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.
We Are Suffering a Paroxysm
Paroxysm: NOUN
1. A sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity.‘ a paroxysm of weeping’
1.1. Medicine
A sudden recurrence or attack of a disease; a sudden worsening of symptoms. ‘paroxysms of ataxia and shaking’Origin
Late Middle English from French paroxysme, via medieval Latin from Greek paroxusmos, from paroxunein ‘exasperate’, from para- ‘beyond’ + oxunein ‘sharpen’ (from oxus ‘sharp’).
It’s hard to read the reports of what is happening in some of our urban centers, what is happening in our government, without wondering where things go next. Will things return to a “sanity” as understood by at least half of our fellow countrymen? Or will events accelerate and careen out of control? Will it happen only locally/regionally, or will no place in our country be left untouched?
Powerline blog is cataloging events in greater Minneapolis and they are not good: FROM THE BIZARRE TWIN CITIES HELLWORLD, FROM THE BIZARRE TWIN CITIES HELLWORLD (2), FROM THE BIZARRE TWIN CITIES HELLWORLD (3), MINNEAPOLIS CANCELS SCHOOL FOR CHAUVIN RIOTS, and UNIONS EVICT NATIONAL GUARD.
Add to this “woke” corporations and sports leagues. Throw in court-packing and metastasizing racism clothed as anti-racism. Watch as our global foes secure their positions at the expense of our old and more recent allies. Notice the silencing of voices wherever they are within the reach of Big Tech.
All of a sudden a parliamentary system is looking better. Which system — parliamentary or US constitutionally fixed terms — best enables a citizenry to retake the levers of power before it is too late?
We are paying a price for…what exactly? What should have been our response to Marxist ideology in the several decades where it has been promoted in writing and various actions? What should have been our response to rising national chains supplanting local entrepreneurs, the concentration of more and more capital in fewer and fewer hands? What should have been our response to not just growing secularism, but active marginalization of faith and belief? What should have been our response to a “credentialing” system focused more and more on compliance to ideology rather than fundamental competence and critical thinking?
We focused on our own lives and private concerns. We left public concerns and trends to others. We voted but did not organize to put forward candidates that had been vetted against our values. We underestimated the capability for corruption — as humans we were corruptible in small ways but had little insight into how big corruption operates.
We sent a warning shot against these forces in the person of President Trump. But, was it too late? Had we let things drift to the point where we had few real champions, and those whom we had were left with too little support?
We are suffering a paroxysm. Where will we be when it is over?
Published in General
We should have recognized violent Marxism coated in the language of love, tolerance and inclusion for what it was sooner than we did. I, at least, thought for a brief time that the Democrats were the misguided liberals of old who sincerely thought they were making America a better place. So I thought that surely at some point they would go too far and that the backlash would start. But it never did as one by one all our institutions fell and our citizenry became frightened to speak out. I wrote this post back in 2017 expressing my shock that the center did not hold. It took me too long to realize we did not share the same fundamental premise. I loved my country and my fellow countrymen and wanted us, as always, to be better; they hated her and us (and themselves) and wanted everything gone.
So now we have to see how this plays out. Is it a violent paroxysm that will pass, as have so many destructive ideologies in the past, leaving us shaken but alive or is it our death knell? All I know is that we now know who we are dealing with. Americans may get caught off guard in the beginning and bumble around a bit, but our history tells us we will figure this out and fight it off. It’s just that now we are fighting an internal enemy and that requires new tactics.
We have to focus on the strongest control measures now in play: fear of personal responsibility. Fear of personal responsibility? What else do you call unwillingness to accept the outcomes of personal health decisions, personal financial decisions, and personal opinions? Government is offering us personal unaccountability in exchange for control. If we do what they say, they say, we will be healthy, financially secure, and free from shaming. We have to reassert our G-d given right to be wrong and accept the consequences. Government controls be damned.
I heard someone quote Douglass Murray- people today mistake the fruits of a good society for the roots of a good society. So they think they can tear out the roots, and the fruits won’t be threatened.
That is the essence of personal freedom and it seems very hard for our “betters” to accept. I will make my own decisions and I will live with the consequence of those decisions. Period.
I have finally been able to articulate only recently what made America so special: It was the combination of maximum personal freedom and rule of law.
When we make these decisions, we measure our needs and our actions against their impact on our family and social ties which are integral to our own well being. And societal well being was framed in our system of laws, which as part of personal responsibility, we agreed to work within or change them according to the process we put in place for changing them.
The left seeks to break both of these pillars of America. They don’t exist anywhere else as far as I know. So they are worth fighting for.
I’m going to pass on this one.