The well-mannered person adheres to the proposition that "if you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all." As a result, Republicans, and Senator Judd Gregg in particular, have gotten the benefit of Democrats' forbearance, even as they denigrate their "opponents" every chance they get. Moreover, ignoring their rudeness does nothing to tamp down an aggressive stance. Rather, given an inch, the intentionally anti-social will go for a mile or the whole globe. Perhaps, like other addicts, the abusive person has a bad habit and requires an intervention to make it stop.

At least, Gregg's escalation of his antagonism towards socialism into what he now calls "pandering populism" needs to be called out. His own words are rather damming:

Now we have this huge populist movement here and I'm trying to think, what is the rationale here other than just rampant pandering populism? A vote occurred in the Budget Committee last week, which I happen to be Ranking Member of, that crystallized the situation for me. Senator Sanders from Vermont, who I consider a friend and I enjoy immensely, a great guy with a great sense of humor, but we disagree on a lot of things as he runs as a socialist and I run as a conservative. Senator Sanders offered an amendment which said that the government has the right to break up large corporations.

In one breath, he refers to Senator Sanders as a "friend," and in the other he characterizes a Sanders amendment as "pandering populism" -- describing serving the interests of the people (the polis) he's been hired to serve in language that's usually associated with procuring sexual favors (pander = a person who furnishes clients for a prostitute). It's telling that while Gregg continues to refer to Sanders as a "socialist" and tries to frame himself as a "conservative," he's hit on populism as his new nemesis. Is it because the erstwhile conservative is loathe to be perceived, rightly, as anti-social?

While the Republican electorate, in recent decades, has largely been made up of the instinct-driven and prone to fandom, there's always been a leadership cadre of individuals whose authoritarian proclivities are masked by clever verbiage and linguistic distortions. "Nattering nabobs of negativism," referring to achievement-orientated Democrats and technocrats, critics of illogical argument and sloppy management, comes to mind, as does "drowning government in a bath-tub" to disguise a virulent antagonism towards government BY the people. "Rampant pandering populism" is just the latest iteration of the latter -- a veil to hide the main objective, the authoritarians' ability to maintain control, preferably by surreptitious means, of the nation and beyond.

There's no doubt Judd Gregg is fully cognizant of the role of our monetary system as a tool for social domination. And he's determined not to give control of it up to its rightful owners, the American people.

The second goal, however, should be that we maintain what is a unique and rare strength of America, which is the capacity that we have as a country to create capital and credit in a very aggressive way, so that entrepreneurs who are willing to go out and take risks have access to capital and credit, which creates jobs and the dynamics of our economy. And we shouldn't put in place a regulatory regime that overly reacts and, as a result, significantly dampens our capacity to have the most vibrant capital and credit markets in the world, while still having a safe and sound capital and credit markets.

Note the pairing of "capital and credit," instead of debt and credit, which the country "creates" (out of thin air) and on which the "unique ... strength of America" is based. He's talking about our money, the dollar, and wants us to believe that, despite recent experience, the markets will be "sound" if we just resist imposing a "regulatory regime" on his friends, the large banks.

It was almost as if somebody sat back and said, “we really dislike these folks and we're going to put in place a regime that gratuitously penalizes them for the business that they do because we just don't like it. It's too big, and it's too complicated.”

One of the hallmarks of the authoritarians that they always assign to others what they themselves think. It's a strategy that creates the impression of empathy, of a shared interest in what other people perceive, even as it serves to disguise the authoritarian's interest in denying or even destroying what other people want. Alternatively, there's the reliance on outside authorities to buttress an argument. Note how the Federal Reserve is characterized:

You don't have to listen to me to believe this. Let me just quote from a message that was sent to us by the Federal Reserve, which is a reasonably fair arbiter in this exercise. They really don't have a dog in this fight other than the financial stability of our country. Section 106 -- this is the Fed talking, not me -- "would impair financial stability and strong prudential regulation of derivatives; would have serious consequences for the competitiveness of United States financial institutions; and would be highly disruptive and costly, both for banks and their customers."

"A reasonably fair arbiter"? Really? A private corporation that, for some reason, has been handed control over the nation's money supply, the primary tool of social and economic manipulation, is to be considered a "fair arbiter" when a proposal to transfer that control to a regulatory regime responsive to the officials heading up our public corporation is being considered? Since when does any person, natural or artificial, consider a reduction of its power to be fair?

Which is not to say Gregg lies. Rather, what we have here is a partial truth. Although predictions can't be either true or false, that public regulation of gambling with financial instruments "would have serious consequences for the competitiveness of United States financial institutions," is a likely consequence, if one defines competition as a contest that aims to overwhelm or destroy other entities (foreign countries and their financial institutions). If fairness were the issue, rules and regulations and the ability to enforce them would not be a problem. If American exceptionalism (uniqueness) and dominance (strength) are to be maintained, then putting the people in charge (populism) is a problem. Because, you see, the American people are into fairness and equity and equality. And that's why they can't be trusted.

Judd Gregg has announced his disinclination to seek another term of service in the United States Senate, as an agent of the people of New Hampshire. Perhaps that accounts for his blatant disdain for the polis who hired him and pay his wages. Perhaps Gregg is just another exemplar of a long line of Unjust Stewards, doling out last-minute benefits to insure future support from his cronies. But, that doesn't answer the question how it happened that such an unreliable agent was selected for high office in the first place. Was it just a matter of a credulous public being deceived or did good manners keep people from speaking up and, at least, pointing out that this little potentate, an anti-social twit, also had no clothes?

A gratuitous promise to deprive women of reproductive health care should have provided a clue. But that was over two decades ago when civil rights were new and human rights, despite the approval of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, still had a long way to go.