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Friday, July 09, 2010
Making Amends: A Mini-Manifesto
Fran here. This will be in first-person, as I have some hard things to say. Forgive me, Gentle Reader, but I don't think you'll like them much.
One caveat: When I use the pronoun we in what follows, I don't necessarily mean all of us alive today. I'm using we in its political application: to the polity we call today the United States, to the polity and society it has been in the century past, and to whatever emerges from the chaos I foresee.
Please read carefully, and with attention.
"When a man dies, he does not just die of the disease that he has; he dies of his whole life." -- Peguy
We stand, God willing, at the end of the Progressive Era in American politics and political thought. One way or another, the edifice will shortly come crashing down. The only questions that remain are whether a recognizable United States of America will rise from the rubble.
Many Americans, however, will not. That's guaranteed.
Our current political order does not resemble our Constitutional basis in any way. Every stricture of the Constitution has been abrogated. Most states treat their own constitutions as palimpsests, from which any clause may be deleted and to which any permission might be added, entirely at the will of the rulers. As for county and municipal charters...do I really need to go on?
The prevailing order compounds Corporatism[1] with Social-Welfare Fascism.[2] Under such a scheme, persons will flow steadily away from the "economic means"[3] and toward the "political means,"[4] in obedience to the established incentives. As the current state of affairs has obtained for nearly a century, a terrifying number of Americans and pseudo-Americans have made themselves utterly dependent on the State for their sustenance. They own no means of support -- no skills by which they could create value for others.
The key phrase in the paragraph above is "made themselves." Reflect on it.
When -- not "if" -- the Corporate Social-Fascist State exhales its bloody final breath, the economy that results will not have provisions for those dependents' support. As they will be unable to support themselves, their continued existence will depend wholly upon the kindness of others. But, given the immense damage that's been done to our economic foundations by Progressive policies, the crash is overwhelmingly likely to be massive. Many of us who can support ourselves on our own abilities will be hard pressed. Many others will disdain to succor of persons they deem complicit in their own fates.
There will be suffering. It will be massive. Some will die.
Yet the reckoning is at hand. It cannot be delayed much longer: even if the rising some foresee should fail to materialize, our current profligacy and laissez les bon temps roulez insouciance cannot last more than a year or so from here. No matter how well politically connected you are, you cannot consume what no one has produced.
Americans' charitable impulses and capacities, even if nominally quantitatively adequate to the demands that will be placed upon them, will fail to reach some persons in time. That, too, is guaranteed.
As one who holds notions of collective responsibility in low esteem, I dislike to proceed from here, but intellectual honesty requires it:
We brought this on ourselves.
America is a rich society because its people are nearly all nearly always honorable. -- Me
Honor is a necessity to a polity quite as much as to an individual. The honorable nation must stand its ground, abide by its given word, pay its debts, and answer for its responsibilities, just as must the honorable man. At this point in America's history, our nation fails the test on all four counts.
We have incurred a burden of atonement. We will face a harsh schedule of penance. If we wish to resume an estate of freedom, prosperity, and justice under objective laws, we will be required to pay.
No, we won't have to face a tribunal of some sort. What nation or nations, even in our current deteriorated state, possesses the power to enforce its will upon us? The laws of this Universe are self-enforcing, most particularly those that pertain to the ways of men:
- For having shown weakness to aggressors, we will be required to defend ourselves, against both invasion from without and predation from within.
- For having reneged on our promises, we will lose the credibility upon which we've become accustomed to rely.
- For having incurred the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, we will forfeit all credit, and will henceforward be unable to borrow.
- For having scamped our duties to those we promised protection, we will be denied the comfort of alliances and the protection of our extraterritorial assets.
And it will be just and proper that it be so.
Mind you, these things will come upon us whether or not we overthrow the Corporate Social-Fascist State. They cannot be averted. They can only be delayed a little longer -- and it's questionable whether it would be wiser to hold them off as long as possible, or to face the music as soon as we can.
