So let it be written; So it must be reality...

[neoblues]

Anybody ever get the sense that our Congress, nay, our President/Executive Branch AND Congress (and possibly the Supreme Court as well) think that if they write it (pass a resolution or whatever), it must therefore be so!

That is, if they make their opinion 'formal' in some way, they actually believe that their statments are then true and reflect reality?

I had recently run across a few "resolutions" passed by Congress--that it seemed to me (a) they didn't have any business expressing their opinions about given their professional ignorance on the subject, and (b) that they were trying to insist something wasn't the way it, in fact, really is to prevent mere citizen from believing the painfully un-Republican truth**. The sort of thing I'm referring to is situations where some scientific study (often the government's own scientists) produced some result or other that the Republicans in Congress disagreed with, so they get together and pass a resolution to say it ain't so (and think their lies are thereby somehow more true). Imagine things like Global Warming, Environmental Issues, Terri Schiavo, etc... That the Bush Administration plainly thinks that whatever they think reflects reality--no matter how loudly reality refutes them is obvious enough (just consider any and every decision and action they take; they're obviously suffering a 'reality deficit').

Perhaps it's just that the power has gone to their heads (and they think we're idiots; though many citizens are, it's still not right)...

**"un-Republican truth"?--a truism; there are no Republican "truths".

[jokerman93]

1. Remember what we're dealing with here

During the campaign, a senior White House aide explained the operating political trajectory of the neocons to reporter Ron Suskind, who wrote in the New York Times Magazine: "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

This may sound like the voice of a "radical" new post-modern philosophy based entirely on some kind of faith-based visionary Darwinism in which "realities" are the result of political actions and are capable of competing with and dominating one another. In my opinion it's just a glorified obscurantist way of saying "they" will continue to baffle us with bullshit at every turn and stay a step ahead of us the whole way because of the time delay involved in realizing we've just been snookered one more time...

So, I think this legislating of alternate realities you're discussing is just one of many cynical devices they've been using - all smoke, mirrors and obfuscation designed simply to misdirect, preoccupy and perplex the reality-based populace long enough for "them" to get on with their next outrage - whatever it happens to be. And the cycle repeats until they've stolen and plundered everything that isn't nailed down.

It's seemed to work well for them so far.

J

[razors edge]

2. I'm no norquist fan but

maybe if they bankrupt it and can no longer steal anything from it, they would move on like locusts and we could start over, like the russians.

American troops in 130 countries doesn't make me any safer, and if the government can't operate that type of world domination at a profit which requires no taxation of american citizens who supply the cannon fodder and homeland targets, then they are just plain incompetent in the sense of empire.

Has there ever been an empire that paid to occupy other nations?

The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.

[neoblues]

4. Yeah, they're a bad joke, and the joke's on us.

It is pretty funny that we have to pay to provide protection to occupied countries; then again what do I know (admittedly precious little since I can barely grasp the vastness of the corruption that is our government and why the world is the way it is).

However, bankrupting the government is exactly what they're trying to do--they hate the social programs and want to stop them, but they're salivating at the prospects of buying up and taking over all the goverment institutions at fire-sale prices (when the government is diced up and sold off to pay it's debts), and that's after they've consumed the treasury over and over again--refilling it via credit (public debt). They can't lose; unless 'the people' stand up and make the necessary changes to put the hidden Aristocracy out of business.

[neoblues]

3. Well said; Good points...

Just tickles my outrage button even more; with such asinine impudence they can do anything they want while the rest of us are indisposed due to the outbreak of simultaneous nausea and vomiting at every action they take.

I really must get over the idea of expecting rational, proper or honest behavior from anyone elected to our government; at least as long as it's a Republican (the self-deluding among us).