FOUR MORE YEARS!

[Animal]

Apparently the rest of the world must be lagging behind the 21st century too—gay marriage isn't legal in many places at all, and neither is marijuana as far as I know.

Have you been to the rest of the world? It's mostly awful. Except for the places where pot and gay marriage are legal. (EDIT: Actually, now that I've looked it up, some of the places where pot is legal are pretty awful, lol.)

That's not necessarily true. As much as a president shouldn't be able to influence the economy, it can matter a lot who that person is considering they get to appoint the Federal Reserve Chairman, plus cabinet secretaries and commissioners to an alphabet soup of myriad regulatory agencies, as well as set the tone of fiscal/tax policy and budgets… etc. All of this matters quite a bit.

Though I'm of the opinion that the US has already spent itself into financial oblivion to a point of no viable return; I think even if Romney were elected he'd be too hamstrung politically to make the changes necessary to avert course—i.e., massive systemic cuts to government spending across the board, including to hot items few in either party want to think about touching, like Social Security & Medicare. That isn't gonna happen no matter who's president.

BEA.gov says 2012-Q3 GDP = $15.78 trillion; US Treasury says current debt = $16.21 trillion… which means the US is already exceeding 100% Debt:GDP threshold, which is generally considered fiscal red-zone territory, albeit every country is different in their sensitivity to this.

But you can figure that the last 3.8 years of Obama have added $5.58 trillion to the debt (by contrast, the full 8 years of GW Bush added 'only' $4.90 trillion). Assuming Obama continues to add to the debt at roughly the same rate over his next 4 years, you're looking at a ~$22-23 trillion debt by that time.

Well, yes. Basically short of an entire overhaul the political machine and a concomitant/precipitating shift in the public's perception of what we should expect the federal government to realistically do for us, we're pretty much stuck. And, because none of that is likely to happen anytime soon, this is pretty much what we're facing. I don't believe Romney, even if he had the political freedom to do so, would have been willing to make those changes.

[Animal]

It's at a much more basic level than you're seeing. You're getting distracted by the same slight of hand that all those other people are. Dig deeper.

since increasing power and influence to the state, loss of individual rights, greater control and monitoring of the people is the result (easily proven by looking at record) of BOTH parties, and both have the same basic goal of increasing their own power then voting for EITHER party is voting for that goal. Both benefit from people believing that they are on opposite sides, but they're two colors of the same side - the pro-state control side. Repubs benefit from Dems increasing state power, because they use it to their advantage when it's their turn in office, and Dems benefit when the Repubs increase it for the same reason.

They take turns in office, and focus on all the "differences" between them to get people riled up and fighting for the "right" side, and nobody notices that it's always going in the same direction. The power is flowing to only one side continually, the side that both major parties support wholeheartedly - the state. And as long as people continue to let themselves be emotionally manipulated by the idea that they're making a real difference by choosing one over the other - it will continue to flow that way.

Okay, I get what you're saying. How do you suggest we shift that, then?

[Gilly]

Not even. Romney wanted to take all his cuts and put them into military spending, just like every neocon. Might as well let the gays marry and try lower the future number of welfare recipients...

[InvisibleJim]

Hence the non choice.

[Scapegrace]

Clearly some of us are having a Donald Trump moment.

[squark]

I think a lot of people already understand that either side of the two-party duopoly effectively leads towards the same outcomes in the longer-term—i.e., more Statism.

Though rather than being a deliberate conspiracy between the two, this may also be explainable as an incidental collusion arising from both parties reciprocally growing into each other's policy platforms over time in efforts to remain electorally viable; whatever might help Rs maintain winning margins in an election cycle, Ds will be doing something like it too in a few years, or vice versa. Ergo in practice, both end up governing like wobbling compensatory centrists trying to paradoxically appease both sides enough to maintain power. GW Bush ran on a platform of limited government in 2000, yet we saw an explosive bloat of government spending for the welfare-warfare state. Obama ran on civil liberties/anti-war in 2008, yet now we've got the NDAA Act and something creepy called the 'disposition matrix' that functions like a semi-automated kill list for drone attacks.

It's difficult to break the electoral grip of the duopoly because by nature it pits voters into a forced dilemma game of choosing between whatever suboptimal lesser of two evils they prefer—they may not quite like what A is promising, but they'll be damned if they can let B's promises happen. Major differences between A/B being largely only relative in the short-term of course… because decision forecasts are myopically condensed into 2 & 4-year timeframes of election cycles, which has the effect of cognitively inducing voters (and the politicians themselves) to make decisions geared towards potential short-term gains that don't rationally factor in longer-term consequences. If that makes sense.

Yes, Meeting in the middle for broader support is something I think a good deal of people understand already, and that's how pretty much any government textbook will describe it.

I disagree however that a lot of people understand that the outcome is the same, and that in both cases they are choosing a continuance of the initial direction.

[InvisibleJim]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20240375

[Animal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage

Looks like Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden are the places it's legal.

I just think it's dumb that US elections are basically defined by moralizers on both sides, as revolving around singular issues like gay marriage and abortion. As if everything in life is about dead babies and matrimonial buttsex.

Blame the Religious Right for co-opting the political discourse in this country such that it distracts from discussion of fiscal policy (or blame the Republican party for ditching its classical liberalism in favor of pandering to disgruntled social conservatives) -- not the gays or women who have abortions. You're right. It shouldn't be an issue. But the people who are making it an issue are the ones holding back these measures, not the people ones bringing them to the table.

At any rate, I've come to believe the U.S. is too big for its own good. It really ought to be five or six separate countries: the Northeast corridor, the South, the Great Lakes States, the West coast from California north (and give them Hawaii), and the Midwest and Southwest would all probably be happier as separate countries.

Some thoughts from The Wall St. Journal. There was also an article from the New York Times that I liked, but I can't seem to find it anymore, but I think it articulated this better.

[Phthalate]

whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine

People who did not see Obama winning this since months ago are idiots.

[Absurd]

It goes hand in hand, the social conservatism and classical liberalism, that is the core of "any" Republican Party in U.S., Animal, even though it shouldn't be so, for, the Republican Party is only Republican by its name, in fact, it is not Republican. Conservative liberals, wouldn't brand themselves Republican, it's a misnomer - only in America.

I'm not going to go into Ashton stuff, I can't read that, too many buzzwords.

[ArchonAlarion]

Blame the Religious Right for co-opting the political discourse in this country such that it distracts from discussion of fiscal policy (or blame the Republican party for ditching its classical liberalism in favor of pandering to disgruntled social conservatives) -- not the gays or women who have abortions. You're right. It shouldn't be an issue. But the people who are making it an issue are the ones holding back these measures, not the people ones bringing them to the table.

