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Fighting Fatalism
Like many right-of-center Americans, I fell into a months-long funk when Barack Obama was re-elected. I understood voting for a charismatic cipher in 2008 after years of war, scandal, and a financial collapse. It would have been hard for a Democrat not to win, especially with the cheerleading of newsrooms and popular culture.
But 2012 was a different matter altogether. The voters knew who Obama was. They lived through four years of economic stagnation, failed foreign policy, and the callow dilettante presiding over both. They saw the backroom deals and the trillion wasted on a fictitious stimulus, but the American people didn’t care. They agreed with Mitt Romney on nearly every issue, but Obama made failure look cool. They applauded American decline and signed on for another four years.
Week by week, I slowly got over my 2012 fatalism. I focused on the small victories conservatives could win in the states and school boards. I saw a rising tide of right-leaning problem solvers in governors’ mansions and statehouses. And despite the bad rap many millennials get, I met so many young people who got it. My inherent optimism slowly returned.
But Thursday, Bush-appointed Chief Justice Roberts decided for a second time that the economic and moral garbage fire known as Obamacare be rubber-stamped — the law and the English language be damned. The American people will continue to suffer under this monstrosity (my family lost our plan) while liars like Gruber, Pelosi — and yes, Obama — give high fives and cash bigger checks. The bad guys won again and fatalism is hard to fight.
The U.S. has spent six years tossing matches at the Middle East powder keg, encouraging petty expansionists like Putin, and almost begging China to replace us as hegemon. Our national debt is higher than our gross domestic product and politicians from both parties demand we spend more. Beijing has stolen the most personal of information from 18 million federal employees and Washington insists we hand them our medical records as well.
It’s hard for freedom-loving Americans not to be fatalistic. To declare America over and seek greener pastures or just drop off the grid. Personally, I can’t run to a virtual Galt’s Gulch since my kids and other younger generations need me to at least try to stop the slide if not reverse it. So I remind myself of the times America faced tougher trials: the world wars, our nation’s founding, and the fight between the Union and the Confederates (if I’m still allowed to use that trigger word).
Despite the multiple crises, our betters are screeching about utter nonsense. Whether a flag should be displayed in an iPhone game, whether people can choose their race and gender, if old ladies should be publicly flayed or just put out of business for not baking a cake.
Eventually the electorate will come to its senses — I mean, they have to, right? As Glenn Reynolds often says, “what cannot continue, won’t.” But what cataclysm will it take to shake us out of our navel-gazing, microaggressed, Brawndo-swilling stupor?
An even worse financial collapse than in 2008 with no borrowed money left to rescue the banks? A deadlier act of war than 9-11? And if either happens, God forbid, will Americans just use the moment to blame each other in even uglier terms?
My ultimate hope, as a Christian, is knowing that God is in control. Being a student of history, I know that cultures have endured far worse calamities than our comfortable decline. But I want to know how you keep your hopes up. Fatalism will never win hearts and minds, let alone elections, so do you have advice on keeping political setbacks from dragging you into despond?
Maybe you take a break from the news (this website excepted, of course). Do you hug your kids more? Slam three shots of bourbon? I’d rather be a Reagan than an Eeyore, so let me know in the comments.
Published in Culture
You’re addressing this strictly in terms of a policy checklist. Most people on the thread are looking at it in terms of the damage to our constitutional framework done by Obamacare and two or three horrible rulings that undercut the rule of law. A few good conservative reforms can’t completely set that right.
I was about to write a post that said, in its entirety: “James, stay here with me. You give me hope. Stay in my chambers!” Or possibly just “Speak comfort to me James.”
Regrettably, this is not doing it for me. We are getting a handful of policy choices which go our way while the system that is supposed to provide those policy choices crumbles. Would you have been fine with John’s claims of absolute power to summarily expropriate the baron’s lands without trial so long as he never used it?
There’s no bottom because it’s a process that feeds itself from the healthy parts of the culture and economy. It ends with stagnation and soft corruption still rich enough to attract conquest, but (Mancur Olsen’s the Rise and Decline of Nations.) the decay can be held off with free trade and free institutions because competition and technology break up the strangling interests and alliances that suck a civilizations’ strength. That sounds sweeping and targeted in support of our prejudices, and of course it is. Our little piece of history seems unique and short lived. But is it? beside Athens and the early Roman republic, that is. I like Hayek’s story, or hint of a story, that the great civilizations are known to us by the monuments they built to themselves in stone, art and stories. But the systems that created such great wealth in the first place could not have been so centralized and oppressive. Such systems do not produce great wealth, they consume it. Wealth is a product of organic emergent systems of people free enough to adapt, invent, trade and learn and who pass on the successful cultural norms through families and community institutions. But they get rich enough for folks to figure out how to gather more of it for themselves, or conquer it and those successful interests get richer more powerful and narrower and the rest poorer materially and culturally. If these two were right, there’s hope, but not a lot.
