There’s been quite a lot of discussion of this whacky video Alabama Republican Rick Barber is running. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty damn entertaining, though I think they should have had the singer cry (they do close-ups of his watery eyes several times, but the waterworks never quite materialize):
There are images of slaves, concentration camps, and the like that flash after Barber gets an Abe Lincoln impersonator to agree that taxes are the same as slavery. Barber has been criticized, not inappropriately, for this. The general consensus seems to be that he’s too angry, that he should try to sound more like David Brooks giving a seminar at the Aspen Institute. In interviews, however, he seems, as Ruth Marcus (not my favorite, but I like that she interviewed this nut), puts it “affably extreme”.
In today’s political world, when someone says something cray, it’s treated as a “gaffe” or an example of insufficient civility. But the truth is that some candidates, especially Tea Baggers, really do believe in very crazy things. Barber and Rand Paul aren’t just mistake-prone or uncivil or angry, they’re something far worse: candidates with insane, irrational political views.
SiubhanDuinne
DougJ: That may be your awesomest title yet. I bow to the master.
Cat Lady
@SiubhanDuinne:
You beat me by 3 seconds. DougJ is the master of title fu.
Mike S
I don’t know which is scarrier. That nut bag or the freaks walking behind him.
Comrade Baron Elmo
Man, I hope Bill Maher does a stinging parody of this ad… like the one his people came up with for the recent gubernatorial race in Alabama (must be somethin’ in the water down there):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdQzpqbZ3Po
Do NOT watch this while drinking a beverage… you might end up wearing it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cat Lady: I must admit I don’t always get them. Occasionally because they are subtle perfection and I’m slow on the uptake, but more likely because DougJ knows a lot more pop culture references than I ever will, so I don’t even realize he’s employed his massive title-fu until everyone else starts commenting on the wonderfulness of his title.
As for Barber, I’ve been somewhat aware of him because a small part of my job involves following political campaigns in several southern states, including Alabama — also Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina, so you can just imagine the hours of endless joy that gives me!
Mark S.
I kind of liked this guy’s other video (Gather Your Armies), which was delightfully corny, but this one is just fucking offensive. Having some Alabama cracker compare paying taxes to a black president to slavery is wrong on so many levels, and then to put a fucking Holocaust visual in it? Though this may cost me a job at WaPo, I hope Barber accidentally asphyxiates with two wetsuits and a dildo.
asiangrrlMN
I did not watch it (after I read the description) because I did not want to be immediately filled with rage. However, as long as he didn’t say fuck or DIAF, it’s all good, right?
Mike S
@asiangrrlMN: Depression is more likely. Especially if he is elected.
asiangrrlMN
@Mike S: Yes, that, too, but right now, I am not feeling very kindly towards the batshitcrazy baggers of the tea. I just watched Sharon Angle being interviewed by a non-FOX guy (on Maddow’s show), and I was amazed at her sheer stupidity–and enraged. Plus, thinking that she might actually get elected makes me want to beat the crap out of something. It just makes no sense to me.
TenguPhule
The end of an empire brings out the Nero in all of them.
Batocchio
Agreed, the title is great. This is a crazy ad, and the Auschwitz stuff is extraordinarily inappropriate. And sure, having to pay taxes – some of which may help those lazy black people – is the moral equivalent of keeping black people as slaves. I think I’d be more appalled if I weren’t so stunned by the, err, logic or the ad. And you’re right, he really believes this shit.
Objective Scrutator
Aw, he censored my comment where I suggested that he needs to advocate executing Democrats if he is really serious about the Holocaust comparison.
Do not fear, alarmist liberals. Barber is just a RINO that happened to have his horn dirtied before appearing on television. Still, you can’t put dirt on an ivory horn (much like lipstick on a pig), so Barber shall fall before us Tea Party voters… and fetch us a nice profit, as well.
JL
Unleashing the fucking Iraq war was insane. The acquiescence of just enough democratic big shots flung that party’s political dialogue into irrelevance.
Mike Kay
@JL: I think you posted in the wrong thread.
JL
Mike Kay: I understand why my choo-choo train of thought could be dismissed. Hear me out, and then dismiss as you will.
Barber is no greater a nut than anyone who cultivates a dialogue that perverts history as a cornerstone of their spiel (American history, in particular).
He was challenged, in a very direct sense, with Doug J’s post. I simply piled on that challenge in my own fashion.
Mike Kay
@JL: i don’t think you should be dismissed.