At any rate, I've come to believe the U.S. is too big for its own good. It really ought to be five or six separate countries: the Northeast corridor, the South, the Great Lakes States, the West coast from California north (and give them Hawaii), and the Midwest and Southwest would all probably be happier as separate countries.

Some thoughts from The Wall St. Journal. There was also an article from the New York Times that I liked, but I can't seem to find it anymore, but I think it articulated this better.

Yeah that's why America was originally composed of largely autonomous states that shared a federal body for the purposes of interstate arbitration, foreign relations, and national defense. Then the civil war, then the progressive era, then the world wars, then the cold war.

[Absurd]

ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA, "Thousand nights and one night" is the title of the most famous Arabian collection of fairy-tales and other stories. One often reads or hears nowadays "like a fairy-tale from the thousand-and-one nights", and, indeed, the fairy-tales are the most striking part of the collection. Like all Orientals the Arabs from the earliest times enjoyed imaginative stories; but since the intellectual horizon of the true Arabs in ancient times before the rise of Islam was rather narrow the material for these entertainments was borrowed mainly from elsewhere, from Persia and from India, as we gather from the accounts of the Prophet's competitor, the merchant al-Nadr. In later times when Arab civilization had grown richer and more comprehensive the literary influence from other countries was, of course, much stronger. An attentive reader of the "Nights" will soon be astonished by the manifold variety of their contents: they resemble in a way an Oriental meadow with many different beautiful flowers intermingled with a few weeds. On the other hand, the reader will notice that these stories comprise a very wide field: there are stories of King Solomon, of the kings of ancient Persia, of Alexander the Great, of the caliphs and the sultans on one side, and stories in which guns, coffee and tobacco are mentioned on the other side.

Its appearance in Europe.

The entire work is enclosed in a "frame-story", and this was known in Italy in the Middle Ages. Traces of it are to be found in a novel by Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1424) and in the story of Astolfo and Giocondo which is told in the 28th canto of Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (beginning of the 16th century); travellers who had been in the East may have brought this knowledge to IItaly. But the whole Alf Layla wa-Layla came to Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The French scholar and traveller Jean Antoine Galland (1646-1715) published it for the first time. Travelling in the Near East at first as a secretary of the French ambassador, then as a collector of objects for museums commissioned by amateurs, he had known the world of the Orient, and his attention was directed to the great number of stories and fables told there. After his return to France he began in 1704 to publish his volumes Les mille et une Nuits contes arabes traduits en Fran±ais. By 1706 seven vols. had appeared: vol. viii appeared in 1709, vols. ix and x in 1712, vols. xi and xii in 1717, two years after Galland's death. This delay in the appearance of the later vols. is significant for Galland's difficulties as to material and also for his indifference to this side of his work as a scholar. He was a born story-teller; he had a flair for a good story and a knack of re-telling it well. Thus he adapted his translation to the taste of his European readers, changing sometimes the wording of the Arabic text and paraphrasing things that were foreign to Europeans. Hence the great success of his "Nights". But he was also fortunate in the material which fell into his hands. He began by translating Sindbad the Sailor from an unidentified MS; then he learned that this was part of a great collection of stories called "The Thousand and One Nights"; then he had the luck to have sent to him from Syria four vols. of a MS of that work which is, except for a small fragment found by Nabia Abbott, the oldest known and contains the best surviving text. The first three of his vols. are still in the Bibliotheque Nationale, but the fourth is lost. In the first seven vols. of his translation he exhausted his three vols. of Arabic text which we still have and added Sindbad and Camalzaman (Kamar al-Zaman) from unidentified MSS. Then for lack of material he stopped for three years until his publisher forced his hand by issuing, without authority, vol. viii containing Ganem (Ghanim), translated by Galland from an unidentified MS, and two stories, Zeyn Alasnam (Zayn al-Asnam) and Codadad (Khudadad), translated by Petis de la Croix and intended for his Mille et un jours. Again Galland was completely out of material and stopped; he was also tired and disgusted with the whole matter. But in 1709 he met a certain Maronite from Aleppo, Hanna, brought to Paris by the traveller Paul Lucas, and at once recognized that he had got an oral source of the story material. Hanna told him stories in Arabic, and Galland inserted in his Journal abstracts of some of these. But Hanna also gave him transcripts of some. In this way the last four vols. of Galland's translation were filled out; his Journal gives full details. Hanna's transcripts have vanished, but two Arabic MSS of Aladdin have since come to light and one of Ali Baba. This, then, is the origin of the book which made the "Nights" known to Europe and which in the French text and in very many translations from the French became the "Arabian Nights" for the great multitude of readers. For details see H. Zotenberg, Histoire d'`Ala' aldin ... avec Notice sur quelques manuscrits des Mille et une nuits et la traduction de Galland, Paris 1888. This contains the Arabic text of Aladdin (`Ala al-Din) and a study of certain MSS of the Nights and of the entries in Galland's Journal. See also V. Chauvin, Bibliographie arabe, iv, Liege 1900, and D. B. Macdonald, A Bibliographical and literary study of the first appearance of the Arabian Nights in Europe, The Library Quarterly, vol. ii, no. 4, Oct. 1932, 387-420.

For more than a century Galland's French version meant the Nights for Europe, and two of his stories whose original Arabic texts were not known were even translated into Oriental languages. But meanwhile other MSS, more or less connected with the Nights, were brought to light and, from these, various supplements to Galland were translated and published. Just as the MSS of the Nights themselves varied enormously as to the stories which they contained, so these translators were prepared to attach to the Nights any story that existed in Arabic. The following supplements, partly separate and partly attached to editions of Galland, are of importance in themselves and as signs of the interests of their times. For further details on all of them see Chauvin's Bibliographie, iv, 82-120.

In 1788 there appeared as a supplement to the Cabinet des Fees, vols 38-41, a series of tales translated from the Arabic by Denis Chavis. It is significant for the interest at the time in the whole subject of the Nights that there appeared, 1792-1794, three separate English translations of this supplement. In 1795 William Beloe published in the third vol. of his Miscellanies some Arabic stories which had been translated for him orally by Patrick Russell, the author of The Natural History of Aleppo (1794). In 1800 Jonathan Scott translated in his Tales, Anecdotes and Letters certain stories from the MS of the Nights brought from India by James Anderson, and in 1811 to his edition of an English version of Galland he added a vol. of new stories from another MS, the Wortley Montague MS now in Oxford. In 1806 Caussin de Perceval had already added two vols. of supplement to his edition of Galland. But Edouard Gauttier in his professed edition of Galland (1822-1825) went much farther: besides two vols. of new tales drawn from all manner of sources he freely inserted others in the course of Galland's Nights. Von Hammer in his Die noch nicht übersetzten Erzaehlungen der Tausend und einen Nacht, Stuttgart 1823, had a much firmer foundation and used a real recension of the Nights. He had acquired in Egypt a MS of the recension now known as Zotenberg's Egyptian Recension, which through numerous editions has become the Vulgate text of the Nights; see the editions, below. Von Hammer's French translation of a number of stories not in Galland is lost, but Zinserling (1823) translated it into German, and this version was rendered in English by Lamb (1826) and in French by Trebutien (1828). In 1825 M. Habicht began to publish 15 volumes professing to be a new translation but consisting really of Galland with some supplements from Caussin, Gauttier and Scott and an ending from a so-called Tunisian MS. He began also to publish an Arabic text. From this text, later on also from Galland, from Gotha MSS and from a text printed in Egypt, Weil published hhis translation within the years 1837-1867.

