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Carny Nation

Come right in and step right up. See the bright lights and the oddities of nature. Inside folks, for the low price of twenty-two trillion dollars, you can see Binders of Women, Team Big Bird and entire reams of green windmills and fields full of bayonets and horses. Here lies become the truth and everything is full of sugar. And the highlight of the show will be Barack, the Exotic Prince from the Wilds of Indonesia and Kenya, with a special appearance by Oprah and a hologram of JFK. Here in the Carnival of Fools, the party never stops and no one ever has to pay the bill.

"There's a sucker born every minute," a famous connoisseur of them once said. And suckers are big business. Very big business indeed. But don't feel too sorry for the sucker. The sucker is a creature composed of ignorance and greed. He believes in his own specialness. He believes that he can fool other people into giving him their money, when actually he is the one being fleeced. The mark is an aspiring scammer who is too dumb to realize that nothing in life is free and the scam is on him.

If you browse through your email's spam folder, the chances are good that you will come upon a missive from a Nigerian prince offering you the opportunity to help him cart away his fortune in exchange for a sharp cut of the profits. These scams date back to the dinosaur years of the internet, and though there are occasional elaborations on the theme, the African scammers stick to the tried and true, even though the tried and true has become a cliche that anyone should be able to see through.

Why?

Because the Nigerian Prince scam is a self-selecting group. Anyone who still falls for it after all these years is dumber than your average sucker. The scammers know this and they don't want to waste their valuable time hooking a difficult fish with a plausible scam. They go for easy marks for the same reason that some men fish with dynamite. Because it's easier.

America has its own Nigerian Prince. I think you know his name by now. His campaign sent out nearly as many emails as his Nigerian colleagues do, promising fame and fortune to those suckers who would help him transfer some wealth from the 1 percent to the 99 percent. And now that his second term is here, the check is in the mail. And if the government check doesn't clear, well that's what happens when you put your faith in Nigerian Princes.

A scam like the Democratic Party needs suckers. It needs millions and millions of the dumbest people that can be found outside of specially supervised group homes. And then it needs to appoint people to watch over them, give them the occasional food and minor check, and drive them in vans to the polls after two or four years so that the con artists can keep their manicured paws on the local treasury.

These people have to be stupid, yes, but like all marks, they have to be greedy. They have to be the kind of people who relish taking someone else's money without working for it. The kind who grin at the idea of putting something over someone else. The kind who think that they are smart because they decided that the world owes them a living. They think that they're smart, but they're only the marks in a con. And when the con is done, like the guy depositing a check from Nigeria's Prince Uscamo, they are going to be the ones left holding the bag.

A con plays on the greed of the mark. And on his stupidity. And in a democracy, you can take over a country if you organize enough motivated suckers to vote for trillions in government money that they will never see, but that they are on the hook for. And if you don't have enough native suckers, then you import more, taking care that your immigration policies favor the greedy sucker demographic. But unfortunately in a democracy where half the population doesn't bother to vote and a quarter votes for the scammers, we are all on the hook for the scam.

We have just gone through two lovely elections that were won on the carnival principle. Put up a lot of bright lights, some unusual things for the crowds to gawp at, a few scantily clad ladies of the evening, and a lot of smooth patter, and forget taking any of the issues seriously. Tell jokes, juggle balls and deliver applause lines. And most of all promise the sky while taking the suckers for all they have and will ever have.

It nearly didn't work, but the extra effort was put in and the vans delivered their cargo loads of moral depravity to the polls, where the poll workers showed them how to vote, and then the vans took them to do some food stamp shopping to remind them of how good life is under the scam. And many other people, the ones who don't return emails from Nigerian princes, didn't bother to vote, because they don't believe in any element of the scam. And that just means the chief scammers have an open field.

And so the reign of the scam continues for another four years. The world will burn and the country will slide closer to the economic abyss. But in their dorm rooms, the Julias will pine knowing that their Nigerian prince loves them (doesn't he sent them daily emails personally addressed to them?) and the vans will go back and forth, and cashiers will run food stamp cards through the machines in neighborhoods which subsist entirely on the scam, and in the hospitals elderly patients will die because health care is free, but treatments are more expensive than ever. And the devil will laugh.

Carnivals have to end sooner or later. And the scam doesn't look nearly as good in the light of day as it does at night, when everyone has had a few drinks and life seems good and magic can happen. A few of us hopefully thought that daybreak had come, but no it was only the light of the carnival and the drunken laughter of fools spending their last dime to hear their Nigerian prince crack a joke, hum a tune and pledge his undying love to them.

