Watch this

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Everybody needs to watch this, especially all our politicians. Steve

Reply to
Steve Lusardi

And the main reason to watch it is to remind ourselves that pandering nincompoops like that are still a dangerous force in a democracy, as they were when Tocqueville identified them over 200 years ago.

Fortunately, the rabble isn't raised as easily today as it was then.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

the rabble, the lower classes; the common people: The nobility held the rabble in complete contempt.

Interesting word choice.

Wes

-- We are living in the society that Ayn Rand warned us about in 1957.

Reply to
Wes

On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:50:13 -0600, the infamous "SteveB" scrawled the following:

THAT one is going out to everyone I know.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:15:10 +0100, the infamous "Steve Lusardi" scrawled the following:

topposting corrected

Include the URL on a slip of paper with the teabag when you write to your CONgresscritters.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Fortunately, we've grown beyond the society that Alexis de Tocqueville warned us about in 1831. The tyrannical rabble subsided as people became better educated and less vulnerable to the pandering of demagogues, of which the ridiculous example in this video is almost a parody.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I think the term you wanted to use was "sheep".

Doug White

Reply to
Doug White

You seem to have words to describe everyone else. Which one do you choose for yourself? I have a couple in mind.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

What they don't realize is that they are sheep too, they just don't have the good Shepard. Sheep without a Shepard, free and happy for a while until the wolf gets hungry.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

In other words, you'd rather follow a shepherd around than think for yourself?

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Rabble will do. If you ever read _Democracy in America_ or some of the historical accounts of that period that weren't sanitized and deodorized, you see that Hamilton, Adams, and Tocqueville had good reason to be concerned about the tyranny of the mob.

This character in the video is exactly what they were talking about -- the kind of demagogue who talks fast enough that you can't examine critically what he says, while he gets the mob fired up. If you hit the "pause" button and think about what the guy is saying, you realize it's mostly demagoguery, built on a pile of mush.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Not really fair to Roger's analogy. The role of the Good Shepard is to protect his flock.

Playing devils advocate for a moment...

IS it really possible to do all this for yourself these days?

How would one collect raw data to analyze - for one self?

Wouldn't that require attending every committee and every closed door meeting?

That's not possible.

One thing is for sure in my mind, though.

Our mass media is NOT playing the good shepard.

FWIW

Richard

Reply to
cavelamb

What a load of paranoid Jingoistic bullshit. Has he peen prosecuted for furthering terrorism yet?

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Evidently you guys didn't see the video where some of the Obama supporters were queried regarding their opinions of Obama picking Palin as a running mate. Which bit of demagoguery do you "want" to listen to? A guy who says that a big increase in both the size and budget of the federal government with its attendant increase in debt to be paid for by future generations is the way to solve our economic problems? Or a guy who talks to you about the mechanics that work in your everyday life for controlling your own economic situation? Calling people rabble that don't understand the Keynesian economic model is a bit elitist and quite possibly ignoring the general trend of the past several decades. Even if Obam's trick provides a short term breather, our long term forecast which includes stronger and more invasive government and higher taxes, doesn't look good to me.

Reply to
Stuart Fields

That's not their job, and I think I was being completely fair to Roger's analogy. You'd have to ask him to be sure, to see if he's really a skeptic who evaluates the shepherd's instructions as well and as objectively as he can, and then accepts the parts he finds credible and rejects those he doesn't -- on the basis of his own, independent judgment.

That's not my idea of what a shepherd is. A shepherd directs the flock, and the flock obediently follows. Right?

Do you obediently follow what the media tells you? I hope not. Remember, for several decades, *I* was part of the media. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

It's just commercial exploitation, Mark. He's on the PR staff at Lipton's.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

The only thing retarding our ability to reform our government, is our own inability to WORK TOGETHER to achieve a common goal.

Everyone strives to be different, opinionated, individual, to the exclusion of all else, including and especially our ability to work together. Leaving the door wide open for controlling forces to play divide and conquer.

Probably the biggest flaw in the modern day personality.

Reply to
Tim

None of it. Why would you want to listen to demagoguery?

The first is mainstream economic thought -- you'll find it supported even by the quite conservative _The Economist_. The second part is home economics, which has only a tenuous connection to the way entire economies work in sovereign nations, particularly those with fiat currencies that happen to be the world's reserve currency, in which all of your foreign debts are held.

The rabble is a disorganized group of people who get caught up in mob mentality. Per Webster's:

1: a disorganized or confused collection of things 2 a: a disorganized or disorderly crowd of people : mob b: the lowest class of people

Take a look at the effect upon the national debt of a 1% increase or decrease in GDP per year, extended over ten years. Then consider 2%. You may be surprised if you've not gone through that exercise.

Then consider the consequences of an extended slump, like Japan had through the '90s.

There is virtually no support for doing nothing, except among those who haven't really looked closely at the options.

One more thing: "elite" means the best of a class. "Elitist" is a term adopted by Spiro Agnew and made a staple of Republican politics, as an aid in dividing southern from northern Democrats. It's a bit of demagoguery itself, and so much hot air.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Would you prefer to know what's out there from pictures from the Hubbell telescope or would you prefer to just imagine for yourself? I'd rather know from someone or something that can see.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

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