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.
Shunning: A Survival Strategy
Over the years, I have assembled a short list of political aphorisms and I have been ruthless in my consideration of what merits inclusion. So ruthless that, in twenty-odd years, my list stood at a mere two entries. After years of advocacy, however, I realized that a specific point merits inclusion. My list now stands:
- Marxists lie.
- Never create a martyr.
- Some people need to touch the stove.
In reference to this new, third aphorism, there is a saying: “A smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from other people’s mistakes.” The unspoken corollary is that a fool never learns. Which brings me to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders.
As I see it, there are six types of Democrats:
- Marxist Globalists seeking absolute power and the total destruction of the United States (George Soros, President Obama).
- Crony Globalist Opportunists seeking to enrich themselves off of the carcass of the United States (the Clintons).
- Theoretical Marxist True-Believers (Sanders, some university professors).
- Brown Shirts (social justice warriors, violent protesters, some more university professors).
- Disgruntled Malcontents (The default Democrat, most of the remaining university professors).
- Utopian Pollyannas (Millennial Sanders supporters).
The first two types are dedicated criminals who are beyond reform. The next two are fundamentalist ideologues who are also beyond reform. The last two types are — to varying degrees — possibly open to reform, but only after they touch the stove first.
“The stove,” of course, is my metaphor for communism. The wise man looks at the collapse of Venezuela, the generational squalor of Cuba, the Kafkaesque mandates of the European Union, and understands which political actions should be taken and which should be avoided. The merely smart man and the fool do not and must first experience the horror. They must first — despite the loudest and most sincere entreaties — jam their hands, full force, onto the hot stove that every wise man knows will brutally disfigure them. Only then will the smart man learn (the fool never will).
However, the problem is that when the Democrats finally get their way — i.e., if the weak, beta Republican Establishment lets them get their way — then we will all touch the stove, whether we want to or not. This leaves wiser men to ask: Is there a way to escape our probable fate or at least a strategy to survive it? I have my own answer to that question: Yes, but it will not be pleasant.
For over a generation, the Democrats have made villains of the Republicans, and the Republican Establishment has done nothing. As a result, the Democrats now take it as an article of faith that the Republicans are not just wrong, but evil. There is no longer any argument we could bring to convince them otherwise, as they are no longer listening. And it is not possible for someone who does not listen to be wise. We can only hope that , when they do finally touch the stove, they are smart enough to learn.
Until then, we can give them a taste of the inevitable consequences of their choices: We can shun them. In shunning them, some of our fellow citizens might be smart enough to learn before they touch the stove. In shunning them, we might get a head start in forming refusenik communities to weather their Marxist storm.
For one hundred years, this miserable theory of Marxism has been tried and, for one hundred years, this miserable theory has failed. In its wake, it’s pulled the wise, the smart, and the foolish alike through rampant famine, mass murder, generational compulsory servitude, the imprisonment of artists, the disappearance of dissenters, and unspeakable terror. I see this theory for what it is — a hot stove not to be touched — and I am quite willing to say to those who malevolently or pollyannishly insist that I touch it that they are no longer welcome at my table.
Published in Politics
I thing you missed one type however they could be a sub group. The type I think you missed is the “little guy type.” They are most associated with labor unions. Can be very conservative otherwise.
Don’t forget the commitment to insane asylums of people who think for themselves. Well, those who aren’t killed outright, anyway.
Sounds like a subset of 5 to me, the disgruntled.
I loved this article.
Indeed.
Yes.
Thank you, DocJay.
Can you explain exactly what you mean by “shunning”? What are you actively doing there?
Thanks.
Like
I would agree with this. I know a lot of very conservative Democrats who are Democrats because they have believed the whole “Democrats are for the little guy” for generations. They are typically farmers or manual laborers. They’re a tough sell because of an innate stubbornness of character, but I don’t think it would take too much to flip ’em.
For a while now, I have only associated socially with liberty minded people.
I and my family have fled the Socialist sinkhole state in which we lived (The Peoples’ Republic of Connecticut) for a more liberty minded state (Wyoming).
I have identified and patronize businesses in my area whose owners do not support Socialists.
