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Quote of the Day: Menaces to Civilization
“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments.” – Ludwig von Mises
We saw examples of the effects of government by incompetent, corrupt, or vile men illustrated over the last few weeks.
For the effects of incompetence, look to Maui and the Lahaina fire. Every one of those deaths is due to criminal incompetence on the part of government officials. Those running emergency services and first response made the worst possible decisions at every possible occasion. From neglecting to clear brush to setting up traffic barriers at the exits to Lahaina. All of those decisions were made out of ignorance and incompetence for the best of intentions.
As for corruption? Look no further than the Hunter Biden story and the corruption rife in those in the White House and Department of Justice to protect him and the Biden crime family. The greatest evil that has unleashed is undermining belief in the rule of law. Without rule of law, which is underpinned by the belief the laws will be applied equally and without favor, societies revert to Blackthorn’s state of nature. This is not Rosseau’s Arcadian paradise. It is Hobbes’s vision of life that is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’
To see vile, look at the indictment of Trump by the truly vile Fani Willis. In her attempt to bring down Trump, she is attempting to criminalize political activities. If Trump is convicted and the conviction upheld, it will abridge the First Amendment right of free speech, the right to peaceably assembly, and the right to petition for redress of grievances by turning them into potentially criminal activities.
Seeking to criminalize political opposition is something that starts civil wars. Julius Caesar did not cross the Rubicon with his army because he wanted to become Rome’s dictator. He did it because if he didn’t his political opponents would arrest him of false charges, convict him, and either exile or execute him. He knew they would. They were boasting of it, secure he could not successfully oppose them without an army. Rather than meekly submit, he decided to risk all on a military intervention.
That is the best-known instance, but I can cite examples from then to the present. No. I am not saying Trump will start a civil war. But push this type of thing, and someone will. I am pretty sure there are those currently ruling in DC that are praying to their particular Moloch for this to happen, sure that with their F-15 and atom bombs, they have the upper hand. As if Afghanistan did not happen and does not serve as a counterexample.
Buckle up. It’s going to be a rough ride.
Published in Group Writing
Amen
Excellent piece. I do think that it is fully intended that a civil war shall begin.
I am glad you mentioned the term. This needs full discussion.
People have had it. The fact that black people stood on the sidewalk and yelled out “Free Trump” while his convoy drove through their neighborhood says it all.
Personally since I no longer believe that we have elections, I am praying that God intervenes in some manner. But if that intervention does not occur, the people who realize how our society is on a precipice, and barely holding on, will have to take the matter into their own hands.
He will intervene, and already has. All we need is to do our part.
I, for one, am not eager for a civil war. Especially civil wars to restore representative government. They usually end up as tyrannies regardless of which side wins. Remember, it was the Parliamentarians who won the English Civil War. Then Cromwell dissolved Parliament and ruled as Lord Protector until his death.
Civil wars break out not because they make sense in the long run, but because frustration eventually builds to the point people are angry. When enough people are angry enough, the anger is like a fuse being lit. Not a good thing, but usually inevitable.
After you have lived in what was a gorgeous rural area of the world, with a full blown community of people who supported one another with friendships and fun, only to have a war waged against you and your community, the idea of anything being worse than what is going on might escape people’s minds.
My community was on Sept 14th 2015 a test case to see if people would willingly ignore their own common sense and do what was told, in terms of following orders about an evacuation route.
Since we were a test case, it was a drill, and not a real fire. (Although the local fire chief and local Calfire people told us that a fire behind the ridges was raging out of control and would be hitting our area in thirty minutes.)
So we all drove away from a two lane freeway with suitable road conditions which would have allowed us to flee up wind of where the supposed fire was blazing.
Instead of driving the sensible route, we drove like little lambs being led to slaughter out to a crappy twisty and curvy road with one side being a high cliff and the other a steep ravine down to the lake. It took our convoy of 4,500 people some 50 minutes to move 8 miles.
Had there actually been a fire from the east racing toward the long lines of 2800 evacuating households in their vehicles, it would have incinerated us.