I called Frank Soto and Terry Snapp to bitch about it for a while. Honestly, the supreme court made me feel fatalistic, today. So do my student loans, though… I couldn’t call myself a good conservative if I wasn’t encouraged by things like my garden and homebrew and playing catch with my boys. And heck, in addition to being a lawyer, I get to be a writer and a podcaster just by joining Ricochet. There’s still a lot to be hopeful for, even if Roberts didn’t inspire that in me this morning.
For those of your succumbing to fatalism, I don’t particularly blame you. My recommendation is just to do your best to enjoy each day. After all, as bad you you might feel today, Obama is doing everything possible to let Iran building nuclear weapons with minimal interference and a welcome wagon bag of goodies for its return to the family of nations. Because when all is said and done, even a perfect health care system can’t do much against mushroom clouds.
I too am feeling fatalist. I think we lost the country forever during the Primary in 2012 when that ABR thing happened. It could never have been started by anyone who wanted anything good to happen in America again, it had to be the left that got that ball rolling. And from their point of view it was genius.
Since the media is cheer leading for the destruction of everything good in the world, there really isn’t much hope left. Even a symbolic Presidential win next time can’t turn back the road to Socialism now.
On the other hand, whatever the brainwashing, this seems to be what most of our fellow citizens want and there is no way to change anything without a free press.
So I am adapting, people really do want to go down that path of socialism one more stinking time… it matters not that it cannot ever work… that is the path the majority has chosen.
I can only protect my family as best I can.
Late last month, I stood on Omaha Beach and was rendered speechless as I thought of the staggering loss of life that happened there 71 years ago. Visiting the US cemetery a short distance away was gobsmacking. I could not help but wonder what these men would think of what has become of their country in such a short time. It was too much to consider. For me, it is still too much to consider.
Therefore, I focus on my work, loving my ancient parents (father was in the 104th Division infantry in WWII and is 91 years old), being with my extended family, and surrounding myself with good friends who walk the same path of faith that I do (am a Jesus follower). It helps to have the perspective of these family members and dear friends. Also, the comics are the only thing I read in the newspaper.
Leigh, thank you. I have printed out your comment and stuck it to my fridge, so I can remember these thoughts throughout the day. I also appreciate the outlooks of PsychLynne and gnarlydad.
And for those eager to fight, I think we increasingly appreciate the size of the war ahead of us. We have an unchecked executive, an indifferent court system and a legislature that is more than happy to delegate its lawmaking authority away. Even when Republicans are elected in opposition to Obama, the Congressional leadership can only get its act together to pass things Obama wants. The universities are working on eliminating free speech and due process, and don’t think that it won’t escape from that laboratory. We worry more about the Confederate flag appearing in video games than genocidal theocrats getting the blessing of the United States to build nuclear weapons. (Echoing and expanding on points made in #30)
The level of rot is considerable. 2016 isn’t going to solve our problems. I suspect we are deep enough in the hole at this moment that it doesn’t even count as a good start. After all, in 2014, we elected more Republicans to Congress than at any time in 2 or 3 generations. Anyone impressed? There are inanimate objects that show more fight.
Nothing less than actual rollback is success. And no windbags or clowns promising easy victory. I expect the Left will try to make us bleed for every inch and 100 years of Progressivism makes for a very long road.
It’s going to be a long road back. Many of us won’t get to see it finally come around, but that will be our condign punishment for being Boomers and bringing this disaster upon our culture and this great country.
What’s the first step? Say the following:
“Everyone should be free to do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn’t injure anyone else.”
Then swear to God that you will never, ever believe something so adolescently stupid again.
Shto delat’?
Come on folks: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
Snap out of it and get to work.
And yet whenever I say that leaving the GOP, letting it die and returning to the dust of the Whigs that spawned it, is the only way forward if anything will really change, that political history proves that, I always get a flood of “That’s insane! We have to stick with the GOP! There’s no other alternative! 2016! It’s all about the SCOTUS appointments!”
LOL. SCOTUS appointments. Yeah, that’ll save us. Hint: which party’s nominees have a track record of switching sides and betraying that party’s espoused ideas? Only one of them does. Go ahead and guess. I’ll wait.