Editions and translations.

The main editions of the Arabic Alf Layla wa-Layla are the following.

1. The first Calcutta Edition:

The Arabian Nights Entertainments; In the Original Arabic, published under the Patronage of the College of Fort William; By Shuekh Uhmud bin Moohummud Shirwanee ul Yumunee, Calcutta, vol. i 1814; vol. ii 1818. It contains only the first two hundred Nights and the story of Sindbad the Sailor.

2. The first Bulak Edition,

a complete Arabic edition, printed in 1251/1835 (from MSS found in Egypt) in the State Printing Office at Bulak near Cairo founded by Muhammad `Ali.

3. The Second Calcutta Edition:

The Alif Laila or the Book of the Thousand Nights and one Night, Commonly known as "The Arabian Nights Entertainments", now, for the first time, published complete in the original Arabic, from an Egyptian manuscript brought to India by the late Major Turner, editor of the Shah-Nameh. Edited by W. H. Macnaghten, Esq. In four volumes, Calcutta 1839-42.

4. The Breslau Edition:

Tausend und Eine Nacht Arabisch. Nach einer Handschrift aus Tunis herausgegeben von Dr. Maximilian Habicht, Professor an der KKniglichen Universitaet zu Breslau (etc.), nach seinem Tode fortgesetzt von M. Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, ordentlichem Prof. der morgenlaendischen Sprachen an der Universitaet Leipzig, Breslau 1825-43. D. B. Macdonald, in his article on Habicht's Recension in JRAS, 1909, 685-704, and in his article A Preliminary Classification of some MSS of the Arabian Nights, in the E.G.Browne Volume, Cambridge 1922, 304, discussed the value of this edition. His expert opinion is that Habicht wilfully created a literary myth and enormously confused the history of the Nights because a Tunisian recension of the Nights never existed, and out of many stories which had come to him from many sources he constructed a new recension of the Nights much in the same way that he had constructed his translation described above. However, Macdonald acknowledged that Habicht's texts are given verbatim without any attempt at correction, and are, therefore, "vulgar" in the exact sense whereas all other texts have been grammatically and lexicographically "improved" by learned shaykhs.

5. Later Bulak and Cairo Editions.

In the latter half of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century the complete text of the first Bulak edition, in the main the same as the second Calcutta edition, was several times reprinted. They are representatives of Zotenberg's "Egyptian Recension", which is the result of a compilation made by a certain shaykh in the 18th century, according to a notice in U. J. Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, Palaestina, PhKnicien, die Transjordan-Laender, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten, Berlin 1854-5, iii, 188; the name of the shaykh is not known, but this notice confirms Zotenberg's hypothesis. The Jesuit Press at Bayrut has published an independent but expurgated edition from another MS of the same recension (1888-90).

From the Egyptian Recension have been made all the modern western translations. Lane's translation, incomplete but with a very valuable and full commentary, began to appear in parts in 1839 and was finished in 1841. It was made from the first Bulak edition. Payne's translation from the Macnaghten edition, complete and privately printed, appeared in 9 vols. 1882-84. Three additional vols. contained tales in the Breslau and 1st Calcutta editions (1884), and a 13th vol.K(1889) contained Aladdin and Zayn al-Asnam. Since Payne's death in 1916 there have been a number of complete reprints. The translation by Sir Richard Burton, also from the Macnaghten edition, is very largely dependent upon that of Payne and often reproduces Payne verbatim (10 vols., 1885; 6 supplementary vols., 1886-8). Besides the Smithers edition (12 vols., 1894) and Lady Burton's edition (6 vols., 1886-8) it has been completely reprinted several times. On the strange relation between the versions of Payne and of Burton see Thomas Wright, Life of Sir Richard Burton (2 vols., London 1906) and Life of John Payne (London 1919), and for an attempt at a comparative estimate of the above English translations see Macdonald's On translating the Arabian Nights, The Nation, New York, Aug. 30 and Sept. 6, 1900, In Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek (1895-97) Max Henning published a German translation, 24 small vols.; it is somewhat expurgated and rather prosaic and gives only half the verses. The first 7 vols. give the Nights from the Bulak edition and vols. 18-24 various supplements, largely translated from Burton. In 1899 J. C. Mardrus began a French translation of the Nights professedly from the Bulak edition of 1835. His translation is not very trustworthy, and it incorporates tales from all manner of other collections than the Nights. Moreover there are translations of the Nights in Spanish, English, Polish, German, Danish, Russian, Italian. The Spanish translation is by Vicente Blasco Ibanez; the English by E. Powys Mathers; the Polish translation is incomplete. The German translation by E. Littmann appeared in Leipzig, 6 vols., 1921-8; first re-edition Wiesbaden 1953, second re-edition ibid. 1954. It contains the complete translation of the second Calcutta edition and the following stories: `Ala" al-Din and the Magic Lamp, from the Paris MS edited by Zotenberg (cf. above); `Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers, from the Oxford MS edited by Macdonald (JRAS, 1910, 221 ff., 1913, 41 ff.); Prince Ahmad and Pari Banu, from Burton, i.e. an English rendering of a Hindustani version derived from Galland; Abu'l-Hasan or the Sleeper Awakened, from the Breslau edition; The Craft of Women, from the first Calcutta edition; the end of Sindbad's sixth journey and his seventh journey, from the first Calcutta edition; supplement in the Story of the Brass City; the end of the Story of Sindbad and the Seven Viziers; The Story of al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bundukdari and the Sixteen Guardians, from the Breslau edition; The Jealous Sisters, from Burton-Galland; Zayn al-Asnam, from a Paris MS edited by F. Groff; The Nocturnal Adventure of the Caliph, Khudadad and his Brothers, `Ali Khawadja and the Merchant of Baghdad, from Burton-Galland.-The Danish translation by J. Oestrup was published at Copenhagen in 1927. The Russian translation by I. Kra´kovsky appeared in 1934, the Italian translation by F. Gabrieli in 1949.

Problems of origin and evolution.

