The Politics of the Impossible

 

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel is about an impossibly stupid project whose failure leaves a previously united people bitterly divided. American political policy is now largely defined by the impossible (and stupid):

  • The status and well-being of black people depends entirely on white people achieving an entirely pristine mental state as defined by woke white people.
  • We can eliminate COVID entirely with mandated interventions.
  • All human activity (agriculture, energy, travel, even reproduction) must be regulated to prevent change to the ever-changing climate of the earth.
  • There can be no inequality in wealth. The status and participation rates by race and sex in every job category must be equal. Inequality is proof of systemic malice.
  • It is not enough to remove any stigma resulting from traditional sexual mores. The notion of normality itself must be extinguished.

Such goals can never be reached which means full employment for the overseers of each project—at least until the tower of stupid crumbles or the builders walk off the job. (We are already bitterly divided so could that mean the projects are already ending?) At a minimum, we need to start rejecting policies based on counterfactual assumptions about human nature and the world lest we find ourselves hauling bricks made of stupid under the direction of malignant idiots. There is no heaven at the top of the tower. Spread the word.

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  1. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    The other ridiculous notion that has to be dispelled is also embodied in the story:

    According to the story, a united human race in the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating eastward, comes to the land of Shinar (שִׁנְעָר‎). There they agree to build a city and a tower tall enough to reach heaven. God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world.

    The Davos crowd promulgates the idea that the existence of globalism, the one-world Star Wars-envisioned global community, will ensure global peace and prosperity. That idea needs to be put in a trashcan.

    Everyone around the world trying to simultaneously express their opinion on global issues is a dumb idea. It diverts human attention to problems they can’t solve and that would likely not exist were it not for globalization in the first place.

    The one thing that New England contributed uniquely, I believe, to western civilization was its small autonomous strong towns as the basic units of democracy and government. Smaller is better when it comes to organizing people into productive groups.

    Every New England town started with a small meeting house and a small church and a small school. Sometimes one small building housed all of these groups. This is where the affairs of the town could be discussed and decided. It was not a “town hall” mayoral system. It was a “town meeting” selectmen, finance committee, and school committee system.

    I came across the most interesting little plaque in our town manager’s office here on Cape Cod. It memorialized the people from our town who fought at Lexington and Concord. I was shocked to see that. Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and Lexington, Massachusetts, are 93 miles apart. How could a militia from Yarmouth get to Lexington in time to fight that battle?

    I found the answer later when I was poking around our old first fire station. I came across an antique tiny 8 1/2- by 11-inch printing press. I asked our local historian about it. She said every town in Massachusetts had one. It was how the towns communicated with each other before and during the Revolutionary War. So the people in Yarmouth knew the war was coming, and they got ready for it. But they prepared as small strong independent groups of people uniting for a single momentary cause, after which they returned to their towns to the business of farming and trade.

    That small-town organization became part of the American fabric. This was the little platoon strength that de Tocqueville saw in our country.

    The world is better and stronger, more peaceful and prosperous, if we co-exist in autonomous small and strong towns. Centralization is the enemy.

    Parents with more than one child know the value of having a separate bedroom for each child. Clearly, God dispersed the peoples of the world each to their own room. :-) :-)

    • #1
  2. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    When systems are couple together to form a larger system–whether those systems are tribes, countries, corporations, or machines…some problems are solved, but other problems are created, often of a hard-to-foresee nature.  See my post Coupling for thoughts on this.

     

    • #2
  3. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    David Foster (View Comment):

    When systems are couple together to form a larger system–whether those systems are tribes, countries, corporations, or machines…some problems are solved, but other problems are created, often of a hard-to-foresee nature. See my post Coupling for thoughts on this.

    I haven’t read your post yet, :-), but as I wrote my comment above, I thought people might bring up “tribalism” as a problem with the small-town model.

    But we need to separate the promotion of a way of life encourages tolerance among people from the workings of democracy and government and trade.

