What John Adams Foretold Has Come True

By W.A. Beatty
John Adams, in 1787, said:

Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. ... but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, ... in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would ... sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. ... anarchy and tyranny commence.

The entire Adams passage is well worth the time it takes to read and understand it.  I want to examine (in no particular order) some of Adams's thoughts and see how he foretold, over 200 years ago, the situation in which we live today.

1. "[T]axes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others[.]"  Let's begin with an easy one -- taxation.  According to Dr. Walter E. Williams, "[r]oughly 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax."  Of the approximately 53 percent who do pay income tax, the following table illustrates Adams' point, that "taxes are laid heavy on the rich."

Income	Percent Taxes Paid
Top 1%	36.73%
Top 5%	58.66%
Top 10%	70.47%
Top 25%	87.30%
Top 50%	97.75%
Bottom 50%	2.25%

Source: National Taxpayers Union

Remember, the above chart applies only to income tax payers, omitting those who don't pay income tax at all but still vote.  To try to justify this gross tax inequity, Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama introduced the concept of "fairness" -- that the rich should pay their fair share of taxes.  But (and there's always a "but" when Obama is involved) the "rich" pay much more than their fair share when it comes to income tax.  Those "non-rich" (let's say the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers) paid, in 2009 (the most recent year for which data is available), 2.25 percent of all income taxes paid.

2. "[B]ut the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees[.]"  Obama, in July 2012, said, "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen."  Obama implied that business owners' success came from the government due to government-funded infrastructure and projects.  Obama continually takes all credit away from business owners and gives it to the government.

To further support Adams, look at what Obama did in 2012.  An article in Human Events lists ten things Obama has said about enterprise in an attempt to exploit class warfare.  Among them were demonizing businesses, attacking capitalism, and promoting the Occupy Wall Street movement.

3. "[I]n sharing it equally ..." Candidate Obama, in October 2008, said to Joe Wurzelbacher, "... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."  Obama's plan, then and now, was/is to redistribute wealth (private property) according to his definitions.  His plan is to "take from those it deems rich, and give to those it deems poor."  Or, as Karl Marx said in 1875, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."  We all know how well Marx's idea worked/continue to work out.

Obama's latest effort to "spread the wealth around"?  He wants the government to define what is "reasonable" for retirement, and to tax all above that amount.  Americans currently have about $17.5 trillion in savings, about $4.4 trillion of it in IRAs.  Obama believes that income tax deductions for retirement savings are lost government revenues.  His 2013 budget estimated that retirement tax deductions taken will be, in the next five years, $429 billion in "lost" tax revenue.  There is not another pool of wealth able to finance the annual deficit that Obama insists on running

What's next?  Confiscation!  "The Obama administration is reportedly moving on plans to nationalize private 401k and IRA retirement accounts, and replace them with government sponsored annuities (aka Treasury bonds that the Treasury currently can't sell to anyone but the Fed)."  Obama has begun a plan to nationalize (aka confiscate) private pensions and to eliminate private retirement accounts, including IRAs and 401k plans.

Think it can't happen here?  Think again!  In a recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments, Rebecca Davis, a representative of the very liberal Pension Rights Center, said that "... the government needs to get involved because 401k plans and IRAs are unfair to poor people. She demanded the Obama administration set up a 'government-sponsored program administered by the PBGC [the government's Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation].' She proclaimed that even 'private annuities are problematic.'"  There's that "unfair" argument again.

And there's precedent for confiscation.  Poland, in an attempt to delay an impending government debt crisis, "confiscated half of their nation's private pension funds without compensation" and shifted them into ZUS, Poland's state pension vehicle.  As Louis Scatigna says, "[b]y shifting some assets from the private funds into ZUS, the government can book those assets on the state balance sheet to offset public debt, giving it more scope to borrow and spend."  Sound familiar?

In an interview broadcast Sunday, September 15, 2013, Obama, referring to his powers to fight income inequality, said, "I think the president can stop it."  He then went on to blame Republicans for blocking his efforts to spread the wealth around, saying, "There's no serious economist out there that would suggest that if you took the Republican agenda ... that that would reverse some of these trends of inequality."  Obama made his remarks in response to a report that says that more than 20 percent of income went to the top 1 percent of income earners.  But not one word could I find where he addressed work or capital risk inequality.

