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.
Lying to Ourselves
We have a problem with our federal government, but it’s not exactly the one we’re used to thinking about. Frankly, we don’t want to think about it all – better to deny the reality entirely. Easier to lie and lie and lie, and blame our problems on everyone else. Easier to blame Liberals, or Wokesters, or (the current favorite among the increasingly reality-averse folks who still cannot face that Trump has immolated himself once and for all time) traitors and sabotage. It is, of course, all lies. Mind you, lies can be useful – especially when trying to avoiding hurt feelings (our own not the least), but they’re still lies. At one time rebellions against ruling monarchs favored the lie “We’re not really rebelling against the King, he’s just the victim of bad advisors.”
The lie we all tell ourselves today is that we are the helpless victims of “The DC Establishment” (or whatever other term you want to use). Synonyms for this include “Wall Street,” “Big Tech,” and a host of others. They are the “bad advisors” we blame for manipulating Congress, for stealing elections, or for disloyalty to Trump (fact check here: the only consistent disloyalty in the Trump administration came from Trump – watching his cabinet members go from vaunted heroes to filthy traitors and sellouts in the commentariat was much akin to studying Soviet photography for disappearing faces alongside Stalin). We are very good at lying to ourselves about why Trump lost this or that political battle, about why Congress is a dysfunctional mess, and about why the “authoritarian ratchet” is inexorable. The truth we cannot confront about it is all is simple, and we all bear the shame of it. We do not really want any of our congress critters, our president, or our courts to lead us out of our morass, we want them to follow us into the pit of our own making. And follow they blithely do.
Why should anyone really attempt to lead? Why should anyone take any campaign rhetoric seriously? I’m not even speaking for the Left here, I’m just talking about the entire right half of the political spectrum. Think of all that we demand:
Repeal Obamacare! But get me my pills cheap! And you’d better not slash Medicare because Granny will be out on the street! Cut my taxes! But don’t touch Social Security, that’s my retirement! Slash regulations! But raise the minimum wage! And punish those rich Wall Street fat cats! No more bailouts! But bail out small businesses! No more stimulus checks… after the next one (and send a chaser too)!
Any time anyone in Congress actually tries to show real leadership he gets savaged. Paul Ryan was sent to Congress and proclaimed a hero as a fiscal wonk. Paul Ryan is now disgraced as a heartless fiscal wonk. Well? Which is it? He was the same Paul Ryan that entered as left – the truth is he violated the will of the voters, and the will of the voters is that the gravy train run to them, but not to other people they don’t like. We hailed the Tea Party a decade ago for demanding fiscal accountability, and then it all wilted when we realized everyone would take a hit, not just the “bad guys”. We wailed about Obama’s fiscal profligacy, then ignored Trump’s (even pre-COVID) because that spending was just better because it went to the right people.
We blame the Republican congress of 2017-2018 for not having a Repeal and Replace plan from Day 1 (nevermind that Trump promised he had his own too – and we never saw any of it). Why would any sane and safe Republican bother to come up with a health care reform plan? Any real plan would gore everyone’s ox, but not equally, and that would be seized on as evidence of favoritism towards whoever was hurt less than someone else – and we would be as happy to denounce it as the Left, just for different reasons. Why bother with specifics? Why bother to stick your neck out? Easier to campaign on an issue and then blame the other side when nothing ever happens later. Keeps the issue alive for a few election cycles, until the voters fixate on something else for a few cycles.
It’s no wonder Congress is stuffed with hacks, charlatans, grifters, sell-outs, and bench warmers. It’s no wonder both parties spend like drunken sailors. It’s no wonder the debt keeps growing and growing – hardly anyone there dares to change the game. When they try, they’re denounced as traitors, or Elitists, or uncompassionate eggheads, or accused of being in some group’s pocket (which, while true, is a problem only because it’s the “wrong” group), and so turfed out. Besides, they know what the voters really want better than the voters themselves: having someone else always around to blame.
It’s no wonder that both sides refuse to actually address electoral reforms too – that’s the gift that keeps giving. That way you never have to take any blame on your side for nominating cultists and loonies. That way you never have to take any blame for running a terrible campaign. Even if you lose, you win! After all, you were cheated! And martyrs are always more beloved than Darwin-award winners, giving you a leg up on fundraising for the next round (that’s where the real money is made – paying your friends and relatives for “consulting fees” while you expense first-class flights). Both sides play the game, and the money rolls in.
The truth of the matter is, Americans of all stripes really do not want reform. They do not want leaders. They do not want any hard choices. They want the status quo, but also want the moral high ground of blaming it on everybody else. And the government they claim to hate so much? It’s just following along. If we really wanted reform, we’d stop blaming the “swamp”, or whatever other excuses we have at hand. Instead, we would admit to ourselves that, like losing weight we are the ones who have to change first.
Published in Politics
You do realize, though, that there has never existed in the US an absolute “free speech”? There have always been bounds, both explicit and implicit.
