Civil Society

American Gulag and Stasi, Inc

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Today marks the one-year anniversary of the protest at the Capitol, in Washington, DC. A good many of those who attended felt they had a perfect right to walk into the Capitol Building, which is after all, the structure that we pay for and support our so-called political representatives with our votes. So why didn’t we have the right to walk into it, especially when allowed by the Capitol Police gatekeepers? There certainly were enough loud progressive protesters at the Kavanaugh hearings, setting the example for conservatives to follow an established principle. Or so they thought … mistakenly, as it has turned out. A number of questions about that event still remain.  

(Historically, well-wishers thronged the White House, upon the election of Andrew Jackson, and pretty much destroyed carpets and upholsteries, with the passage of their dirty boots and subsequent rowdy and presumably drunken celebration of a man of the people, a genuine frontiersman, to the highest office in the land. Again the halls of government are rightfully, our halls not the exclusive property of temporary lords and ladies. Or so we had assumed. But Jackson was a Democrat, of course, so all was forgiven.)

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Apparently, We Have Been Naughty

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We have all been naughty, disobedient, ungrateful serfs or so say the self-nominated Covidiocy experts, especially including those of nationwide media fame and of a political stripe known for their fanatical allegiance to the current ruling class. We’re supposed to get another tongue-lashing from the White House tonight, which has already promised a winter of severe illnesses and death for those holding out against getting vaccinated against the latest Covid variant. Are they going to cancel Christmas for those who won’t cooperate? Are we now all enrolled in the variant-of-the-month club, and expected to maintain a constant intravenous drip of boosters for the endless variants?

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Comprachicos

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The word literally translates from Spanish as “child-buyers” as defined by Wikipedia in one of their less politically unstained entries: “a concept coined by Victor Hugo in his novel The Man Who Laughs. It refers to various groups in folklore who were said to change the physical appearance of human beings by manipulating growing children, in a similar way to the horticultural method of bonsai that is, deliberate mutilation … stunting children’s growth by physical restraint, muzzling their faces to deform them, slitting their eyes, dislocating their joints, and malforming their bones.” The mutilated or stunted children were then provided as dwarves to amuse a noble court, or as performers in traveling circus sideshows. A historical truth, folklore repeated to frighten children into good behavior, or just a melodramatic literary creation? Who knows for certain?

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Rittenhouse Found (Appropriately) Not Guilty but Who Was?

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I have not followed the Rittenhouse case as closely as many, but I’m old we’ve been there before. Remember the 70’s, the 80’s?   Last year a hundred thousand Americans died of overdoses; theft is not prosecuted in some cities.   Did we think our lives would be peaceful?   Did we then, as we pulled out some of the pillars that held the roof over our society, protecting and ordering it?   Some of those pillars were being reconstructed, but the last few years have seen their destruction, again and more thoroughly.

Rittenhouse, certainly out of self-defense, killed, but these deaths are not just the result of the actions of the men, apparently unhinged and certainly violent and predatory from long before Blake was shot, that attacked him.   The fault also lies in those in charge, who have little humility in taking over our lives from cradle to grave, but shrug off their first responsibility to nurture an ordered society, where the rights of citizens are protected and civility reigns.   They seem to want to take our guns but they certainly don’t want to protect us.   Our leaders have lost a sense of the priorities outlined in our unique, beautiful, and profound Constitution.   However, it codifies and organizes responsibilities long seen as a government’s duty:   to protect citizens from threats external (the federal) and internal (the state and city). They found a sensible format for fulfilling those duties – one with checks and balances.   Our tradition, of course, has always included a healthy bit of personal responsibility, of self-protection.   Rittenhouse is in that tradition.   Those who did not do their duty are in no position to scoff at someone who tries to protect the home town of his father and grandmother.

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