4. "Debts would be abolished first[.]"  Obama has proposed that billions of dollars in student loans be forgiven over the next ten years.  On August 23, 2013, in Scranton, PA, Obama said, "Just because someone borrowed a bunch of money doesn't mean they have to pay it back."  He actually said that!  All $900 billion in federal student loans will be "forgiven" on November 1, 2013, according to Obama's plan.  Student loan debt is provided by the federal government, and the revenue loss will add significantly to the deficit.

In an article entitled "Want Economic Growth? Forgive and Restructure Debt for American Working Families," Steve Clemmons says, "It's private debt that matters most" when it comes to predicting economic crises.  Clemmons concludes the article with "... finding a way to restructure and write down [aka forgive] debt held by financiers and banks is the fastest and most effective way to bolster healthy economic growth."  So, in the name of economic growth, debt should be forgiven, but nowhere in his article could I find Clemmons's discussion of the consequences of debt forgiveness.  Predicting an economic crisis is one thing; the results from avoidance is another.

5. "... equal division of every thing be demanded ..."  Does the term 'socialist' apply to Obama?  To answer that question, we turn to Kyle Smith's New York Post article, which says "... Obama finally let slip that he is a socialist."  Smith cites a New York Times article that says Obama wants to "Go Bulworth."  "Obama himself, the Times explained, has been 'longingly' telling his inner circle that what he'd really like to do is what Sen. Jay Bulworth, played [ironically] by Warren Beatty in his 1998 movie 'Bulworth,' did: to go public as an unabashed, angry and admitted socialist."  As Smith says, "[i]n confessing his dreams of 'going Bulworth,' Obama confirmed that what he thinks and what he says out loud are two different things."

It's true that John Adams, our second president, was a great thinker.  All we have to do is examine what he said and wrote.  It's too bad that today's public education is so dumbed down that most graduates can't even read, much less understand, what he left us.  And it's too bad that Adams's thoughts are not spread by the MSM so that those who cannot read can at least hear what he said.

History will again repeat itself.  We private property owners have become targets.

Liberals Do the Same Thing...

Liberals Do the Same Thing, Get the Same Result Year After Year, After Year, After...

John Ransom

 

While the withdrawal of Larry Summers from consideration for the top job at the Federal Reserve Bank is good news for those of us who are hoping for some sanity from the Fed, the battle is not over.
“Summers, widely regarded as a brilliant economist and a shrewd and decisive policy-maker,” reports Reuters, “was considered to be the front-runner for the position to replace [current Fed Chair Ben] Bernanke, whose second term expires in January. However, Summers was dogged by controversies including his support for deregulation in the 1990s and comments he made about women's aptitude while president of Harvard.”
So now that Summers is gone, the big question lingers: Will we never exhaust the endless supply of brilliant, shrewd, liberal economists who know how to do only one thing, namely, print more money?
No, probably not.
Because after Larry Summers, then there is Janet Yellen, who now appears the front runner for the top job at the Federal Reserve Bank.
Yellen, like Ben Bernanke—and Larry Summers-- is known to be accommodative when it comes to monetary policy. That means that Yellen, like Bernanke—and Larry Summers-- favors quantitative easing efforts.
Brilliant!
So prepare to keep the printing presses going boys… and girls.
Maybe. Just maybe, not definitely.
Increasingly, I have been getting the impression that even dovish bankers, like Yellen, are looking at the QE printing presses with a more skeptical eye.
This, perhaps more than any single thing, was the reason why Obama favored Summers over Yellen.
Yellen, as Fed Chairman, will do what her cold, brilliant(!) economist, misguided, liberal heart tells her to. Summers on the other hand would bend purely to politics over policy. Summers is more a liberal politician; Yellen is more a liberal banker.
Summers, for example, would continue the quantitative easing program in perpetuity as long as it allowed the White House to say that the recovery is moving along just as they planned, regardless of the risks to the economy.
But I get the sense that there’s a rift between the White House and the bankers, like Yellen, and that in part is the reason why Ben Bernanke, who is also purely a banker-- even if an academic one-- did not get a shot at a third term as Federal Reserve Chairman.
Okay maybe not so much of a rift as a disconnect.
“Strategists have said markets are now pricing in a decision by the Federal Reserve to start scaling back its bond purchases when it concludes a two-day policy meeting Wednesday,” says MarketWatch. “In fact, much of the back-and-forth among financial forecasters in the past week has centered on how much the Fed will reduce initially.”
That the debate centers on how much tapering the Fed will do rather than will-it-or-won’t-it taper is bad news for the White House.
And one only need look at the 10-year Treasury to understand that the market is of one mind on the “end of QE.”
It’s coming whether the White House wants it or not.
The interest rate on the 10-year Treasury has almost doubled since May. This at a time when the Federal Reserve was trying to keep interest rates at zero.
Even the not so free-market in Treasury securities, manipulated by the largest bank in the history of mankind, eventually becomes the victim of reality.
The market, in other words, is telling the Federal Reserve that QE is over… whether they like it or not.
The bankers believe they’ve done all they can with any easing efforts as a substitute for fiscal policy. There’s a record amount of money in our system today thanks to QE. There’s a record amount of inactivity with that money in our system today as well thanks in part to the fig-leaf of QE.
Brilliant!
That inactivity is the result of political decisions that have been postponed from time to time, and obfuscated mostly, and deranged, mangled, and warped.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” says the Obama White House. “They’ll keep printing money.”
The White House wants QE to continue forever because then they don’t have to submit a budget, pass any laws, cut any departments, battle fraud in government programs, or in any wise act as a responsible government. 
The wealth effect of quantitative easing, which seems to infect only the top folks in our society and on Wall Street, will continue papering over any missteps, flaws or fallacies that the liberals want to foist on a trusting public.
As long as the market keeps going up, then all is well for the Obama White House.
But with the withdrawal of the brilliant (!) and shrewd (!) Larry Summers from the race for Fed chairman, we could, once and for all, put an end to the brilliant strategy brought to us by QE of doing the same thing and getting the same result year after, year after, year after, year, after year.
Maybe. Just maybe, not definitely. 
But in that event liberals will then have to think up better ways of producing the worst jobs recovery since the end of the Second World War.
But I have no doubt liberals can accomplish it, because after all, they’re brilliant… year after year after year after year after year.