"The fool walks in darkness," said the Chief Executive of a nation called Israel some 3,000 years ago. And for the fools of Carny Nation, who, as he observed, fold their hands and eat their own flesh, rather than work for a living, it is always the midnight hour, always time for another drink, another laugh, another novelty and another spin of the wheel that goes round and round and never stops until sunlight touches it and it turns to dust.

The fools of Carny Nation fancy themselves wise men. After all they eat without paying for it. They get money without working for it. Every baby they pop out buys them another pair of shoes. When they vote Democrat, the President of Carny Nation sends them a check. And so they put another vote in the machine, get back a few quarters, put another one in the mission, and wait for the day that the redistribution jackpot will give them everything.

Last year in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, the price of three eggs ran to 100 billion dollars. A beer cost 150 billion dollars and a roll of toilet paper, well it was just cheaper to use million dollar bills. We are talking about Zimbabwean dollars here, not American dollars, but eventually there will be no difference. Zimbabwe yesterday. America tomorrow. Money isn't magic and there comes a point when no amount of words can increase its value. Eventually it becomes cheaper to print out presidential speeches on the bright economic future and use them as toilet paper.

When food stamps start coming in billion dollar quantities, then the sucker bet on Obama, Prince of Kenya, Indonesia and Chicago, may start looking bad. But suckers never realize when a bet is going bad. They double down and begin yammering some more about raising taxes. And why not. We're sixteen trillion in debt. Why not raise taxes by a few trillion? You have to break a few billion dollar eggs to make a thirty-trillion dollar omelet. And that beer summit, it will cover the entire defense budget.

The grandchildren of Carny Nation will die in the streets, just as they do in their own home countries, but for now their future grandparents know that a baby buys a pair of shoes, 350 dollar Nike LeBron X's, and that a vote for the Democrats will keep them from having to work or route them into nice government jobs with big benefits and easy hours. And when it all comes crashing down and their children are crying for food, because 100 billion dollar eggs are hard to come by; they will never blame themselves, instead they will blame the people they were scamming all these years, rather than the scammers who scammed them. 

But of course Carny Nation is more than just food stamps and welfare checks. It's green windmills turning slowly in deserts with no wind. It's banks licking their lips at carbon taxes and consultants lining up to consult on everything from diversity to sustainability to intangibility. They are higher up on the scam pole, but like their van brethren, they're still scammers who don't realize that in the end they are the ones being scammed. Their children won't die in the streets, but their bank accounts will.

Fools come in all shapes and sizes, in all races, religions and bank account sizes. Dumb isn't measured by degrees or IQ points. Dumb people can absorb a lot of knowledge and spit it back. They can even discuss it incessantly in their best Word-a-Day language skills. The difference between dumb and smart does not come down to literacy or being able to juggle isosceles triangles/ Memory is a skill and most people can learn something if they really want to and have the proper background for it. The difference between smart and dumb is the difference between knowing what's real and what isn't.

Intelligence is a bunch of brain cells packed by a few lines of DNA into a cranium. Those are mental skills and they come in handy when tackling Algebra or studying the history of the Mayans. King Solomon, that ancient chief executive of a kingdom despised by Carny Nation, wasn't talking about learning as intelligence, but as wisdom. Wisdom isn't just knowledge, it's understanding that knowledge by drawing the right conclusions. The search for wisdom is the search for those right conclusions.

Fools are often very clever. Some have enormously high IQs and office walls packed with so many degrees that there is no room for a window. And they are still fools because they have no ability to draw the right conclusions. Knowledge is cheap. Your computer has access to more of it than all the wise men of history put together could ever dream of. Intelligence is a genetic gift. Wisdom is what you acquire with both or without either. It is the right conclusions that we draw about life from living it.

Intelligent fools are a Zimbabwean dollar a dozen and the Zimbabwean dollar doesn't buy a whole lot. Carny Nation 2012 Forward to the America of the Super Future on horses and bayonets of irony and binders full of memes was powered by clever, intelligent, technocratic and even cunning fools. And above them all was our own King Fool, our Scammer-in-Chief, our Nigerian Prince, who like all scammers is passing the time scamming us while unable to realize that he is the one being scammed and the time will come, when he will fall beneath the bus under whose wheels he has hurled so many.