     

    • #3
  4. hoowitts Coolidge
    hoowitts
    @hoowitts

    Old Bathos: lest we find ourselves hauling bricks made of stupid

    This is pure poetry…If you don’t mind I will borrow it forever

    • #4
  5. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Old Bathos:

    • The status and well-being of black people depends entirely on white people achieving an entirely pristine mental state as defined by woke white people.
    • We can eliminate COVID entirely with mandated interventions.
    • All human activity (agriculture, energy, travel, even reproduction) must be regulated to prevent change to the ever-changing climate of the earth.
    • There can be no inequality in wealth. The status and participation rates by race and sex in every job category must be equal. Inequality is proof of systemic malice.
    • It is not enough to remove any stigma resulting from traditional sexual mores. The notion of normality itself must be extinguished.

    This pretty much sums up the left’s philosophy.  Maybe you could add one more:

    We must worship abortion at the altar of reproductive rights

    • #5
  6. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    MarciN (View Comment):

    I haven’t read your post yet, :-), but as I wrote my comment above, I knew people would bring up “tribalism” as a problem with the small-town model.

     

    My ‘Coupling’ post does the opposite, I think.  When you move from small-town governance to governance at a state or national level, you do get many benefits–can’t conduct defense against hostile powers at a small-town level, can’t manage an air traffic control system at that level, can’t protect intellectual property via patents/copyrights, etc…but you also lose a lot, some of which you touched on above.

    The key is the principle of Subsidiarity…things should be run at the lowest level that it is practical to do so.

     

    • #6
  7. Sandy Member
    Sandy
    @Sandy

    Though I would have added religious observance to the list of regulatable activities, I agree that what you have laid out amounts to the politics of the impossible, but do you think these are actual principles, or “goals” as you call them?  I think they are lies and understood to be so by their progenitors.  The goal is mass destruction (deconstruction if you prefer) and total control for the benefit of a very few.

     

    • #7
  8. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Sandy (View Comment):

    Though I would have added religious observance to the list of regulatable activities, I agree that what you have laid out amounts to the politics of the impossible, but do you think these are actual principles, or “goals” as you call them? I think they are lies and understood to be so by their progenitors. The goal is mass destruction (deconstruction if you prefer) and total control for the benefit of a very few.

     

    The key is not merely that they are falsehoods impossible to realize but that they call for continuous intrusive action and enforcement. As with climate change, they want to believe the improbable catastrophic narrative not because it is The Science but because they love the proposed solution— centralized planning and control—even if it doesn’t work. A process that systematically destroys economic freedom and personal mobility and initiative is the real goal.

    • #8
  9. J Climacus Member
    J Climacus
    @JClimacus

    Here are some more:

    The cure for a debt problem is more debt.

    Race is not real, but is the most important thing we can think about.

    The sexual version of alchemy: Surgery can change a boy into a girl.

    • #9
  10. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    Here are some more:

    The cure for a debt problem is more debt.

    Race is not real, but is the most important thing we can think about.

    The sexual version of alchemy: Surgery can change a boy into a girl.

    Can’t tell if our destiny is something Orwellian or real-life Idiocracy.

    • #10
  11. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    MarciN (View Comment):
    Everyone around the world trying to simultaneously express their opinion on global issues is a dumb idea. It diverts human attention to problems they can’t solve and that would likely not exist were it not for globalization in the first place.

    Interesting way of putting it. In one of the gospels, Jesus tells his disciples the poor will always be among us. I kind of take that as an admonishment to not attempt to irradiate poverty, but simply to do what I can where I find a need. That means if I can help one person, I should – even if I can’t save everyone. It also means I can shower extravagant generosity on someone without worrying about the wastefulness of what I am doing.

    Elon Musk is free to go to space, and I can give to the cause of Kyle Rittenhouse even if there are many injustices that never come to my attention. It matters that this one did.

    • #11
  12. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    I was thinking of this post as we sang the second verse of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” this morning in church:

    Still through the cloven skies they come
    with peaceful wings unfurled,
    and still their heavenly music floats
    o’er all the weary world;
    above its sad and lowly plains,
    they bend on hovering wing,
    and ever o’er its Babel sounds
    the blessed angels sing.

    • #12
  13. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    This is my version of it.

    The left doesn’t exist unless they are constantly dreaming up more non-public goods to push everything around with. We don’t need anything except public goods and maybe Social Security and Medicare. (If you don’t know the definition of public goods, look it up. It’s basically what you would argue with an anarchist about what you could privatize. Basic, obvious government. The fire department is not socialism. I seriously think one of the advantages the Democrat party has is nobody knows about this concept.)

    If they aren’t dreaming up new non-public goods or funding the old ones more, they are going backwards, politically.

