of the USPTO in return (through appointment of their former lawyer as Director, after IBM had this benefit during his first term), in order to change national patent policy. The DoJ sues a bunch of banks, and in the settlement, forces them to shovel hundreds of millions of dollars to community activist groups, which will use much of it to elect Democrats. The big insurance and drug companies were at the table when ObamaCare was being designed, while the Republicans were excluded. The result was, of course, preferential treatment - to the such an extent that the Obama Administration illegally paid for their losses, despite no money having been appropriated. And that doesn't even get into the pay-to-play of Hillary in Foggy Bottom. Etc. this is all done in the name of the people, united for their common good.
The problem with collectivism in general, and socialism in particular, is that while all are equal, some are more equal, often much more equal. We are seeing that right now in Venezuala, where, despite its great natural wealth, food is scarce, and toilet paper even scarcer, while the plutocrats running the country abscond with billions. All in the name of the people. Of course, this is little different from the fate of countries under communism. Same long lines and empty shelves. The big difference seems to be that it is harder for the leaders of communist style socialist countries to accumulate obscene personal wealth. They live much better than their subjects, just mostly don't end up with billion dollar bank accounts.
Hillary, of course, is in the much more equal crowd, but I suspect wants to join the billionaire club. The problem is that her "public service" is all for her private advantage. She famously distains the common man - precisely the people she is exhorting with collectivist rhetoric. For example, the rule that no one was to make unsolicited eye contact with her, last time she lived in the White House, on pain of getting fired. Driving 90 miles an hour across Iowa is just as entitled. When everyone is equal, some are more equal, and she expects to be most equal of all.
The Lennon lyric I'd have chosen:
I hope someday you'll join us,
Then the world will live as one.
Can we please do without the trollish, ad hominem attacks of Paul, who accuses those with whom he disagrees of bigotry? Henry comprehended what he comprehended quite clearly -- as do I.
MadisonMan, don't forget to avoid the passive-voice boner while comprising. Agree with Althouse: the risk is too high you'll be misunderstood (whether you get it right or wrong). If there's any benefit to be had from a precise technical "comprise" I guess it's that the parts list should be exhaustive. At least, I hope so. In patent law it's that.
BTW, I disagree with our hostess regarding "comprised" versus "composed." It's a subtle point, but I use the latter word when some agent has collected the parts together into the whole. I use "comprised" when the collection is more or less accidental.
What I don't quite understand is whether the current Democrat coalition is "comprised" or whether it was "composed." Did someone consciously decide to lure together technocrats, big banks, single women, blacks, gays, public sector union members, greens, Jews, anti-Semites, and as many Hispanics as they can persuade to join into their coalition and did they also decide to throw away white hetero male goyim (particular those in the trade and craft unions) and married women with children? Or did that all more or less just happen?
The first thing that comes to mind in response to Hillary's remark is the Roman fasces, which is a bundle of sticks with an axe stuck through it, bound together with leather ribbon. The example of a bundle of sticks tied together demonstrating strength of the group is very old.
@Big Mike When the modern feminists came along, the Democrats had to choose between then and the more socially conservative married women with children. Around the same time the Old Left got replaced by the New Left, who are largely scions of the gentry class. And they through out the interests of the working class white males, from which threats to the gentry class' status would most likely come. "Funny" how the Left has become the champion of the very oppressor class it decries.
LBJ.
LBJ was the first "let's make a deal" - "let us reason together" public person, his entire life was built on this. From the days of being a high school coach who became school president who became board president who became schools superintendent, Where there was no better way to enter the representative and elected political system especially in Texas. who super indents become a congressman, and the rest is history. Why president growing up from football coach (more than once)? Because their first job was disciplining students, a job for no weak soul. Who better than the football coach to start up the elected chain of command, One of the things he did was install a powder room directly off of the oval office, so he could invite those he was negotiating with to come into the restroom while he was taking a d!!mp, which made people so uncomfortable (probably kept a few ripe cow patties in a sealed waste container just for this occasion, not that he needed help since he ate texas chili with beans all the time) people like the speaker of the house and head of the appropriations committee) they'd agree to anything.
Not a bad technique. And he always had walking around money in his safe that the CIA would refill every Friday afternoon with $1K bundles, maybe 100K$ in today's money (oh my). Curious how naïve Mr. Nixon was thinking this was ok behavior. LBJ also thought, was absolutely convinced he could apply the same technique that ha always worked for him in international relationships. But it never worked with the North Vietnamese which was his eternal frustration. Though the Asians had and still use trench, slit stoop toilets so that pretty much defanged his best technique. Grandmother remembers all this fondly as the “good ol times” in your country – though old for her is just a couple of days here. And this is the short story about why all your presidents are ex-coaches, who deal with everything from the heart, not head. Which is what used to make your system truly great, until the eggheads took over. you Idiots, as she likes to say.
"It all boils down to individualism versus collectivism. The United State of America was founded on individualistic ideals and values. Things like personal responsibility, personal freedoms, not expecting assistance, the right to say what you want and live your life the way you want... these are all very American concepts. And they're completely antithetical to collectivism and all its intellectual offshoots like socialism, communism, and modern progressivism. Those are all predicated upon expecting help, the idea other people owe you something simply by virtue of your existence. That is the core of all the philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives."
There is no such thing as a democracy or society of one.
In other words, you're entirely wrong. The basis of our representational republic is, in fact, people working in concert to achieve mutually agreed-upon objectives. Our society is designed to protect the civil liberties and legal rights of the individual, yes, but decisions are made by society at large, from the micro (village or town) to the macro (the nation as a whole). A democratic republic is, by definition, the exercise of collective decision-making and action.
Unless one is castaway on an island talking to soccer balls, every endeavor, private or public, involves people working together for a common aim. Or, as has been truly said--and much mocked here by nitwits--"You didn't build that yourself."
"I find this notion that the fasces, the bundle of sticks was used by the fascists in Italy as a symbol of their government. The socialism of both Obama and Hillary is closer to fascism than communism. It extols a sort of corporatist socialism where big companies do the government's bidding, and get special privileges as a result."
You've got it entirely backward: it is government that does the bidding of the big corporations and Wall Street. Rather than we, the people, being sovereign over our government, the wealthy elites have usurped our power. Government acts at the behest of and for the benefit of the oligarchs. Neither Hillary nor Obama are any kind of socialists; as have been the past many presidents, they are vassals to the capitalists. As Calvin Coolidge said, "The business of America is business." As General Smedley Butler said, the military acts as "high class muscle for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers." As a military man, he said he was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."
"The basis of our representational republic is, in fact, people working in concert to achieve mutually agreed-upon objectives."
No, the basis of our Constitutional Republic is, in fact, explicit limitations upon the authority and powers of government, allowing it to achieve some few mutually agreed-upon objectives, while not infringing the rights and liberties of the individual citizenry.
That adherence to this basis has eroded does not change it as the fundamental exceptionalism of the United States.
"No, the basis of our Constitutional Republic is, in fact, explicit limitations upon the authority and powers of government, allowing it to achieve some few mutually agreed-upon objectives, while not infringing the rights and liberties of the individual citizenry."
Strained wordplay does not refute anything I said.
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