Institutional and Systemic

 

We are in the midst of a lot of proclaiming by the self-imagined politically astute about the possible coming electoral “resets” of 2022 and 2024. I try hard not to distract from those who have invested a lifetime of identifying with the political elites of either party while building a delusionary sense of how the interests and sensitivities of those patronizing parasites are the same as us of simpler minds and tastes, those who were intended to be the foundational thrust of this republic.

Elections, indeed, have to be won and seats changed. But as noted in the past, that has happened before but did little to alter the course we are now on. The institutions whose role it is to protect, foster, and grow our national purpose have been steadily corrupted and turned against both us and all that supports that national purpose. Winning seats and building “party” for its own sake is a part of what has gotten us here. A party is merely another institution within the framework of the nation to make it work how it was designed.

All our institutions have the same overarching purpose for preserving, advancing, and growing the national culture necessary for being a self-governing, free people living in Liberty. After that, each of the institutions has its own field of responsibility under that arch. They each have a purpose that fits within the complete picture of our nation. Some are necessarily a part of government while others should be as far from government’s corrupting influence as possible. But it is vital that these reflect both that culture of Liberty and the national purpose while being accountable not to their own interests and sensitivities but to the citizenry, to the republic.

Ours is a system originally designed for actions, reactions, and changes to be considered measures removed from heated-mob momentary majorities or hierarchical fiats. The institutions are in place not for a government or an ideology but a way of life. Yeah, there’s a difference.

The corruption of our institutions also has a purpose. That purpose is the destruction of that way of life. Our “leaders” have had a hard time either realizing that or naming it. Most have had their eye off of the real purpose of those institutions for too long. So the depth of the corruption and the danger it poses is easily ignored in favor of what seems like a new start that actually just returns us to the same erosive process.

In regard to our “private” institutions, they certainly need strengthening but the hand of government needs to be kept out of them. They must heal from the ground up by their own efforts and by the will of the people themselves. There are no worthy government programs for virtue. These institutions might well need reforming, but it has to come from their own hand. Three I will name now are those of faith, family, and education.

Yes, I consider education to be a private institution regardless of public involvement. The presence of government programs and money doesn’t change what their nature has to be to serve their purpose. There are certainly plenty of government programs and money supposedly directed at family. That certainly has been a positive thing, hasn’t it??

Hopefully, I will return to education by the next post for some general observations.

But for now, I will point toward the political institutions. There is a fourth estate bureaucracy to begin to dismantle, a diplomacy corps whose globalist leanings need to be reordered, a network of federal law enforcement that has been weaponized for a ruling political class against our own people, a crisis of fiscal irresponsibility as well as a Congress unwilling to take real action with any sudden impact on key issues. All of that represents a couple of lifetimes of focused work. But there is a toehold of a chance for it to begin with us.

The most important step for that work to begin in earnest is for the leadership of the GOP to actually reflect the grassroots of the “party” and the national culture to fulfill the promises of 1980 Reagan “revolution”, 1994 Contract with America, 2010 Tea Party, and 2016 MAGA. All of those were left behind or pushed to the side by the established ruling political class within the party.

But each of them gave that party a chance to direct the path of our republic toward a rebirth because of a connection to the base of not the party but of the nation. That chance was gained each time not because of the party’s ruling regime but in spite of it. In each case, in some way, that regime was flanked to get to the people themselves. But the hard truth is that ruling regime is quite uncomfortable with all those commoners sitting on the same level as themselves. There was more comfort in being a professional Republican raising money on promises that would later be flaked out on or negotiated down to little or no effect. They preferred what they considered a classier, more non-confrontational but perpetually losing approach to that of the “wacko-birds”, “crazies” or more impatient, less malleable who thought principles should be advanced.

And this approach infected almost all aspects of the “conservative movement”. Almost every corner has been filled with a smug, organized fund-raising advocacy industry that guards its ground like a medieval lord. For example, we might well be at a new dawn regarding abortion in the United States. Still, those who have worked the hardest for it will tell you that the “most vicious pushback and ostracism” they faced was from the “establishment pro-life advocates” much more interested in appearance and fund-raising than results, the ones who had it made it their profession instead of their cause.

And who did the most to bring us to this point regarding abortion? Some of the “professionals” might still be pushing each other to see who makes it in front of the camera first, but it was through the courts and grassroots legislators at the state level who wrote and passed laws on which the court cases were based. For the large part, those state legislators were elected as part of an “America First” fever rekindled in 2016 from the embers left by the Tea Party that GOP establishment types thought they had put in its place.