"There is no future for those who slander the Prophet of Islam," our Nigerian Prince proclaimed, as part of his coverup of the murder of four Americans, left to die by his government. A coverup that has resulted in the first political prisoner in generations sitting in a cell. But there is a future for those who disdain Mohammed, that primal scammer who told his followers that they would have an endless supply of virgin girls to rape in paradise if they killed enough of his enemies and stole their stuff in the here-and-now. There is however no future for fools. There is no future for Carny Nation.

The Democrats have built themselves a pyramid scheme of Babel and it's fools, suckers and marks all the way down. This is their Carny Nation and it only sustains itself by demanding greater levels of stupidity from its followers. The worse the storm grows, the dumber and trashier the base of its pyramid grows as vaccination against sudden conclusions from outside.

Popular culture, the media and politics becomes one. A great white noise machine of light and sound, carnival lights, smells and sounds, men throwing flaming torches in the air, shouts and cries, rap stars, memes, ladies of the evening, stars, banners, slogans, cheers and anything else that will keep the fools from realizing that the time is five minutes after five and the time is coming for the scammers to slink away into the night with their ill gotten loot and for the suckers who thought they were scammers and the marks who thought they were cons to clutch their carbon offsets and food stamps and raise their eyes dazedly as the sunrise exposes the tawdriness of the carnival, the false front stalls, the empty baskets and the last drabs of greasepaint on their hands.

And then Carny Nation will end.

Comments

  1. There will be a lot of pain between now and then. What makes me sick is the intelligent and wise people I know who have been seduced by the lights, and enticed in to try to win the goldfish in the bowl.

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  2. Anonymous11/11/12

    And the worst part of the story is that when it all falls down, they will blame and persicute the innocent. The villians will be the "producers" not the leeches. I knew this was coming but I had hoped that it wouldn't have happened so soon.

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  3. Sorry to be the one to tell you Rose, but those "intelligent and wise people" that you know.......are neither.

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  4. A rather clear, in to laymen understandable language, explanation of the present monetary problems by Ann Bernhardt:
    http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/barnardt-the-new-economy-is-going-to-implode-in-8-parts/

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  5. "You will draw water from the wells of salvation" .. or you will draw sweet poison from the wells of the UN Early Education. Not you personally, your innocent offspring will. You will just allow the wise guys, posing as new saints, to get to them early in life with their new gospel (sustainable development, abortion rights, gay marriage, universal disarmament, social justice). And, in the spirit of full cooperation, you will pay for it too.

    This is not the first time early education and a call to hand over babies to the government has been attempted. The First Congress of Bolshevik Workers said in 1918 that "we must remove children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over, and to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of children's nurseries and schools." The Bolsheviks understood that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

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  6. Trevor Loudon: An Urgent Message for America
    please help this go viral

    I am very sorry to rain on the Carnival.

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  7. The entire unsustainable mess you illustrate in this article is founded on the basic foibles of human nature, yes, but it's home today is clearly found and celebrated in the tenets of Modern Liberalism. Modern Liberalism is, at its core, corruption grounded in willing self-delusion and magical thinking. It's a corruption of the spirit - "I got me my free Obamaphone that I deserve". It's a corruption of the mind - "This is the day the oceans began to fall". It's a corruption of the soul - "We don't want your teenage daughter to be punished with a baby".

    And yes, the only real enemy the Socialists/Leftist/DemocRATs have now is Reality itself. Unfortunately for the well-heeled and connected apparatchiks, Reality does not have country club prisons for the party faithful when the feces hits the fan.

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  8. I think it's entirely appropriate, given the theme of this column, that OZero's new mouthpiece is Jay Carney. He is more nerdish and obfuscating and two-faced than his predecessor, Robert Gibbs, who is now making a nice living somewhere teaching the art of lying.

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  9. Anonymous11/11/12

    Every day you write the best thing I have read all year.

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  10. Anonymous11/11/12

    "Fools are often very clever. Some have enormously high IQs and office walls packed with so many degrees that there is no room for a window. And they are still fools because they have no ability to draw the right conclusions. Knowledge is cheap."

