Because his only hard-core fan club anymore are the more reactionary members of the Wreligious Wrong…
For 8 years, more actually, American Foreign Policy has been based on the theme “Oderint Dum Metuant” which means “Let them hate us, as long as they fear us”
A favorite of the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar the Second, aka Caligula.
Who really has a lot in common with Cheney. The main difference is Caligula is already burning in Hell and Cheney is just waiting his turn.
Of course, he in the interview where he basically tried to COMMAND President Obama to continue the unfettered and unregulated Torture Program… pause…
(Here I’ll interject, the Right Wing Lunatic Plague will scream and whine in their Sunday-best Shrill Voices that “it’s not unregulated, theirs Judicial Review (by judges who are under the direct command of the Torture Freaks) and you lefties are just being Mean and we’re going to cry about it”)
…un-pause…So he instead trots out a line from Machiavelli
“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527), “The Prince”
Which is very much the same thing said by ancient Italian Dictator Caligula.
Another quote from the same book
“…people are fickle by nature; and it is simple to convince them of something but difficult to hold them in that conviction; and, therefore, affairs should be managed in such a way that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.”
Which is the philosophy expressed by Lee Atwater, another fascist criminal already in Hell, and by Karl Rove, another one like Cheney awaiting his turn.
in the Project for the New American (Imperial) Century.My what wonderful company they keep.
No wonder the Nazis vote Republican.
Now, I had forgotten to code in the end of the block-quote there at the proper place, so it kind of ran together and makes a lot less sense than if the quote were accurately finished. Here, I attempt to fix that.
“…people are fickle by nature; and it is simple to convince them of something but difficult to hold them in that conviction; and, therefore, affairs should be managed in such a way that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.”
Which is the philosophy expressed by Lee Atwater, another fascist criminal already in Hell, and by Karl Rove, another one like Cheney awaiting his turn.
Rove and Cheney and Jeb Bush (the “smart brother”) expressed that in the Project for the New American (Imperial) Century.
My what wonderful company they keep.
No wonder the Nazis vote Republican.
The Prince, by the way, was political advice given to a petty dictator in a city-state that now holds no power beyond its suburbs, on how to hold power for as long as possible. Which doesn’t extend to “eternal” or even “epic”.
There was no Golden Age and never will be one.
Just so you know: The founding fathers actually took text from Machiavelli, and Machiavelli’s theories on maintaining a free society. Machiavelli (though from the 1500’s) is an architect of current political thought. Whether you like it or not. From expansionism under presidents (both dems and reps) to keeping Americans constantly in fear of a threat (cold war 9/11). Read up on Machiavelli he is very interesting and entertaining to read. Take quotes from him with a grain of salt, for his whole book (discourses on livy) seems to focus on virtue (his definition is the acquisition of power). Enjoy, but mostly educate yourself.
I know, it’s a “set and setting” type philosophical slant. Since thene’s not a catch-all philosophy. Nor one set of thinkers who can be the Be all and End all.
That includes “The Founding Fathers” who agreed on absolutely Nothing. There’s not a single one of the Articles or the Amendments of the Constitution, for instance, which was voted on with even so much as a 60-40 majority.
The Bill of Rights was voted out during the Constitutional Convention.
John Adams was so very much in love with Freedom of Speech that he had people thrown in prison for criticizing him, one was jailed for saying he had funny looking buttocks.
Jefferson and Washington owned human beings. The Constitution as originally written and enacted denied basic rights to people who were in bondage through debt, voting rights were limited to people who owned property (and definitely not given to PEOPLE who Were property.)
Cheney used, nay, useS, the doctrines of “Original Intent” to say that it was the (as understood by the Wreligious Wrong, seriously) that the Founding Fathers unanimously agreed that the Vice President should have unlimited powers. From there the conversation deteriorates.
The Founding Fathers didn’t agree with each other, why would it be meet that their “original intent” is the Holy Grail and the Third and Fourth Tablets of the Law to rule us, ironclad, forever?
But, as the original intent of My document here states, the Bush Doctrine, actually Cheney doctrine is directly taken from Caligula.
The rest is window dressing. Founding Fathers, Constitution, his take on it was that it was ass-wipe. His meat-puppet Bush said of the Constitution “it’s just a goddamn piece of paper”. It’s not a pretty picture and I wish fervently that I could say that Regime is now yesterdays leftover toast, never to pop up again.
Sadly, though, they have their fans, and fan is short for fanatics.
This is just the midnight and pain pill talking, but a fan is probably just a fanatic who’s too mentally lazy to finish out even a short three syllable word. That last is totally gratuitous and probably will have deeper meaning sometime next month.
But there was one survey taken less than two weeks ago that says a sizable minority of Americans look back fondly on the Bush administration. Some are even seriously saying Cheney should become President. They remind me very much of the people who thought and said that Roosevelt was responsible for the Depression.