Posted on 08/02/2011 1:10:20 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll
Hush puppies and the Tea Party.
The Republican run House of Representatives passed a debt limit plan last night 269-161. With Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords returning from death's door to cast a yes vote. Good for her.
You always think of these things together, right?
No? Well, you should.
Hush puppies, for those coming in late, were once the casual shoe of choice in the late 1950s. By the 1990s they were pretty much vanished, disappeared to the fashion twilight zone along with tri-corner hats and powdered white wigs for men. They sold somewhere in the neighborhood of a pathetic 30,000 pairs a year, usually out of small family-run shoe stores in the small towns of off-the-beaten path America. The company that made them -- Wolverine -- was on the verge of giving up with the once iconic shoe from the Eisenhower-era that was, in 1950s beatnik lingo, "nowheresville" by the time of Bill and Hillary.
And then something peculiar happened. Something very much like what has been happening in the House of Representatives the last several days.
Out of the blue, hush puppies were becoming hip in the hippest clubs and bars of Clinton-era Manhattan. Impatient customers began scouting those small town shoe stores and scooping up the remaining supply. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
One of the comments to the article likely provides the explanation: the author "got lucky" last night.
I disagree.
Liberalism is is nothing but the ideology of the retreat of post-Reformation Western Civilization. Its function is to provide an ideological structure to comfort those who have lost their faith as no longer wish to pursue the Christian civilizing goals of reahing a more advanced stage of cultural and moral and political development started by our forefathers. When we get to a point where our existence is threatened, and the decisive moment to advance instead of retreat comes, deprived of its primary function, this liberalism, this illogical and incoherent philosophy will fall away. There are signs that liberalism has already started to crack and fade.
This is the article from Jeffery Lord, Hannity was talking about.
BTTT! Try the editorial sidebar in News/Activism next time. It has a great chronology from Taft’s opposition to the New Deal to the Tea Party movement holding the line on no new taxes in the budget deal.
Well put.
But can we be sure what ideas will form the vanguard of the advance?
No, we can’t. I can only say that I think the new paradigm will be based on the last true advance, where the new ideas were based on respect for individual rights as opposed to group rights. Perhaps new Lockes, Hobbes, Jeffersons, Smiths will emerge, but I do think the malign influence of current generations now in charge, i.e. the Roosevelt generation and post WWII baby boom generation, will have to pass on, and things may have to get rough before Western Civ takes the next advance.
Technological progress seems to be in the drivers seat. Political and moral philosophy are struggling to keep up.
After decades of censorship of the ideas of liberty upon which our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were based, the so-called "progressives" thought they had dumbed down enough rising citizens to complete their "transformation" of America.
Technology has outwitted them, and the new media makes it impossible for them to shield "the People" from the ideas (weapons) which are available for preserving liberty.
The Founders spoke of the role of "Divine Providence" in the events surrounding 1776 and 1787. Perhaps that "Providence" is not quite ready for the light of liberty which has called the oppressed to America's shores for over 200 years to be extinguished by those who wish to purchase their own power by misleading the fellow citizens in order to enslave them.
“Thanks to the Tea Party movement, Conservatism is on the verge of a major victory that dwarfs the technical and actual realities of whatever the details of the resulting deficit deal passed last night. Yes, there is a long, long way to go. But the idea that America doesn’t, in fact, have to be governed for eternity as a debtor nation with a mammoth, out-of-control, ever-expanding government is winning the day.”
We’ll have to win the Presidency and Senate for that to happen.
Then we will have to go out and win it.
I love liberty, too, and am not ready for the light of liberty to be extinguished.
Fregards,
3/M
They already have!
“The “technological progress” you speak of has enabled today’s citizens to read for themselves the writings and speeches of America’s Founders. Many of those citizens have become what is referred to as “TEA partiers.””
That’s only if they think for themselves. I think so many people today who have gone through the public education system never learned critical thinking skills and just follow the pack. I’ve had some discussions with people from both sides of the political divide where I’ve presented a clear and non-complex intellectual argument on one issue or another and their eyes just glaze over. I was especially disappointed by a conservative I was talking with who told me that its ok to have a difference of “opinion” but when it came down to it that I was no longer considered a member of “the group.” I had the text of a bill right there and a clear cause and effect scenario, and she didn’t even look at it.
Things can only change if they’re allowed to change, and people care to hear the truth. Until that happens, I don’t see any real possibility for things to be much different than they are.
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