Saul, Barack, and Me, Part IV
Date: January 7th, 2010
Category: Ideology of Freedom
By Robert Ringer
In Part III of this article, I said that the Saul Alinsky-like idea of playing musical chairs with the reins of power is a yawner, because history has clearly taught us that what happens in a successful revolution is that a new upper class emerges (Castro and his thug associates, Mao and his thug associates, Quadaffi and his thug associates, etc.).
In all revolutions, the doors of elitism swing open and a small number of populist leaders (as opposed to the duped masses — euphemistically referred to as “the people”) rush to take their places inside. As Alvin Toffler describes vividly in
The Third Wave:
Time and again during the past three hundred years, in one country after another, rebels and reformers have attempted to storm the walls of power, to build a new society based on social justice and political equality. Temporarily, such movements have seized the emotions of millions with promises of freedom. Revolutionists have even managed, now and then, to topple a regime. Yet each time the ultimate outcome was the same. Each time the rebels recreated, under their own flag, a similar structure of sub-elites, elites, and super elites.
In Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote about this phenomenon in similar terms:
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. … The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low … is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.
And, finally, Will and Ariel Durant put it this way:
Violent revolutions do not so much redistribute wealth as destroy it. There may be a redivision of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon recreates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as in the old.
Alinsky was absolutely right when he said, “History is a relay of revolutions; the torch of idealism is carried by the revolutionary group until this group becomes an establishment, and then quietly the torch is put down to wait until a new revolutionary group picks it up for the next leg of the run. Thus the revolutionary cycle goes on.” (Examples: Iran, Russia, and most of Eastern Europe.)
To lead a revolution, one has to assume the role of arbiter of right and wrong, which Saul Alinksky was more than happy to do. But he was a complex man who was full of contradictions and mismatches between his words and his actions. For example, in Rules for Radicals, he warned his followers of the danger of dogmatic arrogance.
I detest and fear dogma. … Dogma is the enemy of human freedom. Dogma must be watched for and apprehended at every turn and twist of the revolutionary movement. The human spirit grows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world with cruelty, pain, and injustice. Those who enshrine the poor or Have-Nots are as guilty as other dogmatists and just as dangerous.
Based on the above, I believe that Alinsky would have been distrustful of BHO. I find it ironic that Alinsky, who never knew BHO, clearly explained, decades before he came on the political scene, why he is such a dangerous individual. Just as Lenin saw Stalin as a threat to the purist ideals of the Bolshevik cause, I believe Alinsky would have seen the super-arrogant BHO as a danger to the community-organizing cause.
Nevertheless, BHO learned his lessons well from Alinsky, who said that “no ideology should be more specific than that of America’s founding fathers: ‘For the general welfare.’” These are perhaps the most dangerous words in the Constitution, because they leave the door open for power mongers to do just about anything to anyone under the banner of “the general welfare.”
To a soulless relativist like Barack Obama, the fact that the Constitution gives the government the right to “provide for the general welfare” is a dream come true. It is the perfect cover for his focus on “redistributive change” and forcing through legislation that is not authorized by the Constitution.
In Part V: Saul Alinsky’s harsh view of the world as it is.
_______________________________________
Liberty Education Interview Series
Please encourage your family, friends, and coworkers to listen to the Liberty Education Interview Series. Liberty needs all the support it can get right now.
_______________________________________
To comment on “Saul, Barack, and Me, Part IV”, please login below:
January 7th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
The liberals took power by hammering home the slogan “Don’t be judgmental” which too many people accepted as being a compassionate way to live harmoniously in a free society. Nothing could be further from reality and the truth as being judgmental is how one survives every single day. It’s the very essence of what constitutes failure from success and as dramatic as survival from extinction.
Being judgmental and being astute and sagacious enough to be able to define right from wrong, moral from immoral, ethical from unethical, and ground reality from psychotic/neurotic delusions, are the only foundational criteria that can save the United States from further decline and eventual Ouroboros-like implosion.
People need to agree on a valid and realistic set of real world values, based on historical experience and precedent, that applies to all politicians, regardless of what label they stick on their foreheads.
Both major parties are compromised and after we begin to clean house of the traitorous democrats in the next election, who are clearly the much greater threat to individualism and liberty, then we need to turn a more critical eye to the rotten and corrupted demagogues in the Republican party, who have not been representative of long established party values and who have been seduced and corrupted by the intoxicating effects of wealth and power.
We are all allowing ourselves to be taxed into incremental servitude on all government levels (inclusive of local, state, and federal bodies of so called “representatives”). These governments are all implacably voracious when it comes to empowering themselves, and those of us who know better and recognize the danger are being unwillingly dragged into an Orwellian style government, along with the ignorant, uneducated, and short-sighted who either believe this Orwellian dystopia is actually beneficial to a society, or are too foolish to know what restrictive horrors, enslavement, and even death of which these governments subject ALL their citizens when politicians steal or are given the power, in their twisted and delusional minds, to play God.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Great article,
But, one tiny little correction. While the government behaves as if the Constitution gives it the right to “provide the common welfare”, it does not. The preamble to our Constitution states as one of the reasons we americans established a constitution is to “PROMOTE the general welfare”. Provide and promote have two entirely different meanings, and in any case the preamble is just that, it doesn’t enumerate any rights or restrictions on the government, that is done in the articles.