But the dirty little secret of the tyrant

The Dynamics of Tyranny

By Stella Morabito
Before George Orwell wrote 1984, there was Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. If you're not acquainted with Zamyatin's novel, you will find it an extraordinary study on the dynamics of tyranny.
Zamyatin, a Russian, wrote We around 1921. It was immediately banned by the Soviet censorship board, but was smuggled abroad. For many decades, copies of the book were extremely difficult to find.
Enter George Orwell.
After he heard about the existence of We, Orwell sought out the English translation for years, without success. By 1945 he managed to track down a French translation, which he read and reviewed in the January 4, 1946 issue of the London Tribune. (Warning: Orwell's review contains major spoilers for those who would like to read We as a novel of suspense.)
Orwell compared We to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and speculated that Huxley's work "must be partly derived" from We (which Huxley later denied.) The two novels along with 1984 seem to form a classic triumvirate of 20th century dystopian literature.
Many of us brood that we're living in an emerging dystopia, similar to 1984. Political correctness generates Orwellian Newspeak. A news anchor trashes the existence of "private" families, claiming all children "belong to" the collective. A president is re-elected through a campaign that promotes with impunity an infographic that brazenly glorifies a policy of government meddling in our lives from womb to tomb. Surveillance and invasions of privacy proliferate. Journalists suppress news rather than report it. We have government by cult figure. Justifications for anxiety abound.
Yet Zamyatin's novel We offers perhaps an even more instructive picture than either 1984 or Brave New World about where we are headed. While 1984 and Brave New World serve as mirrors of today's political surrealism, We functions more as a microscope that magnifies in starker and deeper detail the gestation and inner workings of dystopia.
We occurs some 500 years hence. The world has gone through "the two hundred years war" from which 0.2 percent of the population survived after "the cleansing of thousand-year-old filth." What remains is an environmentally "glistening" earth in which the sky is an ever sterile blue and the "zero-point-two percent has tasted bliss in the ramparts of the One State," their faces "unclouded by the folly of thought."
We describes a society in the midst of being "perfected." Human beings are more equal than ever, overcoming their individualism and their "irrational" resistance to collectivist forces. They experience the "happinesss" of living in synchronicity within the Great Machine of "The One State," due to the generosity of their "Benefactor."
The One State has pondered: What exactly causes individuals to obstruct progress towards the perfect collectivist union? Answer: the human imagination. So its scientists have diligently sought out and identified the imagination's precise location in the brain. They're now able to surgically excise it.
So let's imagine (while we still can) that all citizens must undergo this operation. It's been mandated to promote enduring peace for the whole collective. How would you resist? According to the One State, only the "enemies of happiness" would cling to the survival of their imaginations. The imagination, you see, is a grave disease, as well as a fount of unpredictability that stunts progress for the collective. It also forces upon its victims the "burden of freedom."
Citizens in the novel are called "ciphers" or "unifs" and live thoroughly mechanized lives. No marriage. No "private children." No unauthorized or unrationed sexual activity. Such things were the unenlightened ways of the "the ancients."
"Guardians" -- police and informers -- enforce conformity and the political correctness that breeds compliance and silence. That's the mecahnism propping up the "Green Wall," which stands outside the confines of the One State and separates ciphers from all things not yet controlled and mechanized -- including birds, wildlands, and, of course, those few people with fully intact imaginations who think and act freely.