I just don’t see the nexus btwn this post and what kerry and edwards did in september 2002.
that’s why I felt you were responding to a different arugment.
but if you want to expand how kerry and edwards vote 8 years ago connects to today’s race based teabaggers, I’m game.
Console
Lots of things about your average jackass conservative I hate… but the highest on the list might be the way they just automatically assume their views align with any great person in history. The first president to establish an income tax thinks taxes are slavery? What the fuck. This is as bad as Glenn Beck co-opting Martin Luther King.
Zuzu's Petals
Hmm, sheriff with a big honkin’ shotgun, closeup on Washington’s firearm in both ads…subtle, subtle.
middlewest
Oh, hey, a new tag. Will probably get a lot of use, sadly.
JL
Mike Kay: You’re a good sport. Leastwise, you’re a courteous one.
One last shot before I sack out.
The stupid asshole in question bends and perverts history into a fairy tale story-telling; one that furthers the goals of American fascism (i.e. corporate control of democratic institutions.
It’s such corrupt narratives that have driven political debate throughout my 50 years. It remains unchallenged by the establishments of either major party.
[Enter the gutless democratic wonders that collaborated into the oil war upon the Iraq people].
Mike Kay
@JL: I see what you’re saying, now.
stuckinred
A morning love fest on the BJ!
Tancrudo
One little quibble here:
Sure, there was a lot of fighting by Alabamans over the problem of slavery. But they were fighting pro slavery, not anti slavery.
Are his voters going to say “Durn right! We fought against slavery!” or “Huh?”
Christine
Am I the only one who thinks the “army” behind him looks like a zombie apocalypse?
frankdawg
@JL: I agree:
“Robert Byrd’s stance against the Iraq War came at a time when many other Democrats, cowed by Bush’s swaggering popularity, were too meek and frightened to say the same thing — even though they undoubtedly agreed with the late Senator. Byrd’s stand against the Iraq invasion is not just a testament to his own courage. It’s also a testament to the cowardice of other members of his party at an absolutely critical moment — an epic cave that may have altered the course of history and should never be forgotten.”
— Greg Sargent
frankdawg
BTW – what is going to happen when one of these nutbags wins election? You know its going to happen sooner or later given the number of them out there running.
My guess is it will be heralded (particularly if the is – FSM forfend – a large R gain) as the new soccer mom/NASCAR dad.
El Cid
Look, I don’t want no trouble, I just need to hear where they got this ‘underground railroad’ to get us tax slaves out to freedom land. Folk done tell me that Harriet Rand and Frederick Norquist got a way of getting you to a land somewhere up northeast where tax slaves is free, and they ain’t no gubmit what to tell you what to do, jes’ freedom, freedom, freedom all day. They say you got to watch your water and food though, maybe make a still just to get pure water, if they’s any wood left in what used to be forests, given how’s they got the freedom up there to let all kind of stuff run down into the water holes.
mclaren
According to the polls, a great many of these nutbags are likely to win elections this fall. Source: South Carolina: Outlier, or national precursor?
At some point, when enough crazy people get elected and say the same thing, “insane” becomes the new normal. Welcome to the Reagan Revolution part deux…
Mike Furlan
If the counter argument to Barber’s views is that “he is insane.” Then he wins.
I doubt more than one in a hundred Americans could explain exactly why slavery was such a bad thing. (Jesus didn’t think it was wrong, so why should you?)
If you can’t do that, we are left with:
“Yeah, slavery was bad really bad, worse than taxes.”
“Was not, taxes is worse!”
bjacques
Shouldn’t that be “I yam the Barber of Se…VIIIILLE!!?”
Figaro
Figaro
Figaro
Fi-ga-ro
TR
There’s so much to ridicule in that ad, but the idea that Abraham Lincoln — the president who abolished slavery and instituted the first federal income tax — would think that the income tax is the same thing as slavery is just nutso.
Jeffro
Not a good feeling about this…
mai naem
There’s something ironic(hypocritical?ridiculous?) about a moron from Alabama which is a state that gets more money back from the feds than it puts in, complaining about taxation.
kay
I don’t think it’s a joke at all. They mean every word of it.
This is mainstream conservative thought:
Consumption tax to replace federal income tax, no estate tax, no capitol gains tax, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Social Security.
Are they pretending he’s an outlier?
Is there a Republican out that would defend any of these taxes or any of these programs if asked a direct question?
Show me one.
