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Accountability* or Acc**ntability?
Sen. Rand Paul surrounded by protestors.
We are supposed to have a system of government in which the lawmakers and legislators are accountable to the people: they are accountable if voters can discern whether governments or politicians are acting in their interests and sanction them appropriately, so that incumbents acting in the best interest of the citizens win reelection and those who do not lose them. But there is another element to accountability, one based not on the strict form of election cycles and instituted policies that a learned and informed constituency can independently evaluate. It is of narratives and biases and predetermined outcomes. It is of perception. It is of raw emotion. It is the mother of Demand and father of Outrage.
In the aftermath of Breonna Taylor’s death, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act. The legislation would prohibit no-knock raids by police such as the one in which Ms. Taylor was killed., but none of that matters to the mob demanding Accountability!. In a terrifying moment for Senator Paul and his wife Kelley as they left the Republican National Convention the night of August 27, 2020, and ran afoul of ‘protesters’. This Accountability was being demanded by a crowd feverishly screaming “Say her name” at the very man who has been a consistent advocate for criminal justice reform, including that specifically related to Breonna Taylor.
But living the slogan life is to never have to live by the words so loosely dispensed from the foaming lips of professional agitators: Educate yourself.
Accountability is looting a Brooklyn Center Dollar Tree, destroying the very place where the community works and shops.
Accountability is firing Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey for the unforgivable offense of defending due process.
Accountability is Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mi.) declaring policing as government-funded murder; inherently and intentionally racist.
This extends far beyond the causes and results of the Summer of Destruction. The Accountability refrain has been used as blowtorch against debate so often it has effectively changed its purposeful meaning in much the same way as Infrastructure: something so bloated with noxious gas, any sturdy probing might release the poison on the whole damn population, suffocating us all. So we shrink from any true holding of account, or enacting punitive repercussions. For that, we either cry out to whoever is within our purview, or stand, mouths agape, as injustice and persecutions persist and even cause our own censorship because we dared confront the powerful.
It extends to the Biden Administration’s subservience to China’s evils. The hostility towards Hong Kong’s freedom advocates, the genocide of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, and the deadly deception hiding COVID has been met with the strength of a wet paper bag – even as China exerts itself on the world stage and thoroughly humiliating American representatives in March at an Alaska summit. Even when asked by kid glove-wearing CNN if China should be punished for misleading the world about COVID, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ineffectually replied (emphasis mine):
BFF’s!
You know, I think the issue for us is to…at least to make sure that we can mitigate in much more effective ways any damage done if something happens in the future. And a big part of that is making sure that we have a system in place, including the World Health Organization, that features transparency, that features information-sharing, and features access for international experts at the start of something like this…But we do need to have both accountability for the past, but I think our focus needs to be on building a stronger system for the future.
Strong words for the Sesame Street diplomacy of a President who dismissed the systemic rape and torture of Uighurs in China as just a “different norm”.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has gained notoriety in his brittle dance with Accountability. His much-publicized criticism of the Trump Administration’s COVID response made him a pandemic hero to the lapdog media and Cuomosexual liberals across the country. In reality he oversaw, sanctioned, and lied about thousands of COVID deaths in New York nursing homes. He reaches an exceptionally deep level of depravity when it comes to New York’s Orthodox Jews. Not only did he blame them for spreading COVID in New York City, he targeted their communities for lockdowns and religious gatherings. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise after continuously failing to protect Jews in New York from the savage public attacks happening there for years – and seem to be increasing in frequency as the pandemic lockdowns subside.
Cuomo openly called for then Supreme Court Justice Nominee Brett Kavanaugh to submit to a polygraph test, insisting that if he did not, his appointment should be pulled. He went further in blasting Republicans, “There is a disrespect for women that this administration chronically exemplifies. After the #MeToo movement, they did absolutely nothing when it came to sexual harassment. They have always diminished the charges of women – always, consistently.” The media and democrats never had to apologize or admit their culpability in smearing Justice Kavanaugh, and now Governor Cuomo will likely never be held to the standard of responsibility for which they demand of others – truth be damned.
In the memory-hole of the 24/7 news cycle, Accountability is weaponized as a smear campaign void of evidence. Brett Kavanaugh as a high school rape-circle kingpin, President Trump putting kids in cages, the Steele Dossier, the Russian Bounty farce, the list is too long to detail, but looks like a jailhouse lineup of the likeliest suspects, all of whom end up judged guilty just by being in the same room. It’s far easier to speak in the clichéd language of Accountability than to go through the actual work of discriminating between truth and lies, solutions and slogans, and responsibility and blame. And when the people demand it of our government in defense of our freedom, we are met with an equal level of trite promises and hackneyed inanities. They gush an outpouring of regrets and hollow apologies, often followed by callous disregard of true victims.
The next time you hear someone calling for Accountability, ask yourself what is really being demanded, and where is the best place to put the asterisk.
