A friend called me last night and said essentially what appears in this August 6, 2010 Wall Street Journal column by Peggy Noonan: the situation in America is reaching the point where it may not be possible to reform this system. Reform is a peaceful process of change. The elites (under both Republican and Democratic control) have been aggrandizing power and money. Their greed for both is so out of control that they won't settle for anything but complete and utter destruction of the masses. One of the comments over at Wild, Wild Law about Steve Gibson, CEO of Righthaven, explained why he was photographed with a Bluetooth: "he's a terminator sent from the future to destroy all peasants that can't afford counsel and destroy all public confidence in our justice system."
I have always been disappointed by the bizarre conspiracy theories out there: the "gold fringed flag means this is an admiralty court," or "I'm not a 14th Amendment citizen, so this court doesn't have jurisdiction over me", and others so repulsive that I will not repeat them. But there comes a moment when the peasants get tired of abuse by their feudal lords. There's a lot about "Pitchfork Pat" Buchanan that I find disturbing and horrifying. But guess what? This country is fast becoming like a heavily virus-infected PC. It's time for the 110 VAC reset, and reformatting the hard disk. The only choice left may be bizarre conspiracy theories and ugly ideas, because the peasants are tired of the abuse.
You're more optimistic than I.
ReplyDeleteGiven that you're an historian, would you compare and contrast the decline of the Roman Republic and Empire, and the decline of the English Empire, and say why we will avoid a similar fate? Just as the British Empire began its decline when they began a more free trade pattern with the world, we're doing the same in the name of world citizenship.
America was blessed with some very unique men at its founding. They recognized the slow decline of empires and republics and hoped that Americans would be unique enough to rebel when that malaise set in here. I'm not sure I have quite the same faith in many of my fellow Americans, although these trying times are focusing more of them.
ISTM the problem is that the "Ruling Class" as Codevilla calls it has found a sweet spot. Well adapted parasites don't damage their hosts in severe ways. They may even provide benefits.
ReplyDeleteThe Ruling Class of today does many things right. They have become open to merit from any background, pretty much, which makes it easy for them to co-opt talent. History shows that a corrupt ruling elite can survive by bending and blowing smoke. It takes real stupidity to provoke a genuine revolution.
At the same time, the left wing of the Ruling Class has taken complete charge of the academic and intellectual sphere. This has created "epistemic closure", in which that milieu becomes homogenously self-reinforcing left.
This has the further impact of depriving the right and the "Country Party" of intellectual leadership, and making the Country Party suspicious of all intellectual-elite-ish knowledge.
Which in turn discredits it with many fence-sitters...
I don't see a revolution coming. The discontented are too fragmented to act in force. There is no clear objective to rally around.
There will be no Bastille Day; civilization will sink into the mud with a whimper, not a bang.