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Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked
This morning I read Anthony Codevilla’s “Our Revolution’s Logic.” Codevilla gave us his breakdown of the Ruling Class vs. the Country Class a couple of years ago, which I thought was spot on so I always look for his essays. This new piece looks at where we’re at, whether we’re experiencing a revolution, and where we go from here. Although depressing, I think his analysis is spot on. Even if you disagree with his conclusions, the path he takes to get there is great grist for the mill of any assessment of the country’s political life and times.
Codevilla takes a hard, historical look at the lifecycle (death spiral?) of revolutions and asserts that we Americans are well along that cycle. The Republic born in 1776 is dead. Along revolution’s yellow brick road, there comes a point where the populations of both sides become so invested in their opposition to the other, so angry and vengeance-hungry over real and perceived damage and insult, that any chance of mutually cooling off and returning to adhering to “laws that are good for us all” gets kicked to the curb and the fight becomes the thing.
This assessment resonates with me. Taking it down to “I am just a simple fighter” level, the best martial arts instructor I ever had spent years teaching me (and my brothers-in-arms) to never lose our composure, even if we were suffering significant damage. “Once you abandon technique, and downshift into ‘brute force and ignorance,’ you’ll never get it back.” It takes a lot of training and a long time to put that lesson into practice. Most are not practiced.
I put the blame for what’s happening squarely on the shoulders of the progressive Left. But righteousness in the conservative cause does not help us right the ship of state.
The rule of law, not only necessary for civil society and civilization but essential to keeping American lives from being short, brutal, and nasty is under attack (or simply disregarded; same thing). We are, I think, seeing this across the board:
At the tactical level, progressive leftist groups like Black Lives Matter, Occupy, Antifa, and student protestors demonstrate a willingness to silence, beat down, or shoot those with whom they disagree.
At the operational level, Blue states and municipalities — and their affiliated law enforcement organizations — and university administrations turn a benign blind eye or tacitly encourage unlawful acts. (On the law enforcement corruption, I hasten to add that for every knucklehead like Broward County’s Scott Israel, there’s an Adam Christianson.) This grotesque confederation ignores federal law when it does not comport with its ideology, and its federal counterparts let their sedition stand.
At the strategic level, the progressive left has infiltrated and assumed the power of the bureaucracies, much of the judicial system, and, of course, the media. The GOP does not fight them tooth and nail in the name of comity and keeping their powder dry. Over time, the plaintive rejoinder from citizens of a conservative bent has become: dry for what?
Codevilla warns — and I concur, to some extent — that should the progressive left regain executive power, they will pursue an agenda meant to ensure that they never lose power again. They will pursue this agenda with no regard for constitutional limitations or constraints. Given what we’ve seen to date, the possible (probable?) parade of horribles may consist of:
- Open borders.
- Continued assaults on free speech.
- Dissolution of the electoral college.
- Redefining the Senate so that the number of seats reflects the respective states’ slice of the population, rather than an allocation of the same number of seats to each of the sovereign states. Just like … uh, the House of Representatives.
- Other outrages aplenty
- Finally, forget gun control. They’ll go full-on gun confiscation, so that our transition (see how trendy and intersectional I am?) from citizens to subjects is complete.
I listed gun confiscation last because it is the one subject on which the progressive left is really willing to share their views. The perfect encapsulation of the progressive mindset is: give up your guns. You want to resist? We’ve got nukes. Yeah, it was a funny. A ha-ha. No way Swalwell is serious, right? Right. In a way. I don’t think the guy would seriously advocate popping a nuke over a US city. I do think this guy would have no problem if the government sent jack-booted thugs house to house to confiscate them, using the NICS background check rolls as probable cause for a search.
I won’t respond in detail to this. Author Larry Correia already did. He analyzed the environment and did some fair dinkum hypothetical numbers running. In his post, he said:
The scariest single conversation I’ve ever heard in my life was five Special Forces guys having a fun thought exercise about how they would bring a major American city to its knees. They picked Chicago, because it was a place they’d all been. It was fascinating, and utterly terrifying. And I’ll never ever put any of it in a book, because I don’t want to give crazy people any ideas. Give it about a week and people would be eating each other (and gee whiz, take one wild guess what the political leanings of most Green Berets are?).
I am by no means propounding armed insurrection should the progressives ever get their hands on all the levers of power again, post-Trump. I am analyzing the holes that I assess will be in their analysis when they decide to go all progressive all the way, determined to never let someone they don’t own (like Trump) beat them again. I mean, they’ll own the law enforcement agencies, the military, and the punitive bureaucracies; what need do they have to take pause?