But all it takes to collapse the Green Wall is the contagion of freely spoken thought.
We's narrator is a mathematician by the name of D-503. He is essential to the government as the builder of "the Integral," a spacecraft with the mission of imposing the One State's way of life on all corners of the universe. Through D-503, Zamyatin names us his "unknown planetary readers of the future," and promises: "We will come to you, to make your life as divinely rational and exact as ours."
But D-503 senses something amiss, because he feels the vestiges of imagination in himself. He describes it as an irritant, like a foreign body in his brain. Among other things, it causes him to fall in love with I-330. She is a hot revolutionary who cracks jokes, drinks alcohol, and smokes -- all are criminal activities. Despite D-503's total allegiance to the One State, he cannot bring himself to turn I-330 in to the authorities. He's thoroughly smitten, which he hates. And yet . . . he loves . . .
D-503 narrates his 40 journal entries mechanically, often meandering into yearnings. He sees people as geometric shapes with specific traits -- all bright teeth or quivering gills or thick lips. This betrays D-503's awareness of the uniqueness of individuals and diverse roots, despite his claim that all ciphers are "identical."
D-503 and I-330 offer two divergent paths for humanity: one childish and one childlike.
When D-503 describes the influence of the Guardians, he feels as a toddler might, yearning to be carried and forever snuggled upon the shoulder of his Benefactor: "How pleasant it [is] to feel someone's vigilant eye lovingly protecting you from the slightest mistake, from the slightest misstep."
I-330 proposes another way, which is to stand on one's own two feet and look at the Truth through a child's eyes, unfiltered and curious. "Children are the only brave philosophers," she states. "And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children. And that's just it -- we must always think like children with their what-happens-nexts."
Indeed, Zamyatin himself warned -- in his essay "On Literature, Revolution, Entropy" -- that societies are forever in the midst of a guessing game about what happens next. The only bulwark against tyranny are people he dubs "heretics," those who can connect the dots and then display the picture to others.
Like children with healthy curiosities, heretics ask questions that are "so absurdly naïve and so frighteningly complex." They "recklessly burst into today from tomorrow," and tend to be exterminated for doing so. But, in the end, Zamyatin insists: "someone must speak heretically today about tomorrow" because "heretics are the only (bitter) remedy against the entropy of human thought."
Herein lies Zamyatin's enduring lesson for each of us: utopian models breed tyranny in which only complete obedience -- in thought, word and deed -- will do. A balance between individual rights and government is never an option in them. The OneState can only be sustained by a never-ending quest to wipe out any inkling of dissent -- usually through a combination of punishment, vilification, and mockery that instills the primal fear of isolation in any potential dissenter . We all know how the guardians of groupthink usher folks away from truth-tellers by employing labels such as "haters" or "tinfoil hats" or "bigots."
But the dirty little secret of the tyrant (a secret we may instinctively know but fear to act upon) is that tyrannies can withstand very little human resistance. Even one person's defiant expression of individuality and childlike truth-telling can create ripple effects that thwart the forces of totalitarianism.
The novel We stands alone as an inimitable tour de force. Such a story with its unique narration could only have been generated by Zamyatin himself, an old Bolshevik, known as an eccentric, who was horrified by the totalitarianism and brutality his Marxist activism had helped produce.
And now Zamyatin eerily haunts us from his grave, bidding us with this summons: Ask! As persistently and loudly as a child, ask this most heretical of questions: "What happens next?"

Putin's Tinkerbell...