    The terrible thing is that even those who have wisdom will have to suffer the consequences of choices made by those who have great intellects unaccompanied by moral reasoning. ~ arasina ~

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  11. Anonymous11/11/12

    You're talking about the huckster who ran for the Republicans right? Seems to me to be more fitting...talking about a scam artist! And you rail on about the poor folding their hands and eating their own flesh? The percentage is 7.9 in an economy where the big companies who use most of the resources and destroy small businesses through predatory practices are SITTING ON RECORD PROFITS AND HAVE REFUSED TO HIRE because they want to want to oppress the poor and embarrass Obama...and they who use most of the resources and have used superior consultants to avoid taxes wring their hands and want more...Big business has BETRAYED THIS COUNTRY sitting on record profits and not hiring and yet somehow excuse these traitors and place the blame at the feet of the poor? You sound just like that putz Romney and his 47%..what world are you living in? You should refrain from talking economics from a right wing view it is failed policy...Obstructionism is their game and they want to RULE the state not participate and I'M SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING their complaints...and it is most unseemly coming from a man of your intelligence..where is your compassion?

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  12. Last night we watched an eye-opening program on the History Channel. The Third Reich - The Fall. Of course, I knew the general history of Hitler’s rise to power and the subsequent results, but, based on what we have just witnessed, I don’t think I had ever considered the mindless complicity of the German people. It was so much more than just being duped. It’s a given that they went along initially because they were reaping the early benefits of new prosperity but as it progressed and Hitler began his quest to voraciously conquer Europe, the German population was so effectively dumbed down and isolated to focus on the wonderfulness of their own four square feet of reality, no one stopped to ask why, what was the purpose of taking over, by force, other countries? They didn’t ask because they had been artfully dazzled to think they were entitled to own the world, so, why not?

    They readily believed they were the “people of the Gods” because the most successful scam artists know exactly what to pander to. Over and over again the weakest, most vulnerable area of human character is SELF. And as bad as 1938 Germany was, there has never been a more self-interested culture than today. A perfect set-up for psychopaths and carneys.

    When the allies required the citizens of the towns surrounding the concentration camps to go inside and march past the unspeakable horrors that had been right next door to them for seven years, many said, “We have been lied to.” Right. Yes, indeed they were lied to, but if someone else had come along with the same or similar dazzle, they’d embrace it without hesitation.

    How chilling to look at history as though it were a script. How frustrating to know that it isn’t within human capacity to learn from history, simply because SELF is disabled by myopia.

    In other news, ‘Twilight’ fans set up tent city for Monday’s premiere...

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  13. Anonymous11/11/12

    Are you telling me Romney had the ability to run this country? You write wonderfully, express yourself like very few others yet you don't have your finger on the pulse...You're clinical but lack a much needed bedside manner...you are not a politician...in fact despite your brilliance I feel in some ways you're blind...

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  14. arrested, thank you

    anonymous, I'm no fan of big companies, but are you really suggesting that companies are refusing to expand, hire and make money because they hate Obama? Are you really saying that big companies are losing money just to spite Obama? Shareholders would never tolerate such a policy and CEOs have no interest in losing out on quarterlies just to screw Obama.

    meema, it's a common pattern in history. Other people's money has to come from other people. And that meant a program of domestic redistribution followed by conquest. Since Obama can't do the conquest part, the domestic left is screwed.

    Anonymous 2, no I'm not a politician and ability to run things is relative, but he would have done a better job of it than the current occupant, that much is obvious

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  15. Oops. The troll is back. Now he even knows the words "predatory practices" and "sitting on profits". Suddenly it is somehow his business, what other people are supposed to do with their profits. And wonderful expressions and clear signs of intellect "betrayed the country" and "tired of hearing" almost makes one hearing heavy boots, marching on the street.

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  16. When entertainment television becomes the main vehicle of White House policy it's axiomatic that some of the silliness of television will fertilize the other way, no? We now have governertainment.

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  17. Anonymous11/11/12

    The Republican Supreme court tried to game the system with Citizens United (what a joke that name is!) and allow the rich to try and buy the election and drown out the voices of the people...and yet you say nothing about that? Are you telling me after watching the process unfold that the Republicans have clean hands? They are in direct conflict with democratic principals...they tried to back door the checks and balances system with Citizen United...those super pacs donations are nothing but bribes...this is nothing but a class war and our system is set up to deny the oppressors and you, sir, are out of line...

