RFK Jr - Authentic Americanism ...
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Bill Totten
May 23, 2023, 9:02:36 AM5/23/23
to GoogleGroups
RFK Jr - Authentic Americanism ...
... that Loves Liberty, Loathes Lockdowns, Upbraids Abe
by Ilana Mercer
https://www.unz.com (May 18 2023)
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/shutterstock_231982654-600x400.jpg
It is not capitalism that has failed, but crony capitalism.
- Robert F Kennedy Jr
The Constitution was built for hard times. It is the heart and soul of
our country
- RFK Jr
THE GULF BETWEEN principles and practice, doxa and praxis, is eternal
- all the more so when it comes to the politician.
When you think of a GOP [Republican Party] candidate, in particular,
you think of neither creed nor action, but, rather, of a list of
talking points and policy positions to the exclusion of bedrock
principles.
"God, groceries and gas" was how one gaseous hack smugly summed up
what Americans need to Sean Hannity of the near-defunct [chuckle] Fox
News channel. That, and promises seldom kept.
Aside from a native intelligence, and to distinguish from his rotten
party's political plank - Robert F Kennedy Jr, conversely, does
articulate a creed that respects liberty. Whether he will act on this
commendable worldview once in office is unknown.
As it emerged from the RFK Jr, announcement for president, his
worldview departs from that of the progressive Democrat Party's, which
he has decried as "the party of fear, war and censorship ... neocons
with woke bobbleheads".
RFK Jr's philosophy of liberty, moreover, appears wedded to reality.
He doesn't jabber GOP-style about a return to small government and the
passing of a balanced budget amendment.
Such totem Republican "small-government" words are as good as
Orwellian News Speak in concealing the truth, as they are dumbly and
dangerously unmoored from reality, and thus meaningless, mere
reductive talking points.
With an accreting $31.8 trillion in national debt, and some $200
trillion in unfunded liabilities incurred by federal and state
governments - the United States of America is beyond such asinine
talk. There is no coming back from this kind of government gigantism;
from such Federal Reserve and state-driven chicanery, with which
Robert F Kennedy Jr seems familiar and to which he speaks
knowledgeably.
Your columnist's task over the decades has been to address reality,
not to levitate in the arid arena of pure thought. Kennedy does the
same. As does he appear to grasp that the natural law of the
Constitution has been buried under piles of statute and
administrative-law precedent. He knows this all too well, having spent
his working life litigating against the Deep, Regulatory,
Administrative, Security, Welfare-Warfare State.
LOCALISM
The thing that most inspires about an old-school presidential
candidate like Robert F Kennedy Jr, other than his spirituality and
intelligence - unusual relative to all other candidates - is his
authentic Americanism, by which I mean his knowledge of and deep
attachment to American history, community, and patrimony.
This authentic Americanism is expressed in Robert F Kennedy's natural
localism. From Kennedy's abundant and important storytelling, as it
emerged in his announcement for president; American history is the
history of its people - not the history of the Federal Government's
gory, glory wars, and its many conquests and usurpations. As he tells
it, the history of America tracks with that of real families, like the
old fishing families, who are no more. For centuries, these
communities had lived off and along the Hudson River.
And so, he spoke at length about the villagers on the Hudson, and
their relationship to the river, both a source of food and fun -
"their French Riviera" - before it was contaminated by the colluding
quislings of industry and state.
Corruption invariably flows from state to society. RFK Jr, thus also
addressed classic agency capture, which is how regulations are
implemented: by the regulated in-cahoots with the state, always
against the interests of the people, be it the military-industrial
complex and its stake in perpetual war, the Agribusiness
conglomerates, Big Pharma, and its latest malignant offshoot, the
Covid cartel.
Also pleasing to this paleolibertarian is Kennedy's praise for
free-market capitalism long-lost. The historic fishing families that
fished along the Hudson River are gone, he argued, not because "their
business plan did not work", for "they had enriched the history,
culture, and palate of New York for three and a half centuries". Free
market capitalism had worked perfectly for them, protested RFK Jr.
