[redgolum]

The only problem with the non elites calling for a revolution is history. That doesn’t happen that often. More often than not revolutions and civil wars happen when one group of the ruling class squares off against another. That is what the American and French revolutions where, and pretty much all of them.

The Russian revolution was also a similar case, but it was elites outside of Russia funding Lenin with support and cash.

[Salem]

This is an off-topic ping to my list, and other friends, new and old. I just finished reading this at the American Spectator site, from a link at American Thinker. Glad to see it posted at Free Republic no less than four times in the last few days.

That is because, clearly, it is an important paper. It explains a lot - A LOT - of what has happened over the last ten years, and certainly why support for the status quo GOP by us, "the Country" class, evaporated under Bush, especially near the Administration's end.

Take the time to read it. Everyone's personal conclusions for solutions to this can only better you, your sphere of influence, and America. Excellent!

[airborne]

This is the article Rush was talking about today.

It’s something like 16 pages long, but Rush said it was a good read.

Thanks for posting it!

[BnBlFlag]

A great article and sadly, true.

[JDoutrider]

MARKER

[cranked]

[TaxPayer2000]

BTTT

[STE=Q]

Great article...

Pure gold!

Explains the geneses and modus operandi of the arrogant cockroaches (not to insult cockroaches)that presume to rule over us, but whom deserve no more respect than a common thief.

They are even worse than thieves as they rob “the people” under color of authority.

As the article makes clear, these worms are day by day LESS and LESS accountable to the people, and we the people are, day by day, MORE and MORE accountable to THEM!

They have turned our representative Republic on it’s head.

Our “public servants” have become our public masters.

The longer this goes on the more of our freedoms are being lost — mostly through attrition.

“life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is not congruent to being a slave of the state.

These rights are either inalienable and God given or they are not.

If these rights are God given, under what authority — save a self appointed false authority — do these tyrants presume to deprive us of same?

Therefore, these so called “leaders” are no more than political outlaws.

They need to be either removed from office or put behind bars!

STE=Q

[Albion Wilde]

I read the entire excellent article. Bumping for later reading of the comments.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Suppose that the Country Party (whatever its name might be) were to capture Congress, the presidency, and most statehouses. What then would it do? Especially if its majority were slim, it would be tempted to follow the Democrats' plan of 2009-2010, namely to write its wish list of reforms into law regardless of the Constitution and enact them by partisan majorities supported by interest groups that gain from them, while continuing to vilify the other side. Whatever effect this might have, it surely would not be to make America safe for self-governance because by carrying out its own "revolution from above" to reverse the ruling class's previous "revolution from above," it would have made that ruinous practice standard in America. Moreover, a revolution designed at party headquarters would be antithetical to the country class's diversity as well as to the American Founders' legacy.

Achieving the country class's inherently revolutionary objectives in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with its own diversity would require the Country Party to use legislation primarily as a tool to remove obstacles, to instruct, to reintroduce into American life ways and habits that had been cast aside. Passing national legislation is easier than getting people to take up the responsibilities of citizens, fathers, and entrepreneurs.

The Ruling Class really traces, IMHO, to the Progressive Era. And the Progressive Era happens to correspond to the full flowering of Newswire Journalism - of "the press" as a superior class rather than, as the First Amendment intends, as a right of the people. That is why the first objective in the battle to overturn the Ruling Class must, IMHO, be to delegitimate the absurd pretensions of journalists to objectivity, which is actually code for wisdom. It is sophistry, and must be combated by philosophers - in the original meaning of the term, which means that claims of wisdom are not logical arguments and must be rejected by anyone who attempts actual understanding.

The Progressive Era produced not only legislation but Constitutional Amendments, and a counterrevolution would not succeed unless it is able to do the same. It's often claimed that amending the Constitution is hard. And it is, if done through the normal route in Congress. It would be easier, IMHO, to do it via convention - because in convention, each state has a single vote and therefore the advantage the Ruling Class has had dominating the sheeple in the big coastal states would be diluted.

