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Great insight, and it's what a number of people have pointed out about the situation in Honduras. The thing that keeps a democracy from becoming a mobocracy is the rule of law, that is, the constitution and its implementation in validly passed laws and the institutions (legislature and courts) established by it, as well as a strong private or non-governmental presence (the Church, for example).
Obviously, Barry finds this very threatening. That is why he rushed to support a would-be dictator who was trying to stage an illegal and unconstitutional "election," claiming it was "democracy," and violating all the constitutional and legal structures of the nation.
Barry knows that this is the one thing in the US that could keep him from seizing full powers and permanently destroying us, and he doesn't want us to see the example of Honduras fighting back and winning.
Poor Honduras, he will probably crush it; and we should all see this as an example of what he plans to do to us and our institutions.
Mark Steyn is amazing. He is a wordsmith of great skill, and his points are soaring and well-expressed.
“I would like to imagine with what new traits despotism could be produced in the world... I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls....
"Over these is elevated an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle. It would resemble the paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood … it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs…
"The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform—through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way… it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own … it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
Brilliant!
BM
But some of us just want to live our lives without the intrusion of myriad layers of state despotism.
Where do we go ?
Alaska ? Chile ? Canada? India ?
“Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they
keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the
memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the
path to destruction.”
Thomas Jefferson (on the free market/private property system they tried to leave us and the incredible wealth they knew it would allow us to produce and what MIGHT happen to us as a result. The familiar vernacular expression today is “Fat, dumb and happy.”)
A pantalooned emissary might come prancing into your dooryard once every half-decade and give you a hard time . . . .
I think I'd enjoy the vacation first and THEN read the book.
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Great to read something from an educated man....not the average dribble from the clowns in the MSM...
Going on "The List".
As to Steyn's article, what a bit of prose. More than ample hooks for further comment, makes it hard to choose but I shall. The commentary about Montesquiue, Rousseau, and Tocqueville's writings made me wonder if even the teachers in Ty’Sheoma Bethea's high school had ever heard or read of these Enlightenment Age thinkers. Somehow, I just seriously doubt it. That is what makes the caller to Levin's show believe in the "inevitability" of the exhaustion of the republic.
I did note that Steyn retains some optimism but also understands that "inevitability" might be where the smart money would go.
ping for later
I fear the caller is correct.
Big bump
Ping to a poignant Steyn piece.
As America's downward spiral intensifies, I find myself less able to tolerate the company of sheep and more difficult to maintain even a facade of civility toward them.
It's like being trapped in a lifeboat with madmen hacking away at the hull.