I’m not in a good mood. This happens. Partly this is because I was caught by a cold in the middle of a downward spiral (downward spirals happen. They’re fairly normal, I know how to correct for them, and most people can’t tell I’m in one. It’s just human interaction becomes a little more difficult and I become more of an hermit. Also, at a party, you might notice me in a corner, more. I’ve been dealing with this since I was seven or eight. I manage it so that chemicals don’t need to manage it for me. In this case it was responsible for my catching a cold, because I’ve been so isolated from human contact going to a diner made me catch a cold.)
Yesterday a very good friend sent me a note. While she didn’t object to Out of the Darkness’s post, she said she might stay away from the blog more, because she knows politics are horrible, but she doesn’t need her nose rubbed in it.
At the same time I spent all day yesterday overcoming the desire to shutter the blog and walk away.
Not because politics are dire, or because I don’t have anything to say (as some of you have noted, a lot of what I write about is not political but cultural.)
No, I’m not going to shutter the blog. But I’m going to take my gloves off, turn the crucifix to the wall, and speak my mind.
I’m sick and tired of people who treat politics as people in the village treated soccer.
Soccer was a big thing in my day. For one, it was regional, which meant it tied in to your native pride. For another it was passionately felt. Families had allegiances to a soccer club for generations. Money was paid to “Women” to hex the opponent before a big game. People who neither watched nor listened to soccer, nevertheless knew that “their” club was on the side of light and good and the others were agents of Satan. I knew a man who disowned his son for rooting for the wrong club.
Those thinking this was displacement for not being able to DO anything are absolutely right. First Portugal had a mono-party regime. And then it had so many parties that it made no difference. So, soccer.
I’ve long been disturbed by Americans’ ability to treat politics as the village treated soccer. It might have made sense once upon a time. Politics were regional, hereditary, and whoever won you at least had the illusion they wouldn’t endanger you (that this was still believed to be so during the cold war shows how irrational the belief is.)
That Americans are still doing that shows you that humans are REALLY great apes with the group identification gene overcoming reality and self-preservation.
This was exemplified yesterday when I was in one of Alexander Pournelle’s threads. He’d just posted about the long — and silent — war queuing up all over the world. China’s moves, Russia’s attitudes, the long game of Iran. All of these are things that are clear and present dangers. But his first comment on a post about Russia was from a guy saying “Oh, yeah, we should elect Trump. He can grab Russia by the p*ssy!”
The ONLY partisan thing in Alex’s post was that he pointed out that our government is doing NOTHING about this, except, well… piddle, twiddle and negotiate. He did not post in support of Trump, and in fact it had nothing to do with partisan politics (I doubt either of the creepy clowns have the wherewithal to conduct a rational war. Sometimes I think that onet would be better because he’ll view it as an insult to his dignity. Then I remember “the art of the deal” and his tendency to admire Putin. Then I think the other would be better, and I remember she doesn’t GET security and her vp is a robot imperfectly programmed with Maoist phrases. He’d probably GIVE us to the Chinese, let alone sell us. And she hates the military.)
But the creature commenting on Alex’s post can ONLY see his team and the other team. If his team is acting like putzes, he must show the other team is no better, because “Go Dems” is about the level of his understanding of national politics.
Time and time again, I come up against this. And now? There’s a new team in town. They’re the “burn it all downers.” They’ve coalesced around Creepy Clown Trump, because subconsciously they knew he’d destroy the GOP and they think that this will lead to the emergence of a party that represents them better. (They also believe that the “GOPe” has betrayed them, because Trump told them so. And perhaps because they, like him, have ZERO understanding of parliamentary procedure, or how the government is divided, or even the power of an hostile press.) Mind you for a party to represent them it would want mostly to burn civilization to the ground and “abandon all hope” which is the only thread they have in common.
THEY TOO think politics is soccer, and they’ll lie (to themselves, most of all) distort and harass in the service of having their team win, with no thought what comes after. They must pound down any shred of hope, even if it involves saying that the American populace is equivalent to the Russians in the tens or the Chinese in the 40s. Yes, that’s right. Culture be damned, we’re all EXACTLY the same and population dynamics are the same, and reactions are the same. This can only be maintained by someone who never lived abroad among natives. OR someone who needs his team to “win” so badly nothing else matters.
For some years now, I’ve been trying to explain to the “abandon all hopers” and to the “we need to fight it out with each other right here and now and that’s the only important thing” that this is not how the world works.
Look, I blame Hollywood. In Hollywood there’s wars and revolutions, and they’re fought internally with no input from anyone else. And one side wins. Books tend to do this too, and it’s something I fight VERY hard not to do.