Freedom is not free, free men are not equal, and equal men are not free! -- Richard Cotten
We are responsible for putting things right. The current situation is the fruit of our wishful thinking:
- We recoiled from the hard jobs of justice.
- We demurred from the maintenance of our borders and our defenses.
- We ate our seed corn, and staked our futures on a credit-based economy.
- Rather than whip aggressors back into their kennels, we paid them Dane-geld.
- We assumed that our freedom and prosperity had become a permanent state of grace. In other words, we believed in "something for nothing."
But our recent prosperity is the consequence of our prior freedom. Our freedom is the consequence of our forebears' willingness to fight for it. We cannot have either without the willingness to fight as fiercely as they did, whether on a battlefield, on a factory assembly line, or in an air-conditioned, fluorescent-lit office.
Economically, we overlooked the First Law of Wealth:
Politically, we overlooked the Conservation Law of Freedom and Power:
Therefore, every grant of power to the State reduces the freedom of individuals.
These laws are not repealable nor modifiable by Congress. We cannot attach riders to them, to grant exemptions to favored persons or groups.
We will be required to make good on our debts and defaults, for it is certain that no other nation will step forward to pay them for us.
Mei Ling translated. Eddie Lee smiled again, one eye squinting as the smoke from his cigarette drifted past.
"You think be hard to kill you?"
"Yeah," I said. "Be hard."[Robert B. Parker, Walking Shadow]
"Once you know a man deserves to die, you have to kill him. If you don't, you're committing a crime against everyone who doesn't deserve to die. If you get him down but can't bring yourself to do it, and he gets up off the mat and kills you instead, you're only getting what you deserve yourself." -- On Broken Wings
Should we succeed in throwing off the yoke of the Corporate Social-Fascist State, part of our atonement, perhaps the most unpleasant part, will be this: we will be required to be hard.
We will never, ever, put an end to the dreams and machinations of the power-seekers unless we punish those among us with proper severity. Among our current officials are several overt traitors: men who took oaths to defend the Constitution, and have done the exact opposite. Of these, I count one president, four Supreme Court Justices, and hundreds of federal legislators. Unless these are dragged from their hidey-holes as was Saddam Hussein, and executed or incarcerated for life, there will be no respite from the pressure of closet totalitarians and social engineers against our polity. Men to whom power over others is the ultimate satisfaction will seek it relentlessly, until the price for doing so becomes both ultimate and inevitable.
That's merely what will be demanded of us to cleanse the federal government. Further severity will be required of us:
- Toward nations and "non-state actors" that seek to bend us to their wills;
- Toward religious and quasi-religious, racial, and ethnic groups that agitate for special treatment and exemptions from the laws;
- Toward special interests that seek subsidies, subventions, or to impose their views upon us through the political process;
- Toward individual predators who have, in the main, eluded the proper penalties for their deeds.
The underlying message is, of course, We mean it. But it can only be expressed in deeds. Our words have become untrustworthy. We will not regain our credibility until we've demonstrated that we deserve it.
That will be the hardest price of our restoration. It will be unpleasant at best, dreadful and massively bloody at worst.
We will be spared none of it.
"From those to whom much is given, much is expected." -- Richard Kinane
Don't think it pleases me to write this. It doesn't. I'm an old man whose fondest wish is to finish my life in peace. But I have a responsibility.
My responsibility flows from four things: my percipience, my knowledge of history, my intellect, and my conscience. If I were to withhold what I've set down here in service to my personal tranquility, I would be derelict in the duties that arise from those things.
You may elect to disregard the warning. That's at your discretion. But the words have been spoken. If history is to gainsay them, no one will be gladder than I.
I await the fusillades, both from the Left that's the principal source of our ills and from the comfortable defenders of the status quo, to whom "freedom and justice are all very well in theory, but..."
Where do you stand?
