Posted on 09/09/2009 12:51:06 PM PDT by Lou Budvis
Of course, we know who those "reasonably enlightened group" is. I'm shocked Friedman didn't come up with this argument under Bush I or II, or Reagan?
I’ve always said, scratch a liberal and you’ll find a fascist.
Yep, I'm inclined to agree.
An efficient government scares the hell out of me.
“Bushitler” was just clever wordplay. The contrast with the serious, unapologetic, in-your-face fascism advocated by the author of this article is stark.
I doubt the author had any problem with calling Dubya “Bushitler.” But then, why should he have? He wants the POTUS to be der Fuhrer.
My brother was once complaining about government waste.
I said “would you like to see what power the government could exercise if it effectively and efficiently spent a trillion dollars a year rather than wasting most of it?”
Never heard anything about government waste from him again.
The fact that FRIEDman even has a job, and was given a Nobel, no less; speaks volums about the state of the World. I am amazed at their sheer level of willful ignorance to evil.
Well! ..why didn’t little Tommie tell us this while George Bush was President?
An absolutely dramatic series of pictures, that is, subsequent ones showing the gory aftermath of what is reminiscent of a military picnic in the background.
Tibet, IIRC.
Friedman’s tone is reminiscent of period pieces from the 1930’s extolling the virtues of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
But, he may as well kowtow, when the Chinese have us by our financial short hairs, there’s precious little public bleating even about the recent riots and massacres in Xinjiang.
And I bet Tom has even met and empathized with the Dalai Lama.
I figure, though, that you could cut 1/3 (more?) of government, and no one would ever know the difference. Really, how many "Third Assistant Secretaries to the Vice-Deputy Czar of the Interior" do we need?
Unfortunately, the system is such that cuts would be teachers (not useless admins)....police+fire (not useless bureaucrats) and so on.
I wonder if he felt that way when Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress?
Anyone who thinks the Neocoms are going to be benevolent and enlightened hasn’t been paying attention. The kooks may want 0bama for their Dear Leader, but they will not like it when they see what it brings for the 21st Century.
Yeah, how many of its own citizens have the Chi-coms killed? Like, 65 million? Small potatoes compared to all the “social justice” and manufacturing power they’ve been able to deliver.
> The former is a lie and the latter a fairy tale.
There would be a good technical reason for that: neither are possible, particularly if you are a follower of Machiavelli.
In “The Prince” our friend Niccolo outlines the skills that would be necessary to run what amounts to a Dictatorship. Benevolence is not one of those skills: in fact, it could get the dictator killed dead. It is better to be feared than to be loved.
In “The Republic” he describes his vision on how a Republic should work. Public participation and debate cause internal conflicts that strengthen the Republic and provide checks against abuse of power: these are hardly efficient, by necessity. The Republic is the anti-Medici anti-Dictatorship. Dictatorships are efficient: Republics are not.
“a dynamic multi-party system, where each political party stands for a set of specific ideas and principles”
I don’t know about that. Didn’t work for the Weimar Republic.
> and a dynamic multi-party system, where each political party stands for a set of specific ideas and principles, and not as our two parties (or more precisely one and a half) for goodness and mom’s apple pie.
That’s a fairly good description of the MMP system that the Allies put in place in post-war West Germany, and has been in place in New Zealand since the mid-1990’s.
It tends to encourage reasonably-stable coalition governments, and affords the minor parties an amount of power disproportionate to their size, as they tend to be kingmakers.
Accordingly, thinking voters tend to give their Party Vote to the minority party whose specific niche platforms they like, and their Electorate Vote to the local representative of the Party they want to see as forming the Government.
I actually like it: it grows on you after a few elections.
Friedman is just another Free-Trader Anti-American Liberal Globalist (FLAG)....and the scary part of Friedman is so many neo-cons and nearly-coms agree with him.
Some of the comments from his article have even been mentioned, indirectly, by some of the Free-Trade supporters her on FR...especially the praise for Communist China
I bet 000bama and Friedman really dig those slick uniforms the ChiComms are wearing.....
Prayers are not out of order at times like these.
That’s an incredible pic you got there. I wonder if Obama will hang that in the White House when he flies the PRC flag on Sept. 20 to commemorate their 60th birthday?
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