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Arthur A’Bland: Don’t forget that you’re a free man, no matter how poor we are you’re free and no one can make you do anything that mean or servile, or wrong!

The Adventures of Robin Hood: Children of the Greenwood 1956

People on the right are celebrating the above video from Bill Maher’s show where Alexandra Pelosi puts a camera on the entitlement culture.

Big Hollywood:

“I have offended everybody at HBO, in New York,” she told Bill Maher during a segment on this week’s “Real Time.” “All of the people I work with, they said ‘you can’t put that on TV.’ Somehow it was ok to do it to the toothless rednecks,”

Breitbart TV:

To her credit, and to Bill Maher’s, they showed the video and openly discussed how liberals would hate it. Pelosi said “I didn’t have to go far to find ‘freeloading welfare queens.’” They were, in fact, right across the street from her New York City home.

Now I’ll concede that Pelosi and Maher risked some blowback from this video but when I watched the whole segment I didn’t see the courageous journalists, I saw the Lord and Lady of the manor.

Sir Walter FitzUrse: You are not a freeman anymore you are landless and your father is an outlaw, by my charity you are living in my house and are my serf now, do you understand?

Watch the video again. You’ll notice after his “we’re not racists” quote he spends the rest of the segment making excuses for the people in NY out to get “Obama Bucks”:

“For the Black guy his legacy is real, and the white guy from the south, he has a chip on his shoulder.”

There are no excuses offered for the poor southerns in the first film, there is no extending circumstance just shock that “they really believe this.” If only that toothless guy would accept our help we would take care of him.

Blacksmith: That’s when Sir Walter said I’d better take charge of those two homeless children, maybe he meant it kindly too, but they’ll be serfs Robin, and that’s not right.

As for Pelosi, note she isn’t concerned so much about the entitlements themselves, she is concerned that they are causing democrats to lose voters like the doorman and her driver. It’s somehow saving those votes that is the motivation here. Maher reacts by attacking the doorman who isn’t grateful for his advantages.

Robin Hood: I don’t call it particularly honorable to mistreat these children, or make them serfs.

Sir Walter FitzUrse: It was for their own good.

Robin Hood: Or yours?

The white doorman is a person of privileged, not Bill Althouse: spotted this early

They stroke themselves with this belief that because they support the Democratic Party, they are certified non-racists. Where’s the self-criticism? Isn’t it at least possible that their party’s policies represent a low opinion of black people, that they are paternalistic, that they take advantage of a seemingly locked in voting bloc?

Of course it’s not possible Ann. As Stanley Fish articulated there is no equivalence to be made. There are only those who vote with us, and those who vote against:

I know the objections to what I have said here. It amounts to an apology for identity politics. It elevates tribal obligations over the universal obligations we owe to each other as citizens. It licenses differential and discriminatory treatment on the basis of contested points of view. It substitutes for the rule “don’t do it to them if you don’t want it done to you” the rule “be sure to do it to them first and more effectively.” It implies finally that might makes right. I can live with that.

If the toothless southerner was willing to vote Obama Bill Maher and Stanley Fish would see that vote as the widow’s mite compared to his Maher’s million dollars absolved him from any critique. As Protein Wisdom says:

To the progressive, your social and political worth — in fact, your very claim to morality — comes from your various identity politics alliances. That is, your morality is a function not so much of what you do, but rather of where you claim to stand, and with whom.

That’s the real crime of those poor southerners, that’s the crime of the “privileged” doorman and driver. They are working hard for what they have an expect others to do the same.

Can’t the doorman and driver understand that, like the Lords of old, the Pelosis in Washington like and the Mahers in Hollywood seek power and status simply for the good of all? Don’t they realize if they support the great Lords in DC and Hollywood, as trusted retainers, they might expect advancement from the state, a better job in a growing federal government? Don’t they understand that by keeping an underclass on assistance they provide protection to the retainer like themselves to keep them from revolt (remember Occupy)?

And if such assistance goes to the 2nd or third generation it is a good thing because like those who came before them, they are repaying their bounty with votes that keep the enlightened lords in power.

This entire philosophy & mindset is contrary to the entire march of Western Civilization from Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence. It is the idea that some laws can be enforced while others are not, why some standards apply to some and not to others. It’s the idea that the rights are granted by other men, the elites like themselves and not from God

Perhaps Bill Maher and Ms. Pelosi should watch this episode in full:

And then perhaps they might understand the importance of this final quote.

Walter FitzUrse: “So the free man doesn’t mind cutting wood after all?”

Oswald A’Bland: “I don’t mind, it’s not keeping you warm.”

That is the essence of being free.

Update: I don’t know why I keep wanting to spell M-a-h-e-r M-a-h-a-r? fixed.

Update 2: Stacy on a fair fight

Update 3: The lonely conservative links, she must enjoy classic TV.

Update 4: Instalanche thanks Glenn, while you are here discover why some religious figures calling for the destruction of churches are not newsworthy, why a fictional Sarah Palin is much more newsworthy than the real one and I’m still 67% shy of my funderaiser to pay for the replacement laptop, clothes washer and the oil tank whistle that all died at once so any help would be most welcome.

Update 5: I was looking at an Althouse link on Wisconsin at the same time as this one that link (and interesting story) is now here while the right link is where it belongs. thanks to TD for the heads up.

Update 6: More leftist feudalism in the Media and now the White House here.

Update 7: 1.26.2020 I decided to move this video over when reading about what’s been happening in California in this piece at American Greatness

The most accurate way to describe the political economy of California would be corporate socialism. A more vivid, and equally accurate description would be feudalism.

If one were to examine the concept of California as a feudal state, all the pieces would be identifiable. The aristocracy is the wealthy billionaires and the titans of the high tech industry. The knights and the nobles are the public employees. The clerisy consists of the academics and the nonprofit activists, which include environmentalists, homeless and low-income housing advocates, and social justice warriors. Everyone else would be serfs.

California’s serfs would either be members of the state’s dwindling middle-class and small-business owners, paying crippling tithes to the feudal regime, or they would be low income workers and the unemployed, who would rely on alms from the nobles for their sustenance.

California is now a feudal system from what I can see which is why so many are running away.

It’s no coincidence that his video has been removed (unexpectedly of course) but here are some brief clips that I was able to find

and this

the full video and commentary that once existed is nowhere to be found so I want to make sure you see this commentary from Althouse:

ADDED: I love when Bill Maher says (at 8:48):

“You and I are not racists. I just gave my imaginary child’s college fund to Barack Obama, and your mother is Nancy Pelosi. So of all the people in the world — we are not out to fuck black people.“

That’s a very crude analysis of racism! They stroke themselves with this belief that because they support the Democratic Party, they are certified non-racists. Where’s the self-criticism? Isn’t it at least possible that their party’s policies represent a low opinion of black people, that they are paternalistic, that they take advantage of a seemingly locked in voting bloc?

I think it would be really interesting to talk to those people now in an era of full employment and the reforms that Trump has made and the initiatives to get ex cons employed.