When the Arabian Nights first became known in Europe they served only for the entertainment of European readers; but at the beginning of the 19th century western scholars began to take an interest in the question of their origin. Silvestre de Sacy, the founder of modern Arabian philology, discussed this question in several dissertations: Journal des savants, 1817, 678; Recherches sur l'origine du recueil des contes intitules les Mille et une nuits, Paris 1829; in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres, x, 1833, 30. He denied, correctly, the possible authorship of one single writer and believedKthat the book was written at a very late period without Persian and Indian elements; therefore, he regarded as spurious a passage in Murudj al-dhahab of al-Mas`udi (written in 336/947 and re-edited in 346/957) referring to these elements. This passage, published by Barbier de Meynard in Arabic and French (Les prairies d'or, iv, 89), reads in English: "The case with them (viz. some legendary stories) is similar to that of the books that have come to us from the Persian, Indian (one MS has here: Pahlawi) and the Greek and have been translated for us, and that originated in the way that we have described, such as for example the book Hazar Afsana, which in Arabic means "thousand tales", for "tale" is in Persian afsana. The people call this book "Thousand Nights" (two MSS have here: Thousand Nights and One Night). This is the story of the king and the vizier and his daughter and her servant-girl; these two are called Shirazad and Dinazad (in other MSS: and her nurse; in again other MSS: and his two daughters)".

In al-Fihrist by Muhammad b. Ishak b. Abi Ya`kub al-Nadim (written in 377/987), ed. Flügel, i, 304, the Hazar Afsan are mentioned and a resume of the frame-work story is given. The Fihrist adds that Abu `Abd Allah b. `Abdus al-djahshiyari (d. 331/942), the author of the Book of the Viziers, began to write a book in which he selected a thousand stories from the stories of the Arabs, the Persians, the Greek and other peoples. He collected four hundred and eighty stories, but he died before he had attained his purpose, i.e. to complete a thousand stories.

Contrary to de Sacy, Joseph von Hammer (Wiener Jahrbücher, 1819, 236; JA, 1e serie, x; 3e serie, viii; Preface to his Die noch nicht übersetzten Erzaehlungen (see above) maintained the genuineness of the passage in al-Mas`udi with all its consequences. William Lane tried to prove that the whole book was the work of one single author and had been written in the period 1475-1525 (Preface to The Arabian Nights Entertainments, London 1839-41).

The discussion was resumed by de Goeje (De Arabische Nachtvertellingen, De Gids, 1886, iii, 385, and The Thousand and One Nights in the Encycl. Britann., xxiii, 316). He collated the passage in the Fihrist (see above), in which the Hazar Afsan are said to have been written for Humay (var.: Humani), the daughter of King Bahman, with a passage in al-Tabari (9th century), i, 688, where Esther is called the mother of Bahman and the name Shahrazad is assigned to Humay; and consequently tried to show that the frame-work story of the Nights was connected with the Book of Esther. August Müller seems to have been the pioneer towards a freer attitude in his Sendschreiben on the subject to de Goeje (Bezzenbergers Beitraege, xiii, 222) and in his article in Die deutsche Rundschau, xiii, July 10, 1887, 77-96. He distinguished various layers in the work, one of which he supposed to have been written in Baghdad, whereas to another and larger one he assigned an Egyptian origin. The ideal of various layers was worked out with greater accuracy by Th. Noldeke (Zu den aegyptischen Maerchen, ZDMG, 1888, 68) who gave an approximate definition of the texts, by which each could be recognized.

The contents of the Nights were described and considered by Noldeke several times. In this respect Oestrup's Studier over 1001 Nat, Copenhagen 1891, are of special importance; they were translated into Russian by Krymski (Izsliedowanie o 1001 no´i, Moscow 1905, with a long introduction) and into German by Rescher, "Oestrups Studien über 1001 Nacht" aus dem Daenischen (nebst einigen Zusaetzen), Stuttgart 1925, and a French resume with notes was published by Galtier, Cairo 1912. Other ingenious discussions of the subject were given by Horovitz, mainly in his article Die Entstehung von Tausendundeine Nacht, The Review of Nations, no. 4, April 1927; idem, in IC, 1927. See also Littmann, Tausendundeine Nacht in der arabischen Literatur, Tübingen 1923, and Die Entstehung und Geschichte von Tausendundeiner Nacht in the Anhang to Littmann's translation (mentioned above).

The earliest testimony to the existence of the book of the Thousand Nights was discovered by Nabia Abbott, A Ninth-Century Fragment of the "Thousand Nights". New Light on the Early History of the Arabian Nights, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1949. After that the work is mentioned by al-Mas`udi and in the Fihrist (see above). In the 12th century a collection of tales called "The Thousand Nights and one Night" was known in Egypt as we learn from a certain al-Kurti who wrote a history of Egypt under the last Fatimid caliph (1160-71), and al-Ghuzuli, who died in 815/1412, transmitted in his anthology a tale of the Nights, as Torrey recognized (J A O S, 1894, 42 f.). A MS discovered by H. Ritter in Istanbul which is of the 13th or 14th century contains four stories that are in the Egyptian recension. These stories are not stated to be a part of the Nights; they will be published and translated by H. Wehr on the basis of preliminary studies by A. von Bulmerincq. Then follow Galland's MS and a number of other MSS of the Nights which cover the period from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

We know that in the common form of the Nights there are a Baghdad and an Egyptian part. Oestrup grouped the separate tales into three layers of which the first one was to comprehend the fairy-tales from the Persian Hazar Afsana with the frame-work of the book, the second those which had come from Baghdad, and the third the stories which had been added to the body of the work; certain tales, as for example the extensive chivalric romance of `Umar b. al-Nu`man, were inserted when the number 1001 was taken in its literal sense. But the Story of Sul and Shumul in a Tübingen MS, which is professedly a part of the Nights and which was edited as such by Seybold, certainly never was an integral part of them, because in it a Muslim is converted to Christianity; in the true Nights Christians, Zoroastrians and pagans often adopt Islam, but a Muslim never adopts another religion.

The following forms of the Nights were established by Macdonald (The earlier history of the Arabian Nights, JRAS, 1924, 353 ff.)-meaning by that any collection of stories fitted into the frame-work which we know: i. The original Persian Hazar Afsana, "Thousand Stories". ii. An Arabic version of the Hazar Afsana. iii. The frame-work story of Hazar Afsana, followed by stories of Arabic origin. iv. The Nights of the late Fatimid period; to its popularity al-Kurti testifies. v. The recension of the Galland MS. From notes in it that MS was in Syrian Tripoli in 943/1536 and at Aleppo in 1001/1592; it may, of course, be older. But it was written in Egypt. There remains the at prsesent still unsolved problem of the relations between it and the other old and independent MSS; there are according to Macdonald at least six such MSS which must be considered.