"Brace for impact." -- Captain Chesley L. Sullenberger
NOTES:
1. Corporatism is a scheme of political organization in which certain companies and institutions receive favorable treatment from the State, up to and including the making of public policy.
2. Social-Welfare Fascism is an approach to politics that emphasizes good intentions and the succoring of the worse off as the rationale for total government control over a nation's economy.
3. Franz Oppenheimer, The State, 1905.
4. Ibid.
UPDATE: I continue the doom and gloom here.
Comments
Excellent, Mr. Porretto.
You said ‘read carefully and with attention’ so I made a print to read it and then read it again. I have to do that sometimes because I don’t always get all of it until I’ve read it several times. (I think I might be old, too.) But this time I got it all the first time. I’m making a print anyway so I don’t forget any of it.
Except ‘brace for impact’, I’ll remember that.
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 10:00 AM"Term limits,” P. J. O’Rourke once said, “are not enough. We need jail.”
It is time to consider the possibility that jail is not enough.
Posted by CGHill on 07/09/2010 at 10:36 AMThankfully, I’ve been ready for this since I started reading Heinlein at age 13. He made you realize that the future was going to be full of disruption and change. I would suggest If This Goes On--, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Between Planets, among others. Heinlein is outstanding mental preparation for whatever is too come.
Posted by Robert Pearson on 07/09/2010 at 12:57 PMI stand with you, Mr. Porretto!
P.S.
The CAPTCHA I used to submit this comment is “attack”. Coincidence? I think not!
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 01:02 PMExcellent post, Mr. Porretto. I too hope you’re wrong, but doubt that you are.
I second CGHill’s sentiment.
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 04:07 PMThe Soviet Union didn’t punish their rulers when their Potemkin State collapsed, and those nations are today tyrannized by the Same Old Crew.
I vote for the gibbet.
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 04:42 PMThis is easily the most important, clear-sighted post I’ve read on this ugly subject. We don’t have a lot of readers but I’ll do my damnedest to help get it out there.
Thank you.Posted by KG on 07/09/2010 at 04:58 PM”...pseudo-Americans ...”
An inspired phrase, Francis. Thank you.
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 05:37 PMFor you, Francis:
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbours and ample rivers – and it was not there; in her fertile lands and boundless prairies – and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good – and if America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
- Alexis de Toqueville
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 05:45 PMHi Francis, Been reading your blog daily for a couple years but seldom comment. I have only a 12th grade education received here on BIRI, and then 20 years in the USN. So I am not burdened with the parochialism that makes certain people unable to see what is coming at them like a runaway locomotive.
I am not by any means prescient, nor do I have a view through a portal to the future, but I have been able to separate the bullshit from the truth when it comes to that UPS (useless piece of S***) man in the Whitehouse and his band of Socialist/Marxist/ whatever’s!
In one of your previous posts you mentioned that we might want to, “stock up on canned goods and ammunition”. Well I have been doing that for the last four years in anticipation of all that you wrote about today! I do believe that my extended family who all live here on BI will be able to survive the coming cataclysm for a couple of years. Living on this little Island will be somewhat less of a struggle to survive, than the one you face when all those starving people come boiling out of the city looking for food that they have no idea how to produce.
I had to read some sections a couple of times in order to process all the words, I’m 72 and sometimes things just go in and right on out! It was an outstanding article and I was truly pleased to see someone, again, calling a spade a spade, NO racial overtones intended there.
if you don’t mind I would like to copy this and with attribution to you and your site, forward it to a few of my friends. If you’d rather I not do that, I’ll try steering them to your site. Great job and as usual, I am truly impressed. You articulate all the things I cannot.
Best regards, Everett R Littlefield ADCM,AC,NO, USN Ret.
Posted by Everett Littlefield on 07/09/2010 at 07:50 PMFWIW, the link is posted @ my site - I HOPE you’re wrong, but fear you’re not .........................
