Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Friday, July 08, 2016

More on Destabilization

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams is often an interesting thinker (see his recent post on gun control).  Yesterday he opined on FBI Director James Comey's decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton in the wake of her email server investigation.  Adams made a good point in the opening paragraph:
The primary goal of government is its own credibility.

That notion needs some explaining.

Governments do many things, including building roads, providing social services, defending the homeland, and more. But no matter what the government is trying to accomplish, its macro-responsibility is to maintain its own credibility. Governments without credibility devolve into chaos. Credibility has to be job one.

Consider all the different government systems around the world, and all the different laws they created. The Chinese government is different from the United States government, which is different from Jordan’s government, which is different from Great Britain. But each of those governments is credible to its own people, and that’s the key. The specific laws and the specific forms of government don’t matter too much, so long as the public views its own local system as credible.
This is part of what I spoke of as "trust" in this morning's post. When society loses faith in its government and other institutions, when credibility is gone, societies descend into chaos. He's right about that.

The first comment on my post this morning was from DJ, who asked:
What happens when Hillary Clinton loses the election? Do we have the orderly transition of White House Occupant that we have always had in the past? Does the disorder begin election night, or does it begin when the Electoral Collage announces its results, or does it begin January 20th of next year?
This assumes that Hillary will be on the ballot come November. I'm not saying she won't, I'm just pointing out something. Adams' says that he believes Comey declined to recommend charges because:
The alternative was the head of the FBI deciding for the people of the United States who would be their next president. A criminal indictment against Clinton probably would have cost her the election.

How credible would a future President Trump be if he won the election by the FBI’s actions instead of the vote of the public? That would be the worst case scenario even if you are a Trump supporter. The public would never accept the result as credible.

That was the choice for FBI Director Comey. He could either do his job by the letter of the law – and personally determine who would be the next president – or he could take a bullet in the chest for the good of the American public.

He took the bullet.
I'd like to point out that the Democrats haven't held their convention yet. Neither have the Republicans. And while Comey's action may have deflected attention from Hillary's most prominent scandal, it might very well have instead illuminated it with an arc light.

As I have mentioned on this blog previously, the Democrats aren't shy about kicking anybody to the curb they think is a liability. The precedent for that was Robert "The Torch" Torricelli of New Jersey and the election of 2002. When it became apparent that scandal-plagued Torricelli wasn't going to win his seat in the Senate again, the Democrats kicked him to the curb and - illegally - replaced him on the ticket with Frank Lautenberg, who went on to win. (Hey, it's New Jersey. Whaddaya expect?) IF (and it's a big if) Hillary's numbers decline as precipitously as Torricelli's did, it's entirely plausible that she could be replaced on the ticket with Joe Biden or any number of other people, and it could happen as soon as the convention - which is looking to be as "spectacular" as the 1968 one.

Had Comey recommended charges (and the DOJ obliged), it's a near-certain bet that she would not have been on the ticket come November.  The Democrats would have dumped her like a stained blue dress.  Comey took no "bullet," but he did seriously damage the FBI's  and the Department of Justice's credibility.

But that was just one more straw on an increasingly stressed camel's back.

As Yuri Bezmenov stated in that video I posted this morning, the Left has been carrying out "de-moralization" efforts in this and other Western countries for literally generations.  Read up on The Frankfurt School.  Look into the roots of "political correctness," "critical theory," especially "critical pedagogy," and Deconstruction philosophy.  As Bezmenov noted in 1984, those efforts succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the Left, and they continue unchecked today.  "Multiculturalism" is but the most recent "success" in the Balkanization of Western society.

The fact of the matter is, however, there's nobody leading these efforts.  The destruction of Western Civilization has taken on a life of its own, and destabilization will be the result of the Jenga-like random removal of the structural supports of our society in the mindless effort to bring about that promised Utopia and human redemption that is the promised reward for those who agitate for it.

Trust in government is at all-time lows:  trust in law enforcement, trust in courts, trust in legislatures, trust in executive offices.  Trust in media outlets?  It's been declining (along with newspaper circulation) for decades.  On top of that, trust in business (EEEEVIL CORPORATIONS!) is also pretty much gone.  And with multi-culti, trust in our neighbors is dwindling, too.

We're devolving to tribalism, where no one who is not a blood relative is "one of us" anymore.  E Pluribus Unum no more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

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