The “living document” crowd makes these little word NUDGES all the time. A good example is how this was done to the first amendment, and how the meaning was changed with THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE. The phrase “make no laws respecting an establishment of religion”, where “establishment” is a noun) has an entirely different meaning than “make no laws respecting the establishment of religion” where “establishment” is a verb. A tiny little change can have enormous impact!
January 7th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
[...] want to introduce you to an article from Robert Ringer “Saul, Barack, and Me, Part IV.” You can also access the first 3 parts from his blog. I guarantee that Ringer is a fountain of [...]
January 7th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
This was a very well written blog.
It is my opinion that Saul Alinsky understood precisely what he was doing. He understood the cycle of power, and he wanted to get whatever share of power that he could get. That’s the bottom line of his motivation. (i.e. A big egoist filled with fatal conceit that wanted to acquire his own brand of power).
It is very important to remember that there are/were some exceptions to this cycle of power. Ben Franklin was just one of the greatest of these exceptions that mankind will ever see. More about him in a minute.
I know this is a little off topic, but I’d like to say that I miss Mr. Ringer’s inspirational posts. Being the highly negative, pragmatic, and jaded
person that I am, inspiration is a very important factor in staying somewhat balanced in my outlook.
It is the start of a new year, and I’d like to share some inspirational advice that has served me very well over the years. I’m not into new years resolutions, but if I was then this would be it. It
has become my favorite motto.
“Do something today for the person
that you will be five years from now.”
This type of long term-thinking, when applied properly to matters of health, education, finance, and personal relationships, will pay you
out compound interest in long term happiness.
Speaking of long-term thinking, I’d like to share one of my all time favorite true stories about Ben Franklin. In his will he left $4,500 to the city of Philadelphia with the stipulation that the money be
invested at 5% interest compounded annually for a term of one hundred years. At the end of the term, the principal would be nearly $600,000.00.
But the will, and Mr. Franklin’s long term thinking, didn’t stop there. At the end of one hundred years the city was not allowed to spend all the money. The city was required to reinvest $150,000 of the
money for another one hundred years. This $150,000 would now become almost $20,000,000.00.
I still remember the 200th anniversary of Franklin’s death when the city of Philadelphia announced that it had only made two million instead of the twenty that it should have made. Franklin also gifted the city of Boston the same amount of money with identical terms.
Boston made five million.
One of the morals of the story is that long-term thinking has been negated by expedient politicians and the hoards of bureaucrats that have taken over the government in the last one hundred years.. The
people who run the government think so differently than the people who founded it. The people who founded our government wanted those living hundreds of years after their deaths to have a better future. Contrast that with those who currently run the government, and how they are stealing the future from us and those the future generations. Contrast that with Saul Alinsky (aka The Evil Genius) who came up with a modern blueprint to destroy America.
Personally, I don’t see one politician out there—not even one—that comes anywhere near the greatness of men like Ben Franklin. We need a true American hero like Franklin. And we need him now. Currently, my opinion of Glenn Beck is rising. Since January 4, 2010 he has had a spot on message. Did you see his amazing commentary on Saul Alinsky? It’s the best that I’ve ever seen Mr. Beck perform. My respect for him is growing. He has common sense, now he needs the “uncommon sense” that F.A. Hayek so adroitly wrote about. It is so imperative to educate people on the long-term benefits of our Constitution. I think that Mr. Beck is going to do a fine job in that regard in 2010.
Specious short-term thinking is what destroys nations. (i.e.BHO, thinking) This destructive short-term thinking is now being executed worldwide on a massive scale that has never before been seen by man. And it’s happening right now, before our very eyes.
Let’s hope that someone like Ben Franklin appears to help lead the way during this historic era.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
I would just like to make it clear to people that the phrase ‘promote the general welfare’ is in the preamble to the Constitution. In other words, a goal of the Constitution. This phrase is not a legal article, if you will, as are the following articles. The laws or articles that FOLLOW the preamble are the best way our founding fathers knew to promote the genral welfare. Put yet another way. Adhering to the articles in the Constitution is the best way to promote the general welfare.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
What we have here is corporate fascism: Obama may masquerade as a “sock it to the rich” socialist, but look who he’s surrounded himself with in his cabinet.
He’s presided over a 10 trillion dollar corporate welfare/bail-out package to banks, Wall Street, etc, paid for by the taxpayer(read: middle class).
He just went to Congress to ask for a record 70 billion for GWB’s two wars.
This is someone Saul Alinksy would have approved of?
I don’t think so.