Semper Fi’
DMPosted by Diamond Mair on 07/09/2010 at 08:21 PMI pretty much agree with everything you said. I do not think anything will ever be done to stop the crimes against our constitution or to punish those who commit them (the president, four supremes and numerous legislators and congressmen). I am 99.99% positive that our country cannot have a revolution or otherwise throw the bums out by force and survive. In the turmoil either our enemies would exploit it to destroy us and/or the noble cause for such a revolution would quickly be replaced by anarchists who would take us all to a very dark place (much like the Russian revolution). So, sadly, or maybe for the best, we won’t have the revolution but we will have most/all of the negative consequences you predict. It is inevitable, the die is cast, we crossed the rubicon, whatever. We have already passed the tipping point and like a super tanker that takes 5 miles to turn we are ponderously sliding towards the precipice. “There will be blood"…
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 08:42 PMI think this is the best thing you’ve written, that I have read yet.
If anything, you are understating the problem. You have not addressed the implications for the rest of the world. You know the saying, when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold. Right now, hundreds of millions of people are alive only because America is feeding them. When that charity dries up… Please read these articles by Kevin Myers in Irish newspapers a few years ago. Note that, in the interim, the population of Ethiopia has grown to 88 million:
Extract from the latter article:
When I went to Ethiopia just over 20 years ago, I saw many things I never reported — such as the menacing effect of gangs of young men with Kalashnikovs everywhere, while women did all the work. In the very middle of starvation and death, men spent their time drinking the local hooch in the boonabate shebeens.Alongside the boonabates were shanty-brothels, to which drinkers would casually repair, to briefly relieve themselves in the scarred orifice of some wretched prostitute (whom God preserve and protect).
I saw all this and did not report it, nor the anger of the Irish aid workers at the sexual incontinence and fecklessness of Ethiopian men. Why? Because I wanted to write much-acclaimed, tear-jerkingly purple prose about wide-eyed, fly-infested children — not cold, unpopular and even ‘racist’ accusations about African male culpability.
Am I able to rebut good and honourable people like John O’Shea, who are now warning us that once again, we must feed the starving Ethiopian children?
No, of course I’m not. But I am lost in awe at the dreadful options open to us. This is the greatest moral quandary facing the world. We cannot allow the starving children of Ethiopia to die. Yet the wide-eyed children of 1984-86, who were saved by western medicines and foodstuffs, helped begin the greatest population explosion in human history, which will bring Ethiopia’s population to 170 million by 2050. By that time, Nigeria’s population will be 340 million, (up from just 19 million in 1930). The same is true over much of Africa.
Thus we are heading towards a demographic holocaust, with a potential premature loss of life far exceeding that of all the wars of the 20th century. This terrible truth cannot be ignored.
And KG… you might have more readers if you didn’t chase away anybody who doesn’t always agree with you.
Posted by on 07/09/2010 at 09:27 PMSadly, I believe you are quite correct on all counts.
There has to be a reckoning, on all counts, on all fronts, at every level, or we do nothing more than mock the contract, charter, along with the concept of “rule of law”; those things which are held (or should be) sacrosanct in every American mind and heart.
You are also quite correct in that the penance or restitution we will be required to pay, will be paid with in more blood, sweat, and tears, then one could ever imagine.
Or we become little more than a footnote in history. Of a social/political experiment which lasted less then a quarter of a millennium.
Still, better to die bloody but unbowed. This ol retired Sailor, would be honored (and humbled) to stand with you.
Posted by Guy S on 07/09/2010 at 11:45 PMYour quote from Richard Kinane - I believe Jesus Christ said it first.
Posted by on 07/10/2010 at 02:49 AM"And KG… you might have more readers if you didn’t chase away anybody who doesn’t always agree with you.”
Firstly, Analog Man, you make the assumption that I want more readers. I don’t. The kind of commenter I attract is of far more interest to me than the numbers.
Second, plenty of my commenters have disagreed with me in the past and continue to do so. The difference, of course is that since I banned collectivists and wannabe totalitarians from polluting my blog those disagreements are civil and informative.Third, since you’re offering advice to me on how to manage my own property perhaps you’d care to give me the URL of your blog, so I may learn from one who is apparently more knowledgeable?