Ruth Marcus is a poor listener if she thinks he’s radical, or imagines that anyone is going to denounce him.
Chad S
I take a lot of comfort in the fact that even in a very conservative district of Alabama, this schmuck isn’t resonating with the voters. Bobby Bright creams him in the general and its doubtful that he’ll win the GOP runoff.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Oh DougJ, you’ve learned nothing. Only black men are angry.
CalD
And here I thought that was being “plain spoken” and “unscripted” (and also of course, the kind of person that voters want to have a beer with). Guess I’m behind the times.
harlana
If I didn’t know better, I’d say that video was produced by Stephen Colbert and his writers.
Meanwhile, Republicans can take their tax argument and shove it up their collective asses. I have been listening to actual unemployed Republicans on Washington Journal who apparently just woke up, bewildered and terrified about losing their benefits with no prospects in sight. The desperation and fear of the callers, from both parties, is heart-wrenching.
I myself have 4 weeks left. I will not gnash my teeth because I have been blessed with a loving family back home, where I must return, who will not allow me to starve or live on the streets.
My agony, tears and prayers go to those who have no support system whatsoever. God help you, my brothers and sisters, in the face of such homicidal callousness. Accept the totality of my tears, since I am done crying for myself and what I have lost, as an expression of my grief for what has happened to this country and to you.
kay
Here he is on impeachment:
BARBER: Again, you just look back over the years, there are several who have been caught for tax fraud, tax evasion. You`ve got the potential offering of Democratic candidates not to run in replacement for possible high-level offices. There`s a lot of stuff out there. And if anything of it is found to be true, we should hold those people accountable, absolutely.
Anyone who imagines they won’t immediately appoint the special prosecutor is kidding themselves.
They’re probably shopping the job around to some hack right now.
NobodySpecial
@Chad S: Any takers on him getting 25-30% of the vote?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I just hope he doesn’t have a pilot license.
Wilson Heath
Proud that BJ commenters have already pointed out the complete factual fail of this clip what with Lincoln imposing the first federal income taxes as of 1861.
You see, fiscally responsible folks actually will raise appropriate levies to pay for costly wars that the country is embroiled in.
Omnes Omnibus
@Wilson Heath: Facts, like deficits, don’t matter. The Republicans are the first truly post-modern political party.
Michael
God – another acolyte of the Fairy Tax – the Big Rock Candy Mountain of all the redneck goobers. The concept involves massive “prebates”, idiot assumptions and a conservative*spit* wankfest over the notion that state tax commissioners would get to withhold revenues from the Federal Gubmint if enough redneck legislators told them not to.
If imposed, hoocoodanode that imposing a highly regressive 30% tax rate on consumption would crush consumption in a consumption based economy. It is one of those libertarian concepts that only libertarian “think” tanks could come up with.
I really wish that Obama would set up some re-education camps.
mistersnrub
So this ad tells us that Barber is a paranoid schizophrenic who has conversations with an imaginary Abraham Lincoln?
SiubhanDuinne
@El Cid:
Follow the Drinking Galt.
Michael
Going around on Facebook today, the 24 types of Libertarian.
http://www.leftycartoons.com/the-24-types-of-libertarian/
Bill H
consensus n.
1. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole:
2. General agreement or accord;
A consensus is, by definition, general. The word’s usage may be refined by explanation, such as “The consensus of a group of scientists,” or “The consensus of the general public,” but the word itself does not need refinement by adjectival definition.
NonyNony
@Michael:
See, it’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if “libertarianism” wasn’t a Communist or an anarchist plot that took on a life of its own. Nothing could destroy this country’s economy faster than the National Sales Tax[*] plan that so-called libertarians want to replace the income tax with. It’s something that I can see playing well with anarchists just because of all the havoc it causes. Maybe I just read too much Robert Anton Wilson in my youth, though – people believe stupid things all the time.
[*] NOT a VAT. Never call it a VAT. They get very, very angry if you ask them why they want to replace the income tax with a VAT.
NobodySpecial
@Michael: So, so, so awesome.
Linda Featheringill
Ah, this guy Barber is nuts.
I earned a Masters in History concentrating on Germany in the 1930s. I know some stuff I wish I didn’t know.
Trying to exploit concentration camps for your own political agenda is a really silly game. The power [evil?] that fueled the development of those institutions never was and never will be anybody’s tame pet. That power is quite dangerous.
And paying taxes is nowhere nearly as bad as being enslaved. The power behind slavery is also dangerous.
