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The Leeches
Recently, Ricochet’s own EJ Hill (his name has been changed to protect the innocent), posted about intellectual exhaustion, something he himself is feeling, if I can adequately paraphrase the main point of his post. At the end of the post, he includes a stinger of “Where do we go from here?”, in that no clear path forward seems visible.
Great post. But it made me think of leeches. What are some of the characteristics of leeches?
Expert Leech demonstrates the tool of her trade.
Leeches will attach to any host as long as there’s a supply of blood flowing.
Leeches will stay attached to any host, often long past some normal level of satiation, including to levels of bursting.
Leeches do not care what they attach to, as long as, a) it’s got blood, and b) it does not remove said Leech.
Leeches secrete the peptide hirudin (had to look it up) that prevents the blood from clotting, so the host keeps pumping blood out.
Leeches are happy to leech in larger groups, as long as they get theirs.
Leeches can eat up to five times their body weight in blood – so, y’know, stand back when they’re at the dinner table.
Stealing from EJ’s post, the Leeches might say (again, if they had lips n’ stuff):
I believe that the American Right is full of gun-loving fascist nut jobs BUT if we pack the courts, rig the elections and add four sure-fire Democrats to the Senate by granting DC and Puerto Rico statehood those same gun-loving fascist nut jobs will totally roll over and accept that. Not only will they accept it, but when the newly constituted court invalidates Heller and the entire 2nd Amendment they will gladly turn in their firearms.
You may wonder why leeches popped into my head, over this part, with 2A being the example. It’s because I think much of the citizenry, and the political class (or caste, pick one) is so attached to the lifeblood of government, policy, culture, that they cannot easily be detached from the host. They only know how to feed. They don’t contribute. If anything, they promote and extend the concept of Leechism as a viable and rational alternative to things like working and making your own decisions in life.
In the above, the thought process can only conclude that the rest of the Leeches (their perception) will continue with whatever the host mandates, because Leechism. Meaning if we pack a court and strip away a right, one actually enumerated in the Constitution, not crafted out of whole cloth, everyone will just go along with it.
If we mandate masks to fight Covid, everyone will just go along with it.
If we have trillion-dollar deficits, everyone will just go along with it.
This Leechism extends across ordinary people, the media, our politicians, people working in government, the administrative state, consultants, contractors, and anyone else who makes a buck off the host, good intentions or not.
EJ continues:
They (the Leeches) discount the possibility of civil war because they are entrenched in a red-state, blue-state mentality. But if that were to happen it will most certainly not be that way. It won’t be the armies of Union vs. Confederation, it will be more like Beirut or Syria, urban and asymmetrical, a bloodbath of innocents. But that’s what you get when you lose the plot and have no idea what holds a country together.
I agree with this entirely, because the Leeches expect the present state to continue indefinitely. It has so far, so why would it change? Why would a leech stop leeching?
There is, of course, a cadre of those on the Right that have semi-lost the plot, as well. They can see the coming disaster and therefore advocate surrender to the authoritarian Left rather than risk a shooting war. Perhaps they believe they will be a moderating force. Perhaps they believe the crocodile will eat them last. They’re probably wrong on both counts. They, too, are intellectually exhausted.
The above sums up the Republican presence in Congress across both houses, quite nicely. Rolling over and accepting the status quo has become the status quo, and so, therefore, you get more leeches.
My assumption remains that we’re going to tip over, soon, primarily around financials, debt service, and the dollar. By “soon” I don’t mean months or years. It might be a decade or two. But when interest on the debt starts to finally cut into entitlement spending, after the discretionary option is exhausted in terms of cuts, that’s when the Leeches will stop leeching, and start to scream.
Published in Culture
Yeah, I can accept that when the financials finally go belly up (like a 4-day old corpse in a Louisiana swamp in summer — sticking with the leech theme), that will signal the collapse of the country. But, I still contend the source of the rot is cultural. It seems a society chooses godless communism once it has given up belief in God, and then all manner of tyranny and inhumanity ensues.
Interesting that. We become less humane when we don’t believe in God anymore. . . almost like He’s our maker or somethin’.
Which reminds me of the story Fr. Sirico (founder of the Acton Institute) tells about moving into his rectory in Michigan and noticing that only part of the tree in his front yard had leaves and blooms. He called an arborist to look at it and the guy said, “that tree is dead.”
Fr. Sirico replied, “But, it still has leaves and blossoms on one part. It can’t be dead.”
The arborist said, “It’s dead, the part with leaves is living on last year’s sap.”
Fr. Sirico says it’s an analogy for western civilization. But, leeches work as an analogy, too.
Barring a Revival in the land, you are probably correct. Your post is a good one, but it is hard to like.
The progressives think of us as saps.
I think America could continue to survive with the leeches as we have been doing but the leeches won’t let it go that way.
The progressives don’t envision putting us in concentration camps, but I can imagine that they’d be happy if their hard core opponents were restricted to cultural ghettos or resided in flyover reservations.
If anyone is “intellectually exhausted”, my advice is: when i doubt, resist corruption and resist communism.
Finally, after 60+ years, the school report my best friend* and I did on leeches is relevant. The local bait shop would give us the sick ones (I’m not sure how he could tell)
There are maybe two things your list left out that have bearing:
Wow. You know a lot about leeches.
Did you learn all that in a Poli-Sci class?
I was thinking he learned that from observing management consultants.
Just don’t get me going on Kiwi birds. I’m not sure what they do now, but back then, we had to recite our reports by memory. I had a morning paper route and there are probably still people wondering who the kid was wandering the neighborhood at 5:00 talking loudly about Kiwi Birds.
Actually, leeches do have their beneficial uses, especially when you are far from medical care. They can reduce a harmful hematoma if you have one, and draw blood from a wound until it can be stitched closed. You just have to watch them carefully, and remove them as soon as the particular condition improves.
Is there a distinction to be made between domesticated leeches and those in the wild?
I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think so.
Exactly. They ask you for your watch. Tell you what time it is. Then, walk away with your watch.
Yes, we do indeed have leeches. They were born in August of 1964 and have multiplied rapidly since then.