Many people are being influenced (some may find themselves beaten into submission) by the idea that John McCain represents all that is "old," while Barack Obama represents all that is "new."

I've lost track of the number of times I've heard this theme. Of course, I realize that constant repetition of something does not make it right. I'm such a stubborn case that if anything, the more something is repeated, the more resistant (and the more suspicious) I become. I suppose that if the repetitive classes who want to convince the world that socialist tyranny is "new" ever gain power, stubborn cases like me might find themselves targeted for "reeducation." I'm not into being a martyr, so I'd probably just tell them whatever I thought they wanted to hear, then do my best to make up for my sins by subverting socialism by passive aggressive stealth. (Become what Stalin called a "wrecker," but keep the wrecking ball in the closet....) The bottom line is that being outspokenly and resolutely opposed to socialism is no way to get ahead in life. It's a mark against you. And if you're a truly repentant radical who regrets his radical Marxist past, you're unlikely to be hired by the companies and firms that hire or kowtow to unrepentant radicals.

Enough personal rambling.

But I did enjoy this piece by Michael Ledeen, who it's my guess probably won't be seeking a job in the Obama adminstration. Not if he keeps pointing out what any student of history should know by now.

Obama's ideas are old and tired:

Obama is an advocate of ideas that have aged to the point of dementia. He's an old-fashioned radical, and the leftist ideas that inspire him are no longer relevant to our world. As Hegel used to say, the world changes, and the ideas that once described reality, and could be used to effectively change it when necessary, no longer apply to the changed world. Obama's political ideas have aged, which is why they have no policy saliency. They're just words, fossilized remnants of a civilization that no longer exists.

Once upon a time, Obama's vision of "change"-which is based on class structure and top-down collective enterprises-was not only contemporary but exciting. It inspired a generation of Americans to create the welfare state. But then the welfare state aged, and now, in the wild-west world of globalization, instant communication, the blogosphere and so forth, it is very old hat. The ideas are still hanging around, however.

....what would happen if tax eaters ever became the majority? If de facto nationalization of the private sector continues as a growth "industry" the way it has, pretty soon most people will be transformed into de facto tax eaters, because they'll be working for the government.

And when we're all working for the government, who will pay the taxes?

The fundamental problem is that income-transfer programs (and the interest service on the debt purchased to keep them running) are spending wealth in higher volumes than the economy can actually generate, and demand for that spending is rising faster than the economy is growing. Thus, raising tax rates is no longer a way out, if it ever was.

At some point, the U.S. government is going to lose both the ability to increase revenues and the ability to sell bonds. At that point the entitlements system will crash. Transfer checks will either stop issuing or become meaningless because the government has, like some banana republic, hyperinflated the currency in order to get out from under its debt obligations.

Unlike the oncoming European demographic crash, the entitlements crash will be survivable in that there will still be people around to make things and trade things with. But it's going to be ugly. probably rioting-in-the-streets ugly. People dependent on income transfers will starve or die of preventable diseases in large numbers, unless they can find work or private charity. Since many of those people will be old, work will be unlikely unless they are exceptionally capable at something. Families will have to re-assume the burden of caring for their elderly; retirees without children will be in especially severe jeopardy.

Violent revolutions have been fought over less wrenching economic changes than this one promises to be.

The essay is a must-read, and Raymond allows room for optimism:

In the rest of this essay I am going to make, against my best judgment, the optimistic choice of a near-term crash; bear in mind that if I'm actually correct in my pessimism the devastation will be worse...

I probably rant and rave too much against socialism and risk boring readers. (Always a mistake in blogging.) But the reason I do that is that I think this country is in serious denial, as if they want to have their socialism and not have it too. What will happen if the day of reckoning that Eric S. Raymond warns about ever comes? Is this just something to not think about the way we don't like to think about a nuclear attack on a major U.S. city?

Or is it paranoia? I mean, don't we have an unlimited supply of freedom, resources, and enough of the can-do American spirit of individuality to overcome all obstacles? What worries me is that socialism is incompatible with freedom. So is extreme debt. (Even the 13th Amendment to the Constitution allows that slavery in payment of debt is not slavery.)

Free countries do not declare massive "entitlements" by one class to the money of another class, especially when the money is not there. In free countries, no one is "entitled" to the property of someone else without just compensation.

What worries me is that the closer we get to full-blown socialism, the more the word becomes politically unmentionable. Even discussing an end to the entitlement system is politically taboo. This puts politicians who might want to do something about it in a very difficult position.

It's all too easy for me to shoot off my mouth. I'm not running for anything, and I couldn't get elected to anything. Not unless I moved to one of those outlying areas where people go to imagine that they're fleeing socialism, but even there I'd be unelectable, because I refuse to respect things like the war against condoms on bananas. (So for now I can just shoot off my mouth against socialism in the hope that its final triumph might be postponed.)

Michael Ledeen ends on a note of optimism:

In the past few days, the polls have suggested that the Democrats may not only fail to gain the glorious victory they've been confidently anticipating for the past two years, but things may actually go against them in November. It would not surprise me. They have become the ultimate reactionaries, they cannot explain the world or suggest sensible ways to improve it. If the voters recognize this, they will take their chances with the mavericks. Holding their noses, to be sure, but they'll do it.

Except the choice is so clear (and the stench of socialism coming from the other side is so overpowering) that I don't have to hold my nose this time.

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, a look at the history behind today's mess from Investors Business Daily:

Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The editorial warns that the worse it gets, the bigger the government bailout will become -- while Obama and company clamor for more of the same meddling that created the problem:

...the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact, the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great Society and New Deal in size and scope.

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.

And the fact that socialism does not work is part of the plan. It's not supposed to work; its failure is supposed to put the government to work.

UPDATE: I wrote this post before the AIG bailout, which I think is yet another example of the relentless push towards a socialist, state-run economy.

Glenn Reynolds links Fabius Maximus, whose thoughts are apt:

The consequences of the recent government interventions -- of which this is the latest, not the last -- are wide and deep. Far greater than most Americans imagine, far beyond anything even hinted at in the government's terse announcement. America is changing -- right now, right before our eyes, in a way totally unconstitutional.

Does anyone care?