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  18. Anonymous11/11/12

    the real fools are the the poor in the red states who voted against their own interests out of racial hatred...the red states are the very ones who rely most on government to help them and the blue states use less resources

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  19. Anonymous, last time I checked Obama bought this election with massive spending, and that includes money from his billionaire backers

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  20. Anonymous11/11/12

    Leo the name caller, ...are you saying I don't have a right to express myself you right wing jerk? You attack but make no sense..just like those right wing talk shows where no dissidence is allowed...Gee Christie hugged Obama! what an outrage! ..my comments are more informed than yours...and I do have a right to question those traitors...they got their tax cut under the premise it spurs hiring...yet they pocketed the money and cut back instead of hiring when their country needed them...Starbucks is under attack because they paid no taxes in England..do you know how much resources that company uses? or how many small businesses it has closed down..how dare you insult my intelligence with just name calling and vapid comments...as if I don't have the right to speak in your luminous presence..in fact the comment section on this sight is made up of mostly arrogant, empty people who attempt high flown thoughts that express only their exalted view of themselves...people who think they are intelligent simply because they read the master who writes the blog..and you, Leo, can't even do that...

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  21. Anonymous11/11/12

    Daniel, yes I'm saying that...its a class war... and the benefits of their position are lower wages, higher productivity (fearful workers) and a Republican President...shareholders are really not cognizant of the situation and if so are willing to remain quiet because they are beneficiaries of the rising stock prices we had under Obama...Please answer this question...are you saying Romney and the Republicans were happy when the unemployment rate down ticked to 7.8%? No! They and all the Republicans I know were hoping that it would uptick instead! Heck with the country we need a political opportunity! (Benghazi) So yes I stand by what I said and even more so...the facts are in the numbers...its your blindness or stubbornness we are dealing with here...

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  22. Anonymous11/11/12

    it has been documented, Daniel, that it was small business hiring that caused unemployment to slowly recede under Obama in the last year or so...go on check it out...

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  23. Trolls have a right to express themselves. Spammers have a right to advertise their crap. Typically at expense of genuine participants and commenters. Usually for as long as blog owner's lack of time permits. Troll is rarely 100% troll. This is what makes him look more or less like a genuine commenter. Albeit a really angry one. Wrestling with troll in comments is pretty much like wrestling with pig in a mud. You are in it for wrestle (debating issues, seeking solutions, sharing knowledge, learning etc). Troll is in it for pleasure (seeking to inflict moral damage by sophistry, abuse, attacks etc). Assuming you have better things to do, avoid feeding trolls.

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  24. We are not for the most part dealing with big oligarchies, we are dealing with constantly shifting companies under CEOs that come and go and shareholders that buy and sell. Companies that rarely look beyond 5 years. And that have competitors.

    So you're saying that a Trust of these companies secretly convened to stop hiring workers and expanding their businesses just to frustrate Obama?

    And what of all the CEOs and companies that support Obama?

    You mentioned Starbucks. Its CEO supports Obama. He's certainly not the only one.

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  25. Anonymous11/11/12

    Daniel, sorry, but he won with a superior ground game made up with more grass roots offices that COMMUNICATED WITH THE PEOPLE... door to door, inch by inch...and his money came from small donors, a real people oriented grass root approach instead of the approach of the out of touch, hater of the American worker, Romney...it is now come to light acknowledged by both sides that this part of his campaign was masterful and he can thank my hometown of Chicago and their style of politics for triumph...he deserves his triumph despite his abhorrent social polices...

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  26. Anonymous11/11/12

    the majority of the CEO's support Romney so that doesn't wash..you're not focusing on the class war that has overtaken America and has been secretly waged by the rich over the last couple of decades but only recently been made light of...the gap between rich and poor has been expanding but until recently the cause was not really known...but with the Republican fixation on the 1% and the protection they give them despite all reasons to the contrary such as the widening gap and tax loopholes, gridlock it has caused it is now evident of their designs...a class war waged by the 1% is just that... a Trust...why so surprised? You accuse Obama's supporters of the same type of conspiracies constantly...here we have facts and social trends to support my arguments...

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  27. Steve D11/11/12

    “Cleverness is not wisdom.”

    Euripides

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  28. Anonymous with the super-ellipses..........:

    Corporations exist to make products that sell to consumers who want them and make revenues and profits in the process. They are not Democrat nor Republican, though lots of evidence suggests more and more powerful CEOs do lean Democrat..

    Fact is, they operate much as Daniel writes. They have short-term horizons. CEOs and CFOs try to please Boards of Directors. Most employees please the top execs or middle management. These are not sentimental institutions. They cater to powerful customers and ignore weaker ones. They don't 'belong' to powerful right-wing cabals controlled by Obama-hating elites. My familiarity is with hi-tech - if Obama were to announce a visit to most any sizable hi-tech co in Silicon Valley next week, the CEOs would spend a week on their knees scrubbing the floors and cooking for him..

