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Politics Will Never Save You; You Need to Save Yourself
Biden might have mouthed the word “unity” in November but whenever he gets the chance to act on it, he refuses. Today, he decided to stoke racial grievance again.
Biden: "No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn't have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that's true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable." pic.twitter.com/TfWa25VzEt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 7, 2021
Every official on both sides condemned the Capitol Hill riot and four “protestors” died. When BLM protests/riots hit DC, a street was named after them. As @PostmodernHoplite wrote, reacting to the Capitol Hill mob was a lay-up for Biden but, as always, he chose to divide.
Kamala continued in the same vein, poking and prodding at the nation’s racial divisions.
.@KamalaHarris: "We witnessed two systems of justice when we saw one that let extremists storm the United States Capitol, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protesters last summer…We know this is unacceptable. We know we should be better than this." pic.twitter.com/Uc1FC8aZKg
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 7, 2021
No one in DC wants unity or healing. No one wants to calm the waters. Be it Trump or Biden, they just want to ratchet up the divisions until it all breaks apart. This isn’t some grand conspiracy; politicians are too incompetent to launch one. Instead, they are hyperfocused on winning this day’s news cycle, then 2022. A few bold visionaries look all the way to their 2024 prospects, but no thought is given to the long-term implications for the country.
Our institutions are failing us day after day. We’re still in Afghanistan 20 years later. We’re $27 trillion in debt. Cuomo and De Blasio are blaming each other for not delivering vaccines instead of, you know, actually delivering the vaccines. Blue states watch their lockdowns fail so they mandate stricter ones.
None of this is sustainable and our political class couldn’t care less. They want us to keep yelling at each other.
My humble suggestion for all Americans is to detach yourself as much as possible from governmental dictates. This is far easier in red states and rural areas, but do what you can. Prepare also to be detached from corporate politics since cancel mobs are on the march. Accept that you might have to live below your means and certainly below your desires.
Get involved with your neighbors and with local groups — especially non-political ones. Many small businesses in my area only survived 2020 by working together and building support communities with their customers. (My wife and I are basically ad agencies for our local favorites and we happily accept their products as compensation.)
You need to build Russell Kirk’s version of “little platoons.” Edmund Burke’s version was class-based, while Kirk pointed to countless small institutions for every walk of life. As a severe introvert, this is tough for me, but I’m making an effort.
If you’re a believer, build up your faith communities. You might need to move to a new one that refuses to blow with the winds of culture. Same goes for schooling.
There are many great ideas for all of the above in Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option, which I just read. When the book was released a few years ago, it was criticized as “alarmist.” Today, it feels downright optimistic.
None of the above is a “The End Is Nigh” screed. I’ve seen it coming for many years and it becomes more obvious every day. As I’ve made several of these adjustments over the past decade, I’ve noticed that I’m happier, freer, and have far more opportunities to help others. No one in politics, tech, or big business notices, which is just how I like it.
America is made great from the bottom-up, not the top-down. And while politicos in Washington are distracted by their self-destructive turf battles, We The People can get a hell of a lot done.
Published in Culture, Politics
Wonderful screed.
Anyone who breaches security at the U.S. Capitol knows they are risking their life (or at least they should).
It’s my superpower.
Might be a good idea for you to consider your own personal problems and how they contributed to a terrible post that should not have been made on this site.
Or, maybe, you were doing the bidding of your employers?
The Biden/Harris response has been despicable. What a load of garbage.
I stand by every word. You disagree. That’s fine. What it has to do with this post is beyond me.
What “personal problems” of mine are you concerned about, exactly?
If you really think that, it certainly explains a lot.
What other super powers would you like? Maybe Tourette’s? Seems like it might be complementary.
I do really think that. I had to learn to channel my ADD which was a nice challenge. I don’t have Tourette’s, though, which wouldn’t be good at Ricochet.
All the unpleasant and undesirable qualities of Trump which are visible on the outside exist hidden inside of most other politicians. They hide it. Trump doesn’t. At some level Never Trumpers must know this, which means they subconsciously prefer to be deceived by the politicians that they prefer over Trump. What Never Trumper really, truly believes that Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden have even one virtue that Trump lacks?
Maybe “channeling” is the best you can do, but it’s clearly not sufficient.
Personal attack noted.
You disagreed with a post. I disagree with posts all the time, it’s what keeps Ricochet interesting. I do not, however, issue personal attacks in the comments. Of course, I am a flawed human being, unlike many.
An observation, not an attack.
Play the ball, not the man. You can disagree with my post without focusing on my (admittedly manifold) flaws.
ADD, mostly. It’s not like you’ve hidden your personal problems.
I stand behind that post fully. But since this comment section is neither about that post nor the ravaged state of my mental health, what do you think about this article?
That’s the point, which you seem to miss. Disagreement, at least done right, requires reason. When you popped off with your… yes, screed seems to fit… how much of the actual information was really known? That would be… hmmm, let’s see… oh, roughly… NONE. You shouldn’t expect to do something like that without it being noticed, and wondered about. Nor should you expect reasonable disagreement about something that wasn’t reasonable to start with, since it couldn’t be, since it was essentially based on nothing. And since, at that time, there was little or no real information to base such a screed on, what was the likely explanation? And there you go.
There was a lot that happened yesterday. A number of us had pretty strong opinions about it. I’ve seen a lot of grumblings – and a few “I’m quitting!” pouts – about Jon’s. I’m eager to see more thoughtful, preferably compelling and/or persuasive (bonus points for wit and charm!), rebuttals.
