You’re always straight up so I was initially a bit confused by your post. And, you are correct that the left is the significant violator…but, after all, they’re in power and more focused on keeping that power than helping America….. Status Quo.

The ’48 Republican Congress’ clipping of communist union wings with Taft-Hartley; you can get a tear in a union goon’s eye over Taft-Hartley even today. The anti-communism of both Republicans and conservative Democrats in the mid-fifties that kept them under some control and throw in the Landrum-Griffin Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act which further addressed both union communism and corruption. Even though the left attacked him like he was Attilla, Nixon was pretty much Democrat lite and then his fall turned the Country over to the Left until the next counter-revolution in Reagan’s election. Unfortunately, Reagan had to deal with the Congress that was the legacy of Nixon’s fall so in order to face the USSR and re-arm, he had to let them spend a lot of money and grow social programs. Then we get another D-lite in GHWB except in foreign affairs Then the left takes over again. Until the Gingrich Revolution. I think the pivotal event was the failure of the government shut down and it failed because of fecklessness on the Republican side and new, innovative strategy on the D side. For the first time we saw Alinsky/Union tactics at the National Party level; they used the “virtual strike” strategem of the big public employee unions on the Republicans and they not only caved but ran scared ever after. Never again were they willing to confront the Ds on smaller government, never. Then GWB finishes the capitulation with his “compassionate conservatism.” The wave of conservatism in the res publica still ran strong and we controll the Congress too, but the officeholder were so scarred from the shutdown and the impeachment debacle that they just went on a spending spree and let the Democrats have one too. And here we are on the verge of becoming the USSA.

He’s talking about government bureaucracy positions and government-funded groups & consultant contracts – whereas most Republicans play Cincinatus when the other party takes over the reins. Not to mention that too many Republican adminstrators leave Democratic holdovers in place who (no surprise) undermine changes.

If you’ve followed Art here for a while, he’s outlined this multiple times; this “shadow government” structure is not symmetrical but definitely tilted toward Democrats (and more particularly big-government advocates). This is one of the long-term difficulties with keeping government limited.

And it’s risky to argue from past history that “the pendulum always swings” – Marxists by definition don’t believe that, and when they take full harge, it usually takes bloodshed to dislodge them. But again, whether the Marxists in today’s Washington will go all the way to make a move for one-party rule this time around remains to be seen.

The important thing is that they’re capable and ideologically willing to try to stop the pendulum – so we need to keep alert – without becoming unhinged.

For the first few months, they had essentially an uncontested field to carry out the coup, intimitating many of the Washington, lobbyist, and large corporate powers. It’s easy to lead the Wehrmacht into the Rhineland if your opponents are like France and Britain.

And Obama has always had others sweep the fields ahead of him, so he has been tested until the last few months.

But now that resistance is developing, we’ll have to see what Obama and crew (and their Congressional allies will do). Nancy seems the most Stalinist in mindset; don’t know in the push whether Reid and Obama are equally ruthless. Reid is the weakest, and Obama is a cryptic factor.

Yes, the Ayers and others behind the scenes (and the Clintons in their way) are ruthless and know the Alinksy and Lenin playbook, but whether they will be given full charge remains to be seen – after all, Obama is a flawed vessel as a revolutionary, he wants to be liked and admired as well as to get his way.

And we also don’t know how far they really are willing to go, or whether they are misreading their assets. For instance, they have had the unprecedently allegiance of most of the media, but they may overreach with that and push too hard, too fast.

So again, we don’t know their competence now they’re inside and on the throne rather than outside the palace walls.

Or world events may upset the apple cart – since they can’t control those players – which is one of the major reasons (but not the only one) – ideological sympathies are another) they’re in such an appeasement mode – to try to buy time to keep foreign affairs quiet while they try to ram through an irreversible domestic agenda.

But in not underestimating the current Washington gang, we must not overestimate them either and throw in the towel either.

I really think we’re going to come to the knife’s edge of whether we stay free or whether tyrrany prevails and don’t know which way we will land. Again, external realities may upset the plans of both sides.

To think that politicians in America have come to blackmail the entire population with their legislation. We are in the midst of a political coup, it will be the economy saying “Et tu Brute?”

A republican government like ours need adherence to unwritten codes and traditions that all parties agree to and that they successfully transmit to the next generation – changes to which are incremental by consensus. I’m referring to procedures and the “rules of the game”.

So as far as the “nuclear option” – I am sympathetic to the arguments that there shouldn’t be filibusters – but it needs to be codified one-way or the other so that it’s not just one-sided (“Fillibusters for me but not for thee”). The bigger problem is when to start – after all, after Bush had so many nominees blocked (both judicial and executive appointments) it doesn’t seem right to simply lie down.

The resolution I think would be to pass the “nuclear option” now (if that’s the way that most want to go) but make it effective after the 2010 elections – that at least gets us off the dime of immediate tactical gameplaying.

And if you were referring my Pelosi comment – the issue is that Pelosi preserves that form of the rules while violating their contents, as in reading the laws, allowing debate, and many other blatant abrogations that are ignored. That is a huge problem, because you know that if the Republicans get into power, all these violations will become “never happened” and the Republicans will be charges with “unprecedented abuses of power, ad naseum if they do the same.

So in frustration, I was saying that if the rules are going to get violated routinely, just do away with the hypocrisy and change the rules – so that both sides can do the same things. But that’s not going to happen because the whole intent is hypocrisy.

Though again, I still advocate my first paragraph as to how things should be.

So what do you do if the high road is a suicide pact? How do you deal with someone like Pelosi who wants to be dictator when she’s in power and play victim if the Republicans get a House majority again when most of the media will play along? (And if you don’t agree with the formulation of this last question, please tell me where I’m erring.)

It’s a real conundrum, one that comes up in moral ethics all the time in various forms: personal purity vs. societal evils.

Figured you had something going on.

…all the machinery breaks down during planting or harvest. Never in-between. Good luck and keep driving on! This Nation needs ever Farmer we can lay our hands on!

Thanks for the nice post. I look forward to you and so many others here holding my feet to the fire defending my liberal views.

And wouldn’t you know, just when you don’t need it, everything breaks just when you don’t need it. I totally know what you went through. My honey-do list is starting to look like the national deficit!