Why Millennials Won't Turn 'Conservative'

By Selwyn Duke

Every so often the wonks of wishful thinking give us an article about how blacks are becoming Republicans, how Hispanics are supposedly a natural GOP constituency, or, as is the subject here today, how the millennial generation is turning "conservative." Perhaps pundits asserting the last thing recall Winston Churchill's observation, "If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no brain." And perhaps they overlook that it's possible to raise a brainless generation.
Don't think, as one might, that this will be a typical analysis sneering at the proverbial "next generation" using the perceived gold standard of one's own. After all, I realize that my generation is the tree the millennial nut fell from. Placing matters in further perspective, it's true that older and younger generations ever slam each other; it's also true that they both are always partially right. Lastly, I'll say that I don't at all consider the WWII FDR voters the "greatest generation," though it makes for a nice narrative. The greatest generation was the one that founded our nation and wondered if we could "keep" its republic, and there has been a consistent, but accelerating, degeneration ever since.
In discussing our latest movement toward idiocracy, my starting point will be a Sept. 4 American Thinker article written by one Chriss Street. In making his case for millennial hope, Mr. Street points out that while 61 percent of millennials voted for Barack Obama in 2012, his approval among them has now sunk to 46 percent. But this is a deceptive statistic. For an approval rating amounts to the judging of a candidate relative to people's ideal personal standard for the presidency, whereas in an election he is judged relative to another specific candidate for the presidency. And if Obama were again running against Mitt Romney -- with all the usual media propaganda -- does anyone really think he'd lose millennials to the governor? No doubt more would stay home, but I suspect the president would enjoy something close to his 2012 support among those who cast votes.
Moreover, millennials may have soured on Obama somewhat, but this reflects cynicism more than conservatism. Of course, that they'd be cynical is no surprise; they've been raised in an unraveling West in which feckless, morally-confused adults in their homes, schools, government, houses of worship and elsewhere have let them down. Nonetheless, cynicism is not traditionalism; in fact, it is a form of naiveté. Believing all people act out of selfish motives, the cynic instinctively paints everyone with the same brush. And such a person can hardly distinguish well among candidates.
Mr. Street also tells us that, "in 2008, 37.4% of incoming freshman women and 30.5% men identified themselves as liberals or leftists, the most in 35 years." The reality, though, is even worse than this indicates. First consider that self-reporting is more about perception than reality. For starters, it always underestimates leftist numbers, as likely a majority of "moderates" are liberals who -- usually because of self-delusion (a leftist bailiwick) and a desire to sound "reasonable" -- don't brand themselves what they really are; bear in mind when pondering this that liberals are generally solipsistic and fancy that they define the center, and also realize that the label "liberal" has been discredited enough so that many won't don it. Yet even more significant here is that it isn't just people's perceptions that shift -- the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" do, too.
Consider that while a conservative in 1952 America was staunchly anti-communist, a conservative in the Soviet Union at the time was a communist. And "conservatives" in Western Europe are often our liberals' ideological soulmates. This isn't for lack of truth in political advertising. Rather, it's because the only consistent definition of "conservative" is "a desire to maintain the status quo" while "liberal's" only consistent definition involves a desire to change it. This means "conservatism" is always changing: tomorrow's version will reflect today's liberalism's success in altering the status quo. Conservatism is the caboose to liberalism's locomotive (I treat this in-depth here).
This explains a few things. First, it's often pointed out that a healthy plurality in America describes itself as conservative. Is this surprising? All it really means is that many, many people align themselves with the status quo -- and if this weren't the case, the status quo wouldn't be the status quo. Second, some insist that millennials will move toward conservatism, and this is true in that most people become somewhat more traditional with age. Yet it's also true that conservatism will move toward them.
That is to say, as "conservatism" drifts "left," it follows that millennials will "become more conservative" even if they stay in the same place, in that they will be situated more on the post-shift political spectrum's right side; this is just as how a person can become poorer in a definitional sense if the poverty line standard is altered.
That so few recognize this reflects the relativism of our time, where we label ourselves with provisional terms and measure ourselves against other people (it's people who define the political spectrum). If we want to see matters clearly, however, we must define them differently: in absolute terms.
In other words, what do millennials actually believe? Well, never before has an American generation been so tolerant of intolerable sexual practices, so supportive of faux marriage and skeptical of actual marriage, so relativistic and disconnected from Christianity (church attendance is one of the best predictors of voting habits). Never before has an American generation been to their degree socially "liberal."