This same game plan was installed as a way to actually kill people in Paradise Calif. And now we hear the same things regarding the people in Lahaina. (No one in my community believes the final death toll of Paradise region. And we won’t believe the final death toll in Lahaina either.)
On top of all this, the inflated prices of food, household utilities, and fuel for our vehicles are preventing so many people from being able to have a normal life. Being hungry, being worried about utilities being cut off, including water, and having it cost a lot just to drive to work has a lot of people fed up.
John Kennedy said it most eloquently:
“And” is worse.
Great post.
I had never your story of what happened in Paradise. Makes you want to ask “what the hell is going on?
What happened in Maui was simply criminal.
But what us happening at the national level is far worse. And the reason this is happening is too many so-called Republicans consistently are looking for every excuse they can find to exonerate the unforgivable behavior of our Justice system.
We just had a Presidential debate and every candidate not named Vivek beclowned themselves inexcusably with none of those people showing anywhere near the appropriate concern for the tyranny coming out of Washington.
Ramaswamy does seem to get it, doesn’t he.
All the others are afraid to stand for Trump.
I sometimes think that the left wants an actual insurrection so they can
be vindicated[vindicate their] claims (false) that Jan 6 was one.There are of course unhinged people with guns and with very powerful and not necessarily rational feelings and ideas about what America should be. There have been always been such people* but we generally just go through life leaving them to their own devices as they aren’t dangerous unless they are provoked.
The left is spending a lot of time and energy poking these people with sticks. They may get their insurrection. I hope they do not. But if they do, I hope they choke on it.
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*A lot of these guys are right wing loonies. A lot of these guys are left wing loonies. Some of these guys were the guys who signed the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
I agree completely.
The events of January 6 set the tone for the Biden administration. Biden had complete control over the situation. All he had to do was say, graciously, “The pandemic has created some level of uncertainty about the counting of the votes for the election. Trump has been a good president, and there’s no pressing reason to be in a hurry. Let’s hold off on our normal inaugural schedule and have a simple recount. It would take a month or two, but these are extraordinary circumstances. America’s strength is in our flexibility to meet unforeseen challenges. The celebration parties can wait.”
But that’s not what he or the Democrats did. Quite the opposite. For two solid months before the election, the Democratic Party media had hyped the notion that Trump was not going to leave the Oval Office even if Biden won. This was on top of the riots and the pandemic anxiety the Democrats had stoked. The Democrats always knew the race would be close. They played the psychology of the situation to their benefit. In essence, Biden bullied his way into office. By the time January 6 came, the Democrats were so ramped up in their fear and hatred of Donald Trump that the Republicans responded to the pressure.
One of the reasons I support Trump to the extent that I do is that I refuse to play this game. I refuse to be manipulated. He was a good president, and he did a good job. There were sufficient irregularities in the 2020 election that a recount was warranted. These are the simple facts to me.
Meanwhile here’s a view of how the economic and political statistics look from the Democratic Party side, from, of all people, Bernie Sanders:
Trump did a lot for the working poor in our country, people the Democrats seemed to have forgotten.
“Trump did a lot for the working poor in our country, people the Democrats seem to have forgotten.”
Great Comment.
There is a very old saying” the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” which is often true but few realize why.
For instance in recessions the middle and lower classes generally take the brunt of the pain while often the very wealthy not only don’t feel the pain but they often are able to take advantage of the distress of others and greatly increase their wealth by buying good properties at bargain basement fire sale prices. That is why the Globalists and the Fed are pushing our current grave recession whose name like Voldemort cannot be named by “polite “ society.
In a similar fashion when Leftists destroy all those government supported institutions that provide the infrastructure for general education opportunities that allow the poor to better themselves , that provide a safe civil society, that allow a reasonably efficient free market that if allowed to work will provide affordable housing, affordable food, affordable health care and other affordable amenities it is the working poor that are hit the hardest, and the pain will get greater as you go down the economic ladder. That is because the wealthy have the money and the resources to avoid much of the pain the Left inflicts on society.
What is largely misunderstood in the public’s perception is that the Left has become the societal faction that is pushing for what really are great wealth transfers to the Uber Wealthy and in the process seek to in fact punish the poor.