Quote of the day—Charles MacKay

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Charles MacKay
1852
Preface to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds
[Via Jeffrey A. Tucker When Will the Madness End?

I haven’t read the book yet but I have it on my phone and it is next in my queue.

The current mass delusion has interesting parallels to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s with the hijacking of claims of racism against blacks by white Marxists. Read about it in America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence Days of Rage. Many of the people who lived through that gradually came to their senses and were perplexed how they could have believed the stuff they were so certain of.

I haven’t read any books on it but I’ve read some newspaper clippings from the 1930’s about socialism/communism being openly viewed with great popularity in our country. Again, within a relatively short period of years, such views were strongly disavowed and even suppressed by government action.

That such cycles into madness have occurred before, and our country recovered, gives me hope that we can recover from this cycle into a political hell as well.—Joe]

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8 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Charles MacKay

  1. Ooh, Days of Rage! I’ve got that one. It’s an excellent deep dive by Bryan Burrough into the radleft of the 70’s, particularly their propensity for terrorism.

    Not all of them came to their senses. Some are still believers. A lot of them wound up in academia, with the expected results.

    • I suspect that many of the radleft [I like the term] of the ’60s and ’70s are today’s liberal elite who are in power and sanctioning, if not outright promoting, today’s riots.

      How else can we explain mayors and governors along with the deep state that are ‘using’ the rioters to damage if not bring down the very system that gave them their power while at the same time making it clear to businesses and taxpayers that they don’t count? And getting by with it with only muted opposition?.

  2. Just keep reminding people of this basic historical fact: When Marxists are in power, NOBODY’S LIVES MATTER.

  3. I believe it starts;
    It’s was not part of their blood,
    It came to them very late,
    With long arrears to make good,
    When the Saxon began to hate.
    History doesn’t repeat. But it rhymes?

  4. Like the huddle in a football game, I submit that your view of national “recovery” from the overt support of Marxism/Leninism is no more than tactical retreat for the purpose of regrouping and planning.

    Most telling is the fact that, although the rhetoric may have gone (sort of) anti-communist for a while, the radical changes to the interpretation of the constitution, and the radical socialistic programs and institutions implemented by FDR, all stayed in place, and even grew, during that period you point to as “recovery”. It’s like when the Republicans regain power after a spate of Democratic Party programs implementation; the programs the Republicans railed against, and pretended to “fight” against for several years will suddenly become OK once the Republicans gain the power to shut them down. Some excuse will be found to leave them in place, or the matter will simply be dropped altogether as some other issue is made prominent. We are THAT easily manipulated! The rhetoric and the narratives change, but the policies only march in one direction; away from liberty, toward a more authoritarian system.

    The singular, lasting effect which came out of the McCarthy era was the impression that anti-communist fervor equals fascism or fascistic tactics (injustice) and is thus entirely evil, with the unspoken inference being that the antidote to said evil is of course good ole socialism and communism (or actual fascism). Thus “antifa” becomes “fa”. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

    That puts us under the early 20th Century European paradigm of right verses left, wherein fascism is on the right and communism (fascism’s inbred cousin) is on the left, with liberty being totally out of picture. That’s the narrative, or paradigm, which lives in mass media today and through which all news is filtered. It is the paradigm which lives in all the public schools and universities.

    This is what we may call the “secular, leftist paradigm”.

    And anyway; this is a global war. To focus on the U.S. is to somewhat miss the point. The U.S. is but an actor on the stage in this world theatre production. You often see these various ideological subversion program shifts taking place simultaneously throughout the Western World.

    The “solution”, it will be said (and is now being said), to all this chaos perpetrated by the secular left is a new religious revival (the ecumenical movement, with Rome at its head). But that “religion” will be nothing more than the socialistic, fascist system with the added “authority” which comes from “god”. The new system will be largely disconnected from, and in many cases antithetical to, Sctipture, and yet will gain the adoration, respect and even worship of billions.

    That is what we may call Babylon.

    Thesis, antithesis, synthesis; the secular left has been at odds with the religious right for generations. The solution? They’ll come together under a new, more powerful than ever, fascistic, universal church/state system.

    • … when the Republicans regain power after a spate of Democratic Party programs implementation; the programs the Republicans railed against, and pretended to “fight” against for several years will suddenly become OK once the Republicans gain the power to shut them down.

      Perhaps you haven’t been paying sufficient attention to some recent changes. The Trump administration has been cutting regulations at the rate of nearly three regulations for every new one generated. And in 2017 due to the Republican controlled House and Senate the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which zeroed out the individual mandate penalty was passed and signed into law. This lead to a Federal Judge striking down the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional. It’s still going through the appeals process but as it’s the 5th Circuit chances are good the ruling will be upheld. The Trump administration declared Antifa, the Democrats “Brown Shirt” equivalents, a terrorist organization and is arresting and prosecuting them.

      Has our Federal government been restored to it’s constitutional limits? Of course not. But we cannot expect 100+ years of erosion of those limits to be restoring in two and half years. But you cannot factually say nothing of significance has changed. If it hadn’t you wouldn’t have seen the incredible effort put into the Russian collusion hoax and then, when that failed, the “Brown Shirts” were turned loose to destroy the cities. If it had been another RINO U.S. President the Marxist politicians would have whined but played along. They didn’t because they feared their corruption would be exposed and/or they would have less power when they eventually gain power again.

      And “all this chaos perpetrated by the secular left is a new religious revival … with Rome at its head”? Really? “Rome” is funding and/or directing their puppets the Democrat party and/or BLM and/or Antifa? “Rome” has as one of its most firmly held positions that it is strongly against abortion and, to a certain extent, even birth control. The Democrats want abortion to be “free” and, it would appear, each instance celebrated. It would seem “Rome” doesn’t have very good control of their puppets.

      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I haven’t seen any hard evidence yet.

      • I have been known to hang out with a bunch of Polish catholics. Many of them seem…unimpressed…by the current situation. Be careful not to paint with too wide of a brush.

        I am as staunch a Protestant as any, but I believe I’m also aware of who the enemy actually is, and I’m willing to make common cause with whoever is in opposition. If I’m wrong, I could think of worse things than spending a long time in Purgatory.

  5. My philosophy: Keep your powder dry. Buy more, if able, and keep it dry too.

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