Quote from: TboneAgain on March 29, 2013, 08:40:20 PM
Damn good point, and you may have opened a BUCKET of worms, but perhaps not in the way you think...

My primary comment on the propaganda cartoon was that it is/was just that -- propaganda. Nightmares about legions of brainwashed Nazi wunderkinder are just that -- nightmares. Those legions didn't in fact materialize simply because there was not time for it to happen, no matter how hard Hitler and Co. tried.

Yes, twelve years (or even less) of one-party rule can be devastating, and I agree that the Kenyan's time has done harm that will take perhaps a generation to measure. But I don't lay the blame at his doorstep completely, nor even at his party's threshold. In the United States, the kind of scary indoctrination depicted has been happening for generations now, going back at least to the 1960s, and dating back perhaps to FDR, perhaps even back to Wilson.

Technically, the US has not recently undergone one-party rule for a twelve-year stretch -- but that is true only if you consider nothing but the presidency and the legislature. Consider that 95% or more of the government apparatus in this country is neither executive, legislative, nor judicial. It is administrative. Right from the local level all the way to the top, the elected -- those responsible to voters -- are the few, and the career administrative types, who never stand for election, are the many.

When you go to the BMV to renew your car/truck registration or your driver's license, for instance, every person you see behind the counter is a part of the government, a civil servant receiving a government paycheck and government benefits. But NO ONE you see behind the counter is an elected or appointed official. The IRS can audit your tax return every year until you die, and hound you out of your house and take every dime you ever had, and from start to finish, you will never once speak to an elected or appointed office-holder. It's the exact same story at the Social Security office, the Child Support Enforcement Agency, the local EPA office, the Fish & Wildlife outpost, the TSA gauntlet at the airport, and on and on. At every level, the government is up your ass every day you draw breath, and yet your chances of encountering somebody you actually voted for are mighty slim.

We are chest-deep in a tide of bureaucrat rule. Republicans and Democrats come and go, and sometimes really bad actors (the Kenyan, for example) hog center stage. But the bureaucrats outlast them, outlive them, and inexorably overrule them. The career bureaucrat class is the true bane of this nation.

See? Worms! 

No T, the cartoon is real, there is no propaganda whatsoever.
Nothing like stating the obvious, there ma friend....
Like I said, it only takes one generation to destroy a country, and 12 years is a good start, and in our case after 8, they're more than halfway towards their goal, and that's not propaganda, that's blatantly obvious to the casual observer.

Quote from: Mountainshield on March 30, 2013, 03:51:04 AM
This is the biggest problem in Norway as well.

After the occupational government party "Nasjonal Samling (National Coalition)" under Quisling was defeated we had the Workers Party rule for over 70 years. Only two brief periods of Conservative party in government.

Like you said
The Socialist know this.

Before the state structure in Norway was based on "embetsmannstaten" this state structure was based on professional state bureucracy on which Max Weber built his theory on bureaucracy. This is where the statesmen were required to be scientific, impartial too politics, follow rules and regulation and never make decision based on personal preference.

In the 1950's the Socialist Workers Party met resistance too radical policy changes from these bureaucrats so they changed the state structure from "embetsmannstaten" (statesman system) too "redskapsbyråkratiet" (State tool Bureaucracy) and in this new system is designed to implement new regulations, instead of enforce old traditional regulations. The Worker Party in power fired all the workers from the traditional government who was mainly highly educated lawyers, and changed them with low educated party members. "Redskapsbyråkratiet" or state tool bureaucracy is based on the individuals in the employment of the state instead of proffessional knowledge or education of the individual. For example before it was lawyers who decides cases, now it is party members of socialist worker party, socialist left who base their decision on their personal political preference. This is too make new left regulation enforced quicker and without real rule of law. So they filled the entire state with their own party members, just like the nazis did in 1933.

I think this is what has happened in the US as well, but instead of gov directly placing socialist in state structure, socialist has been infiltrating the state for over 50 years now.

Good stuff, MS! But if I were to judge, socialism has been "infiltrating" the US for well over a hundred years, and most especially since Woodrow Wilson, who considered himself an "administrator" above all else, sat in the White House.

The US Constitution was designed above all to protect the states and the people from the assumption of power by a single person or a tight group, such as a legislature. It recognized three -- only three -- legitimate branches of government of a free people: legislative, executive, and judicial. The founders artfully interwove the three established branches in such a way that each could have limited, defined control over the effects of the other two on its mission.

