Source: Donkey Hotey (cc/atrib)
“If you close your eyes and think of England when you have sex with someone, you do not enjoy it, but do it because you think you should. Just close your eyes and think of England. He’ll never notice.”
It’s an old British joke, geared towards Victorian-era women who had to pretend they liked having sex with their husbands, whether they wanted to or not. What choice did they have? Back then, laws and social customs dictated that women could only enjoy survival and comfort by riding on a man.
It seems appropriate to invoke such a joke when Hillary Clinton, who rode to a position she never otherwise would have had without her husband, begins another run for the presidency. Or more accurately: accepts coronation for the position to which she feels duly entitled, and which took eight years too long.
How lucky for us.
Her nomination is virtually assured. Everyone knows she broke the law with regard to her U.S. State Department emails, publicly destroyed the evidence, got away with it, and won’t ever answer for it. Indeed, nobody expected otherwise. That’s the most interesting part.
It’s business as usual for a Clinton, and business as usual for any Democratic presidential candidate whose words (if not all her actions) square with the conventional view that the purpose of government is to serve others, on the backs of those who actually produce. Hollywood and other rich celebrities will cheer her on, just as they cheer on every progressive socialist redistributionist who runs for national office, because it makes them feel good about themselves and the way they feel they appear in front of others. Beyond that, it means absolutely nothing, except an economy that will continue to be stifled and a sense of liberty buried in the history books that today’s government-reared children will never be permitted to discover.
Clinton’s election seems kind of assured. I base this on Obama’s 2012 reelection victory. If Obama could win reelection in spite of a bad economy, then the continuing deterioration of liberty, individual rights, property rights and American military security should not be a major inhibition to victory. Granted, if anyone could blow it, she certainly could, but she will play the female card, perhaps as effectively as Obama supporters played the race card. Victimology, even if one has never personally been a victim of anything, plays very well with a majority of American voters these days, and socialism is the ideology of those who feel they are victims.
Democratic voters have tasted socialist utopia under Obama, but they’re not quite there yet. Socialist utopia is so elusive, so never-quite reachable, and it’s always somebody else’s fault. That’s why socialists always need a new hero to save the day, even when it’s the socialists who have been in charge of almost everything. Hillary is a reminder that there are limits to how far we can push towards such an imaginary utopia, without going over the cliff. It’s somebody else’s fault, and given her chronically resentful, vaguely hostile persona, she’s well poised to fill the role of victimologist-in-chief for a troubled republic.
“It would do her well electorally to be firmly on the side of average working people who are working harder than ever and still not getting ahead,” said economist Robert Reich, a former labor secretary during the Clinton administration who has known Hillary Clinton for nearly five decades.
Reich, like other democratic socialists, defines being on the “side” of average working people as being on the side of the expansive, ever-spending federal government. Hasn’t Obama delivered? If not, as Reich implies, then what remains to change under Hillary Clinton? How will Hillary take us even further in the socialist direction? How is that even possible — absent a literal and immediate takeover of all private property upon entering office, turning us into some version of a communist or fascist state?
Obama effectively nationalized medicine, nationalized part of the car industry, and regulated mortgage lending to the point where it’s mostly a federal activity. He used executive power to turn the Internet into a public utility, legalized illegal immigrants overnight and handed uranium enrichment to Israel’s and America’s most potentially dangerous enemy. He has also set 9/11 terrorists free and repeatedly told the world America is to blame for most of the world’s troubles and we’re very, very sorry. All this, and as Obama reminds us daily (in action more than words), he’s not done yet.
What else do these progressive socialist Democrats want?
Clinton, reports AFP.com and Newsmax.com, will face pressure from the progressive wing of her party to adopt a more populist economic message focused on income inequality. Some liberals remain skeptical of Clinton’s close ties to Wall Street donors and the “centrist” economic policies of her husband’s administration. They have urged her to back tougher financial regulations and tax increases on the wealthy.
There’s the rub. Progressives like Hillary Clinton crave power. It’s far more psychological (and psychopathological) than ideological. They cannot gain and maintain power without money. If they nationalized everything outright, this would sit well with the ideological socialist wing of the Democratic Party. But then we’d turn into a banana republic overnight.
In short, there would be no billionaires to loot if we completely got rid of for-profit capitalism, so politicians like her settle for legalized extortion instead, which consists of rewarding those billionaires who do her bidding while punishing those who don’t.
Some call this crony capitalism, but the proper phrase is crony socialism, or crony fascism, if you prefer. That’s all Hillary Clinton is: a crony socialist. The fact that she may be the first woman to serve in that role as president does not alter the lack of dignity, or lack of originality, in the distinction.
If progressives like Robert Reich and Hillary Clinton cared a whit about average working people, they’d resolve to release America from the yoke of regulation and taxation that has stifled our economy as never before. They’d recognize that the only hope for any civilization are the brains of the best and the brightest, left free to produce and make profits and create jobs, raising the standard of living for all in the process. They would shout “limited government” from the highest rooftops, for the sake of the working people, because they’d recognize that the only value that comes about in any society are from those who actually can produce. And those who produce are not to be found in government.
For decades now, people like the Clintons have told us that we have to “strike a balance” between capitalism/freedom and socialism/redistribution. Obama (along with mostly meek, compliant Republicans) helped make sure that the balance went overwhelmingly in favor of socialism and redistribution. So what’s left for Hillary to do?
Hillary presents an unimaginative and lethargic anti-charisma through clenched teeth. Yet she’s the only path to retaining power that these socialists — victims of their own success in making most of America dependent on the government — now have. When it comes time to vote, Democrats (and millions of others) will shut their eyes and think of England, not because Hillary has the most money, but because there’s nothing left to socialize or nationalize. Hillary has no ideological agenda, because it has largely been fulfilled. All that remains is power … and it’s her turn, damn it.
Real change will only come when and if Americans start electing leaders to take us in the completely opposite direction. America needs a new revolution: the kind where hacks like Hillary Clinton would never stand a chance.