What the hell is wrong with this guy? What is he going to do next? Is he going to try to invoke the Devil himself in order to inflame the masses and get elected?
SiubhanDuinne
@Bill H: Of all my pet peeves, that’s one of the pettest. But it’s still an improvement over “general consensus of opinion,” which adds another layer of redundancy.
Svensker
I’m sure he’s fine with torture and surveillance, tho. Cuz that’s part of FREEDOM!
matoko_chan
DougJ, its all about teh respect.
The pinnacle of evolution is self-deprecating humor.
Conservatives have none of that.
That is why the most godawful batshit crazy memes have to be given equal time, like Barber and the birthers.
The conservative base has been memetically down-selected for 50 years for people too dumb to vote in their own economic self-interest, to be anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-education.
This is the result….they believe crazy stupid stuff. And they think they are ENTITLED to believe it, because their lying manipulative masters told them they are making sense.
That is why Gerson is all butthurt over Weigel…not because Weigel was “uncivil”– but because Weigel righteously mocked conservatives for being stupid/and/or/crazy. We are all supposed not to notice teh crazypants.
That is why Palin and Angle, etc. can’t have open pressers……not because the MSM treats them unfairly– but because the MSM treats them like everyone else and calls out the crazy and mocks them.
It all boils down to conservatives wanting preferential treatment because they aren’t as smart— its like genetic bussing for the IQchallenged, or affirmative action for insane people.
Karyn
@Christine: No, you definitely weren’t! Though my exact thought was ‘Holy shit, the Children of the Corn finally grew up! Gaaaah!’
Did I just de-lurk to make a ‘Children of the Corn’ reference? Yes, I did.
twiffer
@Bill H: “general consensus” is as ubiquitous as “very unique”. as annoying and wrong as they are, the battle (i fear) has already been lost.
Kryptik
It’s not a gaffe when you can get enough people to believe you to make stupid ideas mainstream. The ‘taxes equal slavery!’ crap is hardly new and hardly too ‘radical’ for most people. Sadly, the issue is with tone, not with substance, per usual.
Remember, we live in a country where folks like Jonah Goldberg gets to be treated scholarly when he says the Nazis were raging lefties, and where Mark Levin gets to say that the Klan’s agenda is the exact same as the ‘radical left’s’, and get taken seriously.
Chad S
@NobodySpecial: Thats basically what he’s polling against Bright(a dem). He’ll probably stay in the race after losing the GOP runoff and the Dems keep the seat.
Jim, Once
@matoko_chan:
Wow. I’m in awe. This is going to all my crazy, stupid (humorless) in-laws.
Bob L
You got to love how a vet like Barber screams about paying taxes to feed other people is slavery! You mean like when we are taxed to feed, cloth and equip the military? Want to bet Barber did his twenty years and has a government pension?
Corner Stone
@Karyn:
That movie messed me up for years after I saw it.
“He wants you too, Malachi!”
henrythefifth
Who do they think paid for all those nice military statues and monuments depicted during the song? Oh, that’s right, the evil gov’ment taxes! Tyranny!
Bernard
no doubt Barber has a pension. or some gubmint subsidy. lol
“us vs. them” thinking. the polarization frightens me, cause the South is still full of whites that believe that way. just listen to the radio, as i did driving through Alabama three weeks ago. Rush Radio nation. the white Southerners are rabidly anti-others. They lost the War of Northern Aggression!
that’s why they don’t like education down there. only “their” kind of education is allowed. keep the folks dumb and voting Republican. working for over 40 years now.
you can see a “good” thing, now can’t you?
fucen tarmal
tweety attempted a takedown of this clown based on his george washington ad. it really showed the limitations of mathews, when barber’s response was, in essense, “yeah, so” laughing, knowing tweety has no sway in the bear-bo state, tweety had nothing but insider condemnation to make his point.
barber still looked like an ass, but only to people who wouldn’t vote for him, if you were in his club, he was earning cred by taking the scorn of the “liberal media…
i hate tweety, i really do.
catclub
@twiffer:
I can certainly imagine a Quaker meeting ( where consensus
is an important concept) in which a person states:
“So, the general consensus is that X is an idiot but the specific consensus is that we will not hire X.”
catclub
@Linda Featheringill:
Could anyone point me to a recent web posting/ website that
argued Hitler did not actually win many elections in order to obtain power? The specific one I have in mind had a table showing Unemployment rates and Nazi party vote fractions
over four time periods. The last one showed an unemployment rate of something like 52% !