Nabia Abbott (see above) stated the following six forms. i. An eighth-century translation of the Hazar Afsana. According to her belief this was most probably a complete and literal translation, perhaps entitled Alf Khurafa. ii. An eighth-century Islamized version of the Hazar Afsana entitled Alf Layla. This could have been either partial or complete. iii. A ninth-century composite Alf Layla containing both Persian and Arabic materials. While most of the former came undoubtedly from the Hazar Afsana, other current story-books, especially the Book of Sindbad and the Book of Shimas, are not improbable sources. The Arabic materials, as Littmann had already pointed out, were not so slight or insignificant as Macdonald believed them to be. iv. The tenth-century Alf Samar of Ibn `Abdus. Whether this was meant to include, among other materials, all the current Alf Layla and to supersede it, is not clear. v. A twelfth-century collection augmented by materials from iv and by Asiatic and Egyptian tales of local Egyptian composition. The change of title of Alf Layla wa-Layla belongs, in all probability, to this period. vi. The final stages of the growing collection extending to the early sixteenth century. Heroic tales of the Islamic countercrusades are among the most prominent additions. Persia and `Irak may have contributed some of the later predominantly Far Eastern tales in the wake of the thirteenth-century Mongol conquest of those lands. The final conquest of Mamluk Syria and Egypt by the Ottoman Salim I (1512-20) closed the first chapter of the history of the Arabian Nights in its oriental homeland.

The title "Thousand Stories" may have been changed to "Thousand Nights" when, with the Arabs, the frame-work story and other stories were combined; that cannot have been done later than the 9th century. Originally "1000 stories" meant only a very large number of stories; in the same way it is said of Shahrazad that she had collected "a thousand books". For the simple mind even 100 is a high number, and "before 100 years" means-even for Oriental historians-the same as "a long time ago"; therefore the number 100 must not be taken in its exact sense. But 1000 is almost the same as "innumerable". And the Book of the Thousand Nights which was known at Baghdad scarcely contained a thousand separate nights. But why was 1000 changed to 1001? This change may partly owe its origin to the superstitious aversion to round numbers common among the Arabs as among other peoples. But it is very likely that it was also influenced by the Turkish idiomatic use of bin bir "thousand and one" for a large number: in Anatolia there is a ruin called Bin-bir-kilise "1001 Churches", but there are, of course, not nearly so many there. In Istanbul there is a place called Bin-bir-direk "1001 columns"; but there are only a few dozens of them there. The Turkish alliteration bin bir points to the origin of the Persian idiom hazar yak "1001" and of the title alf layla wa-layla. Since the 11th century Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria and the other countries of Eastern Islam were under the influence of the Turks. Thus the little "1001 Nights" at the beginning meant only a large number of nights, but later on the number was taken in its literal meaning, and it became necessary to add a great many stories in order to complete the number 1001.

The various component elements.

If then India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and in some way the Turks were partners in the origin of the Nights we must assume that materials derived from all these countries and peoples are to be foundKin them. The first outer tests might be the proper names. There are Indian names like Sindbad, Turkish names like `Ali Baba and Khatun; the names Shahrazad, Dinazad, Shahzaman are Persian and occur, as de Goeje has shown, in Persian legends; so also Bahram, Rustam, Ardashir, Shapur and many others are Persian. However, by far the majority of names are Arabic, i.e. old Arabic names used among the Arabian bedouin and later Islamic names. Greek and European names occur in a few cases in stories treating of the relations between Muslims and Byzantines and Franks. Egyptian names refer to places and to months in their Coptic forms. Of Hebrew names chiefly Solomon and David occur; both play an important role in Islamic tradition. Besides them $saf, Barakhiya, Bulukiya and others are named. But since in very many cases stories are transferred to other persons and frequently persons without names act in them the question of the names must not be stressed.

However, the frame-work system, which is very common in India but very rare in other countries, is a test of the Indian origin of certain parts of the Arabian Nights. In the Indian popular books it usually runs like this: "You may not do such and such a thing or else you will go the same way as so and so".-"How was that?" asks the other, and then the admonisher begins his story.

The foreign elements in the Nights have been carefully studied by Oestrup. One of the interesting statements he made was that in the Iranian fairy-tales the demons or supernatural powers act on their own account and independently, whereas in the more recent tales, especially in those from Egypt, they are always subject to some talisman or magic object; hence its owner decides the development of the action, not the djinns and `Ifrits themselves. Only a short summary of the foreign elements in the Nights can be given here.

The frame-story is of Indian origin. That it consists of three different parts which originally were independent stories was shown by Emmanuel Cosquin in Etudes folkloriques, Paris 1922, 265. These parties are: 1. The story of a man who was grieved by a disloyal wife but whose grief was allayed when he saw that a high personality had the same misfortune. 2. The story of a demon or a giant whom his wife or his captive betrayed with many other men in the most audacious manner. This is the same as the tale told by the seventh vizier in the Story of Sindbad the Wise. 3. The story of a clever girl who by her skilful telling of stories averts an evil threatening her or her father or both of them. Of these three parts only the third one seems to have belonged to the original frame-work story, as indicated by al-Mas`udi and by the Fihrist; in it, then, only the cruel king, the clever daughter of the vizier and her true old nurse were known. It is probable that the story of the clever daughter of the vizier came at an early date from India to Persia, where it was "nationalized" and combined with the other two parts of the frame-story. A number of tales in the Nights are of Indian origin: such are the stories of pious men that remind us of Buddhist and Jainist saints, the fables of animals, the story-cycles of Sindbad [q.v.] the Wise, and of djali`ad and Shimas. Indian motifs are to be found in different passages of the Nights: such are, e.g., the Story of the Magic Horse; the poisoning by means of the leaves of a book (by the physician Duban), a practice which points to Indian customs (cf. Gildemeister, Scriptorum Arabum De Rebus Indicis loci et opuscula, BonnK1838, 89). All this passed through Persian before it reached the Arabs.

Quite a number of tales are of Persian origin, especially those fairy-tales in which the ghosts and the fairies act independently; see above. The tales which Oestrup enumerates as being of Indian-Persian origin are the following: 1) The Story of the Magic Horse; 2) The Story of Hasan of Basra; 3) The Story of Sayf al-Muluk; 4) The Story of Kamar al-Zaman and of Princess Budur; 5) The Story of Prince Badr and of Princess djawhar of Samandal; 6) The Story of Ardashir and Hayat al-Nufus. And according to him the relation between the Story of `Ali Shar and the Persian original, the former containing many details which recur in the probably later narrative of Nur al-Din `Ali and the Girdle-girl, also to be found in the Nights, is uncertain. The Story of the Jealous Sisters and the Story of Ahmad and Pari Banu that are found only in Galland give a strong impression of being originally Persian, but Persian prototypes of them have not become known as yet.