Posted by KG on 07/10/2010 at 06:51 AMExcellent post sir. I too pray you are wrong, and think you are right.
Top billing in today’s link round up.
God Bless.
http://mindnumbedrobot.com/2010/07/10/saturday-robo-love/1693Posted by mnrobot on 07/10/2010 at 02:38 PMTo the comment on ethiopia and Africa. You are correct. And the fault lies with those who with a good heart went in and saved all those lives until the population far exceeded the lands ability to support them. So must we save the current crop of children? Why? In the 50’s we sent food and drugs to India to save the people. India loved their cattle more then their children and wanted to use the drugs to save the cattle. We reached a compromise and allowed them to use half the drugs for the cattle if they would use the rest for the sick children. In retrospect was this a good thing? Now India’s population exceeds a billion and most live in poverty. We should have let them use the drugs for the cattle…
Posted by on 07/10/2010 at 07:48 PM"I am lost in awe at the dreadful options open to us. This is the greatest moral quandary facing the world.(1)
We cannot allow the starving children of Ethiopia to die. (2)
Yet the wide-eyed children of 1984-86, who were saved by western medicines and foodstuffs,(3)
helped begin the greatest (4)
population explosion in human history”AnalogMan: far from being “lost in awe”, I’m lost in anger.
Referring to my numbers inserted in the quote from you:
(1) No it’s not; the quandary is how do we survive the death wish of the less evolved?
(2) yes we can, because:
(3) those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and will
(4) there is nothing “great” about this - it is sheer, unreconstructed, primitive stupidity.And I’m damned if they’re going to take me down with them. We haven’t even seen the beginning, yet, of how hard we’re going to have to become.
----------------As for your gratuitous swipe at KG: why bother? We know what we’re discussing (in a nutshell: how to survive our agenda-driven dumbshit traitors on the one hand, and insane religio-enemies on the other; Why let them in on the discussion and waste our time? - we already have a handle on them).
If you have something positive to contribute, we’re listening.Posted by on 07/10/2010 at 09:06 PMVery sobering observations, but probably not far off what many are thinking, but dare not say out loud.
Posted by on 07/10/2010 at 10:50 PMPosted your superb essay here:
Thanks for helping folks understand how hard they will need to be.
Posted by concerned american on 07/10/2010 at 11:51 PMamen
Posted by sofa on 07/11/2010 at 01:19 AMShould we succeed in throwing off the yoke of the Corporate Social-Fascist State, part of our atonement, perhaps the most unpleasant part, will be this: we will be required to be hard.
And this is the nub of it, Fran.
I feel as if this reality is a storm that is just north a ways up the coast. I can see it, and know the devastation and ruin it brings with it, and for that reason I find myself praying that it doesn’t come, but still I prepare, remembering the unrestrained bloodlust of the French Revolution when too many foolishly believed that they could achieve freedom without God.
His judgment was to let them have exactly what they sought. God help us, I think we are headed in the same direction.
Posted by Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere on 07/11/2010 at 12:09 PMGreat observations. I have always been a sheepdog, doing public safety work. Injuries have made me nearly useless.
What you say I fear will come to pass. Without the health to allow me to aid in the defense of society, I become a drag on re-building. A very uncomfortable feeling for someone that has always been there for others.
The arsenal with adequate reserves, all of the other gear has gone away as disability has overtaken life. I figure people like me will have a fews days to help others than we may as well just go away.Posted by on 07/11/2010 at 01:38 PMDon, you still have cognizance and clarity of thought as it looks to me from your comment, so I don’t think you would be as useless as you suggest. Is there an American Legion or VFW post near you? Meet with them or join them, if possible, and some of your security concerns will be removed.
Posted by on 07/11/2010 at 03:30 PMGreg,
Suggesting the American Legion, and VFW are excellent ideas. Frankly, I wish I had taught of them myself.