What the founders almost missed -- they talked about it a little, but not nearly enough -- was the rise of Wilsonian administrative or bureaucratic government. It is not coincidence that Wilson presided over two things that made that sort of government possible and actually inevitable -- the formation of the Federal Reserve, and most especially the institution of the federal income tax, which so defied the intentions of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution that it required a constitutional amendment to be legal. The Fed laid the groundwork for the establishment of unbacked paper money to become the standard of trade, a gateway for the national government to literally tax the people silently, simply by turning on the printing presses. Within twenty years, the presses were humming right along. The second, the federal income tax, a capitation tax, flew in the face of everything the founders believed in, and has since funded every and any bizarre misuse of public funds you might imagine. The two combined have made possible the bureaucratic or administrative state in this country.

The largest employer today in the United States -- the recognized leader of the free world, the world-champion powerhouse of capitalism, the seedbed of General Electric and General Motors and Ford and Archer Daniels Midland and Walmart and Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft and Intel -- is the US federal government. The US Postal Service alone, an entity that is supposed to be some sort of "government corporation" that pays its own way, employs 546,000 career (full-time) workers, and thousands more temporary and part-timers, while it loses (and soaks taxpayers for) billions of dollars every year. The Postal Service has lost money for decades, and every reasonable projection concludes that it will not likely turn a profit, or even pay its own bills, in the foreseeable future, if ever.

If you want to see examples of administrative/bureaucratic government gone completely wild -- as it does from time to time -- check out some of the more interesting cities near LA. Bell is a good one! Even better, I think, is Vernon, a "city" with 112 residents as of the 2010 census that generates roughly $250 million in revenues per year, which those folks have struggled mightily to distribute among themselves, to the tune of more that $1.6 million annually in one case. The elder mayor of Vernon retired in 2005, after more than 50 years in the position, on a paltry $506,000 yearly pension. While he was in office, his annual take often exceeded $800,000. They didn't do elections much.

Quote from: Solar on March 30, 2013, 07:01:34 AM
No T, the cartoon is real, there is no propaganda whatsoever.
Nothing like stating the obvious, there ma friend....
Like I said, it only takes one generation to destroy a country, and 12 years is a good start, and in our case after 8, they're more than halfway towards their goal, and that's not propaganda, that's blatantly obvious to the casual observer.

Seventy years ago when it was made, the cartoon was propaganda -- bullshit writ large, big lies told loudly and in a way to encourage cheerleaders. In this country at that time the seeds planted by TR and Wilson had not yet borne fruit, though they were being tended vigorously by FDR and his pals. It would be another twenty years -- those miserable LBJ years -- before the real damage became apparent.

Think about this succession.... FDR, HST, DDE, JFK, LBJ. That's 36 consecutive years (1933-1969) of big-government executive branch policy, most of it watched over by a Democrat in the White House. Yeah, Ike was a Republican -- and so is John McCain and so was Bob Dole. And even after LBJ was hounded out of office, we got Dick Nixon and the USEPA, with Watergate thrown in to destroy the party and the public's take on conservatives in general.

Ike was no politician and was in fact wooed by both parties to run for the highest office in the land. His landmark achievement while in office -- the Interstate Highway system -- was a breathtaking end-around play to bypass the Constitution. Since separate states could -- and did -- negotiate with one another to assure that highways didn't just end abruptly at a border, Congress couldn't find a way to sneak the interstates in under the blanket of regulating interstate commerce. But Ike helped them see that they could justify it by claiming that it served the defense of the nation, partly by modifying plans and standards for the roadways to accommodate the road-borne tank and missile carriers of the day. (Contrary to what you'll hear in truck stops, THAT is where the original overpass height regulations came from.)

Consider too that over that same period of time, 1933-1969, Democrats held both houses of Congress for all but four years. Pubs held the reins for a brief two years during the latter half of Truman's pre-election term, and for a similar short time in the first half of Ike's first term. In other words, for 36 years the Democrats called the shots -- and I'm talking FDR Dems.

Finally, consider that Democrat dominance of Congress was not only near complete for those 36 years, but held for twelve MORE years after LBJ departed, all the way through Nixon/Ford and Carter. For nearly half a century, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and Pubs held the White House for only 16 of the 36 years -- with weak (RINO) examples, every single one -- Ike, Nixon, Ford.