Yeah. Go ahead. Rely on judges for your freedom.
“But… but… but… if we just get real conservatives in the primaries…” most will prostitute themselves to the chamber of commerce, or social justice warriors, or Karl Rove, et al. We’ve elected the biggest number of Republican officeholders in decades, and we got… John Boehner.
By all means… keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect it to be different next time.
I console myself with the fact that raisin farmers no longer will have a portion of their annual crop confiscated for the National Raisin Reserve. By the way, does anybody ever listen to the Sirius satellite radio station, Progress? They aren’t constantly congratulating each other because of the unstoppable drift to the left. They are very worried that crazy conservatives and libertarian fascists have a choke-hold on the country and are driving it ever more rightward.
I’m down, and expect to get downer after the Court constitutionalizes SSM, but I will listen to Kevin Williamson and Charlie Cooke and Jonah Goldberg and I’ll read your posts and I will know that I’m not alone advocating for free markets, liberty, due process, and the rule of law and that’s enough to get me by.
You’ll have to kick Austin out first, but if y’all are serious about it, I’ll personally help you kick that whole hipster fifth column back to California.
OK, I’ll bite: How on earth does the dog’s breakfast known as Obamacare, or SSM, even remotely compare to the numerous slavery issues that drove the Whigs into permanent retirement?
If I had a dollar for every comment made about “the GOP is going the way of the Whigs,” I would have gotten King and his fellow plaintiffs better lawyers to argue in front of SCOTUS than the ones that did.
I’ve removed twitter and facebook from my mobile phone. I’ve found when I confine my social media usage to my home, my actual family comes calling (loudly).
What is it about that place? It’s as bad as Madison. Quite possibly worse. At least Madison has a bit of Wisconsin about it.
I thought that the OP was a mix of Constitution, policy, and outcomes (on foreign policy), so I tried to respond with the same mix.
If you want to look at Con law directly, then today’s decision is essentially irrelevant. The question facing the court was whether some statutory language was badly drawn up enough to be ambiguous. Scalia thought that, no, “state” meant X. Roberts thought that yes, in some parts of the statute “state” was used in ways that could not possibly mean X, meaning that the statutory definition wasn’t enough to answer the meaning, and the context was also not enough. Scalia also says that if it was ambiguous, the preferred interpretation might be petitioner’s, but I think he wisely doesn’t push that hard in a generally vehement dissent.
On Con law directly, we have stronger federalism than we’ve had since Wickard v. Filburn in 1942 (Morrison and Lopez resurrected an essentially dead clause in the 1990s, and then that was expanded by the Roberts Court in Gonzales v. Raich and Sebelius.
Just about every element of the Bill of Rights is stronger than at any other point in history. 1st Amendment speech, religious liberty, campaign finance, 2nd Amendment generally, the Takings Clause, the confrontation clause, the 8th Amendment’s excessive fines clause, and the 10th Amendment are all more robust protections for conservatism than at any other point in the nation’s history. The 4th Amendment generally, the right to Silence, the 8th Amendment generally, and the 14th Amendment are also at or near their peaks, although I think that those are more ambiguous in their conservatism (I support each of them, but I’d prefer more modest versions).
Nationalizing healthcare really was a political problem, not so much a Constitutional one. It’s a fight that we lost, but its a fight that we can win politically, too. Just need the White House and either a natural supermajority or one purchased by huge bribes to small numbers of pliable Dems.
Wow….maybe we should all take a step back. OK, maybe 100 steps back and look at the big picture – I mean the 3,000 year big picture. In that time, do we see any really good times? Yes, that blip from 1800-2100 – those were good times. What about the time before that? No…not at all. Maybe we should recognize the time we are in now is NOT the norm, it’s an anomaly – like rain in North Africa. Stop mooning about one vote out of nine (that would have made no difference) and make the best of what we have. It isn’t normal, wasn’t what was happening 200 years ago and won’t be happening 200 years from now! Live, enjoy the blessed time you are in and enjoy the game with your son – to him, it’s the best time of his life.
I think that there are elements of the system that are crumbling. I presented the most conservative Congress etc. as an unambiguously positive thing, but the increasing bipartisan partisanship probably does come with a cost. My suspicion is that if we can get to a supermajority, that will shake a lot of the ideological money into consciously supporting moderate Democrats again, which would help, and that power would help mature our side. Other than that, I’m not sure how the system is crumbling. The head of state doesn’t just not have new powers to expropriate his subjects’ lands, he has less power to do that than ever before.
