It Won’t Last Forever

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

-          George Orwell

I think Orwell was wrong, or at least this is certainly not what is playing out in the United States today.

Since Trump’s election in 2016 – and even before he took office – it has been clear that virtually all democrats and most republicans have been out to take him down; certainly, the administrative apparatus has the same desire. 

Just a quick survey: Russiagate, Ukrainegate, impeachment, the corona, tanking the economy, voting (shall we say) irregularities.

Now, after yesterday’s debacle at the capitol – as if 13 days is too long to wait – we have this:

Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, and incoming Senate majority leader after the Dems victory in the Georgia runoffs, called for Donald Trump to be immediately removed from office, saying that the outgoing president was directly responsible for Wednesday's riot in the Capitol.

In a statement, Schumer said Vice President Mike Pence should invoke the Constitution’s 25th amendment, using support of the cabinet to take over in the Oval Office until Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.

“If the vice president and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president,” Schumer added.

Facebook has booted Trump, as has Spotify and Twitter.

This has nothing to do with stomping on a human face forever.  It is something quite different.  The target isn’t Trump; goodness, Trump has done many wonderful things for the establishment:  deficit spending without end, total support for Israel, increased military spending, rapid vaccinations.

No, the target isn’t Trump.  The target is those who have supported him.

What is happening (and has happened over the last four years, culminating in Schumer’s statements or potentially the reality that Trump is removed before January 20) is an overwhelming demonstration with just one objective.  That objective can be best understood as follows:

Beaten into submission: To put forth great effort so that someone learns or remembers something, especially through repetition.

Teach someone a lesson: to punish someone for doing something bad so that they do not do it again.

Show (one) who's boss: To demonstrate authority or dominance over one so that it is clearly recognized, especially by means of defeat or some form of subjugation; make it clear to somebody that you have more power and authority than they have.

No matter what, you will lose.  We are going to beat this so far into you that you will never forget it.  Even when you win, you will lose; even when you are peaceful (or especially because we count on you being peaceful), you will lose.

That’s what is happening.

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Once out of office, imagine what will happen to the social media world if Trump signs up with various alternative platforms, alternatives to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.  Or online, alternative, news outlets.  I suspect any such platforms will instantly gain tens of millions of subscribers.

There will be many of his enemies who would have rather they allowed Trump to win the election.  Then again, I guess the various ISPs and browsers could block such content….

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This will, of course, only fuel the tension more.  Not that it isn’t going to increase in any case.  I am reminded of some wise words from Angelo Codevilla, written even before Trump won in 2016:

We have stepped over the threshold of a revolution. It is difficult to imagine how we might step back, and futile to speculate where it will end. Our ruling class’s malfeasance, combined with insult, brought it about. Donald Trump did not cause it and is by no means its ultimate manifestation. Regardless of who wins in 2016, this revolution’s sentiments will grow in volume and intensity, and are sure to empower politicians likely to make Americans nostalgic for Donald Trump’s moderation.

If the deplorables don’t get what they want with Trump, just wait who they elect (or what they will do) next.

And this:

You see the entire ruling class essentially rejecting the Constitution, the American way, rejecting the legitimacy of elections.  There can be no mild response to that, and there isn’t one.  Trump’s voters want certain results and they don’t particularly care how they get them.  The ruling class wants its power and doesn’t particularly care how it holds on to it.

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That boot isn’t going to be stomping on a human face forever.  While one side has been doing a lot of stomping in order to show who is boss, the real action will begin once the other side fully internalizes the fact that no one is playing fair.

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I am reminded of a novel I read regarding the Spanish Civil War.  A friend from Spain recommended this novel to me as the most accurate and best description of the realities of life during that horrendous period.  I have written one or two posts on this novel.  A couple of my comments from that post seems worth reproducing here:

Throughout the novel, even five years before the beginning of hostilities, one has a sense of the coming conflict.  The building of factions is developing.  There are episodes of strikes, countered by martial law and arrests.  These episodes are somewhat limited in scope and duration.

They then unleash terror in the city – burning and looting the churches, killing members of opposing parties by the hundreds through the first few nights of complete terror.

Merely owning a firearm, if one was a member of the wrong side, was enough to warrant execution – not only disarmament, but execution.

By the dozens, the so-called enemies of the people are jailed by day or taken from their homes in the night, subsequently marched out at night to face their fate.

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I don’t think we are going to get a Gorbachev.

Why?

Trump gave a statement on election fraud.  You know the details: leading going into the night; several swing states stop counting; losing by morning.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of sworn affidavits; video evidence; vote dumps at ninety-percent or higher for Biden.