[I need to make an aside, here: This is not a rah-rah pro-Trump statement or post. Codevilla does a good job in his article listing Trump’s failures and shortcomings; I won’t argue with it, though I could offer points in mitigation or extenuation. Instead, this post posits that Trump was an avatar for a wide swath of Americans who saw that the progressive ruling elite/class/establishment (whatever you want to call them) didn’t care about them or their values and they discounted out of hand any input they may have on how the country should be run.]
Conservatives are outnumbered by the people who hate them. Hate them. The media’s profligate messaging has ensured that people generally kinda/sorta on the left look at Conservatives as mean, evil, nasty, people. Yada yada.
But, in light of the Correia quote above (and the link, which I recommend), let’s break it down geographically.
For the most part, our wannabe, clueless overlords are packed cheek-by-jowl in urban areas. Whatever happens in the event of a full-on progressive putsch to rid themselves of that pesky Constitution and normal Americans’ input, it ain’t going to be pretty.
Like Correia, I won’t go into detail. But the smug, smarmy, self-satisfied authoritarians who are sure normal Americans — particularly those adamant that their rights spring from their Creator, not the government — would be amenable to having our rights steamrolled would be in for a rude awakening.
Hey, knuckleheads: stop sowing the wind.
Well, that’s my cheery first 2019 post.
Have a great year. Live well. Love hard. Enjoy the ride.
Published in General
I read the piece, and it’s very scary indeed. I hope people will wake up.
First sentence: “In 2010, Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Angelo Codevilla reintroduced the notion of “the ruling class” back into American popular discourse.”
Rats. I thought I was the one who did that. Maybe I should look through my e-mail archives to see if I can establish precedence over Codevilla.
Oh. 2010. I said “coupla years ago.” Guess time really does fly. I remember when Rush read excerpts and I was pounding on my steering wheel hollering “Yes!”
I remember a lot of RINO squishes freaking out when Codevilla’s ruling class/country class essay first came out.
I think many are awake as you say, but the fact remains that it is so much harder to stand against a wrong – or evil – than to step aside from it. It is often painful to represent a difficult principle in public on your own. No one thanks you for pointing out weaknesses. It is simply damned hard work to defend civilization and most individuals are not willing to be uncomfortable. Even a little bit, which is when it starts. If it was easy, or even not really hard, we wouldn’t be doing this all over again. I agree with every word of the essay, and with your thoughtful comments @bossmongo. Although I don’t think we are close to a bottom. Thank you.
Thanks for the reminder about Codevilla’s work, Boss! Some waiting in my Kindle queue… Will keep on trying to live well, love fully, and pray harder.
@bossmongo
So you state out front that: “I am analyzing the holes that I assess will be in their analysis when they decide to go all progressive all the way, determined to never let someone they don’t own (like Trump) beat them again.”
Any time anyone of a logical bent thinks about how the Left thinks about things, gears in the grey matter spin and flail about in a manner that might cause both brain aneurysm creation and explosion.
For instance, Orcasio Cortez was asked about the Far Left’s proposal to see to it that there should be a complete elimination of fossil fuels twelve years from now.
Experts say this would cost us 6 trillion bucks for starters, and then I think they mean 6 trillions more annually for quite a while after that. (Current annual GDP is around 16 trillion, or maybe a couple tril more than that due to Trump’s success in getting our economy running.).
But Cortez mentions “Around 3 million?” as the ball park figure to go from our fossil fuel mentality to arriving at its total elimination:
https://youtu.be/MMyQ3-s9MC8
Whenever I am asked how many guns I own, my answer is pretty much the same as the US Navy’s in reporting whether a warship is carrying nuclear weapons: “I will neither confirm nor deny the presence of firearms in my possession, ownership, or on my property.” I prefer this to the “Protected by Smith and Wesson” signs some put on their houses. I’d rather let bad guys – whether government or criminal bad guys – wonder.
Imagination. It is a wonderful thing.
There is a reason your the “Boss”. Civilization is a very thin veneer. Hope we don’t tear it beyond repair.
True. So much thinner than some people realize.
You always fill me with such hope. But I agree with every word you have said.
I really like Angelo Codevilla for his take on where we are. I happened to stray onto a page of Horace Walpole quotes led there by the following:
‘What is one’s country but one’s family on a large scale? What was the glory of immortal Rome but the family pride of some thousand families?’ letter to Sir Horace Mann, September 26, 1781.
That made me think of Donald Trump and his effort to control America’s borders. Is our country lost already?
‘If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.’ memoirs of the year 1758.
That makes me think of Boss.
‘Oh! my dear Sir, don’t you find that nine parts in ten of the world are of no use but to make you wish yourself with that tenth part? …’ Letter to John Chute, August, 1743
Where can we go? Chile?
Every time I start thinking about this, I get so depressed.
People have no idea of just how evil this is going to get.