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  29. Anonymous11/11/12

    Leo, Troll? what a demeaning expression from a pompous ass..and your latest attempt was just as I referred to...empty of ideas but big on personal attacks and not even lucid at doing that...I am expressing ideas and you're raging because I do so? And I'm the angry one? You're intimating I don't have the right to do so on this blog...maybe you're right..I should leave it for the smart, pompous people like you...The Republicans are the ones who rage...

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  30. My apologies in case I got that troll detection wrong. Sometimes it is really difficult to make difference between a dedicated troll and a dedicated socialist. If the latter is true, then it is practically hopeless to try cause-effect reasoning and logic and facts to contradict socialist convictions which were obtained mostly by other means.

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  31. Anonymous,

    1. Obama didn't win with "the people", he won with very specific groups who operate outside the people

    2. if there's a class war why do the two richest men in America support Obama?

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  32. Anonymous11/11/12

    Larrhal...Baloney about the CEO's leaning democratic...they are Republican dominated...another arrogant response backed up by what? your distant ideas of a supposed situation? And of course you mention yourself and your hi tech (notice the word hi?) abilities...the short term horizon does apply here because it was an attempt to bring about the election of one of their own despite limited offerings of ideas mostly unpopular ones at that...instead its attack, attack, attack.....the common denominator is they're the self interested rich, they have a plan and it IS TO RULE... It is a fluid situation and oppressive mechanisms are constantly being generated like Citizen United, the Patriot Act which basically takes away your future right to demonstrate and protest...but this overall kind of plan takes time and they are patient and oppressive ideas, like taking away Medicare and Social Security (the rich don't need it) and exalting people like Paul Ryan are just the latest in an evolving situation. Allowing gay marriage suits their purposes because the backlash drives the poor red state voters toward them...and a divided country suits their purposes as the spotlight does not stop and glare at them because there are other issues upsetting the people...the spotlight is kept evolving because it only catches them when it passes...I'm not angry I'm just an observer...

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  33. @lemon lime moon
    > Trevor Loudon: Scientology offshoot cult member.

    And I really love icecream. So?

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  34. Zenith Applied Philosophy is a New Zealand libertarian anti-Communist group founded by a man who left Scientology.

    I don't know to what extent it shares Scientology's problematic cultish aspects and it seems to have no web presence at all suggesting that it probably became non-viable a while back.

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  35. Anonymous,

    you mention Starbucks, its CEO supports Obama. Not to mention the CEO of GE. And we don't even need to get into General Motors or Time Warner or any of the big media companies.

    The two richest men in America support Obama.

    You are describing the world as you want it to be, not as it is.

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  36. Scientology is not quite up there with ice cream. It's an extremely toxic and vicious cult... however being a member is rather different than being an official, and this is not Scientology, it's one of a number of groups created by those who left Scientology.

    I don't know that ZAP does the SP thing or divides up the human race into inferior and superior beings, etc

    I'm not altogether certain that ZAP even exists now in any real form as 100 percent of the material I've encountered is attack on its members from the New Zealand left

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  37. Daniel, this is not what I meant. It's more like "and Reagan was a Democrat".

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  38. Scientology offshoots most often took what they consider to be its "technology", its techniques and try to apply them independently, sometimes in effectiveness and empowerment seminars for businessmen.

    One of the more well known is EST, which is creepy but not a cult.

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  39. Final word on this.

    Scientology is structurally a cult because it

    1. Maintains an atmosphere of paranoia

    2. Uses indentured servitude

    3. Conducts brainwashing sessions

    I don't approve of its teachings, but groups can incorporate some of their techniques without incorporating the entire corporate cult structure of paranoid ethics and totalitarian thought control

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  40. Anonymous11/11/12

    leo, this is the troll...what are you talking about? Give me specifics instead of inane, confusing generalities...look at your pompous statement and ask yourself... will the person I'm debating understand what I'm saying? You have not expressed one idea yet... only cynical insults and confusing pompous ones at that..You don't bother to explain what you mean because I'm just just a troll who doesn't deserve or wouldn't understand your obviously superior intelligence... this in a nut shell is the problem with Republicans...stupid, mean white men...I'm almost ashamed to be Caucasian. .

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  41. Anonymous11/11/12

    Daniel if they support Obama its because they see it as I do...and believe me Buffet caught hell for his comments and if he could say what he did that makes my arguments more truthful...many are closet gays as the stabucks CEO...there will always be some who don't go along...Soros is interested in ruling the social issues, Buffet is of the noble variety and he knows what's happening and spoke out of concern for the country...you intimate its even for both sides with your comments....c'mon get real...