It’s about a thirteen-minute statement.  He lays out his accusations in great detail, as if making the opening statement in a court trial.  Why give it now, when he has lost in every contested state, virtually every court case, etc.?  What’s the point?

Likely, there is no point.  Just one more example of him saying something while doing nothing.

Or…maybe…he is making his opening statement in his defense of his oath.  The one he took when entering office.  The one every meaningful official takes.  An oath to defend the Constitution. 

Conclusion

As I noted before, nothing will happen unless Trump believes he will have meaningful support – primarily from the military.  Does he now know that he has this?

Or is there no there there?

My Nit to Pick With the Judge

There are three individuals that I credit with the meaningful advancement of libertarian thought and principled thinking regarding governance that we have witnessed in the last decade.  These three have done God’s work in this regard, and have done far more than any hundred of us writing a few paragraphs a day based on ideas stolen from and better explained by others.

Not in any particular order, these three are Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell and Judge Andrew Napolitano. 

It cannot be argued that Ron Paul’s run eight years ago sparked everything we now see as American society’s revolt against the stakeholders – whether those doing the revolting understand this or not.  Dr. Paul would not have been successful in this had it not been for his principled approach and consistent record on issues of government, freedom and peace.

Lew Rockwell is clearly the most successful entrepreneur for ideas regarding Austrian Economics, freedom and peace.  He is the founder of two institutions that stand at the forefront of educating the public on all things associated with libertarianism.

Judge Napolitano has been a consistent and principled voice in an environment where consistency and principle usually result in being shown the door.  He has survived and thrived on the mainstream stage, always interpreting events through the lens of the strictest interpretation of the US Constitution.

If some semblance of a more free and decentralized society becomes reality in the next century, the story of this renaissance cannot be told without the first three chapters covering these individuals.

With this said, I have a nit to pick with the judge:

To my friends who have rejoiced in James Comey’s letter, please take warning that, as [Sir Thomas] More accurately predicted [in Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons”], the tables can be turned.

-        J. Edgar Comey, by Andrew P. Napolitano

Judge – assuming the infighting at the FBI is real, which I do believe to be the case – this event is the turning of the tables.

The only endeavor in which the federal government even comes close to being successful (other than aggrandizing itself) is the federal prosecution of defendants.  From my examination of the success rates of various government departments at their assigned tasks, where every single department except one was somewhere between total and abysmal failure to well below average, I offer:

Department of Justice:

To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 97% conviction rate.  In an environment defined by mediocrity at best, and failure most often, this is exemplary performance.

I wonder how they do it.

I do not fear that somehow this action by Comey will unleash the FBI and the Department of (In)Justice on me or the average citizen.  I do not fear this because that has been the reality for virtually all of us for decades.

Government bureaucracies are hotbeds for infighting and backstabbing.  This is inherent in the system as it is the only way to demonstrate performance and gain advancement.  We are witnessing events that normally occur behind the scenes, events that normally happen only to us mundanes.  The inherent contradictions in the beast known as the US government are causing it to consume itself.

Conclusion

Returning to the commentary by the Judge:

In his play “A Man for All Seasons,” Robert Bolt shows Sir Thomas More arguing with William Roper, a colleague, who suggests that government lawbreaking can be justified for the greater good, particularly if the target is the devil (which Trump has called Clinton). More demolishes that argument in a few now iconic lines: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”

It is not me, or the average citizen, that needs to fear this as something new.  Sir Thomas More isn’t lecturing me.  He is lecturing the Hillary Clintons of the world.  Once people like her have made criminals of the rest of us – which they have most certainly done – where will the machine turn next for victims?

Let them consume themselves.  Let them occupy themselves with concern for the knives pointed at their backs.  Let them see how it is to live like this every day, how the rest of us live every day.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

Matthew 12:25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”

As is well-known, Abraham Lincoln was inspired by this verse.  On June 16, 1858, he offered his famous “House Divided” speech upon the occasion of being chosen as the Republican candidate for the US Senate.  Although the speech did not propel him to a victory in the Senate race, it certainly set the tone for his presidency.

From Lincoln’s speech:

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.  We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.  Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.  I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 

It will become all one thing or all the other.

The battle lines at the time were regarding slavery, north and south, free state or slave state.  Today there is again in the United States a divide, not slavery in any sense similar to that of 150 years ago, but something in some ways more sinister – and certainly less visible…at least until recently. 

Lincoln’s words ring equally true today.  Angelo M. Codevilla writes of today’s divide: there is no more republic; there are only stakeholders and subjects.  This divide will lead almost inevitably to something not good:

… as Publius Decius Mus argues, “America and the West” now are so firmly “on a trajectory toward something very bad” that it is no longer reasonable to hope that “all human outcomes are still possible,” by which he means restoration of the public and private practices that made the American republic.

