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.
Dancing Is Fun! Until the Music Stops.
The FBI was once a federal agency built to investigate domestic crimes. Now it is used by the Democratic Party to tarnish Republicans and protect Democrats. The CDC was once tasked with tracking health problems in our country. Now it is used to consolidate power over American citizens. The Bureau of Labor used to track statistics about unemployment, economic growth, etc. Now its job is to provide favorable storylines for Democrat politicians by manipulating statistics. I could go on and on. Every federal bureaucracy, it seems, has abandoned its original purpose and has been tasked with promoting the Democratic Party.
Of all federal agencies, the one that bothers me the most is the military. Our military, for most of our history, could have been fairly represented by the picture above. Now, that same military is advertising itself as a development program for transsexual drag queens and such, like in the picture below.
This seems funny. But it’s not. The job of our military was once to kill people and break things. A big part of its job was to convince the tyrant wannabe’s around the world that it would be better if they didn’t challenge us. Scaring men like Putin and Xi into playing nice is not easy. But that’s what our military is for. Or rather, was for. It could even cover for temporary political problems, to a certain degree:
Late ’70s: “Ok, Mr. Tyrant Wanna-Be, listen closely. President Carter may be a fool, but believe me, it would be better if we didn’t send a few hundred Marines to your country to wander around a bit. So be nice, ok? Will Carter do that? Will he actually send our military into your country? Who knows. But you’d better hope and pray that he doesn’t.”
Even if we had weak leaders, we had a strong military, full of young men who had been training for years, and couldn’t wait to go kick some tyrant butt.
Weak leaders are always dangerous, and they tend to lead to wars. But they’re much more dangerous when they try to convince the rest of the world that our military has been transformed from a fearsome, overwhelming force to a woke group so sensitive that they’re no longer sure if they’re girls or boys.
If the rest of the world ever actually believes that, then tyrants around the world will start invading places like Ukraine. It could happen. Hypothetically.
Losing our entire administrative state to the Democrat party is a serious setback. Losing election integrity is another serious setback. Losing the educational establishment, the news media, and social media to the control of the Democrat party are also serious setbacks. I’m not sure how we overcome all that.
Although it won’t matter, if our military joins the rest of the Democrat party woke mob. If we really manage to convince the rest of the world that our military is less interested in killing people, and more interested in not offending them, then none of those other things really matter.
Losing the CDC is problematic. Losing our military is catastrophic.
At that point, even election integrity is no longer terribly important. Because our destiny will be determined not by people like Joe Biden, but by people like Vladimir Putin.
At that point, the best we can do is keep dancing. Until the music stops.
Published in General
I believe the expression comes from steam engines ‘Steam engines had two spinning balls on top that were used to regulate the steam flow and thus keep the speed constant. Those balls would fly in or out according to how fast it was going. When it was running at top speed, it was said to be “Balls to the wall“, or “Balls out”.
Was this it? https://www.jstor.org/stable/40549761
IIRC, and after all these years I probably don’t, it was an article in National Review. I was a subscriber then and I think the article had something to do with Niall Ferguson.
My mother had read that the Soviet plan was to take over in 1972, so I long had that date in mind. However, as 1972 got closer we all got busy with other things, and nobody thought to mention it or even think about it. Our first child (her first grandchild) was born that year, for example. Many years later I got to thinking back on the missed schedule.