And Even If They Didn't The Rest Of Us DO
WHEN HITLER REPEATED the insult that that previous murderous military despot, Napoleon made against the English, calling them a "nation of shop keepers" he minimized their willingness to overlook their own, immediate material comfort and financial sense of security for something larger. His something larger was his psychotic biological-murderous Aryanism and his wars of conquest and supremacy.
He figured the Brits were sitting ducks because of their decadent materialism, though his own was OK, he thought. The irony was that Napoleon was likely influenced by what Adam Smith said about the English as a nation of shop keepers and their complete willingness to send soldiers and sailors (mostly of the underclass but with aristocratic officers) to do something like Hitler had plans of doing.* Like what America's ruling class has done.
But there are other larger things than that, far larger than Hitler could hold with. The common welfare, is one of those. Of course you know that I would hold that equality and democracy are high on that list, as well as the legitimate government that is a product of democracy based on equality.
That was what I though of when I caught this passage in Reese Water's post yesterday
Yes, of all voters. Now, mind you, we have had conversations here where we've addressed farmers, we've addressed truckers, we've addressed soldiers, we've addressed a great number of constituencies, and their opposition to this administration specifically along economic grounds. And the subtext of that being the rest of it was fine though. You know the the rest of it was fine. They even had threats to democracy and corruption on the list.
I have no doubt that a very large percentage of Americans, certainly those who vote Republican, who have no problem with the destruction of democracy and its replacement with corruption as long as they have that material comfort and financial sense of security. The kind who got suckered into voting for Trump using the price of eggs in 2024 as an excuse. I would say that that is endemic in at least the percentage of the American voters who vote Republican or may vote Republican depending on which way their sense of financial security is.
Reese Waters, of course, has made the obvious point for Republican voters that it's only when Republican-fascist violence, murder, oppression and terror touches theirs and in the hardest cases waiting till that touches THEM, that they have second thoughts about it. Much of his and many others' content focuses on those who were downright enthusiastic cheerleaders for that being meted out to Black People, other People of Color, Latinos, Haitians, etc. who have that FAFO only when it touches their lives. But that often leaves out white people whose lives are never touched in that way but who whine like a rusty hinge when their money is put at risk by the billionaire-millionaire servicing party THEY VOTED TO PUT IN OFFICE.
Yesterday I had a discussion with a member of my family about the very real and dangerous problem of our permanent stupid class - it started by my bringing up what John Cleese said about a Trumpzi woman who, when confronted with what Trump said to Billy Bush about grabbing women by their genitals said, "Well, he'd never have said it if he knew he was being recorded," as if that made it better. Cleese is the one who pointed out how truly stupid the core of Trump's voters are AND THAT IS TRUE FOR THE CORE OF THE REPUBLICAN VOTING AMERICAN PEOPLE.
And make no mistake about it there are several huge problems for democracy, the perennially stupid (many of whom are stupid voluntarily), Trumps' "low information voters, those led to that by media. To cast a beneficial vote, you have to know enough of reality to make the right choice.
And then the real hard cases, those who are selfish, mean, hateful and bigoted. THOSE ARE THE REAL AND MORE DANGEROUS PROBLEM FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.
I don't think that is something that we will find American democracy can continue to leave unaddressed, to find ways to prevent them from destroying the democracy the rest of those who are People of good will have a right to.
I said that one way to address it would be to allow those libeled and slandered by lies and hate talk media to sue their slanderers and the platforms they are carried by UNTIL THE COST MAKES THEM STOP CORRUPTING THE VULNERABLE OR RUINS THEIR ABILITY TO KEEP ON DOING IT. Overturning the large swaths of such corrupting "First Amendment" Supreme Court rulings that have so empowered lies and the corruption of the susceptible and vulnerable is not going to prove to be optional.
I don't think on the basis of the history of electoral governance in the United States, especially the white supremacy strongholds, that that matter can be allowed to continue as it has. Not unless you want to see the thing break up and/or civil wars, insurrections and terrorism all into the future.
The libertarian notions of "free press" and free speech absolutism have definitively failed the test of time, that is unless oligarchic fascism is the goal of it. Because such has been the result of that notion of "civil liberties." And I do think that for a large number of the "civil libertarians" they're at least OK with oligarchic fascism because they are oligarchic snobs to their most central core.
I don't favor an intelligence test to vote, a literacy test (I doubt most Americans much younger than 50 would pass a real one) or any kind of automatic restriction on voting - though if it proves impossible to protect egalitarian democracy any other way, I wouldn't automatically reject that idea, it's just that it's so prone to abuse by the fascists as they have used such tests in the past. I do agree with Benjamin Franklin that a government of the wisest would be a very foolish thing because it's impossible to determine who is wisest and even more problematic for democracy is selfishness, snobbery, the existence of grotesque wealth inequality . A lot of the best and brightest have proven to be idiots and thugs. Especially the lawyers and media whores.
I think its a certainty that the egalitarian democracy can be destroyed and thwarted by an appeal to the worst in human nature. In fact I think that is, basically, what is destroying ours. What do you think the monarchies, dictators, oligarchies, etc. that democracy rose in opposition to were founded on? But our idiotic Constitution and, especially "Bill of Rights" does nothing to address those facts. You could expect nothing more from the lawyers, slavers, merchants, bankers and shop keepers who framed it, their fortunes, like all great fortunes, are founded on doing evil. Those are founded on the inequality which is inimical to real democracy and legitimate governance.
Our media, especially our entertainment, panders to the worst in us. It does nothing to shame us out of the worst in us, it doesn't do anything to support the moral basis of democracy. It is far more likely to take a cynical pose in opposition to that.
It's not only the stupidest among us whose attitudes and ideas are molded by entertainment media, it was one of the greatest shocks of my first years online to find that many a real, science PhD's notions of history, biography, etc. were formed by movies and TV shows which they believed were true to life. Hollywood and Broadway and popular lit are as much a problem for American democracy as being shopkeepers may have been for the English. And those are a bigger problem for the English now, as well. With movies, radio, TV and the internet, those have changed human culture so basically that any 18th century notions of how we can have democracy are not only useless but they are an inhibition to even noticing the problem.
They've made us fatally stupid as a People. And fixing that that isn't something you can just leave to lassiez-faire - the idea that laws of nature were going to ensure the right result is about the stupidest idea still current among us, one of the central superstitions of modernism and the "enlightenment."
* I don't know if Napoleon was making a reference to Adam Smith who used the phrase, but my guess was he knew this passage:
“To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight, appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers. ”
Being opposed to the founding of empires, period, I don't think Adam Smith's use of the term makes it any better than Hitler's repeating of it. I would like to know the death toll that the British Empire took in comparison to that of Napoleon or Hitler or the US, for that matter.
Here's Reese Waters complete post:
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