I already explained this to somebody, I can’t remember if it’s you.
In the era of the “network effect” you can’t just combine capital with good management and come up with another pipe in the public square. That’s the difference.
Yes, I’m aware, but those bounds do not extend to ideas, but the words, tone, and circumstances in which they are expressed. And again, its all beside the point when there is a clear pattern of deliberately uneven application in collusion with other corporations to exclude competitors (the purpose of such exclusion need not be based on purely economic motives).
There is a huge difference between the government, state or federal, locking someone up for saying, “The Nazis never existed,” and Twitter closing the account of someone who tweets, “The Nazis never existed.”
The 1st Amendment is supposed to prevent the government from clamping down, not from corporations clamping down.
Be we all knew that.
I think they speak with forked tongue if they haven’t forwarded their 98 examples of incitement to law enforcement.
Look at my comments #177 and #182.
Conservatives are just as capable of creating technology as Leftists. If conservatives don’t like the way Amazon, Apple, Twitter or Facebook are run, there is nothing stopping conservatives from developing technology that allows for the free flow of conservative ideas.
Conservatives are, on average, more intelligent that Leftists. Thus, any technology that a Leftist creates, a conservative can create something even better.
A risible syllogism.
There is also a huge difference between that and several different companies colluding to shut down a specific competitor on that ostensible basis, all the while overlooking millions of tweets to the effect that “Stalin never existed, and lets organize to burn down a city to prove it.”
Yes. Conservatives are not welfare recipients. Conservatives are doers, inventors, creators, people who are capable of communicating with each other without the help of Jeff Bezos.
Not in the era of the “network effect’.
The issue is, influencing the public square, not just letting conservatives talk to each other.
Then do that. Create the technology. Make that technology available to people, including non-conservatives. Use that technology to communicate conservative ideas and persuade others of the superiority of conservative ideas over Leftist ideas.
Conservatives are very good at influencing the public square at state levels, with a few exceptions where the state parties are in disarray. They are good at the politics stuff.
But conservatives have utterly surrendered the cultural battlefield, which is where influence takes the longest to build and is the most influential.
You aren’t understanding what I wrote the other comments.
What this comes down to is, Congress has to decide what we are going to do about the public square and the constitution in the era of the network effect.
That’s very nice, but it doesn’t have anything to do with what my point is.
Congress has to decide about what they are going to do with the network effect and how it affects the functioning of the Constitution. It needs to be very explicit.
I am for less regulation and less litigation against non-governmental corporations and businesses.
If you don’t like Twitter, create a competitor. If you don’t like Amazon, create a competitor.
Don’t whine. Innovate.
Trump was nasty and mean. He also got some solidly conservative policies enacted, conservative justices and judges confirmed, and so on. If people are not politically conservative for the purpose of advancing the conservative agenda and conservative policies then what use are they? People who hindered Trump’s efforts in that regard are not friends of conservatism.
You aren’t understanding what I’m saying. The network effect is a barrier to entry that is impossible to overcome. You can’t do it with what you normally expect to do with good management in capital.Victor Davis Hanson’s position is that we have to turn them into utilities.
You haven’t seen real nasty and mean, yet. Dems have given us a preview. It will be ugly.
Don’t whine about people whining. It’s a constitutional right.
I think we disagree on public policy. I don’t want the government micromanaging non-governmental corporations/businesses. If Twitter wants to close peoples’ accounts for silly reasons, that’s their business.
Again I will point out that almost anyone who even offered constructive criticism was demeaned and scorned for it, so I don’t buy that argument at all.
The person who hindered Trump’s efforts the most was Donald J. Trump. Those who consistently pointed this out are friends of conservatism even if they were critical of Trump.
The Public Square is at least 90% controlled by the four tech companies. This discussion has to be finished in Congress. I think it’s obvious that we can’t keep doing this given the way the constitution is written and you guys don’t agree with me so it has to be finished in Congress.
John Yoo is actually talking about this at the end of the current Law Talk.
And a cell phone company. And a credit card company. And a web hoster. And a bank.
Because its a perfectly normal, free market with no failures of any kind when all of this is necessary to fill a substantial market demand.
Or you could just smugly pretend the demand isn’t there, despite an exponentially expanding customer base whenever such companies are deplatformed, and not the result of monopolies, political connections, and collusion.
Another example is the way the Democrats have been using financial rules to screw with gun shops and payday lenders. It’s really sickening.
(also, payday lending is a way more complicated topic than most people want to make it out to be0
When people at this time and place say, “create a competitor,” they are actually calling for violent revolution to create a new country with a new financial system and the whole works that is needed to support a competing platform.
Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.
Conservatives should be creators, not just consumers of Leftist product.
It reminds me of when conservatives would complain about movies with a Leftist message. Conservatives need to start making their own movies in order to compete with the Left. There are some instances of this happening and conservative movies are often more popular than Leftist movies.