Baghdad is situated in the region of ancient Babylonia: it is, therefore, probable that ancient Babylonia ideas should survived there until Islamic times and might be reflected in the Nights. Even a whole story, the Story of Haykar the Wise, which in some MSS appears as a part of the Nights, is of Old Mesopotamian origin; it probably dates back to the 7th century B.C., and it found its way through the Jewish and Christian literatures into Arabic literature. Khidr the Ever-Youthful, has a Babylonian prototype; the journeys of Bulukiya and the water of life fetched by Prince Ahmad may reflect motifs of the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. But Khidr and the water of life were probably transmitted to the Arabs by the Romance of Alexander, and the journeys of Bulukiya became known to them through Jewish literature. Above all, the frequent anecdotes about the `Abbasid caliphs and their court and also some anecdotes about their subjects belong to the Baghdad recension of the Nights. The Story of Sindbad [q.v.] the Sailor found its definite shape probably in Baghdad, the romance of `Umar b. al-Nu`man [q.v.] contains Persian, Mesopotamian and Syrian materials; the romance of `Adjib and Gharib points to Mesopotamia and to Persia; the story of the clever slave-girl Tawaddud [q.v.] originated in Baghdad and was in some respects reshaped in Egypt. The Stories of Bulukiya, of Sindbad [q.v.] the Wise, and of djali`ad and Wird Khan were certainly known in Baghdad. But there is no certain proof that all these tales were parts of the Baghdad recension. The same is to be said of the four stories of the Istanbul MS found by H. Ritter (see above); it contains four of our Nights stories but does not refer to Alf Layla wa-Layla. These stories are: 1) The Story of the Six Men, i.e. of the six brothers of the barber of Baghdad; 2) The Story of djullanar the Sea-girl; 3) The Story of Budur and `Umayr b. djubayr; 4) The Story of Abu Muhammad the Slothful.

Egyptian origin is to be postulated of the stories in which the tricks of clever theives and rogues are related, of the tales in which the ghosts and demons appear as servants of talismans and of magic objects, and of stories that might be called "bourgeois novels", some of which resemble modern romances of adultery. All these stories date, of course, in their present form from the time of the Mamluk sultans and of Turkish rule in Egypt. But some of the motifs go back to Ancient Egypt. The clever rogue `Ali al-Zaybak and his companion Ahmad al-Danaf have their prototype in the bold condottiere Amasis, and the treasure of Rhampsinit is found in the story of `Ali al-Zaybak, as Noldeke pointed out. The monkey-scribe in the story of the three dames of Baghdad may have his prototype in Thot, the scribe of the Egyptian gods who is often represented as a monkey, or in Hanuman the monkey-leader of the Indian Ramayana. It has also been suggested that the ancient story of the Egyptian shipwrecked person is to be connected with Sindbad's journeys, and that the story of the capture of Jaffa by Egyptian warriors hidden in sacks recurs in the story of `Ali Baba; but these connections are not very likely; see Littmann, Tausendundeine Nacht in der arabischen Literatur, 22.

For possible Greek influences in the Nights see von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, Chicago 1946, Chapter Nine, Greece in the Arabian Nights.

The various literary genres.

It remains to give a summary account of the different classes of literature represented in the Nights; it is here, of course, impossible to mention every one of all the stories, as has been done in the Anhang to Littmann's translation. There six main groups were distinguished: 1) Fairy-tales; 2) Romances and novels; 3) Legends; 4) Didactic stories; 5) Humorous tales; 6) Anecdotes. A few examples of each group must suffice here.

1.

The frame-story consists of three Indian fairy-tales. The tales which come first in all manuscripts (The Merchant and the djinni; The Fisherman and the djinni; The Porter; The Three Calenders and the Three Dames in Baghdad; The Hunchback) belong to this class; they are themselves examples of the frame-work system and contain some traits which remind us of Indian prototypes and even of some motifs which have parallels in stories from farther east. The best known fairy-tales are those of `Ala" al-Din and the Magic Lamp and `Ali Baba. Other examples are Kamar al-Zaman and Budur, The Jealous Sisters, Prince Ahmad and Pari Banu, Sayf al-Muluk, Hasan al-Basri, Zayn al-Asnam.

2. The longest romance is that of `Umar b. al-Nu`man [q.v.] and his Sons; it has been discussed by Paret (Der Ritterroman von `Umar an-Nu`man, Tübingen 1927), and by H. Gregoire and R. Goossens (ZDMG 1934, 213: Byzantinisches Epos und arabischer Ritterroman). The Story of `Adjib and Gharib is the model of an Islamic popular romance. The stories of the Porter and the Three Dames, of `Ala" al-Din Abu 'l-Shamat, of Nur al-Din and Shams al-Din, of Nur al-Din and Maryam the Girdle-girl might be called "bourgeois" romances or novels, as also the story of Abu Kir and Abu ‘Sir.

Here the love-stories may be added. There are a great many of them in the Nights, and they comprise three groups: a) ancient Arabian life before Islam; b) urban life in Baghdad and Basra, love-affairs with girls or slave-girls in the cities or in the palace of the caliphs; c) love-novels from Cairo which are sometimes frivolous and lascivious. See Paret, Früharabische Liebesgeschichten, Bern 1927.

Also the stories of rogues and of seafarers are to be mentioned here. For `Ali al-Zaybak see above; many short stories of the guardians are told before the rulers of Egypt. The famous story of Sindbad [q.v.] the Sailor is based on a book The Wonders of India, which contained adventures and sailors' yarns collected by a Persian sea captain at Basra in the 10th century. The first part of the story of Abu Muhammad the Slothful is composed of sailors' stories and motifs of fairy-tales.

3.

There are a few ancient Arabian legends inserted in the Nights: Hatim al-Ta`i, Iram the City of Columns; The Brass City; The City of Lebta, which refers to the conquest of North-western Africa by the Arabs. Other legends refer to pious men and women, among them to pious Israelites (these need not necessarily be due to Jewish authors); the legend of The Pious Prince, who was a son of Harun al-Rashid and became a dervish, is reminiscent of the famous legend of Alexius.

4.

Didactic stories, fables and parables, especially of animals, are known to many peoples and have found their way into the Nights also, where most of them seem to have originated in India, as e.g. the two long cycles of Sindbad [q.v.] the Wise (Syntipas) and of djali`ad and Wird Khan, and many of the fables of animals, but they were sometimes remodelled in their Arabic forms. The long story of the clever slave-girl Tawaddud [q.v.] (in Spain la doncella Teodor, in Abyssinia Tauded) with its probable Greek prototype correctly discusssed by Horovitz belongs in this category.

5.

Humorous tales are the stories of Abu 'l-Hasan or the Sleeper Awakened, of Khalifa the Fisherman, of dja`far the Barmakid and the Old Bedouin, and of `Ali the Persian; the latter is a typical story of lies. In the stories of Ma`ruf the Cobbler and of the Hunchback there are many humorous traits.