By the time Reagan was elected (finally!) and a Republican-dominated Congress seated in 1981, the damage had already been done, the seeds had already bloomed and taken firm root, and the rise of administrative/bureaucratic government-at-large was assured.

Quote from: TboneAgain on March 31, 2013, 04:01:36 PM
Seventy years ago when it was made, the cartoon was propaganda -- bullshit writ large, big lies told loudly and in a way to encourage cheerleaders. In this country at that time the seeds planted by TR and Wilson had not yet borne fruit, though they were being tended vigorously by FDR and his pals. It would be another twenty years -- those miserable LBJ years -- before the real damage became apparent.

Think about this succession.... FDR, HST, DDE, JFK, LBJ. That's 36 consecutive years (1933-1969) of big-government executive branch policy, most of it watched over by a Democrat in the White House. Yeah, Ike was a Republican -- and so is John McCain and so was Bob Dole. And even after LBJ was hounded out of office, we got Dick Nixon and the USEPA, with Watergate thrown in to destroy the party and the public's take on conservatives in general.

Ike was no politician and was in fact wooed by both parties to run for the highest office in the land. His landmark achievement while in office -- the Interstate Highway system -- was a breathtaking end-around play to bypass the Constitution. Since separate states could -- and did -- negotiate with one another to assure that highways didn't just end abruptly at a border, Congress couldn't find a way to sneak the interstates in under the blanket of regulating interstate commerce. But Ike helped them see that they could justify it by claiming that it served the defense of the nation, partly by modifying plans and standards for the roadways to accommodate the road-borne tank and missile carriers of the day. (Contrary to what you'll hear in truck stops, THAT is where the original overpass height regulations came from.)

Consider too that over that same period of time, 1933-1969, Democrats held both houses of Congress for all but four years. Pubs held the reins for a brief two years during the latter half of Truman's pre-election term, and for a similar short time in the first half of Ike's first term. In other words, for 36 years the Democrats called the shots -- and I'm talking FDR Dems.

Finally, consider that Democrat dominance of Congress was not only near complete for those 36 years, but held for twelve MORE years after LBJ departed, all the way through Nixon/Ford and Carter. For nearly half a century, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and Pubs held the White House for only 16 of the 36 years -- with weak (RINO) examples, every single one -- Ike, Nixon, Ford.

By the time Reagan was elected (finally!) and a Republican-dominated Congress seated in 1981, the damage had already been done, the seeds had already bloomed and taken firm root, and the rise of administrative/bureaucratic government-at-large was assured.

There is no doubt the past 100 years have gotten us to the point that the people are virtually removed from the equation and led to a Husein Marxist gaining power through corruption, but in his first term, he has moved us further than the last 100 years in total to becoming a socialist Nation, and it's the generation of brainwashed idiots that put him there along with corruption.

Granted, it was accomplished by the building blocks put in place by his predecessors, but it's at the speed at which the left were able to move that made it possible.
We can only hope that the generation that put him in power will recognize the mistake they've made and reverse the direction were in, if not, I guarantee, the great American dream is over.

Quote from: Solar on March 31, 2013, 04:41:59 PM
There is no doubt the past 100 years have gotten us to the point that the people are virtually removed from the equation and led to a Husein Marxist gaining power through corruption, but in his first term, he has moved us further than the last 100 years in total to becoming a socialist Nation, and it's the generation of brainwashed idiots that put him there along with corruption.

Granted, it was accomplished by the building blocks put in place by his predecessors, but it's at the speed at which the left were able to move that made it possible.
We can only hope that the generation that put him in power will recognize the mistake they've made and reverse the direction were in, if not, I guarantee, the great American dream is over.

We're singin' the same tune, bro. I'm not sure that the Kenyan has been quite as effective as you allege in his first four years... but how effective do you have to be to touch the teetering bus and send it over the cliff?

Remember that scene late in "True Lies" where the terrorists manage to bring the van to a stop in front of the hole blown in the bridge, front wheels hanging over the abyss, the van rocking in the breeze. And the two terrorists look at one another and smile and start laughing, thinking they had cheated certain death.... and then along comes a (seagull? pelican? some kind of bird...) that lands on the front of the van....  and over it goes.

Barack Livingston Seagull.