A warning from The Prince

a major award

A warning from the author of The Prince, (and the King) The Prince “When one considers how much corruption there was in those kings, if two or three successive reigns had continued the same way, and that corruption which was in them had spread to members of the body politic, it would no longer have been possible to reform [Rome].” That was Niccolo Machiavelli, commenting in his Discourses on Livy published in 1517, almost 500 years ago, on what might have happened if the ancient Roman monarchy had not been overthrown by Brutus and a republic established. Although better known for his masterpiece of political violence, The Prince, here in Discourses Machiavelli’s clear preference for republican government and liberty can be found. But, writes Machiavelli, freedom has a prerequisite, and that is virtue — a love of liberty. Lacking this virtue, then, a people become ambivalent to politics and those who wield power. Politics becomes the province of the powerful that participate, and lacking power, is something to otherwise be avoided out of fear. There are those who have access, and then there is everyone else. If such a form of government persists for long, the freedom of the republic as a whole is ultimately lost, and the people themselves are corrupted. Not in the sense that they are accepting bribes — although public forms of subsistence duly enacted can be common in these cases to sweeten the deal of wearing a yoke — but in that inherent inability and unwillingness of the people and their representatives to affect the outcome of public ... [Full] All that article did for me was trigger a feeling of futility about engaging in political discourse.  It will be useless when debating "Progressives" to cite from, say, the The American Colonist's Library when your opponent will rebut by citing Rachel Maddow. A couple of years ago I found what I think is the perfect analogy in Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  So I'll just resubmit. THE KING "Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe names to these shadows. According to Plato's Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality." When one of the chained is released into the real world, he is astounded.  When he goes back to the cave to tell his brethren that everything they've learned from the shadows is false, they would kill him if they could for questioning what they learned in Professor José Ángel Gutiérrez's classroom.

MSNBC All-Stars Decoded

MSNBC All-Stars                                   Where a picture is worth 1000 tears Analogy and Allegory To The Rescue You're Welcome “ Pat Dollard introduced this video of leftists, wrathful over their failure to get Duck Dynasty thrown off the air, as "Typical Black MSNBC Racist Dyson Compares Phil Robertson To Sodomizer ..." Aren't we at the point where any commentary containing the  letters MSNBC in the lede is fair warning of what's coming?  A Mack Sennett silent film, replete with Keystone cops and people dangling from tall buildings?  The Three Stooges poking each other in the eye?  For me, this Michael Eric Dyson (also an MSNBC All-Star) statement is  the money shot of the entire imbroglio. "They have turned this into a matter of free speech;  the irony of that is they don't want more speech to counteract their negative vicious offensive and ..." Beauty. And they are obviously able to see truth in their own bizarre logic.  It was right about here that I thought of another perfect analogy.  Perhaps  the most well known and referenced  clip from Plato's Republic is the Cave Allegory.  It strikes me as the perfect explanation for today's cloistered left.  From Wiki: "Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe names to these shadows. According to Plato's Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality." When one of the chained is released into the real world, he is astounded.  When he goes back to the cave to tell his brethren that everything they've learned from the shadows is false, they would kill him if they could for questioning what they learned in Professor José Ángel Gutiérrez's classroom. ”

SNL

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Did SNL really mock Obamacare? So, a lot of folks are talking about last night’s season premiere of Saturday Night Live and its skit on Obama’s sell of Obamacare.  Many are commenting that it mocks Obamacare.  I’m not sure I really saw it entirely the same way. Check it out for yourself: ( Legal Insurrection) To set the scene for those of you who don’t feel like watching the video, several “regular Americans” are invited to approach the podium as Obama speaks to an audience to try and sell the Affordable Care Act. The first is a woman who gleefully says she is psyched for Obamacare because now she can get sick as much as she wants.  Another is a father who laments that Obama has made sure that his slacker adult son, who has pinched a nerve in a porn-viewing “accident,” will never have to lift a finger to get health insurance, thanks to Obama.  He rushes off exclaiming, “Chris Christie in ’16!” The skit then makes a quick slam on Ted Cruz’s quasi-filibuster, citing Dr. Seuss lines and demanding a government shutdown.  Parody Cruz is escorted off the stage by security as he yells, “Horton may hear a who, but the only thing I’m hearing right now is Socialism!!!” An iPhone customer jumps to the podium to decry that her new phone broke and hasn’t been fixed.  Parody Obama says, “I believe you’re confusing Obamacare with AppleCare,” to which she responds, “either way, happened on your watch.” An ER doctor then complains that if people in this country would just “stop putting stuff up their butts,” we’d save  ....  [Full-Legal Insurrection] I think the people asking the lead question are the very dullards who rely on The Daily Show and SNL for political guidence.

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Jill Abramson - Brain Dead

Answer: Jill Abramson Question—  "What kind of person could possibly be so stupendously stupid as to have thought Barack Obama was a good idea?" “ The executive editor of the New York Times is disputing an accusation of liberal bias made by her very own public editor, Arthur Brisbane. In his final column for the Times, Brisbane wrote that his fellow staffers "share a kind of political and cultural progressivism" that "virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times." Brisbane even argued that Times reporters approached some liberal issues, like gay marriage and the Occupy movement, "more like causes than news subjects." (See also: New York Times public editor: Progressive worldview 'bleeds through' the Times) But Times executive editor Jill Abramson says she disagrees with Brisbane's "sweeping conclusions."  Drudge beat me to it, but this is just too delicious not to have in my archives.  ”