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“Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” - Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
You know, it’s one thing to endure the vast expanse of progressive policies-cum-dumpster fires that dot the landscape and the bad news that flows like oatmeal down Joe Biden’s chin, but do we really have to endure the interminable scolding as well?
I mean, the unending crap storm of bad news ought to be enough to wake at least a few people to the cataclysmic nature of our predicament. I’d like to wax more poetic here and weave a Buckley-like symphony of prose, but I have neither the patience nor the desire at this point. So let’s speak plainly.
Whether the 2020 election was as pristine as a Sunday afternoon potluck dinner or as criminally insane as a BLM riot, the results are now blossoming like a mushroom cloud across the nation and much of the world. We went from four years of no wars and relative prosperity to being on the verge of a world war, cities under siege from criminal predators and a tsunami of unvetted humanity crossing our borders, and inflation literally eating everyone’s lunch.
When he’s not claiming to have attended more pivotal moments in history than Forest Gump or tracing his family line back to the Flood, Joe Biden shuffles from one teleprompter to the next, mangling the script and blaming the results of his policies on the president whose policies he reversed. Of course he is most animated when scolding the rest of us as MAGA extremist, racist, xenophobic, etc etc world without end a-men.
Remember the scene in the comedy movie Airplane where someone slaps a passenger who is going into a first-rate panic, grabs her by the shoulders and tries to shake her into silence? At which point someone else steps up to slap the hapless lady and shake her, followed by yet another person who wants to smack her, until we see a line of people (some of whom are holding baseball bats, tire irons and brass knuckles) all waiting to take a swing at the beleaguered passenger. A great many conservatives who just wanted sane policies are starting to feel like that passenger as we take a bi-partisan beating from these everlasting scolds.
As the horizon darkens with a major war in Europe, a growing American military presence in a Mideast that is on the cusp of a major war that could engulf nearly everyone, the absolute last thing we need is Republican fratricide in Congress, right? Matt Gaetz needs a check up from the neck up for torpedoing the Republican Speaker without giving strategic consideration to the consequences that follow. It was a dumb, petulant move at a crucial time. Jim Jordan appeared to have a chance to provide much needed conservative leadership, at which point people on our own side took out their knives and went to work.
The fact is that I have enormous respect for Charles C. W. Cooke and have enjoyed his commentary for a long time. When he speaks on 2nd Amendment issues, he is as authoritative and clear as the Ten Commandments. So I was thunderstruck when he weighed against Jordan’s bid for Speaker, writing on “X”:
A key part of conservatism is making sure that people face the consequences of their actions. To reward the architects of this chaos by agreeing to the outcome that they prefer — and indulging their cynical appeals to values they reject — would be a mistake.
While Mr. Cooke and I likely agree on the utter absurdity of vacating the Speakership in the first place, the idea of knee-capping the leading conservative alternative in order to teach third parties a lesson (ironically) about consequences at a time when the world is literally catching fire is the sort of fatal indulgence that got us into this mess in the first place.
But let it go. There was a time when the yawning hell into which we are descending was avoidable. But the scolds in both parties won the day with their hatred for one man, and they ushered in cataclysmic policies from which the country will likely not recover. We have indeed been “fundamentally transformed.”
As Professor Gad Saad wrote yesterday,
I am a very optimistic person; I am a fighter for Western values and liberties; I am a dogged defender of science, reason, and common sense. I must say though that I am unsure that the West can recover from its multifront civilizational suicide. Yes, I've talked about these issues for decades and wrote a book about it but the past few weeks have crystallized the extent to which the problem has become intractable. It will be a long and ultimately bloody demise and the West will be the first society in recorded history to fully self-implode due to its parasitic ideological rapture. It is a gargantuan Greek tragedy that will shape the future of humanity. This is not hyperbole. Your grandchildren will pay a very high price for your "progressive" arrogance rooted in the pursuit of Unicornia that only exists in the recesses of deeply flawed parasitized minds.
And what of the scolds? What of the ones who scorned us for voting on the basis of mere policy in the first place? Where are their retractions now that these policy differences have caused the death of innocents, the destruction of so many lives, and the likelihood of a major war? Ah, they’ve gone mute, remaining stoic before the carnage, declining to take credit where it’s due. But they will always be ready to step up when needed — to take another potshot and scold a little more on the way down. Screw them.
Discussion (11)
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Republicans have no business reaching across the aisle until they can get their own side in order.
The executive branch is running the nation into the ground. The Middle East is catching fire. The Russian-Ukraine war is depleting our weapons inventories. The Chinese are watching Taiwan like a cat watching a mouse. There has not been a budget in years. Inflation is rampant (no matter what they are saying), The Senate is held in the claws of a Democrat majority. Yet, the Republicans can't put their differences aside long enough to elect a Speaker in the House.
Oy.
CONTRIBUTOR
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Yes. I wish I could say it gets better, but I would be kidding us both (and not doing an especially convincing job of it).
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I wrote a post lat week, it's a little further down on the main feed:
What Will It Take to Unite Americans?
The Speaker chaos referenced here is showing us that there may not even be a possibility of unity in the Republican Party.
Unlimited taxing and spending at the federal level is one side of the divide in data specific terms.
Unconstitutionally based centralized federal government exercising essentially unlimited policy control over American society is that side of the divide in policy terms.
Americans who believe our founders got it mostly right with the structural relationship established by representatives of thirteen independent and sovereign states when they produced and adopted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in those early years today form the base of the Republican Party.
I supported the Gaetz move and former Speaker McCarthy's support for a candidate for Speaker who has been working to destroy one of the foundational pillars of our Constitution, the Electoral College to elect our POTUS, confirms my support for McCarthy's removal and this chaos.
I like Byron Donalds because I'm confident of his financial acumen and that is where we are in the greatest difficulty beyond our unconstitutional behaviors.
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Thanks for sharing this! I share your hope that Byron Donalds will succeed where Jim Jordan did not. And I hope the process is speedy. I'm pessimistic about how this all plays out eventually, but anything we can do to slow the descent is worth the effort.
Yes!
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