It is bugging me like crazy that I cannot find it.
Likely places I saw the link: Here, Iglesias/ThinkProgress,
Tapped, Alicublog, LawyersGunsMoney
Thanks.
Quaker in a Basement
Enough jibber jabber. Say it plain: He ca-RAZY!
Ash Can
As a native and still resident of the Land of Lincoln, I just want to say that Rick Barber can go straight to hell and take his fucking toothbrush with him. Forget the pitchfork, fuck him with a rusty combine.
ETA: And on a much happier note, I agree that this thread title is every kind of awesome.
Karyn
@Corner Stone: Me too. I still run away from blond children with vacant eyes.
scarshapedstar
I, personally, argued on NUMEROUS occasions that Abraham Lincoln would have supported universal healthcare because of the Whiskey Tax of 1791.
That’s because I take my marching orders from Saul Alinsky and Woodrow Wilson. Damn, you just can’t put one past these teabaggers!
I just hope they don’t figure out our SINISTER opposition to the repeal of the 16th amendment…
scarshapedstar
Seriously, do they pass out secret decoder rings at Teabag rallies? It’s like, you ask them about Jack Abramoff and they start babbling about Teapot Dome. Ask them about NAFTA and they attack “Hoot-Smalley”.
Every contemporary issue has been replaced in their minds with a pointer to something that happened 200 years ago that they can’t even explain. They’re like human sixth-grade social studies books.
fraught
The concentration camp picture he uses in his ad is the famous photo of prisoners at Buchenwald showing Elie Wiesel in a bunker. I know this pol is small potatoes next to a Nobel Prize Winner but I would love to hear Wiesel’s reaction to it.
jrg
These people really do have shit in their brains don’t they?
Yes, taxes are just like slavery and genocide. Just like the only reason someone would object to imprisonment without trial is because they are pro-terrorist.
It’s truly exhausting listening to these people. The sad part is that no matter how hard we try to explain basic civics, they won’t listen. They just want to collect their Social Security check, gas up the car, and head to DC to bitch about gubberment spending and the libruls.
licensed to kill time
Also, can the phrase ‘Morning in America’ go DIAF? It didn’t mean anything when Reagan said it back in the 80’s and it doesn’t mean anything now, except for this guy’s kind of GOP Groundhog Day fantasy that if he wakes up each morning and says those magic words, it’ll fix everything.
handy
@scarshapedstar:
If by passing out secret decoder rings you mean the very existence of Fox News and the ubiquity of conservative talk radio, then yes they do.
SB Jules
Who’s the singer & what’s with the made up words to the Star Spangled Banner?
Just think of the fuss if a liberal made up words to it.
Somehow I didn’t laugh once.
Joel
@Mike Furlan: Yeah, I disagree.
Barber wins if the ad garners him supporters. Being on the receiving end of mockery from the far-flung corners of the world isn’t going to hurt him much, but it’s not going to help either. If we were to ignore this kind of crap, then he’d really win.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Mark S.:
Although this will probably cost me all my invitations to Georgetown cocktail parties, I hope it’s two dildos and one wetsuit, just for variety.
Mike Furlan
@Joel</a
Joel, don't ignore this issue, but explain why if Jesus didn't condemn slavery, why was it really worse than taxes?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Meanwhile, Republicans can take their tax argument and shove it up their collective asses. I have been listening to actual unemployed Republicans on Washington Journal who apparently just woke up, bewildered and terrified about losing their benefits with no prospects in sight. The desperation and fear of the callers, from both parties, is heart-wrenching.
Screw them.
Seriously. If they’re Republicans, then this is what they supported for, lo, so many years. Why have sympathy for them – it is, literally, their fault. The bill is being called due, the piper is rolling up his sleeves and demanding payment, the chickens are flying home with blood in their eyes.
In your situation, I simply wouldn’t care about Republicans and their pain. Save it for the people who didn’t get your country into the mess it’s in.
Bender
And Democrats now sitting in Congress believe that if you put troops on Guam, the island will tip over.
Gee, this game is fun!
Wile E. Quixote
@mai naem:
I’d like to see Democrats start hammering on this issue, it won’t win them any love down south but I’ll bet it would have traction in the Northeast and the West. It’s well past time that we started kicking the living shit out of white southern conservatives and letting them know at every opportunity that they’re lazy, stupid, parasitic garbage who contribute nothing of value to this country.
jrg
@Bender:
I like how “a Democrat” becomes “Democrats”. I also like how you seem to believe that no one can use Google to figure out that Hank Johnson was “using a metaphor“. Has Barber (in this scripted campaign ad) called the comparison of taxes to slavery a “metaphor” yet? Because it looks to me like he’s saying that the two are identical.
