Stupid Ben Stein stupidly advocates for a stupid new Feudalism:

[riqster]

http://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/stupid-ben-stein-stupidly-advocates-for-a-stupid-new-feudalism/

"That’s right, America, he IS that stupid, and he is advocating for just exactly that. In the American Spectator, Stupid-Boy Ben really raises (or lowers) the stupid bar by saying stupid s*** like:

We want there to be a high number of rich people who function as a brake on government just as the nobles did on the crown in long-ago England.

My humble observation is that most long-term poverty is caused by self-sabotage by individuals. Drug use. Drunkenness. Having children without a family structure. Gambling. Poor work habits. Disastrously unfortunate appearance. Above all, and counted in the preceding list, psychological problems (very much including basic laziness) cause people to be unemployed, have poor or no work habits, and enter and stay in poverty.

Of course, he cites no facts to back his “thesis”, and for good reason: there aren’t any. In fact, the data either points to the exact opposite conclusion (in re poverty), or leaves out important details (as in feudalism). Vis and to wit:

Feudalism cannot work in the modern world. Click the link to see why. Also, feudal nobles were not acting “nobly”: they were kissing up and kicking down, like any present-day politico or plutocrat.They were (and are) looting from those under them and stacking their ill-gotten gains where the hoi polloi could not reach them, and acting like they were (and are) entitled to do so.

Reading Steins “article”, one thing stands out (besides stupidity): it is the smug, elitist, arrogant assumption of personal superiority with which the 1% are so densely infused. Put another way, Sir Ben of Stupidstein suffers from a self-esteem problem: far more self-esteem than is justified.

Were he the only idiot in his Village of Privilege, it might not be so damaging. But alas, he is but one of many ig“nobles” controlling our economy. These purblind fools truly do believe in a neofeudal system with themselves as nobles and the rest of us relegated to an imposed status of serfs, villeins, merchants, and such. Please note: in feudal society, there is NO upward mobility. None. Not ever. Not a bit.

Given the lack of such mobility across the globe in recent decades, it seems that the emperor Reagan and empress Thatcher and their successors have already started moving us towards a neofeudal society. One in which we are born into a certain place, and remain there uncomplaining, knuckling our forelocks at the idiots among the nobility who take all the riches and leave us with naught but scraps and dregs: all the while telling us we are inferior because it’s our basic nature and thus our fault.

The differences between Ben Stein and an idiotic, syncophantic noble in King John’s court? Only of degree and location. King John bungled his kingdom into wreck, losing territory and causing a disastrous civil war. And contrary to Stein’s assumption, the much-vaunted nobility royally screwed the pooch right along with him, instead of acting as a check upon him. Only after thousands had died and much wealth was lost forever was the Magna Carta signed: if the nobles had truly functioned as Stein says, the wars would not have happened in the first place.

We can count on a similar outcome to this harebrained system in our time. Stupid is as stupid does."

Source info at the link.

[cap]

1. Ummm like didn't we have the revolution

We could have had nobles if we wanted them

[riqster]

4. Be you hush, churl, and bow and scrape to the nobles, as God did intend for ye.

[Enthusiast]

2. What an idiot!

[riqster]

6. Yeah, it's amazing what one can do without facts or data, innit?

[joeybee12]

3. I've always hated Ben Stein..anyone remember his disgusting piece about Joan Rivers when her husband

Edgar killed himself? It was cruel and sickening, and he called it staire...the pig. I know some people don't like Joan, but she's not an evil person, and no one deserves such ridicule after such heartache. Fuck you Ben Stein, rot in hell.

[riqster]

5. Holy shite. Never read it. What a cretin.

[joeybee12]

7. Esquire ran it and Joan sued, although I never knew what

happened with the lawsuit. Jeers to Esquire for that and for running ANYTHING by Stein.

[riqster]

12. OK, I got curious.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19891021&id=nGdKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yZMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6719,6473616

[joeybee12]

15. Thanks...glad it wasn't dismissed outright...

And he had to pay something.

[Rex]

8. Sadz, my eyes are redz.

[riqster]

9. Cur, you are not worthy of such largesse.

[Rex]

13. .

[riqster]

14. Knuckle your knavely forelock, churl!

[sinkingfeeling]

10. With Stein's "Disastrously unfortunate appearance" how did he not end up poor?

[riqster]

11. Shhhh. Let not plebeian logic be allowed to sully such divine insight.

[Wounded Bear]

16. Most people misunderstand what the Magna Cart really did...

IIRC, it mostly dealt with how the King and the Nobles interacted, and the treatment of the serfs weren't really addressed until much later. Frankly, it was more of a states rights document than some kind of "universal" declaration that the Declaration of Independence almost was. It was a counter to the prevailing centralization of power by state goverments and protected local power structures, in effect furthering feudalism for several generations.

[riqster]

17. Societal evolution is not a quick process.

I must read up on the Magna Carta. This sounds interesting.

[Wounded Bear]

19. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the only protection in the MC for the serfs...

was of the "they're mine, don't mess with them" type. One of the problems was that the king (or kings in the internecine struggles) would draft the peasants of the nobles and use them for the royal agenda, which was often not what the nobles wanted, and could be against them.

[Cha]

18. KICK!

[BlindTiresias]

20. This is the new right

The new right is informed by people like Hans Hermann Hoppe who is an explicit capitalist neo-monarchist, you can expect to see more positions like this one advanced in the right wing and eventually the right-moving Democrats.