Mark,
Here’s my notes from the FTL youngster’s rendition of my email:
“poddie” is my affectionate term for podcast listener.
“womyn” is how the women’s liberation movement wanted the word spelled; not a sexual joke.
“kill alternative” should have been better written “to kill all competing alternatives”.
“gubamint” is what the militia movement calls that gang in DC who has grown outside of its Constitutional bounds. The gubamint at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the Japanese Internment camps are frequent uses of the word in militia literature. I think they are correct to assigned it a special name. Government is what the Constitution provides for; gubamint is what we have now.
We have to guard our words carefully. Orwell’s double speak is upon us. Let’s take back our language.
For example, the gubamint does NOT “invest”. So any time I read a news story where the write refers to “government investment”, I fire off an email or a letter. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but, I know, for example, none of my friends mention “government investing” around me. ;-)
affirmative action = initially applied to gubamint and all the contracted with or WERE REGULATED by gubamint AT ANY LEVEL! (In effect, de facto regulation of the entire economy. Note the Hooter’s sex discrimination case as a classic. The fellow actually got some Hooter’s boy “waitresses” just to make the EEOC look foolish. The EEOC caved.
Let’s go back a little further in history, the tyranny (English and French) Kings were counterbalanced by the Catholic Church. Run it forward to 60s America, the Churches were a counter weight to the tyranny of the Central Government. Note that the opposition to racism originated in the black Churches. MLK was minister before he became a Gandhi-like leader. Note that opposition to the undeclared VietNam war was originated in the convents and churches of the Catholic Church following its doctrine of “a just war”. Clearly, for gubamint to grow in power and influence it must destroy, marginalize, or it some way oppress competition for the spotlight. I think that the Churches were very powerful and influential. AND, they were the voluntary associations. (Tell Ian not let his personal atheism block the view that a church is a good alternative to a gubamint.) So, the gubamint, like their can only be one queen bee in hive, must NUKE the churches.
So to, it must NUKE the family so it can assume the role of child care provider. Remember the communists want the children so that they can mold them to worship the gubamint, see it as the solution to all their problems, and warp them to the needs of the state as cannon fodder, good little voters who select on of the two meaningless choices, and pay their taxes without question.
The family farm is a great metaphor for the American family. (We didn’t have farm, but the nuclear family I grew up in all lived in the same tenement.) Social Security Insurance gave the old folks the cash flow to leave the family, which they did. Leaving the gubamint to fill their shoes. The motivation might have been warmth but the SSI make it possible. The motivation might have been warmth, but the SSI make it possible. It put a check in their hands, with their name on it, and made it possible for them to kid themselves into thinking it would be OK! It may have started in the 30’s but I saw it happen in the late 50’s.
Don’t forget that insurance (i.e., life, accident, and disability) for the poor folks ORIGINATED with the Knights of Columbus (Catholic Church). It spread like wildfire to the Masons, the Italian clubs, the Unions, and all manner of fraternal organizations.
Here’s another threat to the power of the gubamint. Social Security was government’s response to another powerful (voluntary) force in people’s lives. I don’t need the gubamint to insure my life when I can get a better deal from my Local Order of Hibernians.
Catholic schools, Catholic Hospitals, Catholic Charities all led the way. And good for them, the Baptists didn’t want medical care from those vial Papists so they created their own like Baylor, the various things with Baptist in their name, and so on and so on.
Credit Unions also have to die.
Basically anything that obviates the need for gubamint has to be killed.
It does it through regulation! And offering a competing alternative or free!
Parochial schools killed by “free” gubamint skools! Sectarian hospitals by Medicare.
Fraternal Insurance by regulation. And, if there is any hint of wrong doing, they get right on that. Pedophile priests were (rightly) excoriated; pedophile politicians or any misconduct by a politician gets a free pass.
The leftist big-government media, which depends upon the gubamint, led the cheer leading.
You did correctly chastise me for not providing solutions. (In my defense, I was focused on defending the caller on his point that the gubamint needs to be the queen bee.)
I think that Free State Project is an idea. (I’m tied down by familial obligations, but I’d be there in a heartbeat if things were different.)
Here are the things I’m doing:
* prepare for the revolution.
Save your “money” (not those trashy worthless furbies aka FRBNs) Be debt free, so when the furbie goes to zero like all fiat currencies do, me and mine will be ok.
* educate
Make sure that everyone “knows” that gubamint isn’t the answer. For example, my nephews in law know that a dollar isn’t the same as an ounce of gold. But then they were easily impressed with a sleeve of american eagle bullion coins. Or is that medallions!
* laugh
Try to make the gubamint look silly. People can’t respect or be in awe when they are laughing at stupidity. The cell phone tax was repealed when everyone started talking about the Spanish American Was Phone Tax. The gubamint can afford to be laughed at!
* personalize
Find out what each person’s hot button is and point out how the government is screwing them on that point.
* sand in the machinery
Muck it up. Send in forms. Make calls. Bury the call centers. For example, when I get junk mail. I stuff it all in the business reply envelope, with the envelope they sent it in, and return it to them. I get a lot less junk mail. Some people send the empty envelope back. That’s too easy.
That’s my plan. A lot of jokes about jumbo shrimp and honest politicians. If we can get people laughing at the clown car we call gubamint, then we can shrink them down to size. Perception is reality! Let’s have more TSA horror stories — put more old nuns on the no fly list — molest more pregger moms dragging infants — make business men wait in the longest lines you have ever seen — and longer lines, much longer. Maybe I’ll go stand in one and move real slow. Nah, I have given up flying and tell everyone I know they should too. More people are beginning to agree with me on that one!
Thanks for reading my email,
REINKE
p.s., I’m impressed. You even pronounce my name right. How did you do that?
Reinke Faces Life 