We don’t go anywhere. We’re here. This land is our land. Per the song. People can’t work with the song, we’ll negotiate.
Can’t we get an amicable breakup somehow?
I read the Codevilla article this afternoon and found it pretty disturbing. What made it so is that he knows so much more history than I do, and seems to be a pretty deep thinker, and he says there is no going back to the rule of law and respect for common good that characterized America’s first 200 years. I don’t know . . . I hope he is wrong. He is correct about how we got here.
The warrior class is largely on the Right, and the Right has shown composure so far. And America is not France. So there is that.
So I know someone who has maybe 3 dozen hand guns of various types. My guess is that if something like Swalwell proposes comes about that people like that someone I know, who understands there are records of gun ownership and ammo, will distribute those weapons in a fashion much less traceable and thus available when needed. This needs to be replicated many times. Swalwell is probably giving a great new boost to the weapons and ammunitions industry.
The next two year period should be interesting and fun. Trump needs to handle some of these crooks within the bureaucracy who have been deviling him. By the time 2020 begins Trump will probably not get nearly the cooperativeness that he has so far experience from Mitch McConnell, who will be up for election as well. McConnell will line up with his buddies at the Chamber of Commerce and they are just about Trump’s biggest natural enemies. Watch the fireworks.
We did that in the PIT a couple of months ago, a bunch of mostly non-military STEM nerds, came to the same conclusion. About a week, without firing a shot.
I just gotta know, I just gotta know. What are the political leanings of most Green Berets? I can try to guess, but I just gotta know.
Frankly, they and their brothers are the only hope I hold out for the US.
I don’t think it presumptuous to say that the vast majority take their vow to support and defend the Constitution very seriously.
Excellent piece, Boss!! I’ve nothing to add,…but you got the gears turning here. Thank you sir!
Bingo. Standing around in righteous indignation while the left marchs on accomplishes nothing. Trump is the first elected official to take the Democrats and the MSM head on, and all the righteous right does is “tut-tut” his personality, his morals, his methods . . . you get the picture.
Me? I applaud what Trump has done so far, in spite of the Republican majority in Congress. Now, with a Democrat-led House, I want to see what our side does to support Trump. Because if they don’t or worse – join the Democrats – the Republicans will be doomed as a party.
And the righteous right will once again stand there, again doing nothing, and say to themselves, “At least we kept our principles intact” while the progressives lead them and the rest of us to the re-education gulags . . .
Jordon Peterson 5 minutes.
Part of it is the philosophy around preparation for violence or not. Pretty thoughtful.
Many of the Commentary types and the related don’t like him for some reason.
Thank you, @davecarter
Did something get mixed up, here?
@rufusrjones, great vid. Thank you.
I find it funny and discomfiting that there is a need for a deep thinker like Peterson to establish an intellectual architecture for men to realize they should be competent and dangerous. Kind of a “well, duh” thing from my optic.
Looks like it. Wasn’t me. My tech skills are wrapped tight. Legendary, man.
So, thanks to @davecarter for the kind words. Thanks @rufusrjones for the vid, separate comment on that (I think).
There’s a lot of interesting discussion here. Codevilla’s assumptions, around recent events surrounding the elections, are relevant, but I think the conclusions drawn are done so using a very narrow lens.
I think a lot of this is overblown. If you don’t pay much attention to media, the cable news, Twitter, Facebook, etc, and were busy going about your life, a lot of what’s been happening would never have landed on your radar, and your life would be exactly the same.
I go to work. I shop for food. I get a haircut. I get the car washed. I’m polite and friendly with everyone, and 98% of the time, everyone else is polite and friendly, too. It has nothing to do with politics on this level.
What I do think is concerning, and speaks to the OP, is the incremental ratcheting of increased government influence in our lives, the reckless spending, the inability for the government to self-correct, the wrong stack of incentives given to politicians that help reinforce the lack of self-correction – it’s a bit of an endless list, because the size of the government is so large now.
If your goal is to stay in office, then that’s the only thing you’re accountable for – meaning it’s the only thing you primarily work towards, and make decisions around. If you have a virtually unlimited checkbook, and unlimited law-making powers, why wouldn’t you use them to further your own goals? Because everyone else in Congress is doing exactly that, getting rich by doing it, and securing a comfortable life for themselves in perpetuity.
That’s the real problem. No specific fix is available, either, except for a partial solution, around term limits, and that will never fly in Congress. It’s interesting that Congress is OK with term limits for a President, but not themselves, and the next time Congress describes itself as an equal branch of government, ask them, then, to set limits on themselves, like they’ve set on a co-equal partner in their holy trinity of government.
See what their response is. Then throw rotten eggs at them.
Western and central banks have to stop goosing their economies and buying their government debt.
Gee why don’t they do that?
It will end the hard way.