As Chomsky has been reporting for at least 40 years, we live in a highly indoctrinated society in which certain elementary truths are completely ignored, and large portions of "conventional wisdom" and/or "common sense" are pleasant fictions to make us feel better.

The thing is--what DOES the human mind do when confronted with this sort of upbringing? The simplest thing to do is to internalize the values which you are force-fed. You internalize the values, watch the teevee repeat what you've chosen to believe, and everything generally kinda works out, with the potential side effects of a few neuroses or substance-abuse problems or something.

It is the rare individual who chooses to push beyond EVERYTHING he/she has ever been told and try to actually clearly perceive the world.

That's why we're so screwed. There just may not be enough Americans who are going to be able to resist the mind-control system we've built here.

I always find it interesting to really push an "unacceptable" thought/meme into a conversation with the brainwashed. You can usually see their expressions go through 2 or 3 contortions before they realize you're saying something that simply cannot fit into their conception of the world.

Ruffini advises every Republican to vote against the bailout. blow up the entire economy with deregulation, then hang the fix on the Democrats. Clever.

Republican incumbents in close races have the easiest vote of their lives coming up this week: No on the Bush-Pelosi Wall Street bailout.

God Himself couldn't have given rank-and-file Republicans a better opportunity to create political space between themselves and the Administration. That's why I want to see 40 Republican No votes in the Senate, and 150+ in the House. If a bailout is to pass, let it be with Democratic votes. Let this be the political establishment (Bush Republicans in the White House + Democrats in Congress) saddling the taxpayers with hundreds of billions in debt (more than the Iraq War, conjured up in a single weekend, and enabled by Pelosi, btw), while principled Republicans say "No" and go to the country with a stinging indictment of the majority in Congress.

Republicans Should Vote Against the Bailout | The Next Right

There are basically 3 different types of experts in the House, Senate, Wall Street, and on TeeVee shows who pontificate on financial matters:

1. Those who don't know anything: approx. 10%

2. Those who know a little: approx. 10%

3. Those who don't realize they don't know anything: approx. 80%

-- he's just defining "Americans" and "the people" as "rich white dudes". FISA, the Patriot Act, and the unitary executive did not interfere with anything RWDs did, therefore they did not count as tyranny. Tyranny over economic life, though, might restrict the actions of RWDs, so of course it requires accountability, oversight, checks and balances.

Basically, in Morissey's mind there is still a (substantial) property (and maleness, and whiteness) requirement for citizenship -- no-one else truly counts as real people. Malkin herself has "honorary white, honorary male" status ... sort of ... but if she stopped truckling to the RWDs she'd be out of favor so fast her head would spin like a top.

An illuminating quote from Ed Morrissey at his old blog, Captain's Quarters, October 4, 2003 7:18 PM:

I would just like to let y'all know that I wear a 7 5/8 hat size.

And here's a pic to prove it: click my sig.

My point was that for anyone that has ever listened to "conservative" rhetoric about limited government it wasn't difficult to see this shift coming, as Glenn pointed out in his last post:

people have long predicted that the Right will do a complete reversal (once again) in their positions on vast federal power and unlimited executive authority the minute that such power is vested in someone they oppose and fear rather than in themselves.

It was obvious to me, as it should be to anyone who can resolve their cognitive dissonance without fooling themselves, that when Republicans started fearing the idea of a Powerful, Unitary, Democratic Executive sitting on "their" throne, the throne that they solidified and is supposed to point towards their "conservative" agenda, the "I heart Small Government" shtick would make a comeback. If this wouldn't have happened during an election year I'm sure the Authoritarians would be standing lockstep behind Fearless Appointee Paulson. If this happened in 2006 I could picture Michelle Malkin leading Henry Paulson Cheerleader Routines on the Youtubes and peddling the banskter snake oil. Don't get me wrong, they all peddle the bankster's snake oil, otherwise they might end up as part of the dreaded "middle class", getting milked by their former masters without their own teat to suckle.

Glenn responded to the context of the post with the position he reiterated in the same post yesterday, re: A Healthy Hypocrisy:

But no matter. The blatant hypocrisy here, while extreme, craven and obvious, is also healthy. Hypocrisy of this sort is actually a vital part of how checks and balances are supposed to work. It is expected that political factions, when in charge of the government, will seek to obtain greater power for themselves, and the check against that is that the "opposition party" will battle and resist -- not necessarily out of ideology or principle but due to raw power considerations and self-interest.

But like I said, it should have been pretty easy to see this coming, it isn't rocket surgery. Try it, go ask some authoritarians about the bailout and limited government in the context of civil liberties and watch them dance around like clowns with tongues twist trying to figure out how to resolve their dissonance.

don't you fools understand what is going on here - this is THE REVOLUTION and if you don't want to believe it and you ask: where are the damn Revolutionaries just look at your next door neighbor -

Look at the house with the foreclosure sign on it -

Drive through your city and there are hundreds and hundreds - and in the country there

are going to be hundred of thousand 'Revolutionaries' - Because they didn't get their hard earned share from a FEW of their fellow citizens and now they send them jingle mails by the hundred of thousands - and with every day a house is worth less and less - there will be

another jingle mail and another 'Revolutionariy' - who will not take it anymore and send back the key of his house to the bank - and fore sure he is also going to suffer - but this is the price real Revolutionaries have to pay - and some of them deserve to pay this price - because they forgot where they were came from and they tried to hard to belong to the FEW and they forgot - if you don't give others their hard earned share - one day you have nobody anymore to sell your crap too - and that's why this is really such a divine Revolution - with a huge educational potential and the beauty - that you don't have to think anymore

about 'right' or 'left' - You get cured - For life! You just will think - am I still a 'HAVE' or am I already a 'HAVENOT' and there will be so many Havenots that you will be able to start a whole new together with them and you will have the majority and your new national anthem will be the sound of jingle mail and there will be so much to be reposessed that THE FEW might even give it up - and isn/t that the funniest blog post you ever read?!