Published in General
The rot starts when the Left (and other fuzzy thinkers, no matter their place on the political spectrum) decouple words from their meaning, not in the sense that words can “evolve” over time to mean different things, because they can, often without malign or political intent–although that’s rare these days. And so you have a word like “accountability” which used to mean that people who’d actually done something were held to account for having done it, but which now means (according to some shrieking harridan I saw on the television a couple of days ago), that it’s perfectly OK for a rampaging mob to destroy and steal from [insert name of store] because she wants to hold people who’ve done absolutely nothing to injure her, or any of the victims she’s supposedly speaking for, accountable for this thing they haven’t done. As long as people buy into this idiocy, it’s not going to get any better.
Absolutely. It’s the unmooring of language from meaning that brings about the jargon worship of today. It’s almost like knowing the secret password to gain entrance into the woke club, or having a free pass for any abhorrent behavior. And Webster is complicit, changing definitions as the progressive rhetoric wails.
Yes. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary changed the definition of “vaccine” to include components of the COVID-19 mRNA injection, when people started saying, Well these are not really vaccines.
And Webster’s Dictionary has changed its definition of the term “preference” to include that it is offensive when describing sexual preference. The definition was altered the same day Senator Mazie Hirono rebuked a candidate for Supreme Court Justice for using “preference” in a legal sense at her confirmation hearing.
Another fantastic post @jennastocker. For some reason, during the last few days, the visual that stuck out the most for me was Al Sharpton posting his selfie of getting on a Gulfstream and flying to Minneapolis to “lend his support to the Floyd family”. Does anyone ever ask who pays for these professional agitators? As long as the answer is negative, the entire scene will be played over and over again.
Here in Columbus, last night, a police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding teenager who had another teen backed up against a car. There was no question that the cop saved the life of the helpless teen but you can imagine the reaction from our community of professional victims. “Oh, she had her problems, but she didn’t deserve this”. And on. And on.
Blinken and Biden’s performances concerning the Chinese do not surprise me in the slightest; they’re simply following the lead of their corporate masters such as Apple and Nike. Do you think that Tim Cook and Phil Knight give a **** that slave labor has helped to make them billionaires? Not in the slightest.
As for Andrew Cuomo, his accusations against the Jewish population for spreading COVID brought back visions of the Nazi production of The Eternal Jew. No matter; there’s a “D” after his name. Move on. Nothing to see here.
“Accountability”? The word has become an absurdity when it is being used by the Left. It has no meaning; none at all.
Yeah, I remember the Webster’s Dictionary definition change right after Senator Stupid made her idiotic assertion. Shows you how useless any of our elites or elite institutions are.
They are afraid of leadership, hungry for power.
“Here in Columbus, last night, a police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding teenager who had another teen backed up against a car. There was no question that the cop saved the life of the helpless teen but you can imagine the reaction from our community of professional victims. “Oh, she had her problems, but she didn’t deserve this”. And on. And on.”
Yes! Another instance in which only certain Black Lives Matter – in this case the one wielding a weapon. Odd…And the prevailing (cherry-picked) narrative has already been agreed upon. This is a political syndrome: the media recognizes and drives a narrative and pushes (often deliberate) selective editing. It perpetuates the Outcry! and farce of mass police targeting of black people. Any attempt at context/wideview is seen as racist or dehumanizing. It shuts down any constructive debate of issues like police training, local community engagement, use of force, etc. and it turns into an emotional shoving match over racism, not facts & reason.
“Accountability”? The word has become an absurdity when it is being used by the Left. It has no meaning; none at all.”
You nailed it. And thank you for your feedback and insights!
Accountability requires transparency, something they’re fundamentally opposed to. Those who accept public authority are required to accept public accountability, but holding them to that standard nowadays is what gets you shadow-banned on social media, or earns you an uncomfortable visit by the FBI.
Government gladly takes our money and freedoms, no questions asked – from us, that is.
Vince, I find this to be a more complicated issue. It isn’t clear to me that transparency is an unalloyed good.
If I recall correctly, our Founders thought otherwise, and agreed to maintain the secrecy of the deliberations at the Constitutional Convention.
Similarly, there are good reasons for the existence of executive privilege, and attorney-client privilege, and other areas of secrecy, including military planning and diplomatic negotiations.
We do have a good degree of accountability built into our system. The voters can throw the rascals out, periodically. It’s not perfect, but nothing can be perfect — until the Lord returns, if you believe in such a hope.
A lot of the lack of accountability issues can be solved thru simple legislation. Get ride of sovereign immunity and specifically state judges can be held criminally libel for their decisions and they don’t have immunity. That would put a check back in place were Burricartes and elected officials could actually be held civilly and criminally accountable for breaking the law. Right now they only have a small chance of losing their jobs which is rare or getting a slap on the wrist.
Granted much of this is to blame because legislation does not put statutory penalties for the goverment breaking the law. Laws should be based on experience. Experience shows any law to protect citizen people in power are going to try to get around.
Plus as a society we don’t care about truth anymore. Republicans used to care a lot more than liberals then we just got feed up and elected Trump.
You can’t legislate morality, only compliance with people always finding ways around. We are getting a goverment that is a reflection of our personal morality as a whole. When you throw religion on this is what you get.