It matters not who is elected this year, although it is clear that Trump’s successes to date are a result of the “subjects” pushing back against the “stakeholders” in the only way they currently know – or in the only way that they are currently willing to contemplate.

It matters not who is elected because the machine is too well greased.  One person, a Donald Trump – even if truly committed and supported by a large portion of the population – cannot change the direction (and, in fact, has made it clear he will not change the direction back toward a constitutional republic).

Codevilla identifies the awakening that occurred in the American population – and the event that united republican and democrat alike:

The ruling class’s united front in response to the 2008 financial crisis had ignited the Tea Party’s call for adherence to the Constitution…

That would be Ron Paul, although Paul’s movement had significant energy in 2007 – before the magnitude of the financial crisis was visible to most. 

The movement behind Trump is the movement that was brought to life by Ron Paul.  Most in the movement today don’t recognize the connection; most in the movement do not see the drastic contradictions in Trump vs. Paul.  But this is the common root, and 2016 was the year ripe for someone to tap into this discontent, this call to adhere to the Constitution.

Because, as Codevilla suggests, there is no such thing as constitutional law remaining in the United States.  He points to a major turning point as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which “substituted a wholly open-ended mandate to oppose “discrimination” for any and all fundamental rights…” 

This act destroyed any remaining possibility of freedom of association and property rights.  Bakers, photographers, gender self-identification gratifying toilets, penalties for insufficient political correctness, mandatory training in performing abortions in order to secure a medical license.

The American people have come to learn that all that matters is raw power – they see this in the politics and in the government policies.  They have concluded that raw power is all that can counteract this – hence Trump.  It is raw power, not constitutionalism, which the subjects, the people, are supporting. 

Of course, the 1964 act has its roots in the progressivism born during the turn of the last century: it is the progressive intellectuals against the leave-me-alone socially “irredeemable,” the deplorables.

Codevilla’s sobering, but completely reasonable, conclusion:

We have stepped over the threshold of a revolution. It is difficult to imagine how we might step back, and futile to speculate where it will end. Our ruling class’s malfeasance, combined with insult, brought it about. Donald Trump did not cause it and is by no means its ultimate manifestation. Regardless of who wins in 2016, this revolution’s sentiments will grow in volume and intensity, and are sure to empower politicians likely to make Americans nostalgic for Donald Trump’s moderation. (Emphasis added)

For those who fear that some form of extreme fascism is coming to the United States, they need not fear Trump; the fear is in who (or what) comes next – win or lose for Trump.

Conclusion

It is the state against the people; it is the stakeholders against the subjects.  Significant power and wealth and militarization and a massive overt and covert “security” apparatus are on one side, and significant anger and frustration is growing on the other side.

Returning to Lincoln’s speech:

In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

We know what came a few years after Lincoln’s speech, the last time the house was so divided.

American Independence Day Special

I offer a brief overview of some of my posts relevant on this day in American history; nothing new here….

I wrote a series of posts in review of book by Merrill Jensen, entitled The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation.  Jensen examines the history of the American states during the Articles of Confederation.  Every post covers an aspect of his book, but if I had to pick out one or two specific pieces, I would offer the following:

The Lost Story of the American Revolution

The Founding Fathers were scoundrels.  We would have all of the dirt on this if Charles Thomson, the elected secretary of the First Continental Congress, hadn’t destroyed the draft he had written on all of the behind-the-scenes political maneuvering by those we are taught to respect as altruistic lovers of our freedom.

Gary North, whose (one) expertise (among many) is colonial America once wrote that he had only recently learned of this episode; he wrote it shortly after this post was published at LRC.  (Cut me some slack; even a mosquito takes pride in his work!)

Who Won the American Revolution?

Hint: it wasn’t “we the people.”  Had the Revolution ended with the Articles of Confederation, “we the people” might have stood half a chance.

Moving on from Jensen…

Whose Independence is it, Anyway?

After the Revolution, was life that much different for the average Yank when compared to the life of the average bloke in Britain? 

Finally, there is a post I cannot find at the moment.  In it, I reviewed the independence of the various other (Anglo) British colonies – Canada, Australia, etc., and compared these to the independence won for the United States.  Guess what?  No war was necessary in these others – many of them aren’t even sure what date to select for their “Independence Day.”

I am bummed I cannot find it – I really enjoyed writing the post.  If I can find it, I will provide the link.  If you find it, let me know.

Update: from a friend, here is the link.