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  42. Anonymous11/11/12

    the media has a gay preponderance it is not interested in ruling economically like the republicans it is backing Obama because of the gay issues...it is a society of self interested and it is the rich mans self interests that is making the laws...the gays are big contributors so we get gay marriage...this is allowed because it causes the populace to redirect their rage away from the 1%?

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  43. Anonymous11/11/12

    Daniel the two richest men is your rebuttal? Really? that suffices?...that's weak...the preponderance of the wealthy are Republicans and I could mention names like the Koch brothers who are breaking unions but Buffet is breaking what? He spoke out about the inequalities and its why he supports Obama! Soros is a liberal on social issues and owned poppy fields in Greece he has a different agenda which Obama supports...they are not interested in ruling as I've put forth the others are... think about it does your rebuttal make any sense or is it even truthful?

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  44. Anonymous11/11/12

    look at the two nominees for the Republican party and their backgrounds and their agendas...and you say I'm off base on my analysis? the republicans have no talent on their side because the rich dont want talent and people who think for themselves...you have to play ball and Paul Ryan is a prime example voted biggest brown nose in school...Romney the number cruncher was their man because he would have crunched Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits and gave them to the wealthy...he was there to dismantle and redistribute because that's what he did best at Bain...

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  45. So there's a class war of CEOs who are refusing to hire... in which the two wealthiest men in America back Obama and in which some of the biggest CEOs back Obama

    That doesn't really work and I'm afraid you know it

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  46. Saul Bellow-
    A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

    Andre Gide-
    The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his own deception.

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  47. Attention trolls, posing as socialists, and socialists acting like trolls. There is an important book on critical nowadays issues. It is so interesting that even your dear leader was once spotted holding it. I don't mind debating anything with you, with just one small pre-condition that you go and read it first, and then come back if still interested.

    Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, The Fallacy of Economic Equality, and other Optical Illusions of "Redistributive Justice" is a unique book in many ways. It is a decisive refutation of the principles of socialism and "progressivism." The author, Oleg Atbashian, draws on his personal experiences growing up in the totalitarian economic system of the old Soviet Union to show why socialism not only has not worked, but cannot work. Atbashian's own awakening from an inculcated acceptance of the superiority of communism to an embrace of the free market is the underlying story of the book. Growing up in the Ukraine, Atbashian gradually became aware of the hypocrisy of those who ran the command economy of the Soviet Union. While proclaiming the virtues of forced "economic equality" all of the Soviet officials, the "apparatchiks" who ran the country, instinctively sought every advantage they could not just for themselves, but for their children. Reflecting on this, Atbashian recognized the fatal flaw of socialism - every parent will seek to secure the best for their children.

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  48. Anonymous11/11/12

    Probably your best article, ever. Unfortunately I believe that you will be writing more painful, and equally correct ones, as Obama snake-oils Americans into abandoning Israel by caving to the Iranians and forcing a Palestinian terror "state" on them. Please do not dignify the agitators that come to post here by responding to them. They show their ignorence and faulty logic simply by posting what they do.

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  49. Anonymous11/11/12

    Daniel, thank you for your efforts, time, and patience in writing these blogs. I find them useful b/c you most often write with a clear concise viewpoint...and you sure can throw in the emotional angle. What I don't understand is why you are taking your time and energy to write a rebuttle to that Anonymous person who is so obviously full of hate and disdane for your efforts. I am beginning to hate the word Troll as much as I hate the word racist. You aren't goint to change his/her mind. Only that person's personal experience will make a change. I've given up on some of my closest friends; I still love them but refuse to get into a word contest with them. I only state that I think fiscally irresponsibly is a crime, no matter what the scale. Now with all that said, will you please suggest to those of us who are really suffering about this election loss. What in the hell are we to do now. When am I going to start feeling any respect for my country?

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  50. Some people can be reached and some can't be. If someone takes the time to read the site then I don't believe he or she is hopeless.

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  51. Anonymous11/11/12

    Thank You! I need to keep that in mind. You are the best.

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  52. Anonymous11/11/12

    Once again Mr Knish Im forced to bow to your shear brilliance, the difference between intelligence and wisdom genius. Oh great one, we are not worthy.... Thnx

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  53. Ironic that you begin this post quoting the "sucker born every minute" line when, as I write this, the preposterous notion that the Obama campaign committed massive voter fraud in Wood Co. Ohio, which according to a story credited to you, voted at 108% the total number of registered voters.
    As I'm sure you know by now, this craziness is flying all over the Internet, with conservatives everywhere eating it up without question.
    Maybe you'd care to tell everyone where you got your numbers, which don't come close to lining up with Wood Co.'s official count?