Might I also suggest the “Fleet Reserve”? They have posts through out the country and are there for all members of the “sea services” (Navy, Marine, and if memory serves, Coast Guard).
Also, if your particular brand of faith has a church, chapel, or synagogue near by, perhaps there can be found a number of like minded individuals there. (This may depend on the values imposed - however subtlety by the priests/ministers/rabbis - along with the overall leanings of the congregation.) But assuming you are a regular attendee, you most likely know if you are amidst fellow travelers, or if you are a remnant; keeping the true word in your heart, while the majority are “sliding toward Gomorrah”.
Posted by Guy S on 07/11/2010 at 04:10 PMGrog and Guy S, Thanks for your comments. I do belong to the local VFW, but to be truthful, I usually go only when they sponsor candidate nights. I served in the Navy and Army National Guard. Retired from police work, when the pain and 5 surgeries, for a broken neck really slowed me down. I used to have a group fo friends now living 450 miles away. Like minded and we were all prepared to do our part. After moving to be near the grand kids, it has become a new world. Hard to build trust in a new place to replace the trust we shared over 40 years of friendship. Thanks for your remarks.
DonPosted by on 07/11/2010 at 06:00 PMI too,believe you are correct in your assessment of our situation and the future,may God have mercey on us.
Posted by on 07/11/2010 at 06:06 PMJust wandered in here off the street. I appreciate the opportunity to post my thoughts here. First, we can no longer be timid. If action plunges the Country into anarchy, so be it. We are going either there or into slavery if we do nothing. It could be that Honorable Men standing and being counted could reverse this descent into oblivion without total chaos. Second, Hard will be necessary. Our huge dependency population requires our subservience for their very existence.
Posted by on 07/11/2010 at 06:25 PMJust found your site linked from sipseystreetirregulars site (threepers home).
There are two quotes this brings to mind and which have influenced me for more than 35 years, one Ezekial 33, the watchman on the wall tasked with blowing the trumpet to warn the people, and the other by Einstein: The right to search for truth implies a duty, one must not conceal any part of what one recognizes to be true.
Clearly past time to be waking up, but bread and circuses calm the sheep being readied for the slaughter.
Just looked out the window to see a couple of our sheep passing by. We process and spin their wool, so they are more productive than many of the figurative sheep.Posted by on 07/11/2010 at 09:04 PMDon, I served in the Navy for 8 years, so I give you a Salute, it’s always good to meet a fellow canoe club member. LOL
I understand your comments about trust, it’s not easy to find people whom you know will support you in good and bad, but are you still in contact with your friends? If not, you should be.
Posted by on 07/12/2010 at 12:27 AMFound this link from another site. I agree wholeheartedly, though I wish I didn’t. Growing up on a ranch in the midwest, I was raised to live and let live. While others may say and do things, if they didn’t impact you directly, step aside and work twice as hard to prove them wrong. However, that mindset has got us where we are today. We have given them the proverbial inch, and they have taken 100 miles. Too many are riding the wagon, and the old mare pulling it has had just about enough. Now is our time to throw the yoke of bondage squarely in the faces of those who got it here. There will be hell to pay be all sides, but if America can’t be the land of hard work and opportunity, who will? Let us endeavor to fight with courage and ask our Heavenly Father for the strength and clarity of thought to leave this country a place that our grandchildren will be proud to live.
Posted by on 07/12/2010 at 12:35 AMThere are so many things I would like to comment on in this post, but will just say that everyone is correct as to what is coming. We will all have to be very hard, very hard, maybe even harder than the police officer in your picture from tet.
Posted by on 07/12/2010 at 12:48 AMI GUESS I MEANT THE PICTURE FROM THE SITE WHERE I FOUND A LINK TO YOUR PAGE “WESTERN RIFLE SHOOTERS ASSOCIATION”
Posted by on 07/12/2010 at 12:53 AM
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