Obama’s using his power in unbelievably obnoxious ways, but when he uses it in particularly Constitutionally novel ways, the courts do seem willing to check him; his DAPA mini amnesty, for instance, is on hold, and may be long enough for the next President to cancel it. Congress has a pretty strong grasp stopping him from spending more. His biggest legislative aim for his final Congress is to pass TPP and not have laws he’s already passed overturned. How does that seem like he’s enjoying great power?
i think this is a Pyrrhic victory. Why? Because I’m irrationally optimistic about the future of the nation.
As Miracle Max said when he was told Wesley was dead, “I’ve seen worse.”
We have a Court that has been gradually moving us in a conservative direction for a quarter century. Economic rights have returned, along with federalism, gun rights, etc.
During most of that time, we’ve had some generally stable conservatives (Scalia, Thomas, Alito), some 85% stable conservatives (Rehnquist, Roberts), some 55% conservatives (Kennedy, O’Connor), some Republican outright mistakes (Stevens, Blackmun, Souter), and some reliable liberals (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor), and a single Democrat mistake (White).
Ford’s choices were entirely bad (Stevens). Reagan improved and had one good new justice (Scalia), and two bad (Kennedy and O’Connor). Bush 41 improved further and had a 50% hit rate, and as low as that only because his staff deliberately deceived him. 43 had two good justices. I’m not confident in McCain, but Romney was a law grad who put a lot of time into talking to people about possible justices way back in ’08, which meant that he would already have been somewhat familiar with his short list by the time he took office if he’d won, which really helps to get a genuine feel for who will be reliable. All the current plausible GOP nominees seem likewise keen to do at least as well as Bush and probably better. If nothing else, we have much stronger institutions to look for these people than we used to. The guys who worked with Romney are still around, too, and their knowledge isn’t stale.
If a single election won by a Republican had gone the other way, we’d have had a liberal majority court. If that had happened, all the 5-4 decisions that went our way would have gone the other way. If we win 2016, Ginsburg isn’t going to stay around forever, and we should be able to start rolling up the 5-4 decisions that went the other way. We might not win all of them, but even winning most would make a huge difference. Plus, of course, we should have a friendlier Senate than before.
This post. Every freaking word of this post. The GOP establishment represents my views on par with the democrats. Blow it up. They are doing nothing with the majority conservatives gave them. Except pissing off conservatives.
Jon,
When the first SCOTUScare decision came down it really knocked me for a loop. I was praying that the pain and damage inflicted by Obama could be dispensed with quickly. However, as the ensuing catastrophe of 2012 came to its conclusion, I realized that Gd had answered my prayer. Gd had told me no. There will be no quick relief, we must be tested in full. We must rise to the occasion and throw these monkeys off our backs.
I am not happy about this new SCOTUScare ruling. It would be better for the Court & the Country if it had not been made. However, in a strange way I am pleased that now we know who our friends are and who the enemy is. I welcome the fight because I know we will win.
Now we are the masters of our fate.
https://youtu.be/ws9U8c7e7hY
We will walk together in majesty, in justice, and in peace.
Regards,
Jim
Did you intend the “every freaking word” bit to refer to the SCOTUS, too? If so, do you consider the Second Amendment to be trivial, or do you believe that there was no important difference between the liberal minority and conservative majority on that case?
I’d be careful about recent SCOTUS decisions regarding the 2A. The elapsed time from those decisions is still fairly recent; there is still a non-trivial chance that the Heller and McDonald decisions could do for movement conservatism what Roe V Wade did for the Left. Essentially, those decisions could turn into the sort of quagmire Roe has become.
I slightly disagree with the conservative mainstream on the importance of Roe. If it really was Roe that decided the law on abortion, all red states would have the same abortion laws. Since they all have different laws, clearly the democratic process still matters. This is why the NRLC has been able to make such huge strides in closing clinics and making abortion look bad.
Today, for instance, only 12 states mandate counseling in which mothers are told, if the kid is old enough for this to be true, that the fetus can feel pain. It’s fine with Roe, but lots of states lack the Democratic will. South Dakota has a 24 week cut off, when less would be permissible. Etc. etc. etc. Most states could reduce abortions further. Texas’s law seems pretty close to the ideal if it can withstand testimony, but even that’s new.
This is even more the case with gun laws.
The 2nd Amendment is important as a practical matter in DC, SF, NYC, and Chicago, but just about everywhere else it’s the political process that matters. We’re expanding gun rights just about everywhere by statute. You’re right that we shouldn’t depend too much on the two cases, but I don’t think that that’s a risk. The cases are important for the principle, and for people in God/ Republican forsaken cities, but that’s mostly it.