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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
This is related to that for those that are interested http://freemanbeyondthewall.libsyn.com/episode-194-chris-rossini-on-the-coming-financial-bubble
I know. I struggle with the “I just want to live my life” and “If I don’t say or do something, the bastards will tear the building down on top of us”. Because they’re selfish idiots.
So I swing back and forth on this one. A lot.
I can only see one way to rectify the polarized political climate and that is to curtail federal power. The governors have to step up and claim the power to decide when to invoke the 9th and 10th amendments. They must be bold enough to weaken the cabal of the three branches of government but subtle enough to keep the rest of the government structure in place. Otherwise, I can only see Soros and the other communists and progressives continuing to commit a classic soviet take over of our republic.
I guess you know something that the British and the Russians didn’t. :)
It seems like a dumb idea to leave, but what we are doing now is bad. I would think some of those guys would like it.
Okay. I like the way you think. Seriously what would we do with it? Grow poppies? Farm it? Turn it into another New Zealand for free-range cattle? Develop it for US retirees wanting a nice gated community with five acres of rocks and pine trees apiece? (I would like that.) The more I think about the US being a so-called empire, and the world’s leader, and “the world’s policemen” and having the world’s “reserve currency”, and the more I read Kipling, the more I think Empire isn’t such a bad thing, overall, except of course for the enthnophobia, xenophobia, sexism, racism and income inequality (this last bit was sarcasm).
But what could be done, in an ideal world, with Afghanistan?
Convince the Chinese that they need to occupy and pacify it.
Peterson’s ability to create that architecture of logic does help centrist women probably as much as it helps men.
Thank you Doug Watt. I am humbled by the beauty of what you wrote here.
Supposedly the best and smartest of all minds live in that metro area. Which makes a person pause to think, “If you’ re so smart, why would you live on top of one of the most active geological areas in the Universe?” The authorities probably have still not gone ahead and approve d of parents enrolling their children in schools near their work. Should a Big One hit, the last thing a parent needs to be thinking is, “I work 14 miles from home, and have no idea if my child’s neighborhood school survived or where they are.”
I point you to this (long) essay that starts as a riff on the book “Days of Rage” by Bryan Burrough, then moves into implications of that history for our time. In short, the writer argues that the Left is far more ready and organized for political violence than the Right. He really gets into it about 2/3 down the page, starting at:
As noted, the essay is long. Please read it for yourself. I don’t necessarily agree with all he says, but it is thought provoking.
China, because of some treaty, has a border with Afghanistan.
Afghanistan gets conquered by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. The problem is there is no reason for human beings to live there so they eventually leave.
Of course. It’s perfectly normal to have this benign view of American hegemony. We free people, we don’t enslave them. We invade countries – such as Somalia in 1992 – for wholly altruistic reasons. When the world is in trouble it is America they call on for assistance. All true.
But if you were to ask the world’s people if America is an imperial power, 95% of the responders would answer, “Yes.”
Now, you don’t have to accept that judgment. You can gather up a host of reasons why we have troops in well-over 150 countries; why our intelligence services and affiliated private security forces are everywhere around the globe; why we feel we can put soldiers wherever we want with no invitation from the host country (or authorization from our own elected representatives) in order to support so-called rebels or to battle third parties we haven’t declared war upon; or why so often you read in the newspapers that American soldiers have been killed in a country you didn’t even know they were in (like Niger).
You can explain all of that to your own satisfaction that we are not an imperial power defending an empire. Perfectly reasonable.
But please bear in mind two things: that you are a wee-bit prejudiced in this matter, and that a hell of a lot of people all around the globe disagree with you.
And one more thing, @westernchauvinist and @thereticulator which I’ll add just to tie this back to my main point about how you can’t have an empire and small government:
Notice how the Imperial Capital has grown in size and wealth since we took on the burden of our “tragic human condition.”
We sure are doing well by doing good.
Well, at least some of us.
Most likely nobody’s. For the Army, that’s really what we’re talking about, staying in the barracks is the best course of action. How many company grade officers would willingly place their soldiers in a situation where they might have to shoot a fellow American? You can opine all you want about politicized generals, but sergeants, lieutenants and captains do the scut work at the rubber meets the road level.
Those people are typically, solid middle class types who would look askance at orders to “destroy Dallas to save it.” Not exactly the type of combat one would brag about at the American Legion. “There I was at the Battle of Battle Creek, we sure showed them civilians the maximum effective range of an M240!”