Nature in her abundance had been a reliable social safety net -
victims of the great depression could fish and feed their families.
Now they must look to the welfare state for sustenance.
What eliminated these authentic communities is corporate, crony capitalism.
Is there another politician who speaks not only to the difference
between free-market capitalism, Rest in Peace, and crony corporate
capitalism, under whose yoke we labor - but also categorically praises
the first and damns the last?
LOCKDOWNS
Robert F Kennedy was all teeth and talons against the lockdowns back
when it counted - and now. Never forget!
Tarting up or forgetting the lockdowns won't wash.
How right RFK Jr is when he says nobody wants to talk about the
lockdowns, as both political factions promoted or failed to stop the
invasion and occupation of American bodies and businesses.
You cannot have a stable democracy without a middle class, something
upon which Pat Buchanan had always insisted. The lockdowns decimated
the American middle class, destroying 3.3 million small businesses and
resulting in the highest excess death rate in the world: America's.
The cost of lockdowns to the economy according to Harvard economist
Larry Summers was $16 trillion. It constituted the biggest transfer of
wealth in human history, argues Kennedy, with $4 trillion having been
shifted from the middle class to the super-rich.
Other than Naomi Wolf, Tucker Carlson (who, chuckle, destroyed the War
Party News Channel), and Glenn Greenwald - few have been the public
figures to describe the effects of the lockdowns on small-business
owners (well-represented among the Kennedy-supporting crowd) with such
persuasive passion, compassion, and grasp of the facts, delivered
extemporaneously.
THE CONSTITUTION
Certainly, no politician has spoken with such emotion about the
foundational right of free speech trashed, and about the crucial role
of our cherished US Constitution in commanding us to respect its First
Amendment and practice due process of law.
Robert F Kennedy Jr the historian reminded his audience how inviolable
the Constitution is meant to be, by harking back to the
Revolutionaries who did battle with Britain during many a deadly
plague, state mitigation of which was never instantiated in the
founding documents.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984907017/
He even let fly at Lincoln because the 16th president flouted the
Constitution when he abolished habeas corpus, a right of petition
currently suspended for many Americans who languish in jail without
due process of the law. This disgrace Candidate Kennedy must openly
eschew and remedy, as the Radical Republicans have failed to.
Free all January Six political prisoners; and rescue Julian Assange,
the greatest libertarian alive, if barely.
Kennedy remarked not unfairly that, while "President Trump [is] blamed
for a lot of things that he didn't do", he is most certainly to "blame
for the lockdown". The Covid lockdowns were "the worst thing that
[Trump] did to this country, to our civil rights, economy, and
middle-class".
"President Trump, in fairness - let me make this point. President
Trump will say that the lockdown wasn't my idea, the bureaucrats
rolled me on it. I said we shouldn't do it.
"But that's not a good excuse", countered candidate Kennedy.
"You need a president in this time of history who can stand up to his
bureaucracy".
Over and above that Sisyphean task, America needs a president who can
defang the bureaucracy for good.
THE HARD TRUTH companion podcast to this column is, Tucker Removed by
Fox. Robert Kennedy Jr Against The Deep, Warfare, Woke,
Industry-Captured State. We thank you for your Follow.
https://rumble.com/embed/v2hpzgc/?pub=fyb9t
_____
Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian think piece
since 1999. She's the author of Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for
America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) and The Trump
Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed (2016).
She's on Twitter (barely), Gab, Gettr YouTube & LinkedIn; banned by
Facebook, and has a new video-podcast.
Ilana Mercer Archive: https://www.unz.com/author/ilana-mercer/
Subscribe to New Columns: https://www.unz.com/subscribe/?domain=imercer
Links: The original version of this article, at the URL below,
contains several links to further information not included here:
https://www.unz.com/imercer/rfk-jr-authentic-americanism-that-loves-liberty-loathes-lockdowns-upbraids-abe/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of
https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/05/23/rfk-jr-authentic-americanism/
... that Loves Liberty, Loathes Lockdowns, Upbraids Abe
by Ilana Mercer
https://www.unz.com (May 18 2023)
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/shutterstock_231982654-600x400.jpg
It is not capitalism that has failed, but crony capitalism.