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  54. Meema--I won't exactly be camped out to watch the final installment of the Twilight Saga but I will most certainly see it by the end of the month. I can't bring myself to ridicule the tweenies and twenty-somethings who will.

    There's actually more depth in the franchise than many adults are willing to recognize. The themes of abstinence before marriage and anti-abortion are resonating with the young. There is hope that the future of this country is not as bleak as it appears.


    On the other hand, I will be front and center when it comes to the December premiere of Les Miserables (the musical at long last brought to the big screen). It's simply breathtaking and I wish it would have come out before the election.


    Both the left and the right are guilty of exploiting the poor and working class and demonizing us, a heartbreaking lack of empathy and compassion. Not everyone who falls through the cracks or struggle to avoiding falling into the abyss are leeches.

    The left exploits us for personal gain and they are ruthless in a subtle form but ruthless nevertheless. The right are no better. They are overtly ruthless. I have grown weary of this adoration of the middle/upper middle class and the wealthy.

    I can't make scapegoats of the poor and lower middle class since that would be mocking my parents and grandparents who survived the Great Depression and held up (rightly so) as the greatest generation.


    So yes, I am anticipating Twilight: Breaking Dawn II, but not nearly as much as Les Miserables. I will sit through a film almost three hours long and cry for Fantine from the moment the workers make a scapegoat of her with their demands of "sack the girl today!”
    and the foreman's "Right my girl! On your way!"

    You have no idea how much I wish this movie would have come out before the elections:(

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  55. The story is quoted from and linked to Pundit Press

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  56. Daniel. Great read. I get the feeling, more often than not, that we're not dealing with "carnys", but are being told,"there are 5 lights, Picard".

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  57. I laughed and laughed .... until I wept.

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  58. Anonymous with the ellipses, you are indeed a troll. No, many of them are Democrats. It is called 'hi-tech' in the slang, and I mention myself only as point of reference.

    You are angry beyond belief, and apparently beyond help.

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  59. Anonymous12/11/12

    Right on the mark....so sad....so true.

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  60. What I find fascinating is that our friend the troll (Mr. .....) doesn't even seem to realize how his style gives him away as being incoherent.

    Actually, since I've had the "pleasure" of having some experience with some seriously mentally ill relatives (who have since had genuinely miraculous recoveries), maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.

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  61. Some of this is quite true. Nevertheless, I think it is time for you to recover now. Life goes on; don't let it get you down. Find something constructive to write about instead of crying in your $150,000 beer. At least we still live in a free nation where your self-destructive opinions are not censored. I do look forward, Mr. Knish, to brighter perspectives from you ahead when you get over this admittedly terrible shock. Have a nice day! in spite of it all

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  62. Thank you Anonymous for further supporting my premise that those who support 0bama are one of four things:
    Uninformed, Misinformed, Useful Idiots, or Traitors. You seem to fall into the latter two categories.

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  63. Anonymous12/11/12

    I'm not an American but paid close attention to the election because what happens in the US affects us in the Caribbean.

    I can easily relate with your sentiments especially about the social "handouts" because we too booted out a party for massive spending, food cards on two occassions.

    I feel though that the US is heading down the road to a one Party Socialist State in another 12 yrs - three more Democratic administrations -for the cancer of the Democratic machine to propagate has metastasised under Obama, Valerie Jarettt - of well honed communist roots, and Buffy Wicks another well trained Marxist. They know what they are about.

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  64. Anonymous27/11/12

    Wow, that is the best article I've seen so far about the re-election of Barack Obama. Incredibly well-written, sarcastic, witty, hard-hitting, unbelievable! Thank you for being so insightful. That's where America is heading, I'm afraid.

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  65. We don't need someone to "run the country." We need someone to oversee/manage the government. This isn't a one man job either. It depends upon the man at the top being able to secure competent leadership, rather than totalitarian hacks, to be part of his Administration.

    Romney showed that he that he has had the ability to do this in Massachusetts, with the Utah Olympics, at Bain, and in his own personal life. Aside from getting elected, and a few end-runs around Congress, I think it would be hard to come up with ANY great moments that Obama has managed, UNLESS he has been intentionally intent upon destroying the economy of the United States of America.

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