I can’t speak for Headedwest but to me it seems to have been written by a different person. Which actually supports my point.
Perhaps you could add your objections to that post instead of this completely unrelated one. You didn’t like one post of mine. That’s fine since I expect few to agree with anything I write. I simply share my viewpoints, as does everyone else on this site.
I think it was done in haste and without sufficient information to be as inflammatory as it was. Assuming you posted it with the approval of the powers that be here, it pretty much eliminates the claim that this is a “center right” site. That’s okay, but as I have recently posted, you won’t be getting me to pay to be abused by the management here.
Now, if you think you’ll get more subscribers by trending left, I understand that as a business decision. But you should tell Rob not to describe it as “center right” when he does his membership pitch.
Bonus points.
If you’re supposed to be a center-right person being editor-in-chief of what’s supposed to be a center-right web site, if you expect few to agree with anything you write, well…. Maybe that’s some kind of indicator?
Jon’s pulling ahead… come on, Ricochet!
It indicates that I’m honest or at least try to be.
Look, every single primary candidate I choose for president is the first to drop out. Except in 2016, where Rick Perry (my #2 choice) dropped out just before Scott Walker (my #1 choice). I think we should ax two-thirds of the federal agencies. Not cut their budget; end them. I think we should radically reform all entitlement programs before eventually ending them entirely. I think Fed buildings should be stripped of AC so no one wants to stay there. I think for every new regulation, five need to be eliminated.
These are entirely unpopular positions. No one would ever vote for me. I accept that I’m in a microscopic minority.
But my view on Trump’s actions yesterday are not on the fringe. Many, many, many people on the center-right are furious with him. Cabinet members are quitting. Allies in Congress are dropping him. He’s done and he has only himself to blame.
Yet yesterday Trump claimed he actually won in a landslide. This is beyond a fringe position. And his remarks are far less temperate than my post yesterday.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/01/enough-with-the-outrage.php
Congratulations, all NT’ers. You got what you wished for. If we’re fortunate, this will only go on for four years. I’m concerned that this is the future of this land that was the U.S.A. Did you expect anything else?
Of course they did. Because they think they’re the actually thought-leaders.
I love that Jon is taking it on the chin and responding to his critics. But it’s unfortunate that he stands fully behind his post.
At the very least Jon will you come out and say that Biden should be impeached? The very things you accused Trump of doing, Biden has done all year. If Biden isn’t your man, then at least call balls and strikes and earn some credibility back.
You said for 2 months Trump has promoted conspiracies which ultimately culminated in an ugly speech. He’s been giving energetic speeches for years and they’ve never broken out into rioting. Show me where in his speech (or tweets) he urged on violence? You can accuse him of raising the temperature. Fine. How about how Biden has been raising the temperature for 7 months, since George Floyd died? He’s been claiming systemic racism in police departments (and society) is keeping down black people, and there has been months of rioting and looting from BLM, with literally dozens dead and thousands wounded, and literally hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. If Trump’s rhetoric is causing violence, don’t you think that Biden’s irresponsible rhetoric is also causing violence? If not, why the double standard?
Is the location of the riot the main reason for the distinction in how you cast blame? Is it the timing, because Trump was at the rally, so it’s easy to point the finger? Is it because this the first right-wing violence we’ve had after months of left-wing violence and murder, so it’s more shocking and everyone is already desensitized to left-wing violence? Or is it because you simply don’t like Trump as much as Biden? Seriously, I’d like to know. Explain to us why the distinction- why does Biden get the kid gloves for the same things (or worse)?
“Just like Antifa over the summer, MAGAtifa needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. GOP Senators planning to protest the vote need to stop their grandstanding and accept the results. Since the sitting president seems unwilling to strenuously condemn the violence he urged on, Vice President Pence should confer with the Cabinet to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment of the Constitution. Congress should then bar Donald Trump from ever holding a future federal office. Enough.”
This is a rough approximation- sorry it if doesn’t sound great but it is riffing on your statement:
“All rioters need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Since the President-Elect is unwilling to strenuously condemn the violence of BLM and Antifa, violence he urges on by creating a sense of injustice in minority communities, Vice President- Elect Kamala Harris should confer with the Cabinet on Jan 20th to remove Biden via the 25th Amendment of the Constitution. Congress should then bar Joe Biden from ever holding a future federal office.”
And then the same thing needs to happen to Harris, since she’s been encouraging the rioting too.
Sure but that’s really besides the point of my comment, I just want some ideological consistency. Either they both deserve to get impeached, or neither does. I think Biden isn’t qualified to be a school-bus driver, let alone the President, but I haven’t called for his impeachment (yet- I’m sure I’ll get many chances).
Ben Shapiro made me mad today, but is right about one thing- unless you are directly calling for specific violence against someone or something, you are not responsible for the violence that happens. This is why he refused to blame Bernie Sanders for the baseball shooting despite Bernie saying Republicans were killing people over healthcare, and also why he didn’t blame Barack Obama for the murders of police officers even though he constantly would say things like “You can understand why they would be angry”. I agree with this rule. It applies equality to Trump.
If Jon wants to stand by his post and claim Trump should be impeached, he damn well better consider what Biden has done and treat him the same.
Call it even Jon, and earn some credibility back. Or retract your defense of that post.