These [welfare] payouts were judged not just on whether they hurt or helped people, but also, in the Greek and Roman sense, of increasing the number of recipients so as to change political realities.
That led to a great deal of "transformation", not all of it in the interest of the polis involved. Political representation on the part of the contributors to the society is generally a good thing. When this is expanded to those who are net beneficiaries in the interest of one party or another maintaining power, what happens is always a net drain on the resources of the community. Given how much surplus is available - Pericles' Athens, the Rome of Diocletian, present-day America - that drain can continue long after it becomes obviously detrimental. It's a dead-end alley and there's no reverse gear.
Taxes are seen now not just as a way to fund expenditures, but as a punitive tool — hence the new phraseology of 1 percent, fat cats, corporate-jet owners, you did not build that, no time to profit, at some point you’ve made enough money, etc. A more equal but poorer America appears to be preferable to a more affluent but less equal nation.
The difficulty is that the ideologues view such taxes as both a source of revenue and a means of social engineering, not appearing to grasp that the two ends are conflicting. An ideologue can, as the progressives do, claim intellectual ownership of both but a practical politician knows that you can't have both.
There is, in addition, the emotionally attractive but deliberately vague concept of "fairness" that absolutely would accept a poorer overall nation in the interest of economic egalitarianism - this is socialism under a thin disguise. It is not sustainable. It has never been sustainable. Societies trying it have deteriorated into overall poverty and increased inequity every time.
An imperial presidency is not new. But rule by executive fiat that escapes audit from the media is.
This is the real release on the brakes that moderate government-mandated "change" in a representative government such as ours, and it is, as we have pointed out frequently on FR, exceedingly dangerous. Here's why:
...a new precedent has been established that the public is supposed to weigh two considerations in assessing scandal: the truth versus the damage that the truth can do to a progressive vision of a fairer America. So far the truth has lost.
That is precisely why the overall media surrender to the progressive political leanings of its current proprietors is a fundamental betrayal. That change, incidentally, is linked to the overemphasis on celebrity that is a function especially but not exclusively of the broadcast media. For these, the notion that the brakes on social change have been released is dizzying and exhilarating just as it is for the riders of an express train but that's a rather unfortunate feeling for a brakeman to have. Somebody needs to exchange responsibility for sensation and so far sensation has won every time.
The chief energy issues for the Obama administration are not national security, not energy independence, not greater competitiveness for American business, not savings for the American consumer, and not jobs. Instead, whether a fuel might heat the atmosphere seems the sole concern.
It's actually a little darker than that. The concern is the degree to which a phony concern over the atmosphere may place power into the hands of the administration promoting it. This isn't about Climate Change, it's about Climate Change as a ruse.
And then there's race.
The result is that race relations have become more polarized than at any other time in the last 30 years.
I'd increase to 100, at least. There has never been this outrageously, openly, shamelessly and aggressively racist an approach to American politics since the Ku Klux Klan night riders were extant. Its perpetrators are overwhelmingly black, liberal, and experienced race baiters who have been honing their skills for half a century. The result is a toxic brew in which people are routinely assaulted, belittled, and degraded on the basis of the color of their skin and the entrusted guardians are deliberately averting their eyes: "Holder's people" and the media sycophants who cover up for them. This is the single most harmful change this administration has put in place and will be a mark of shame for the rest of American history. It is not a question whether violence will result - it already is, and the ideologues think it's a good thing so long as it is directed against the "oppressor" class. They fancy they're in control of that. They're mistaken.
The foreign policy of the 0bama administration is distasteful, counterproductive, poorly conceived, and embarrassing, and nothing more need illustrate this than the two individuals placed at its head: the ridiculously incompetent John Kerry, a fellow with a track record of an open and shameless traitor, and the colossally incompetent Hillary Clinton, a woman with no experience whatever in the field other than an enormous sense of entitlement. Guidance to this clown car full of political hacks is being provided by a junior Senator with no accomplishments in the field whatever who has time and again demonstrated a diplomatic tin ear that has offended our allies and encouraged our enemies. They're being laughed at and they deserve it; meanwhile the ship of state reels with a gang of squabbling children struggling over the helm.
Focusing on a specific issue reveals the sum total of all of these factors. With respect to firearms,
In loudly threatening to enact more gun control after each publicized tragic shooting, the Obama administration has created a climate of fear, which has prompted hoarding, shortages, panic buying, and paranoia, which have accomplished what the federal government could not.
It is not so much that the climate of fear has accomplished anything the government cannot, it's that given the complete lack of responsibility, the ideological arrogance, the insistence on celebrity instead of accomplishment, and the overall laziness of both the political class and its media accomplices, the government is not restricted to its Constitutionally-mandated system of checks and balances but feels free to ignore or discard them. It isn't paranoia on the part of gun owners, it's the clear appreciation of a ruling elite that will work its will by hook or crook and has done so frequently. It's a recognition that the established machinery of regulatory overstep and propaganda that typifies this administration approaches the issue as one of establishing its will over its political opponents by any means necessary. Where those opponents do not exist they will happily create them.
So Hanson's impression of the "change" that has been brought about by a reckless, corrupt, incompetent, and criminal federal government under the current administration. That administration has three more years to (1) solidify these changes into permanent features of the American political scene, and (2) perpetuate its own hold on power. It needs to go, and it can't go quickly enough.
Fate has a way of finding fools and delivering what is deserved.