Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Bob Butler 54]

The elites, one group of elites, have always dominated.  There was the hereditary nobility of the Agricultural Age.  They moved into the communists and fascists, keeping autocracy but welcoming modern industry.  There were also the robber barons.  Where the robber barons fought the kings and land owning nobility, promises were made to the People to give the robber barons power.  We live with the imperfections of those deals.

The difference is that in a democratic civilization the politicians have to fool somebody.  The 1% has to get something like a majority, which they do with patriotic slogans, the slave compromises, and hiding behind slogans such as "small government".  All they need is good sounding reasons to do bad things and they can maintain power.

You would like to think that Lincoln was right, that you can't fool all of the people all of the time.  I prefer to think of the rural folk as stubborn but not stupid.  Every four score and seven years, I am used to people seeing through some of the lies, of things getting a little better.

Autocracies such as those run by the kings, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and their ilk rule by fear to a great extent.  They fooled nobody in the long term.  They didn't have to.