And those courts? Where did all those judges come from who actually made the difference? Hardly from the more proper of GOP presidents.

Abortion is simply the beginning of examples between actual results and a sputtering leadership much too comfortable with the status quo but jealously protective of their position of power.

If they admit it or not, they know that 1980 was hardly about Reagan or 1994 about Newt being Speaker or 2016 about Trump. All those and the Tea Party were about them, the patricians making promises they never intended to keep. They all sprang not from some personality but from the anxious, unanswered concerns of grassroots Americans ignored.

Liz Cheney is hardly on a crusade to save the Constitution from the single president who has most closely followed it in the last 30 years. She is fighting to keep “her” party in the hands of the established ruling class and away from the rabble in the ranks. Those individuals elected and governing along so-called MAGA lines need to be kept isolated downstream in the chain of command. That is what Liz Cheney is willing to lose her House seat for. She is more than willing to be a collaborator with an element intent on the dismantling of both our system and our way of life. The sham show-trial of the January 6 Committee is designed not just to keep a constant drumbeat going about Trump in the hope of stopping a 2024 run by him but also to weaken if not shred the Constitution itself. It makes an open mockery of separation of powers and rule of law. But the added hope is to stain any “Trump-like” up-and-comers and keep them out of 2024 as well. And to let all those at all levels understand that D.C. does have the means to intimidate and even punish politics that threaten to become more “populist”.

If they can somehow “get” Trump, the sights will immediately move to DeSantis, to Pompeo, et al. Those establishment apologists who yesterday were saying “anyone but Trump, DeSantis would be fine” will suddenly find concerns of temperament, style, or policy. Something. The discussion will eventually move toward those “reasonable” possibilities more in tune with the ruling class.

The notion is to separate by stirring rivalries. First between Trump and the stronger ones. And then between those strong ones, etc. If one of their own can’t be maneuvered into the top of the ticket, it will be argued that there needs to be “balance” created by the VP candidate.

This should be avoided completely, regardless of the arguments made. That is how we got Bush II when it was not necessary to win the election but put him in place to run in 1988 and then basically kill what the voters intended to be Reagan’s third term. That is also pretty much how we got Mike Pence.

The real MAGA sin was that it performed. The establishment GOP was shown to be useless. They were not needed to achieve all those conservative goals for which they had collected money for years on end. To quote Mel Brooks, their “phony, bologna jobs” were at stake. Or at least their position at the leadership table and all that comes with it. It was shown that they not only were ineffective but that they only about half believed what they were saying, at best.

To bore with an allegory from my coaching days, these guys might run through some drills pretty good and do well talking in the meeting and with reporters but put them on the field and they were marginal at best. Not only did they not play, they didn’t want to play. They were there for a different reason.

In every area of policy, more was accomplished in a short time than in the last 50 years with some exceptions during the Reagan administration. Since the Reagan administration, the only real gain had been a brief moment with the 1994 crowd and welfare reform.

There is a real and genuine opportunity to move the GOP toward actually being the party of the working class and that great swath of Americans who prosper and distinguish themselves when the American vision is operating at or past half-throttle. But they have to be brought directly into the governance and operation of the republic. And they have shown they are ready and willing to do it for the moment.

Now, granted that they tend to mind their own business when things are good. They might not be political animals at heart. More the reason to trust them, their instincts, and their eventual judgment. What that means is that their involvement does not just need to be used at the moment but groomed and grown. They should become used to it, have it expected of them. This was designed to be a grassroots republic and it has been, instead, turned over to self-interested political class parasites whose inclinations are more in line with the “world citizens” who would move on from the model of the Founders/Framers.

I believe that, at the moment, they are ready to be active. They feel the dying trembles of our Constitution much more than the comfortable elites of either government or media. This republic has an advantage over the one of ancient Rome. Early Romans had a clear concept of citizenship which they allowed to be corrupted. But it was centered on government. We began with not just the concept of citizenship but of individual rights. Over the long haul, those rights will only be preserved by the active citizenry.

Just recently at the Republican State Convention in Texas, John Cornyn showed up fresh from his “deal” making with Dems on gun legislation. Of course, that was a typical response to the cry of “do something”. It not only was unnecessary, adding up measures that have no impact on the issue, but also fell in with the use of “red flag” measures that directly affect rights without the benefit of due process. He was booed and often had real difficulty being heard at all. There was no support for him among the rank and file.