6. The group of anecdotes comprises here all the stories that are not classified in the preceding groups. Collections of anecdotes are the stories of the Hunchback and of the Barber and his Brothers, and they are combined to a comedy of great style. The other anecdotes are to be divided into three groups: those of rulers and their circles, those of munificent men, those taken from general human life. Those of rulers begin with Alexander the Great and end with the Mamluk sultans: a few of them refer to the Persian kings, a very large number of them refer to the `Abbasid caliphs, above all to Harun al-Rashid who became the ideal ruler in the opinion of later Muslims. Some of these anecdotes may not originate from Baghdad but from Egypt where they were ascribed to him. The munificent men about whom the Nights tell are mainly Hatim al-Ta`i, Ma`n b. Za`ida and the Barmakids. The anecdotes from general human life are of several kinds: they tell of rich and poor, of young and old, of sexual abnormities (Wardan and the Woman with the Bear; The Princess and the Monkey), of bad eunuchs, of unjust and of clever judges, of stupid schoolmasters (a type known in Greek and Roman literature as well as in modern Egyptian Arabic tales). The Nocturnal Adventure of the Caliph transmitted only by Galland contains three long anecdotes told at large and intermingled with motifs from fairy-tales.

There are about 1420 poems or fragments of poetry in the 2nd Calcutta edition, according to Horovitz (in Festschrift Sachau, Berlin 1915, 375-9) Of these a number of 170 repetitions must be deducted, so 1250 insertions of poetry remain. Horovitz has been able to prove that those insertions whose authors he could discover are to be dated from the 12th to the 14th centuries, i.e. from the Egyptian period of the history of the Nights. These poems and verses are mostly of the kind that they might be omitted without disturbing the course of the prose texts, and, therefore, have been later added to them.
(E. Littmann*)

[Animal]

It goes hand in hand, the social conservatism and classical liberalism, that is the core of "any" Republican Party in U.S., Animal, even though it shouldn't be so, for, the Republican Party is only Republican by its name, in fact, it is not Republican. Conservative liberals, wouldn't brand themselves Republican, it's a misnomer - only in America.

Yeah, the terminology has kind of gotten screwed up along the line as the parties and ideologies contorted this way and that.

Yeah that's why America was originally composed of largely autonomous states that shared a federal body for the purposes of interstate arbitration, foreign relations, and national defense. Then the civil war, then the progressive era, then the world wars, then the cold war.

I think we're eventually headed back in that direction if this situation continues to be as frustrating and unworkable as it has become.

[Raver]

Imo, America gets to keep the same official spokesperson from the past four years, nothing more and nothing less.

[Kim]

Fire/Police/EMS is funded by city and state budgets.

So you are not opposed to state and local taxes?

I think it's a privilege to not have to worry about personal social and financial issues and if you are so lucky, all power to you. But most people did have quite a bit at stake during this election. If you are gay, female, an immigrant, a senior, a single mother, etc. your livelihood and happiness are at stake and things can turn out very differently depending on who is in the White House. I respect that you don't share my personal concerns in this election, but I find it arrogant or at best naive to minimize people's fears and efforts to protect what is important to them.

And why am I the follower when I support Obama? I share much of his vision and would like to live in a society that he proposes to create. Of course it's not perfect and of course there are risks, but why am I the mindless lemming while believing in some sort of Ayn Rand "utopia" is an example of critical thinking? I believe many of you greatly underestimate the passion and excitement that many people invested in this election (on both sides). Perhaps I should share some of my Facebook newsfeed of the last three months...

[JWC3]

This election was important. The House election in two years will be moreso.

[Kim]

I think we're eventually headed back in that direction if this situation continues to be as frustrating and unworkable as it has become.

I really doubt it. I have a feeling that the Republican party will be more cooperative now because they have to realize that continuing the blocking game is too risky if Obama does manage to turn the economy around. If he does, then the Republican party has to be able to claim some sort of involvement to stand a chance in four years. And if he doesn't turn it around, they can still blame it on him even if they did cooperate.

[ArchonAlarion]

So you are not opposed to state and local taxes?

And why am I the follower when I support Obama? I share much of his vision and would like to live in a society that he proposes to create. Of course it's not perfect and of course there are risks, but why am I the mindless lemming while believing in some sort of Ayn Rand "utopia" is an example of critical thinking? I believe many of you greatly underestimate the passion and excitement that many people invested in this election (on both sides). Perhaps I should share some of my Facebook newsfeed of the last three months...

The Ayn Rand comment was a strawman, you seem to be the one looking for utopia, and anyone who supports Obama in hopes that he will actually help any of those minorities is a mindless lemming. You are reacting purely to a party line and a pretty face.

FB feeds are meaningless. Most people are just repping their hometeams, revealing their Mommy-Daddy complexes, and projecting their personal anxieties into political campaigns in the hopes of a heads/tails chance at cathartic gratification, which they can then spitefully wield against friends and family come Nov. 7th.

[Kim]

He is in favor of gay marriage, he won't take abortion rights away, he has implemented measures for poor kids to go to college, etc. How is that a utopia? He has already helped a great deal and perhaps none of this affects you, but it greatly affects other people.

I am not reacting to party lines. I grew up in a society where much of this was already in place, so I came to appreciate it through experience.

[ArchonAlarion]

He is in favor of using the illusion of heartfelt support for socially liberal policies to garner votes from a crowd of people who will not peer deeply into his actual record. If served on a silver platter, he might sign such policies if determined to be politically significant.

The policies of the federal government affect us all. That is why I am against them. You are claiming a right to my life and the fruits of my actions without my consent, normally considered an evil, but permitted and sanctified through ritualized mob rule.

[Kim]

You are claiming a right to my life and the fruits of my actions without my consent, normally considered an evil, but permitted and sanctified through ritualized mob rule.

I don't need a right to your life, but I will take your tax money, yes.

[ArchonAlarion]

I don't need a right to your life, but I will take your tax money, yes.

Now you're just trolling lol.

But no wait, you're serious. See you around the moral high ground.

[Crispy]

I slapped my ballot with my Gary Johnson

[Park]

Let me summarize my current stance on every ongoing politics-related issue in the world:

I don't care.

[InvisibleJim]

I don't need a right to your life, but I will take your tax money, yes.

You are a thief that hides behind legislation, we get it.

[Azure Flame]

Obamacare will kick in,

capitalism will disappear over the next few decades, government spending will increase

kids can stay on parents' healthcare plan,

they can stay on their parents healthcare plan FOREVER! or used socialized medicine where the doctors have no incentive to perform GOOD work.

credit card companies can't screw me over like they used to,

YES! Now all you have to do is drop all personal financial responsibility you once had!

students have better access to loans,

awesome! more money to spend on people who don't deserve it!

[Azure Flame]

By the way if anyone wants to know what's going to happen to the united states, we're going to turn into south africa. Basically you have the land owning rich people, and all the poor people with sour grapes.