You people are so dishonest. It would be amusing if you were not fucking up the country so bad.
**Edit – my apologies if your post is a joke. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference these days.
Corner Stone
@Karyn:
I just usually stay out of Iowa, but I guess that’s a good tip too.
ksmiami
Agreed – we warned these so called southern conservative clowns that they were playing a dangerous game… I would put all red states on notice that they won’t get one red cent from the government (or tax-paying liberals) … Somalia time has arrived.
Triassic Sands
@SB Jules:
They aren’t made up — in the sense you imply.
The Star-Spangled Banner has more than one verse, but only the first verse is sung as the national anthem. What you heard was the fourth verse.
If this video did anything for me (beyond convince me that Rick Barber is an idiot), it was to reinforce my sense that the Star-Spangled Banner is an absolutely horrible song — no matter which verse is sung. Rather than make me well-up with patriotism, it makes me cringe.
Joel
If you look closely, you’ll notice that Dale Peterson makes a cameo appearance (with the mob that forms behind Barber).
Joel
@Mike Furlan: The answer is simple; you’re under the misguided impression that trolling is going to win you the argument.
Mike Furlan
@Joel:
Hi Joel
I see that you’ve decided to let the wingnut win.
Somebody says something clearly idiotic, “Taxes are worse than slavery.” And all that folks here can come up with is name calling.
Here is a start to a response. First define slavery.
“slavery is the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons”
Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death
Even if you taxed 100% of some white person’s income, the still would not be in an equally bad situation as a slave.
Tax rates are not permanent, even if taxes are.
The IRS has yet to use bullwhips to enforce compliance.
Nor can they sell off your children settle back taxes.
And honor in our society is not affected by your tax bracket.
If you just focus on the money or other material measures, then you’ve lost the argument.
Joel
Mike,
My point stands; that’s just drivel. You see the process? Acknowledge, dismiss.
Mike Furlan
@Joel:
Joel,
I have no idea what you meant to say in your last.
However, if you simply dismiss the “Taxes are worse than Slavery” folks out of hand you are making a mistake.
They really do believe what they say, and there are a lot of them.
Glen Tomkins
“they’re something far worse: candidates with insane, irrational political views.”
Anti-social, selfish and inhumane, clearly, but this view that taxation is a victimization that the US middle class should not have to endure is hardly irrational or insane. Given US military might, it should be possible to get other people to pay for everything our govt does. We could start charging other countries protection money for protecting them from global terror. We could start making the poor assume all the burden of whatever taxation is still needed after we collect the tribute from foreigners.
Of course it would work. About 9/10 of any sort of Coalition of the Willing support we got was based on fear, long-term at this point and not yet immediate, of the consequences of not being sufficiently willing. I’m mildly surprised it hasn’t been proposed yet. I will be really surprised if we get through the present fiscal and economic crisis without implementing something like such a tribute-based empire.
The only way to avoid becoming such a robber empire is to get rid of the temptation. If the means to solve our fiscal problems is kept always ready at hand, at enormous expense, but not usefully employed, eventually using it in the only role that makes any sense (it’s way more force than we need to defend our borders, it isn’t at all useful at occupying foreign countries, which doesn’t serve our interests anyway), the only role that makes it a proifit center rather than a loss center — eventually we will get around to putting it to that use of letting the US middle class get by without having to pay taxes anymore.
We need to do what we should have done after WWII, and disarm, disarm down to the force needed to protect our shores, and do the modest level of sea power projection we need to provide reasonably secure foreign trade. That would be somewhere between 1% and 5% of current military expenditures.
uglyrug
At about the 41 second mark, here’s the subtext:
“Outta my way, Abe Lincoln!”
tootiredoftheright
@catclub:
I think I saw the same thing as you did. It showed he didn’t win any elections at all. It’s a myth he won by popular vote.
A lot of Americans are ignorant that Hitler wasn’t elected but put into power as a political gambit by the opposing side. It backfired obviously.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/hitler-comparisons-history/ is the site you are thinking of that was linked on many sites.
You also see the one vote fallacy about Hitler spouted by conservatives.
http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/onevote.asp