One of the worst things that can happen to an army is for its soldiers to go on strike and refuse to obey arguably illegal orders.
It would have been better if you had associated my remark with the words of Western Chauvinist that I expressed agreement with. Not very nice to do it this way.
Wow.
Yes, that was more or less the image I was talking about, right down the rapine culture, but as imagined by a simple child.
I had no idea today that there were so many bombings in the early 70s, and theoretically I was there. Interestingly, the SDS anarchists’ cookbook is still available today.
Oddly, I have a book somewhere, ostensibly a Christian book, written by a former communist ideologue, who says that the communists excelled at finding a person’s strengths and nurturing them into cell leadership. He thought the same should be done for Christian churches. Maybe he was right, but the whole book was so depressing, I every time I pick it up I never get through the first chapter.
Okay, as far as the article goes, I only read down as far as *fnorrrrrrrrkkkkkk* for this morning (page 15 of 34). I’ll finish it this evening. It’s a knotty bit to digest.
I’d bet they could.
I might expect them to secure they’re own neighborhoods in coordination with fellows from the neighborhood next door?
So if only 5 percent of those officers would do it, you pick some of those 5 percenters to do the work. Like at Novocherkassk. In that case it was a higher level officer, Lt. General Shaposhnikov, who refused to fire on his own people. So another command was brought in to do it. There always is someone. That was effectively the end of Shaposhnikov’s career, and five years later he was later expelled from the Communist Party. But the resistance was put down.
If there had been a dozen such resistance movements protesting simultaneously at cities around the Soviet Union, the whole thing might have ended differently. And if the Soviets didn’t have effective control of the social media to keep the thing from being discussed openly, it might have ended differently. News did leak out of the Soviet Union, but Facebook and Twitter (or their equivalents) shadowbanned any open talk of it.
I should add that we would be dealing with Democrats, who show no signs of being as kind and gentle as the Soviet Commies.
Wait a minute. To be fair, Bush brought us into Somalia to help with a disaster. It went well and we were almost entirely out again, except a few to help out. It was a humanitarian mission. Then Clinton took over and sent the army in after the Marines left and it became an entirely different operation. They were no longer delivery food, they were out to topple warlords, who didn’t like it and started shooting back.
I don’t think humanitarian missions are appropriate for our military or our government, but the Bush administration had no intention of staying after food was delivered.
A lot. History supports that conclusion.
There’s a substantial difference between American volunteer soldiers and Soviet era conscripts. There are also significant organizational and cultural differences. It’s not just about your 5 percenters willing to give the order. There have to be willing trigger pullers.
I hope the future never puts my predictions to the test.
You’re correct. My apologies.
Up to page 25/34, got to 2017. Weird stuff.
Thanks for the link. And from the article, I found this intersting as well:
And some of what he had predicted has already started escalating; going after funding of influential conservatives and cutting it off. He just didn’t consider that the banks would be doing it themselves.
I think part of the issue here is a point mentioned by Larry Correia – the left thinks of violence as a thermostat, the right thinks of it as as an eject handle.
The left can crank up the violence easily enough, but they are going to push it too hard, and start an actual war. I live in an urban area, and I would rather avoid having to deal with armies of antifa scum. However, we may not have a choice
Perhaps his key comment is that the era aNd events in the book are forgotten aNd shouldn’t be. The people who developed the strategies and executed the tactics are still around and still developing and executing. It’s a very much underappreciated book. It was really hard reading – I was in college then and remember almost all of it. It was As hard as reading books about WWI. I agree whole heartedly – the left is ready, capable and willing. It has been since 1914 or so.
I’m a few days late on this interesting discussion, but have a couple thoughts I’ll toss in.
First, Tom Kratman wrote a pretty good book about how a second revolution might go, back in 2003. A few things have changed since then that might be significant, such as the effects of social media and the speed of communication, but it’s still a pretty good look at how the military might respond. (Free download at link.)
As for Codevilla’s essay itself, I’m not persuaded that a revolution is in any way imminent or unavoidable. In a recent survey, 35% of Americans described themselves as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 25% as liberal. (My numbers may be slightly off, I’m going from memory.) That’s not a strongly divided country. I’m also of the opinion that most people, regardless of their political leanings, are fairly small-c conservative in ways that really matter here. They don’t want radical change, or at least radical change that would have an effect on their own lives. They might talk a good game about supporting something like a Green New Deal, but their support would evaporate quickly if it ever really happened.
More on this in a later comment.