[Azure Flame]

According to a few of my fb friends this is to be counted amongst the most devastating days in human US American history. Right up there with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 and when JFK got shot I guess. Felt like a Tuesday to me.

I think I was more disgusted by how little I cared as I looked at all the pictures of obama celebrating with confetti and whatnot.

[Kim]

And how do you know I don't have personal/social/financial concerns?
.

Where did I say you don't? I support Obama because of my concerns. It's up to you to do what it takes to cater to your concerns (such as real libertarian activism, maybe?).

[Kim]

capitalism will disappear over the next few decades, government spending will increase

I highly doubt that capitalism will disappear.

they can stay on their parents healthcare plan FOREVER! or used socialized medicine where the doctors have no incentive to perform GOOD work.

They cannot stay on their parents' plan forever and Obamacare does not implement socialized medicine.

YES! Now all you have to do is drop all personal financial responsibility you once had!

Do you even know what has changed with regards to credit card companies?

[Kim]

Under any other circumstances she'd be rightfully shot in the head as a parasite.

If you guys feel so strongly about all this, you should maybe get off the computer and mobilize instead of bitching and moaning about how you are being cheated?

[Kim]

Mobilize for what? Democracy is tyranny by the biggest mob, and there aren't enough like-minded people as myself to make the difference. It's been tried for 50+ years. The system don't work, you're always going to be electorally overpowered by the greed of the masses.

The only recourse that libertarians have is to break off and do the Agorist thing.

There you go.

[Ryan]

By the way if anyone wants to know what's going to happen to the united states, we're going to turn into south africa. Basically you have the land owning rich people, and all the poor people with sour grapes.

Not your words. Where have I heard this.

[Azure Flame]

Mobilize for what? Democracy is tyranny by the biggest mob

wow, never heard it put that way before, so true. Democracy is the tyranny of dependently minded idiots.

Where have I heard this.

I've said it several times on this site, but it was in a book. Either "the asylum" or "currency war" I can't remember.

[Azure Flame]

From H. L. Mencken's Notes on Democracy:

In a democratic society [government] is the function of all, and hence mainly of those who have got only a few spans from the ground. Their eyes, to be sure, are still thrown toward the stars. They contemplate, now bitterly, now admiringly, the backsides of those who are above them. They are bitter when they sense anything rationally describable as actual superiority; they admire when what they see is fraud. Bitterness and admiration, interacting, form a complex of prejudices which tends to cast itself into more or less stable forms. Fresh delusions, of course, enter into it from time to time, usually on waves of frantic emotion, but it keeps its main outlines. This complex of prejudices is what is known, under democracy, as public opinion. It is the glory of democratic states.

Its content is best studied by a process of analysis - that is, by turning from the complex whole to the simpler parts. What does the mob think? It thinks, obviously, what its individual members think. And what is that? It is, in brief, what somewhat sharp-nose and unpleasant children think. The mob, being composed, in the overwhelming main, of men and women who have not got beyond the ideas and emotions of childhood, hovers, in mental age, around the time of puberty, and chiefly below it. If we would get at its thoughts and feelings we must look for light to the thoughts and feelings of adolescents.

When the city mob fights it is not for liberty, but for ham and cabbage. When it wins, its first act is to destroy every form of freedom that is not directed wholly to that end. And its second is to butcher all professional libertarians. If Thomas Jefferson had been living in Paris in 1793 he would have made an even narrower escape from the guillotine than Thomas Paine made.

What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace: the peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary. He is willing to sacrifice everything else to it. He puts it above his dignity and he puts it above his pride. Above all, he puts it above his liberty. The fact, perhaps, explains his veneration for policemen, in all the forms they take—his belief that there is a mysterious sanctity in law, however absurd it may be in fact.

A policeman is a charlatan who offers, in return for obedience, to protect him (a) from his superiors, (b) from his equals, and (c) from himself. This last service, under democracy, is commonly the most esteemed of them all. In the United States, at least theoretically, it is the only thing that keeps ice-wagon drivers, Y. M. C. A. secretaries, insurance collectors and other such human camels from smoking opium, ruining themselves in the night clubs, and going to Palm Beach with Follies girls… Here, though the common man is deceived, he starts from a sound premise: to wit, that liberty is something too hot for his hands—or, as Nietzsche put it, too cold for his spine.

Politics under democracy consists almost wholly of the discovery, chase, and scotching of bugaboos. The statesman becomes, in the last analysis, a mere witch-hunter, a glorified smeller and snooper, eternally chanting “Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum!” It has been so in the United States since the earliest days. The whole history of the country has been a history of melodramatic pursuits of horrendous monsters, most of them imaginary: the red-coats, the Hessians, the monocrats, again the red-coats, the Bank, the Catholics, Simon Legree, the Slave Power, Jeff Davis, Mormonism, Wall Street, the rum demon, John Bull, the hell hounds of plutocracy, the trusts, General Weyler, Pancho Villa, German spies, hyphenates, the Kaiser, Bolshevism. The list might be lengthened indefinitely; a complete chronicle of the Republic could be written in terms of it, and without omitting a single important episode.

It was long ago observed that the plain people, under democracy, never vote for anything, but always against something. The fact explains in large measure, the tendency of democratic states to pass over statesmen of genuine imagination and sound ability in favour of colorless mediocrities. The former are shining marks, and so it is easy for demagogues to bring them down; the latter are preferred because it is impossible to fear them.

Heh, so basically our country is held together with "us vs them."

Do you think the politicians and former presidents lead us to war for this reason?

[squark]

From H. L. Mencken's Notes on Democracy:

In a democratic society...]

I like this. I've never read it before, and it sums it up nicely.

[Animal]

Let me summarize my current stance on every ongoing politics-related issue in the world:

I don't care.

I'm pretty burnt out on it too. I wish I could still get all indignant or raise Hell about stuff like I used to, but it's all just so circular, vitriolic, and ultimately pointless.

[InvisibleJim]

Isnt the normal behaviour to withold production?

Note many like minded individuals are doing mediocre work they could easily surpass because the system would steal any benefit of earning a higher wage.

All at the time of an economic crunch. Coincidence?

[Eliza Thomason]

Yeah, yippee, we got a president we deserve. Hip hooray.

[Azure Flame]

Mobilize for what? Democracy is tyranny by the biggest mob, and there aren't enough like-minded people as myself to make the difference. It's been tried for 50+ years. The system don't work, you're always going to be electorally overpowered by the greed of the masses.

The only recourse that libertarians have is to break off and do the Agorist thing.

or become rich and influence it themselves.

I'm pretty burnt out on it too. I wish I could still get all indignant or raise Hell about stuff like I used to, but it's all just so circular, vitriolic, and ultimately pointless.

Now that I've been learning about all the different personality types and all their different perceptions of the world and their values, it really is. I personally feel that the only politics that matter are what happen between me and the people I love, or my allies who've helped me get where I need to be.