The “show-up” at GOP county events and precinct meetings has been running about double from past years as far as I can tell from those with long-standing. Their mood and their leanings are hardly establishment.

The increase in GOP voters from every cross-section of our society is certainly not through the efforts or appeal of the party’s establishment leadership. Once again, it is in spite of it.

Their growth and inclusion do not come from some Bush/Rove tactic of political pandering with “outreaches” that smell like Dem give-aways. Those concerned Americans who happen to be black, Hispanic, rural, urban, or even those hard-to-please suburban, educated white women can all be talked to in basically the same way, as Americans whose lives and families benefit directly from applying basic principles of Liberty. They all are more safe, more prosperous, more in control of their lives, more secure in their national safety, more free and fulfilled, and more able to reach out to their fellow citizens when these principles are applied; there are layers of recent examples to back it up. If one can’t look someone in the face and make a sincere and believable case with that in their pocket, maybe they need to work on themselves first.

We have some people much like that now. They are not always the most polished. But if we have learned anything from the last 50 or so years of GOP “leadership” it should be that for the “conservative agenda” to actually move forward on a continual basis, the party leadership has to be distinct from the DC crowd.

As an example, if someone can objectively look back through the last 50 years and find anything to mildly recommend Joe Biden as a “genuinely good man” or as someone to whom to trust the security of our nation, their judgment (or their honesty) can be questioned (be careful not to rule out both) about almost anything. Or they might be of the same class and species.

For the GOP to be the instrument for Liberty we so badly need it to be, there has to be actual leadership that takes it to an unapologetic, unflinching, proactively pro-American persona, leaving behind those who would doom the future out of fear in the present. Leadership is not necessarily about making people happy. It is about inspiration toward goals and ideals. It is not about the next news cycle or even always the next election. It is about the next generation. It is not negotiators that are needed. It is determined warriors.

I have said that this is a generations-long struggle with both wins and losses. But if the realization of the Founders’/Framers’ vision is to be alive and growing decades from now, it is one that has to begin. Those of the political class need not be thrown out. But they should be seated in the middle pews and hopefully never again be in the front.

Our purpose is centered on Liberty and Natural Rights. Not long ago, DBD used the term “Republic of the Heart”. I am not sure we share the exact definition of the term but I very much see us as just that. Ours is a way of life that begins in the heart, looking for more than survival, for fulfillment of our human potential which is only possible in ordered Liberty. Our steps should always be guided by that purpose and our hearts’ vision of it.

And now I have gone much longer than intended and am sure that I am talking to an empty room by now. Besides, I have spent almost two weeks in the hay field and am feeling the effects of not just the allergies that come with it but the few bottles of pills taken. At any rate, that and the 105 temperature are the excuses for my unorganized wanderings. But I have it on good authority that Irish whiskey has been known to work wonders for such conditions. I am sure there is research, or a CDC edict, to back that up. In this dangerous day and age, one should follow the science. And I think that is what I am about to do!

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There are 9 comments.

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  1. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    But I have it on good authority that Irish whiskey has been known to work wonders for such conditions. I am sure there is research, or a CDC edict, to back that up. In this dangerous day and age, one should follow the science. And I think that is what I am about to do!

    A little Jameson’s, in moderation, is good for working on almost any problem.

    • #1
  2. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Solid, top to bottom.  Is it fixable?  Can a country of over 300 million of the most diverse folks on earth, the most advanced and complex economy in history, be run by any group from the top?  Can it be decentralized with Washington gutted, the bureaucracy basically eliminated, the politicians replaced by folks who understand our past and know where we’re headed?   I don’t think so.  Alternatively, do we have the kind of leadership in some states and parts of states who could follow a leading state into independence, leaving the bureaucratic crooks behind?  Don’t know that either, but that may be the only other option, and given China, a rapidly shrinking one.

    • #2
  3. Ole Summers Member
    Ole Summers
    @OleSummers

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Solid, top to bottom. Is it fixable? Can a country of over 300 million of the most diverse folks on earth, the most advanced and complex economy in history, be run by any group from the top? Can it be decentralized with Washington gutted, the bureaucracy basically eliminated, the politicians replaced by folks who understand our past and know where we’re headed? I don’t think so. Alternatively, do we have the kind of leadership in some states and parts of states who could follow a leading state into independence, leaving the bureaucratic crooks behind? Don’t know that either, but that may be the only other option, and given China, a rapidly shrinking one.