    So what happens is, they throw out ideas and it doesn’t matter how kooky or abstract it is, as long as it gets momentum they all get behind it no matter what.

    Next, to get these ideas over the line they are only going to talk to you “tactically” about it.  One way or another you are not going to have a straightforward policy discussion with them. They will lie, get emotional, or gas lite or whatever, but they are not going to talk about this in a straightforward way because that is a winning strategy. If all they do is confuse you or not concede, that is taking ground.

    I had another fun conversation with my brother-in-law like this. We were talking about the efficacy of the vaccine. One of the points I made was, that the flu vaccine was a miraculous mathematical miracle. Since the coefficient of spread is so low and it mitigates transmission, fewer than 50% can get the vaccine and it protects millions of people who don’t get the shot. (Face it, everybody including the government was expecting something like this with the COVID-19 vaccine. It didn’t happen, not even close.) Then the conversation starts hurting my head, because he says public health has to do something about those poor bastards that get the flu. He goes on and on, when anybody with a brain knows the only thing they can do is spend more money on public service ads.

    I mean what the hell does he have in mind? Well it doesn’t matter. They just have to keep going in that direction.  That is how things move left and they have to do it.

    This is another topic. Public health is an actual public good but they should be only doing things that can be done at a top level, collective level. Even the contract tracer for gonorrhea is a public good even though it’s at the micro level. You can’t do it any other way.

    • #13
  14. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    So with COVID-19, I could really give a crap about how much government force they would use if it would actually wipe the thing out. There is a limit, but I can’t imagine it. But that’s not where we are. All of the vulnerable have taken the shot. The stupid people have made their choices. The medical system is protected as much as it can be from the shot. Masks don’t work at all on the aggregate level. Children aren’t a vector. Pushing citizens around and restricting their liberty isn’t going to make any improvement in anything. There are too many Republicans that buy into this crap. 

    • #14
  15. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I suppose logically, you could make a case that the person’s insurance company could force them to get the shot or drop them. The problem with that is, how likely is it it’s going to cause the insurance company great expanse? If this was anything else I doubt the insurance commission would allow it.

     

     

    Other than the government admitting on August 1 that it doesn’t stop transmission, everything else is stupid.

    • #15
  16. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Probably the best example of what I’m talking about is gun policy. They don’t know anything about guns or gun policy so they turn up the system I’m describing to “11”. 

    • #16
  17. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Sandy (View Comment):

    Though I would have added religious observance to the list of regulatable activities, I agree that what you have laid out amounts to the politics of the impossible, but do you think these are actual principles, or “goals” as you call them? I think they are lies and understood to be so by their progenitors. The goal is mass destruction (deconstruction if you prefer) and total control for the benefit of a very few.

     

    The key is not merely that they are falsehoods impossible to realize but that they call for continuous intrusive action and enforcement. As with climate change, they want to believe the improbable catastrophic narrative not because it is The Science but because they love the proposed solution— centralized planning and control—even if it doesn’t work. A process that systematically destroys economic freedom and personal mobility and initiative is the real goal.

    Marci got the source right – Davos. I believe it’s all manufactured – planned for a long time – the reverse racism, i.e. and praising black supremacists, remove law and order, the supply chain issues, forcing poverty and dependency.  There is a spiritual battle and all these people draw from a poison well, inverting anything good or true. Their plans will eventually collapse too, like the Tower of Babel.

    • #17
  18. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Exactly.  What’s amazing is that in spite of all history, evidence with no exceptions,  except little new places no-one writes history about.    It’s the nature of the beast and has too be fought, as Reagan said, by every generation.   We stopped fighting it even before Obama.  More are waking up but if we can’t reverse the disease we’ll have to find a way to separate because once in place there is no cure until decay and disintegration creates opportunities, if we still read history. 

    • #18
  19. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):
    the supply chain issues

     

     

     

     

     

    • #19
  20. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):
    the supply chain issues

     

     

     

     

    Very good analysis.  Eye-opening.

    • #20
  21. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    If you want to hear another really good Simon Miklaovich try the one on hidden forces podcast. It’s on all platforms. He has some group ones on real vision as well that are really good. 

     

    This is my other must watch video. Also available on all podcast platforms. These guys are really good in every way. MMT.

     

     

     

     

    • #21
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