I have pulled away from relationships with family members who support Socialists. I will certainly not have them over for the holidays.
Do you fear that by pulling out of the conversation you make touching the stove turn into burning the house down? I mean to say that by not attempting to be the voice of reason you give them no chance but to go ahead with their wrong-headed views? In a way you leave them to touch the stove even when they might have had a chance to turn back at the last moment?
No. They are not listening. They have chosen their path. I am merely standing aside in an attempt to save myself and my own.
I had never considered shunning as an active strategy, rather more a case of “I can see that my attempting to intervene is just going to be ineffective beating of my head against a wall, so I won’t bother.”
Also, the hot stove is a very good analogue. Some do need to touch it before they’ll understand what a hot stove is.
Tough love. It breaks your heart to see people you care about do stupid stuff.
You can not make people see.
Rather than complete shunning, consider limited contact with family who are hand-to-stove bound. The heat of a stove can be felt in advance…
It’s a case by case analysis based upon whether or not the relative has proved themselves to be smart in the past.
But enough about Caleb who isn’t smart enough to hang around with us.
Thanks, Drew.
You hit the nail on the head Drew. I am from Western Pennsylvania and that is the mindset there.
If I were to rewrite this piece, I would include a seventh group – Generational Blue Collar Workers who do not yet realize that the Democrat Party despises them and wants to see them destroyed.
I think that better includes the people you refer to. Let me know if I am wrong.
Exactly. Right on the money. However a lot of them are no longer blue collar. They were either lucky and became white collar or now have no collar at all.
With the direction this country is heading, we and everyone else will be forced to touch the dang hot stove very soon. Everyone except those at the top, groups 1 and 2.
I might add another group. The Ignorant Smug. They truly know nothing but are very pleased with themselves for being such good people. They belong to the least demanding of all religions, the Democrat Church. Think Jay Leno street question types. These people won’t give touching the stove a thought. What stove?
I concur with the analysis, if perhaps not the strategy. Rick’s strategy is asbestos, I lean towards water. For example, an obvious, (if extreme) outcome is economic disaster, but the response from our “leaders” would be massive deficit spending. Obviously, more deficit spending from an entire world economy that has been fueled by debt would lead to an economic catastrophe, with no buyers for the bonds. Singed hands would yield to a conflagration.
Asbestos would be handy for insulation, personally. Water would buy time for the smart to learn. I suppose both are best: firemen protected by asbestos, pouring water comprising real productive skills freed from regulatory and political oversight. The Depression that began in 1929 became Great when FDR poured on the fuel of wage and price controls, plus regulation previously inconceivable. I think we need to remain engaged and somehow in a position to step in with proven principles, when all the wrong people attempt to weaponize government. Somehow, we must prepare to ignore and bowl-over the statists that propose to expand the government that has already accumulated more debt and obligations than the world has ever seen.
Rick may be right; shunning may be all we have left. However, there may still be one last Exit. When the Keynesian music stops, world wide, there may be an opportunity for those that will simply ignore the remaining chairs the statists leave.
Rick, I enjoyed the snot out of this, but a particular… contrast seemed worthy of challenge. How do we condemn this:
… if we state this?
I mean, there’s the obvious answer of because they are, but that seems unsatisfactory.
Of the six initial categories and even adding in the seventh for the blue collar types, these top four are the leaders, but not the numerous categories. So, say fifty million people vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in the election. Maybe fifty thousand are in those top four categories. Even were it half a million, that’s still only one per cent of the whole. The other ninety-nine percent (or 99.9%) are just following bad, but persuasive, leadership.
That is far different from saying “All Republicans are evil.”
Trump fits perfectly in the second category.
Alternatively, this seemed relevant:
Enjoyed reading this. Thx for posting.
Is there a way to take in to consideration the over-all leftward movement of society, causing the “center” to shift? This is what accounts for the “blue-collar Dems,” I think. Like Reagan, they pretty much retained their core values while the Democratic party deserted them for more socialist/communist fields.
I like this post. I have always thought those in the last two categories are innocent dupes and potentially subject to being rescued.
The first two groups are evil and the middle two have bought into evil.