The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Prof. Lessig: What Are You Saying, Man?

Posted on | December 7, 2012 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

We Americans are not easily inspired. Forty years of reform have left us more cynical, not less — and not just about Congress but also about the very idea of “reform.” Eighty percent of Americans surveyed by Clarus believe that the reforms Congress has passed “have been designed more to help current members of Congress get re-elected [than] to improve the system.” The biggest challenge for the next reform is not just substance but also believability: It must convince America that it, finally, offers real change.

WHAT. REFORM. SIR?

European-style, unaffordable entitlements are up. Are THESE intellectually insulting, Constitutional-rights-crushing vote-buying schemes the “reform” you’re on about?

Respect begins with listening. It is fed by open debate. And it is encouraged by the belief that the hard work of organizing — the work that produced almost 2 million signatures demanding real change — will be at least as important in this process as the favors of insiders.

What makes you think that the likes of Princess “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Pelosi gives a Flying. French. Fornication. what you, I, or any of the peasants think? Sir, we’re simply in the midst of an ersatz aristocracy here, with every grubby implication that entails.

It is time for Democrats finally to steal a move from the Republican’s playbook: Boldness inspires. If there’s going to be a Tea Party for Reform, Democrats must start talking about ideas that give people a real reason to get excited.

Barack “#OccupyResoluteDesk” Obama has been pissing down your back and telling your it’s raining for years. When was the last time Captain Superior signed a budget into law? I know, bad news is always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it?
Prof. Lessig, you’re not a dummy. Stop acting like one.

This is not reform; it’s collapse!

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Comments

  • http://opinion.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    Prof. Lessig: What Are You Saying, Man?

    [...]

    Prof. Lessig, you’re not a dummy.

    Smitty, first you ask a legitimate question, then you gainsay the answer. I feel like I’m watching a Monty Python sketch.   ;-)

  • Cato

    Sorry, Prof. Lessig is a dummy. Has been one for some time. Opens his mouth and proves it again and again.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I have it on good authority that Lessig’s real name is Robert Stadler.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Atlas_Shrugged#Dr._Robert_Stadler

  • http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

    The idea that a movement could be sustained by the Democratic base for anything other than More Free Stuff is laughable.

    Real reform would include the cessation of federal subsidies to any institution which accords tenure. Nonsense is a legitimate discipline which should not be silenced, but neither should it be subsidized with confiscated property.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    He’s a true believer. He actually has convinced himself that the Left is not about Power and Control, that it’s aims are all altruistic.

    If the Revolution succeeds, he, like so many intellectuals in Russia after 1918, will be one of the first ones to be shot in front of a big ditch.

  • http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

    Surely you do not contend the Soviets were anything but altruistic?

    You will never get a WaPo column at this rate.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Sacrifices have to made, Mister!

  • Lightwave

    This is the silliest load of twaddle I think I have ever read. It has been 80 years of unchecked New Deal liberalism in response to the “unfair” Gilded Age that has in fact created the very thing it was meant to “fix.”

    Income inequality now is worse than it ever was in the 20′s. Rampant Keynesian economics has stagnated wages now for 40 years. America’s young people should overwhelmingly be voting libertarian, or at least Republican.

    Instead we get another four years of Perfessor Obamee’s Traveling Minstrel Revue.

    I wash my hands of the Millennials. I’ll be fine when the economy collapses. They won’t be so lucky.

  • Wombat_socho

    Pure comedy, isn’t it?

  • http://granitegrok.com/author/mike Mike Rogers

    In one sense, he’s correct. Forty years of campIgn finnce reform hve left us with the most corrupt, incumbent-protecting campaign finance laws.ever.

  • Adobe_Walls

    Will Durant

    “The reformer longs for an omnipotent government, forgetting
    that this merely means omnipotent politicians.
    Better a hundred times that men should build up their own methods of cooperation and control, than they should rely upon aldermen and policemen!”
    The problem is the constant demands for reform of the irreformable. We initiated income taxes in 1917(?) and we’ve been reforming them ever since, almost always making them worse. Not just insane but stupid.

  • Adobe_Walls

    Let It Burn.

  • Adobe_Walls

    And yet he persists. The solution isn’t “regulating campaign finance” but setting it free but in the open.

    Comrade President outspent McCain what four to one? McCain lost. He and Romney spent about the same, yet Romney lost. Sooner or later the big donors will realize it’s not the amount of money. Trying to stifle donors will only make it more corrupt. Once a donor determines to break the rules as to amount any other violations are mere details.

  • http://granitegrok.com/author/mike Mike Rogers

    That’s what I meant. The layers of campaign finance reform and regulation have only made incumbents harder to oust. The answer is exactly what you say: First Amendment first and foremost. Transparency- nice but be careful: remember what happens to those prop 8 contributors in California.

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