    The question that the Founders/Framers faced from the start of can a republic as “large” and diverse as the 13 function and survive. For a while we more than proved it. But the human nature that they tried to plan for and counter is much in play now. I have said I see hope in the ability of our principles to turn things but do not deceive myself about the how long the battle is. It will never be a complete and final victory in this secular world. But the challenge is to keep moving the ball. If that results in following example states into another stage, we cant tell. That may well be the next step.

    But the fight is still ours if the principles are sound. Least, I’d rather be fighting than just watching. Our hope is always for those after us more than ourselves.

    Your wisdom is always welcome

    • #3
  4. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Ole Summers: Elections, in deed, have to be won and seats changed. But as noted in the past, that has happened before but did little to alter the course we are now on.

    One thing I’ve often heard about our elected officials in Washington – and the House in particular – is that they start campaigning for re-election the day after they take office.  Maybe if the House had a “one and done” approach to term limits, winning elections and changing seats would result in action . . .

    • #4
  5. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Ole Summers (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Solid, top to bottom. Is it fixable? Can a country of over 300 million of the most diverse folks on earth, the most advanced and complex economy in history, be run by any group from the top? Can it be decentralized with Washington gutted, the bureaucracy basically eliminated, the politicians replaced by folks who understand our past and know where we’re headed? I don’t think so. Alternatively, do we have the kind of leadership in some states and parts of states who could follow a leading state into independence, leaving the bureaucratic crooks behind? Don’t know that either, but that may be the only other option, and given China, a rapidly shrinking one.

    The question that the Founders/Framers faced from the start of can a republic as “large” and diverse as the 13 function and survive. For a while we more than proved it. But the human nature that they tried to plan for and counter is much in play now. I have said I see hope in the ability of our principles to turn things but do not deceive myself about the how long the battle is. It will never be a complete and final victory in this secular world. But the challenge is to keep moving the ball. If that results in following example states into another stage, we cant tell. That may well be the next step.

    But the fight is still ours if the principles are sound. Least, I’d rather be fighting than just watching. Our hope is always for those after us more than ourselves.

    Your wisdom is always welcome

    We need to do one big one to see what is possible. I think education is the one and await your views on that.

    • #5
  6. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Ole Summers: Yes, I consider education to be a private institution regardless of public involvement.

    It’s a “non-public good” and people are trying to pretend that we can treat it like a “public good” and make it work. It is predictably going south over the decades. If you just cut a check to the parents, the aggregate value will go straight up. I think they need to wipe out the accreditation system in higher education for a similar result.

    • #6
  7. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Stad (View Comment):

    Ole Summers: Elections, in deed, have to be won and seats changed. But as noted in the past, that has happened before but did little to alter the course we are now on.

    One thing I’ve often heard about our elected officials in Washington – and the House in particular – is that they start campaigning for re-election the day after they take office. Maybe if the House had a “one and done” approach to term limits, winning elections and changing seats would result in action . . .

    I’ve often thought it would be great if serving in Congress were actually seen as a public service, as it was originally envisioned, and not as a career for grifters. The danger of one-term and then gone elected members is that we would then be governed by the entrenched bureaucracy even more than we are now. For example, when the Covid epidemic happened, Fauci was practically handed the reins of federal and state governments; shutting down whole industries, closing schools at all levels, and dictating where we could go and who we were permitted to see — with very little push-back from the citizens for two+ years.

    The solution is to change the nature of man, which isn’t going to happen in this world. We must diligently seek out and work at every level for the election of men and women of character.

     

    • #7
  8. Ole Summers Member
    Ole Summers
    @OleSummers

    I have come to believe in term limits which allow for some experience for good people but falls short of them becoming career politicos. There is a delicate balance to be reached for here and a need to keep a strong connection to the voters back home and a certain distance from the D.C. culture.

    • #8
  9. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Ole Summers: In regard to our “private” institutions, they certainly need strengthening but the hand of government needs to be kept out of them. They must heal from the ground up by their own efforts and by the will of the people themselves. There are no worthy government programs for virtue. These institutions might well need reforming, but it has to come from their own hand. Three I will name now are those of faith, family, and education.

     

    What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

    https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1199

    Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™

     

     

    • #9
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