We no longer live in the world of the 1700s, and even then the rest of the world got a say (a major say, both for and against, btw) even though voyages by sea took forever and there were no intercontinental missiles.
The world is as far away as the press of a button.
The US has been enforcing Pax Americana for about 100 years (give or take) now. This is not an ideal situation, of course, but it is what it is. We had the firepower and the wealth to do it, so we did it. I’ll remind you that without it, you’d all be speaking Russian — and you might still be.
Unfortunately the isolationists and people who think you can end wars by saying you won’t fight have the bit between their teeth. They’ve conspired to make America the weak, dithering, self-harming derelict on the street corner.
No one is really afraid of the derelict, and that’s why you’re seeing adventurism abroad from all sorts of bad actors. Because regardless of what you were taught in school, there are bad actors in the world and they don’t depend on American “aggression” to act. In fact, they depend on America being busy elsewhere, looking in the mirror and popping its own zits, like an adolescent psycho.
There is another reason the US was suited for “world’s policeman.” We didn’t have imperial intentions. Because we’re not a country of soil and blood conquering another land and giving it to our blood means nothing to us. Which is why to quote Dave Freer “The Americans are awful imperialists. All they want to do is go home.”
This is already imperiled and wait till you taste the way other countries do imperialism. You’re gonna die.
BUT if we kill one of the major parties, the one opposing the vile progs who hate America, if we descend into the madness of “let it all burn” and encourage destruction of institutions and cultural structures?
The world will be RIGHT HERE, at our door. In less time than it takes you to say “Are we being invaded?”
Alex Pournelle has been sharing links like this, and this, which are nibbling at the edges, seeing if we’re dead yet, so they can bite. And if we act dead (which we’ve been so far) they devour us, even though we’re bigger than they are and have plenty more resources.
Two years ago, though you probably never heard of it, the Chinese got hold of most of our files on people with secret classification. Yeah, they sold some of that to scammers, but do you want to bet none of those assets, the ones with juicy info on their files, are compromised? I wouldn’t.
And the Russians have compromised our government. Yes, Hillary’s server, but Obama too, and our voting system. Any halfway sane country would be saying ALL ballots will be paper and ALL voters have to re-register NOW and ID will most frackingly be necessary for voting. A serious country would be pointing out to the perpetrators that wars have started for less than this.
We’re not acting like a serious country, because the Kumbaya kids want to believe in “give peace a chance.” And the journalists will not report it, because they are social signaling as being on the side of the rich and powerful, which are in this country the left.
And meanwhile, Republicans, Democrats and burn it all downers continue squabbling and fighting like there is nothing more important in the world than making sure their “team” wins.
Listen, do you hear that? The tocsin is sounding. The idea of America will not perish from the world, but we can be hurt so badly that all of civilization goes down for the count.
If that’s what you think you want, go look in a mirror and think about why you hate the world and humanity. And if you really hate us and despise us so much, do us a favor and rid the world of you.
The rest of you, the ones who are capable of realizing this is not a soccer match, open your eyes. This is not a game. The results affect our lives, the lives of our descendants, and even for those who have no descendants, the life of the species who gave them birth and who has nurtured them. (And if you think everyone has done you wrong, and you want to burn it all down, I say to you: you first. Matches and gasoline are not hard to obtain.)
It is time to remember that by the people and for the people government thing. It’s time to start fighting as hard as you can. Sure the press, the left and the burn it all downers managed to give us nothing but Creepy Clowns — incompetent ones at that — for the national election.
The national election is not the only one. There’s local ones. Work and vote for your local sane candidates. Or “saneish” candidates. Anyone who understands water is wet and fire will burn will do. And after they’re elected, don’t step back and expect them to save you. Continue working.
The tocsin is sounding. Iceberg dead ahead.
You want to play with the deck chairs, you do so at your own peril.
This is the time to be grown up. Infants screaming the world done them wrong and they want it all to diiiiiiiiie will be ignored. They will be first in line for protection, if the shit really hits the fan.
It’s time to be a grown up. It’s time to do what you can, in whatever small way to shore up the Republic, or ensuring it can come back.
America is still as it always was the last best hope of mankind. No, it’s not perfect. Its ideal government lasted less than 10 years. Ideals and the world don’t coexist. So, no, you didn’t get perfection. Sorry, the world is like that. But you got to be born in the best country in the world, measured in prosperity and ability to make your own way. If you don’t see anything special about that, I bet you there are millions in the rest of the world who’d trade with you.
You’re not getting your way and a pony too. But there is no reason to destroy what we have. Yes, the fight for freedom is continuous. No, you’ll never be able to declare you won and go home. That’s soccer, not life.
Now stop whining and work to preserve liberty in our life time. Or get out of the way.