- Robert F Kennedy Jr
The Constitution was built for hard times. It is the heart and soul of
our country
- RFK Jr
THE GULF BETWEEN principles and practice, doxa and praxis, is eternal
- all the more so when it comes to the politician.
When you think of a GOP [Republican Party] candidate, in particular,
you think of neither creed nor action, but, rather, of a list of
talking points and policy positions to the exclusion of bedrock
principles.
"God, groceries and gas" was how one gaseous hack smugly summed up
what Americans need to Sean Hannity of the near-defunct [chuckle] Fox
News channel. That, and promises seldom kept.
Aside from a native intelligence, and to distinguish from his rotten
party's political plank - Robert F Kennedy Jr, conversely, does
articulate a creed that respects liberty. Whether he will act on this
commendable worldview once in office is unknown.
As it emerged from the RFK Jr, announcement for president, his
worldview departs from that of the progressive Democrat Party's, which
he has decried as "the party of fear, war and censorship ... neocons
with woke bobbleheads".
RFK Jr's philosophy of liberty, moreover, appears wedded to reality.
He doesn't jabber GOP-style about a return to small government and the
passing of a balanced budget amendment.
Such totem Republican "small-government" words are as good as
Orwellian News Speak in concealing the truth, as they are dumbly and
dangerously unmoored from reality, and thus meaningless, mere
reductive talking points.
With an accreting $31.8 trillion in national debt, and some $200
trillion in unfunded liabilities incurred by federal and state
governments - the United States of America is beyond such asinine
talk. There is no coming back from this kind of government gigantism;
from such Federal Reserve and state-driven chicanery, with which
Robert F Kennedy Jr seems familiar and to which he speaks
knowledgeably.
Your columnist's task over the decades has been to address reality,
not to levitate in the arid arena of pure thought. Kennedy does the
same. As does he appear to grasp that the natural law of the
Constitution has been buried under piles of statute and
administrative-law precedent. He knows this all too well, having spent
his working life litigating against the Deep, Regulatory,
Administrative, Security, Welfare-Warfare State.
LOCALISM
The thing that most inspires about an old-school presidential
candidate like Robert F Kennedy Jr, other than his spirituality and
intelligence - unusual relative to all other candidates - is his
authentic Americanism, by which I mean his knowledge of and deep
attachment to American history, community, and patrimony.
This authentic Americanism is expressed in Robert F Kennedy's natural
localism. From Kennedy's abundant and important storytelling, as it
emerged in his announcement for president; American history is the
history of its people - not the history of the Federal Government's
gory, glory wars, and its many conquests and usurpations. As he tells
it, the history of America tracks with that of real families, like the
old fishing families, who are no more. For centuries, these
communities had lived off and along the Hudson River.
And so, he spoke at length about the villagers on the Hudson, and
their relationship to the river, both a source of food and fun -
"their French Riviera" - before it was contaminated by the colluding
quislings of industry and state.
Corruption invariably flows from state to society. RFK Jr, thus also
addressed classic agency capture, which is how regulations are
implemented: by the regulated in-cahoots with the state, always
against the interests of the people, be it the military-industrial
complex and its stake in perpetual war, the Agribusiness
conglomerates, Big Pharma, and its latest malignant offshoot, the
Covid cartel.
Also pleasing to this paleolibertarian is Kennedy's praise for
free-market capitalism long-lost. The historic fishing families that
fished along the Hudson River are gone, he argued, not because "their
business plan did not work", for "they had enriched the history,
culture, and palate of New York for three and a half centuries". Free
market capitalism had worked perfectly for them, protested RFK Jr.