This brings us to the claim that millennials are, at least, fiscally conservative. Now, not only is convincing evidence of this elusive, but considering it a saving grace is essentially saying that it profits a man to gain the world but lose his soul. Regardless, however, while the social liberalism/fiscal conservatism marriage may exist in particular cases, I suspect that in principle it is an impossibility.
For instance, speaking of principle versus particular, if you ask people, "Do you believe government should balance its budget and be frugal," of course they'll say yes. But if you ask them if they're willing to relinquish their particular piece of the pie (government college aid?), their tune changes. Espousing fiscal responsibility requires only a voice; achieving it requires virtue.
Second, consider the side-effects of social liberalism in modern times. And this should be prefaced by saying that since this explanation warrants a book, my treatment here will necessarily be lacking. But just as an example, social liberalism means loose sexual mores. Loose sexual mores mean a high rate of single motherhood (today it's 42 percent... and rising). And what does this mean? Since the modern West won't let these women twist in the wind, the government will step into the breach and play daddy with handouts and/or mommy with tax-funded daycare. It is unavoidable.
And in point of fact, this cultural decay brings us to the real reason for political drift. It was something about which the Founding Fathers -- as well as great thinkers throughout Christendom's history -- spoke much. Ben Franklin warned, "As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." British philosopher Edmund Burke observed, "It is written in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." And John Adams wrote in 1798, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Question: does "moral and religious" describe us today?
Of course, some will now say, "But why do you think millennials supported Ron Paul? They want liberty!" Sure they do.
So does a tiger in a zoo.
So does a toddler.
Neither, however, can be allowed to roam free in civilization without hurting himself or others. And the less people are civilized growing up, the closer they will be to that infantile or animalistic state -- and the more they have need of cages and masters.
The truth? Government can be no better than the public's virtue, though it can be worse. And this morality-government relationship is evident in voting patterns. Is it a coincidence that every group orthodox Christians label immoral -- those involved in "alternative" sexual deathstyles, criminally inclined inner-city dwellers, effete college professors, grunge-type youths scarred with multiple tattoos and body piercings -- vote left? "What fellowship hath light with darkness?" The darkness hates the light. When people have sins they yearn to rationalize away, the last thing they'll do is support leaders who would uphold, even just through word, a moral standard condemning their passions.
Providing specificity as to how this affects government is another book-worthy topic, so I'll offer just two examples. We've heard about those ruggedly individualistic Americans who'd rather live in poverty in Appalachia than accept government handouts and those spirit-of-entitlement types who protest violently when they don't receive them. And society will always contain both kinds, but the ratio can vary greatly. In a nation characterized by self-sufficiency, honor, and virtue, a redistributionist will find barren ground. But if a spirit of greed, covetousness, and thievery prevails, people will be susceptible to the demagogic appeal, "You've been cheated, but give me power and I'll get you your piece of the pie, comrade!" Or consider lust. If people resolved to be chaste outside of marriage, do you think the abortion movement or taxpayer funded contraception appeal could gain traction?
So how do you make a civilization susceptible to dark demagogues?
Make it love the darkness.
I wouldn't first and foremost spend time on intellectual appeals. As the Soviets once did (as explained by ex-KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov) I'd seek to undermine the morality of the target nation. I'd spread the idea that morality is really "values" and values are relative -- all just a matter of perspective, you see. Once this was accepted and people no longer believed in the rules of morality, it would be as if they ceased believing in the rules of human nutrition: not thinking any food could actually be "bad," they'd be governed only by taste and would try, and could develop an affinity for, anything -- even perhaps poison. Vice corresponds to this on the moral menu.
I'd then get them hooked on their bad moral diet through inundation. Stoke their lust's fires via highly sexualized entertainment, and portray violence as just as casual and cool, so lashing out at others seems the norm. I'd engorge their egos with media messages about how they could determine their own morality so that, as the serpent said, "you will be like God." I'd provide co-ed dorms and a general party atmosphere at universities, creating "occasions of sin" that will ensure the kids have as much as possible they need to justify. And after robbing them of moral judgment and creating a visceral craving for vice, I'd fill their heads full of anti-Western, anti-Christian -- in fact, anti-goodness -- ideas in college classrooms. When I was done with them, they'd not only possess the discernment of a man in the midst of a drug-fueled orgy, their egos would be so bloated they'd consider their ignorance wisdom.
Speaking of wisdom, when conservatives indulge wishful thinking and suppose that millennials will "wake up," they ignore that we actually need a shakeup, something that changes the cultural trajectory on which we've long been (so if an asteroid strikes the Earth, millennials may turn into conservatives -- of course, they instead may turn into cavemen, too). Until then, whatever the keepers of the flame plan had better require the participation of only a zealous minority. For the masses will not wake up when beset by a cultural narcolepsy in which nightmares are fancied nice dreams.