And it must be remembered that although a supermajority of states is required, in any given state only a simple majority is required to pass an amendment. Which means that, in principle (given perfect gerrymandering), you would need only 51% of the vote in the least populous 3/4 of the states to ratify an amendment. And, given perfect gerrymandering within each state, it only takes 51% of the vote in 51% of the legislative districts within each state to OK an amendment. At least in principle.

And although the Constitution derives its authority from its relatively constant nature, correcting imbalances in our system via constitutional amendment is actually the conservative approach. Because changes are otherwise made by extraconstitutional means, principally judicial activism. And that gets to the nub of the matter - how to adjust the Constitution so as to make judicial activism more difficult and less accepted? I would fix the number of SCOTUS justices by constitutional provision at 11 to preclude court packing. I would propose that justices of SCOTUS be elected as running mates of the POTUS, requiring presidential candidates to stand before the people and defend their choices. I would have two SCOTUS nominees per presidential candidate, and I would have the states rank the sitting members of SCOTUS every four years. And the lowest ranked justices would be "voted off the island" to maintain the number of justices at the fixed value of eleven. In that way the justices of SCOTUS would be determined by the people in the first instance, and by the states in the second (although in reality the states, rather than the people, determine the PotUS).

[Alberta's Child]

Bump for later.

[x]

The problem is that elites of one sort or another always rule.

People who have the experience or knowledge or will or cunning or ruthlessness or energy or information always come out on top of those who don't.

Overturn one elite with a mass movement and when the dust clears what you've got is another ruling elite in charge.

Current elites learn from the mistakes of past elites. They try to avoid the policies and attitudes that were the undoing of their predecessors.

Yet in a deeper sense, the new elite doesn't entirely escape the arrogance and complacency of the earlier elite it displaced.

Over time the new rulers come to resemble what they rebelled against.

James Burnham's The Machiavellians deals with this dilemma.

[x]

Interesting Ross Douthat column on a related topic:

...

Last year, two Princeton sociologists, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford, published a book-length study of admissions and affirmative action at eight highly selective colleges and universities. Unsurprisingly, they found that the admissions process seemed to favor black and Hispanic applicants, while whites and Asians needed higher grades and SAT scores to get in. But what was striking, as Russell K. Nieli pointed out last week on the conservative Web site Minding the Campus, was which whites were most disadvantaged by the process: the downscale, the rural and the working-class.

This was particularly pronounced among the private colleges in the study. For minority applicants, the lower a family’s socioeconomic position, the more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualifications.

This may be a money-saving tactic. In a footnote, Espenshade and Radford suggest that these institutions, conscious of their mandate to be multiethnic, may reserve their financial aid dollars “for students who will help them look good on their numbers of minority students,” leaving little room to admit financially strapped whites.

But cultural biases seem to be at work as well. Nieli highlights one of the study’s more remarkable findings: while most extracurricular activities increase your odds of admission to an elite school, holding a leadership role or winning awards in organizations like high school R.O.T.C., 4-H clubs and Future Farmers of America actually works against your chances. Consciously or unconsciously, the gatekeepers of elite education seem to incline against candidates who seem too stereotypically rural or right-wing or “Red America.”

This provides statistical confirmation for what alumni of highly selective universities already know. The most underrepresented groups on elite campuses often aren’t racial minorities; they’re working-class whites (and white Christians in particular) from conservative states and regions. Inevitably, the same underrepresentation persists in the elite professional ranks these campuses feed into: in law and philanthropy, finance and academia, the media and the arts.

....

[Albion Wilde]

Another bump

[skinkinthegrass]

A Kentucky Ping.

...for those interested and who may have missed it. :D

[gonzo]

Excellent! Thanks for posting this! ............................ FRegards

[Blaine Fabin]

This is a MUST read!

[spodefly]

Bump for an important, comprehensive, and clearly written article offering insight into the scum that presumes to “rule” us.

Lock and load. The time is at hand.

[antisocial]

Bump

[Jim W N]

bttt