Nature in her abundance had been a reliable social safety net -
victims of the great depression could fish and feed their families.
Now they must look to the welfare state for sustenance.
What eliminated these authentic communities is corporate, crony capitalism.
Is there another politician who speaks not only to the difference
between free-market capitalism, Rest in Peace, and crony corporate
capitalism, under whose yoke we labor - but also categorically praises
the first and damns the last?
LOCKDOWNS
Robert F Kennedy was all teeth and talons against the lockdowns back
when it counted - and now. Never forget!
Tarting up or forgetting the lockdowns won't wash.
How right RFK Jr is when he says nobody wants to talk about the
lockdowns, as both political factions promoted or failed to stop the
invasion and occupation of American bodies and businesses.
You cannot have a stable democracy without a middle class, something
upon which Pat Buchanan had always insisted. The lockdowns decimated
the American middle class, destroying 3.3 million small businesses and
resulting in the highest excess death rate in the world: America's.
The cost of lockdowns to the economy according to Harvard economist
Larry Summers was $16 trillion. It constituted the biggest transfer of
wealth in human history, argues Kennedy, with $4 trillion having been
shifted from the middle class to the super-rich.
Other than Naomi Wolf, Tucker Carlson (who, chuckle, destroyed the War
Party News Channel), and Glenn Greenwald - few have been the public
figures to describe the effects of the lockdowns on small-business
owners (well-represented among the Kennedy-supporting crowd) with such
persuasive passion, compassion, and grasp of the facts, delivered
extemporaneously.
THE CONSTITUTION
Certainly, no politician has spoken with such emotion about the
foundational right of free speech trashed, and about the crucial role
of our cherished US Constitution in commanding us to respect its First
Amendment and practice due process of law.
Robert F Kennedy Jr the historian reminded his audience how inviolable
the Constitution is meant to be, by harking back to the
Revolutionaries who did battle with Britain during many a deadly
plague, state mitigation of which was never instantiated in the
founding documents.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984907017/
He even let fly at Lincoln because the 16th president flouted the
Constitution when he abolished habeas corpus, a right of petition
currently suspended for many Americans who languish in jail without
due process of the law. This disgrace Candidate Kennedy must openly
eschew and remedy, as the Radical Republicans have failed to.
Free all January Six political prisoners; and rescue Julian Assange,
the greatest libertarian alive, if barely.
Kennedy remarked not unfairly that, while "President Trump [is] blamed
for a lot of things that he didn't do", he is most certainly to "blame
for the lockdown". The Covid lockdowns were "the worst thing that
[Trump] did to this country, to our civil rights, economy, and
middle-class".
"President Trump, in fairness - let me make this point. President
Trump will say that the lockdown wasn't my idea, the bureaucrats
rolled me on it. I said we shouldn't do it.
"But that's not a good excuse", countered candidate Kennedy.
"You need a president in this time of history who can stand up to his
bureaucracy".
Over and above that Sisyphean task, America needs a president who can
defang the bureaucracy for good.
THE HARD TRUTH companion podcast to this column is, Tucker Removed by
Fox. Robert Kennedy Jr Against The Deep, Warfare, Woke,
Industry-Captured State. We thank you for your Follow.
https://rumble.com/embed/v2hpzgc/?pub=fyb9t
_____
Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian think piece
since 1999. She's the author of Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for
America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) and The Trump
Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed (2016).
She's on Twitter (barely), Gab, Gettr YouTube & LinkedIn; banned by
Facebook, and has a new video-podcast.
Ilana Mercer Archive: https://www.unz.com/author/ilana-mercer/
Subscribe to New Columns: https://www.unz.com/subscribe/?domain=imercer
Links: The original version of this article, at the URL below,
contains several links to further information not included here:
https://www.unz.com/imercer/rfk-jr-authentic-americanism-that-loves-liberty-loathes-lockdowns-upbraids-abe/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of
https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/05/23/rfk-jr-authentic-americanism/
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages