Mencken was right

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I thought what he said was horrendous, so I made this:

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“Yeah, but we can’t really let people make up their own minds on <insert issue here> because that would be anarchy(sic)! Bad people would just abuse everyone else! If people were perfect angels, then OK, maybe. But people are bad, so we need leaders and government.”

When I hear this, I want to bang my head against a brick wall, because to me the logic is simplified as this:

“People are bad so we need a government of people.”

Anyone see the problem here?

Here’s a great quote from Frederic Bastiat about this situation:

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I’ve been a Republican all my life, but I have grown over time. At first, I was a Republican because I thought they believed in freedom, like Ronald Reagan. I didn’t question anything Republicans said; if a Republican said it, it was true, and I supported it. I have gotten a little bit older and wiser since then. Now I am still a Republican, and I still believe in the words of Reagan when it comes to Freedom and Liberty, but I don’t trust most Republican politicians or party insiders. The reason is, they govern in the opposite direction of the actual Republican platform.

Let me illustrate this. I believe Ronald Reagan got it absolutely right when he said this:

Now I know there are a lot of problems in the world, and it is not possible to reach a “utopia” in society where there are no problems. Even still, the question is: how do you solve the problems? And my answer, like Reagan’s, is through personal responsibility, liberty, and self-government. What are some of the problems I’m talking about?

Poverty – what should we do about the poor and hungry?

Home Ownership – what should we do to encourage home ownership?

School shootings – what should we do to protect our children?

Education – what should we do to improve our kids’ education?

Drugs – what should we do to stop drug use?

Gay Marriage – what should we do to protect the sanctity of marriage?

So you see, I’m a Reagan Republican. I believe we should eliminate the government from every area of society. Most people would say that makes me an extremist. Oh well. I just take the principles of liberty and apply a little bit of logical consistency to them.

Now, to be realistic, I know that you can’t just flip a switch and turn the government off. That would lead to chaos. I instead support an organized progression to anarchy, to a society that respects God, The Law, and Individual Liberty to their full logical conclusions. I’m a Reagan Republican because I want to work in the direction of freedom, even though most of my party and all of the Democratic party are pulling in the opposite direction.

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I made this image the day that Obamacare passed, to illustrate the state of individuals in America. Honestly though, we’ve been in this situation for much, much longer.

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I’m a supporter of individual rights and of federalism – meaning the compact view of the Constitution: that the several sovereign states formed the federal government and the Constitution is their contract delegating specific powers to the said national government. This means that whenever the federal government does something, like passing a law taking over healthcare, outside of the tight boundaries placed on it by the Constitution, the states are the ultimate authority and each individual state can choose to nullify the unconstitutional act. I’m not going to go over all of my reasoning for this, but if you are interested, check out Tom Woods’ book on the subject and this article answering objections to it.

Anyhow, due to our woefully horrible education system in this country, many people have the following bass-ackwards version of the history of nullification:

The theory of nullification was first invented in the 1800s’ by advocates of slavery. They used nullification of tarrifs as a test run in the 1820s. Of course, what they really had in mind was maintaining the institution of slavery against any possible attempt by the federal government to abolish it. Then America fought the Civil War in order to end slavery, but the ideas of states’ rights and nullification were later revived in the 1950s’ by belligerent white southerners in an attempt to block the racial integration of schools. The Civil Rights Movement started and the feds had to step in and force the southern states to treat everyone equally. THE END.

This is of course, nonsense. The real history of nullification is one of success, from fighting high taxes peacefully, to freeing slaves, to resisting a national ID, and legalizing marijuana. That doesn’t stop people, especially Southern people, from reacting to nullification with calls to civil war and federal supremacy, as shown on Twitter:

.@toddkincannon @itismyblog <.< my memory on this is a bit fuzzy but I don’t think it ended well the first time that was tried ..

— Rusty Shackleford (@AsmodeusX13) February 12, 2013

And then the Civil War happened. RT @itismyblog No state would have ever ratified that. The Federalist and anti-Federalist papers prove this

— Todd Kincannon (@ToddKincannon) February 12, 2013

@itismyblog @toddkincannon Ask Jeff Davis how that worked out

— Jacob Perry (@jacobperry) February 12, 2013

Now, the fact is, the Civil War (sic) started because the Southern states seceded and the Federal Government decided that the union was involuntary, and started a war to force the South back into the fold. The war was in no way a response by the Federal Government to any sort of nullification in the South. In fact, the only nullification that was going on at the time was Northern states like Wisconsin refusing to comply with the Fugitive Slave Act.

So, why is it that supposedly educated people respond with these horribly wrong-headed notions of civil war? The only thing I can come up with is Stockholm Syndrome:

Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.

Does that description match the reaction of the anti-nullification crowd? Perfectly, if you ask me. Especially from today’s sampling on Twitter.

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I found this speech to be extremely eloquent and intelligent. Considering the hostile environment (Heritage is a bastion of Neoconservative foreign policy) I thought he did a great job. I thought the speech was lacking only in specifics, as in, what area should we specifically draw down, but overall, a great speech.

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#	Name	POS	HT, WT	Espn	Rivals	Scout	247	ESPN Stars	Hometown
1.	Jadar Johnson	DB	6-1, 180	#96 ATH	#29 ATH	#70 S	#75 S		Orangeburg, SC
2.	Shaq Lawson	DE	6-4, 260	#18 DE	#19 WDE	#116 DE	#1 DE(Prep)		Central, SC
3.	Ebenezer Ogundeko	DE	6-3, 240	#10 DE	#15 OLB	#35 OLB	#22 SDE		Brooklyn, NY
4.	Jordan Leggett	TE	6-6, 235	#5 TE	#13 TE	#57 TE	#21 TE		Navarre, FL
5.	Wayne Gallman	RB	6-1 195	#52 ATH	#30 RB	#40 RB	#14 OLB		Loganville, GA
6.	Kyrin Priester	WR	6-2 190	#20 WR	#77 WR	#49 WR	#53 WR		Snellville, GA
7.	Dorian O’Daniel	LB	6-1 205	#8 OLB	#8 OLB	#11 OLB	#9 OLB		Olney, MD
8.	Tyshon Dye	RB	6-1 210	#12 RB	#15 RB	#27 RB	#12 RB		Elberton, GA
9.	Jayron Kearse	S	6-4 205	#54 ATH	#14 ATH	#6 OLB	#16 ATH		Fort Myers, FL
10.	Dane Rogers	DE	6-3 245	#32 DE	#30 DE	#67 DE	#22 WDE		Shelby, NC
11.	Marcus Edmond	CB	6-1 175	#134 ATH	NR	#152 CB	#103 ATH		Hopkins, SC
12.	Maverick Morris	OT	6-5 290	#67 OT	#68 OT	#98 OT	#41 OG		Douglas, GA
13.	D.J. Greenlee	ATH	6-2 210	#102 OLB	NR	#104 OLB	#189 OLB		Central, SC
14.	Ben Boulware	LB	6-1 230	#3 ILB	#8 ILB	#13 MLB	#20 MLB		Anderson, SC
15.	Mike Williams	WR	6-5 205	#27 WR	#27 WR	#38 WR	#37 WR		Holly Hill, SC
16.	Adrian Baker	DB	6-1 165	#19 ATH	#43 CB	#66 CB	#39 CB		Hollywood, FL
17.	T.J. Green	ATH	6-4 200	#56 ATH	NR	#55 S	#96 S		Sylacauga, AL
18.	Korrin Wiggins	DB	6-1 185	#30 S	#42 CB	#52 S	#35 S		Durham, NC
19.	Cordrea Tankersley	DB	6-2 195	#42 ATH	#39 S	#37 WR	#1 CB(Prep)		Aiken, SC
20.	Mackensie Alexander	DB	5-11 175	#2 CB	#7 CB	#7 CB	#4 CB		Immokalee, FL
21.	Ryan Carter	DB	5-10 175	#31 S	NR	#168 CB	#183 CB		Loganville, GA
22.	Scott Pagano	DT	6-4 280	#23 DT	#22 DT	#29 DT	#30 DT		Honolulu, HI
23.	Tyrone Crowder	OG	6-2 315	#5 OG	#11 OG	#4 OG	#8 OG		Rockingham, NC

My favorite in this class is Boulware, the Middle Linebacker. I watched one of those all-star games at the end of the year on ESPN, and he was an animal. He plays football the way a Linebacker is supposed to. Ought to be fun to watch.

Dabo isn’t the best coach, but he’s a damn good recruiter. When you think about the kids that got bought off late in the game (several 5-star recruits changed their mind at the last minute) this could have been the best class in Clemson history. As it stands, it is pretty solid.

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