Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The State of the Republic in 12 Words or Less (End of 1Q2022 Edition)
I was on business travel this week so my usual routine of “scan the headlines / read selected texts” at several points throughout each day was out of the question. The resulting late-in-the-week accelerated catch-up always leaves me with a much different perspective than the one that comes with following breaking news through the first 24 to 48 hours of discovery and sorting-of-truth before arriving at a modified version ready for the rinse-and-repeat cycle. (These days that first cycle is usually required just to clear the field of NT strawmen, then the real work can begin. But I digress.) Instead, I end up with more of a 10,000-foot view of the week’s events.
With that, I came to the end of the weekly catch-up scan late yesterday and a couple of items relayed to me from Instapundit (as is the usual case) stood out as the real indicators of where the country is at this point in history. So, assuming neither Russia v. Ukraine nor the “Slap Heard Round the World” evolve into WWIII, I offer the following as the briefest of status reports on our society and our country:
Those words can and should stand on their own for future reference…but the fun here at the Lower Member Feed is in the slight elaboration:
The first line, highlighted with “ALL OUR INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED” by the good Professor Reynolds, links to a Powerline post titled with the above that poses the question “why have massive frauds become commonplace in our society?” and then gives details of two rather prominent examples. I suggest you go read it in its entirety…but keep in mind that none of this is a bug in the system. From the Biden Crime Family to the Clinton Extortion Syndicate to the Pelosi Insider Trading Clearinghouse to the entire DC apparatus…corruption is the system and governing is only the front business originally used to hide much of the dirty world behind the divvying up of our money and the soiling of our liberties. For those willing to see, Powerline offers a few words that are exactly correct with respect to the current state of The Republic: “Such criminality is not subtle. Little care is taken to hide it.” That has been the case since (at least) the beginning of the Obama administration…and they elevate their game every year.
The second line, highlighted with “YES, WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S A LIE” by Reynolds, links to a Kurt Schlichter article by that name. His opening paragraph:
There was a time not long ago when even the most based conservative was willing to live and let live with all manner of divergent and bizarre people, but live and let live has become “I live and you submit” and that’s just not going to work out in the long run. The tolerant have been rewarded for their tolerance with intolerance, and if you look, you can already see the backlash brewing.
Of course, as I have admitted before, I thought we had hit peak un-seriousness in about May 2016 with the National Bathroom Confusion Outbreak. Boy was I wrong. But, six years and a whole lot of intellectual un-seriousness later, it is becoming clearer that it will likely be factions from the Left (the incompatible coalition that it is) which cannot maintain the charade anymore that ultimately drive any backlash. When (or “If”) enough of them break away, the backlash will gain critical momentum. I posit that 1,024 more days of the Biden administration just may create enough pain to push many in this direction. Time will tell…
More Schlichter:
A person can have the moral high ground when he/she asks to be left alone and not hassled. But that person gives up the moral high ground when he/she demands that for the rest of us to join them up there, we must validate whatever delusion turns his/her crank.
Tolerance is a two-way street, and we tolerant people keep getting run over. In the long run – hell, in the short run – that’s bound to decrease our tolerance for tolerance.
Well, tolerance is a two-way street in a properly functioning constitutional republic of a free people anyway. Unfortunately, little since 2009 and almost nothing since 2016 has been functioning properly or can even be categorized as moderately healthy about this little experiment.
Worse, it is all working now exactly as your Ruling Class wishes it to work. Good luck taking it back…that better be some “backlash”.
Into the abyss…
___ ___ ___
Extended Aside
As I typed the title above I was going to use the term “State of the Union” when the question struck me: Why “union”? Certainly, the importance of that term at the Founding is obvious and, by definition (à la the winners), still so more than fourscore years later. Maybe the state of maturity of the United States of America and its place in the world of the times fit that focus. But should that still be the focus today?
More and more these days, especially since the demonstration by some of the many states to not live up to the agreed to compact during the 2020 election (and beyond), I am inclined to think that it is the health of the Republic itself (dedicated to liberty and justice for all) composed of those states still willing to belong in good faith that should be monitored on an annual (or continuous) basis. A “union” that includes those not willing to participate in good faith is not worthy of the term and undercuts the drive for liberty and justice for those who do. Can, or must, “the Union” change so as to be subordinate to the real key entity: the Republic? Maybe, just maybe, a culling of the union is in order. (And, notwithstanding the hogwash from the chickens#!t Roberts Court, all of the states loyal to that Republic do have standing in the matter. But, I digress.)
Published in General
I’ll offer another, one I’ve always liked:
When small men cast long shadows, the sun is going down.
Or rising, apres Ben Franklin.
In an advancing society, the righteous are increasingly intolerant of evil, and the evil are thereby compelled to be increasingly tolerant of righteousness.
In a society that is descending into chaos and savagery, the evil are increasingly intolerant of righteousness, and the righteous are compelled thereby to be increasingly tolerant of evil.
Geez… at least to Clinton: Chinagate? Campaign contributions for satellite and nuclear missile technology decades ahead of Their time. All those paying attention then knew that there was “little care taken to hide it.”
Very true. But at all levels below and outside the White House back then they at least pretended that it mattered. The next big step after the Clinton administration…aside from letting Carol Browner skate…was Tom Daschle openly operating as a non-lobbyist lobbyist. From there the game expanded exponentially…Clinton Foundation, Harry Reid, Pelosi, etc., etc., etc. Now everyone is in on it.
For the record, here is another little tidbit from the week to remind us how we got here:
From that link:
For what its worth, “Bum” is way too kind.
NOTICE: This Member post has been promoted to the Main Feed. Content may have been edited / corrected from the original without attribution by Ricochet.
(Somewhere along the line it seems we – or I – stopped getting notifications about promotions. For what it’s worth, that is/was an important feature to at least one of us.)
Worth its own post as the million illegal aliens surge towards our southern border.
Yes. That he would choose to play footsie with Biden on this…and encourage others to do the same…in the opening months of such massive deliberate dereliction of duty by a president is disgusting.