So many Americans desperately wish to pretend that we can go back to the mellow 1990s, when the libertarian ethos seemed like our evolutionary future. After four years of open borders, and the discovery that our enemies [and the radical Marxists who attempted a leftist revolution half a century ago] have been influencing our education system for several decades, that's no longer an option. We are forced to choose between a small handful of authoritarian options, and hope we choose wisely. We are entering one of history's decision funnels, and our options diminish every day we are unwilling to confront the fact that our political opponents are not arguing for a competing vision of American society; they are arguing for the guillotine. As the French proles quickly discovered, the Jacobins had no economic plan for the future: it was only the guillotine.
A lot of Americans are still emotionally living in the 1990s, when it felt like the future was going to be freedom, markets, tolerance, and “live and let live.”
That world is gone.
“Live and let live” only works when both sides mean it. What we are facing now are movements that do not want a better America. They want a post-America.
They tried to assassinate Trump. Charlie Kirk was murdered. Too many people on the Left celebrated, justified, minimized, or looked away.
At some point, normal Americans have to stop pretending this is politics as usual.
Different law. Different people. Different moral order.
According to The Fourth Turning, this is just part of life's rich pageant, as the aging survivors of the last cataclysm fade from public life, and their memories are relegated to dusty old library shelves. One of the worst malincentives is tribalism, in which the majority of productive members of a party choose to look away when extremists are agitating for power; either because they don't care much how their reps behave, as long as they are dominant, or because if you wrassle with hogs, you're gonna get a bit of mud on your sunday suit. Not sure what to do about that one.
It's easy to blame the leftists for wrecking everything, because they are obnoxious about their disgusting ideology. But why are our supposed reps so curiously quiet while the barbarians are sacking our culture? That's beginning to become a rather unpleasant question we can no longer avoid; people like Nick Freitas are beginning to make some noise about this. I could literally make a year-long calendar featuring daily youtube episodes about how "This Time Ilhan Omar Is REALLY Cooked!!"...and yet nothing ever happens. And apparently a certain number of Republicans seem to agree with the Dems that voter ID is raciss.
What's even the point of having so many combat veterans on our side of the aisle in Congress, if they can't muster coalitions of the willing to save our culture from those who want to drive the bus over a cliff?
If the strategy in Congress is a moral quid pro quo spiral into the abyss, I don't see the point. Especially for combat vets who risked their lives, and lost many friends, for what? Because it's too embarrassing to admit that everyone saw names in the Epstein files they wish weren't there? I wish they weren't there too. I wish Trump didn't do certain things that are curiously friendly to Qatar and Turkey. I wish Tom Barrack wasn't our ambassador to Turkey. etc. But the road to hell is paved with apathy. I hope people on the inside like Nick Freitas can shame his legislator peers [especially veterans] to bite the bullet and turn this ship around before the waterfall.
Another incentive asymmetry, even more difficult, is how entitlements are great marketing for politicians; but reversing them is political poison. Even acknowledging that social security is a ponzi scheme is taboo, because the cure is quite painful and will take longer than a campaign cycle to produce meaningful results. So the question every reformer should be asking these days is this: How did Milei succeed on a campaign of austerity in Argentina? Did it get so bad that most people realized entitlements are like addiction? Because there are two valuable lessons there: People will eventually learn to vote for good policy, when they finally realize there is no free lunch; and it might be possible to turn things around much quicker than expected, once the old mindset is discarded.
There are so many root causes it's hard to narrow them down to a manageable scope. IMO, the biggest contributor to the decline has been the "slow march through our institutions" which Gramsci and the Frankfort dorks advocated back in the 1930's. Once they hippy-dippy lefties took over universities and government bureaucracies, our goose was defeathered and placed in the warm pot. Since then the heat has been turned up while we all slept through it.
I don't like being pessimistic, but looking at the rapid rise of Islam and the recent results in NY (now Denver also), I think our goose is cooked. I really don't see a return to rational public discourse without some version of a violent civil disruption. I believe the left will keep pushing until they provoke such violent reactions from the right. I think that's what they intend. I think our social and cultural norms have been disrupted (they like to call it 'deconstructed') to the point we are ripe for such chaos.
I see it in my own kids. I knew it was really bad when both of my sons had sympathy for Luigi Mangione's cold-blooded murder. I could not believe these were my sons. However, both of them went to universities and received masters degrees (which I helped pay for). Their favorite slogan is "this economy is just not working for us." I am disgusted. I was born to a stay-at-home mom and my father worked for the railroad (not in administration); however, according to this generation, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. According to this generation, it's too much trouble to "build" a life over time. You should have a $600,000 home, fine cars, cell phones, cable TV, and a pension when you graduate with your "gender studies" degrees. Oh, and by the way, "love is love."
So many Americans desperately wish to pretend that we can go back to the mellow 1990s, when the libertarian ethos seemed like our evolutionary future. After four years of open borders, and the discovery that our enemies [and the radical Marxists who attempted a leftist revolution half a century ago] have been influencing our education system for several decades, that's no longer an option. We are forced to choose between a small handful of authoritarian options, and hope we choose wisely. We are entering one of history's decision funnels, and our options diminish every day we are unwilling to confront the fact that our political opponents are not arguing for a competing vision of American society; they are arguing for the guillotine. As the French proles quickly discovered, the Jacobins had no economic plan for the future: it was only the guillotine.
This is exactly right, Chuck.
A lot of Americans are still emotionally living in the 1990s, when it felt like the future was going to be freedom, markets, tolerance, and “live and let live.”
That world is gone.
“Live and let live” only works when both sides mean it. What we are facing now are movements that do not want a better America. They want a post-America.
They tried to assassinate Trump. Charlie Kirk was murdered. Too many people on the Left celebrated, justified, minimized, or looked away.
At some point, normal Americans have to stop pretending this is politics as usual.
Different law. Different people. Different moral order.
How much longer until the guillotine falls?
According to The Fourth Turning, this is just part of life's rich pageant, as the aging survivors of the last cataclysm fade from public life, and their memories are relegated to dusty old library shelves. One of the worst malincentives is tribalism, in which the majority of productive members of a party choose to look away when extremists are agitating for power; either because they don't care much how their reps behave, as long as they are dominant, or because if you wrassle with hogs, you're gonna get a bit of mud on your sunday suit. Not sure what to do about that one.
It's easy to blame the leftists for wrecking everything, because they are obnoxious about their disgusting ideology. But why are our supposed reps so curiously quiet while the barbarians are sacking our culture? That's beginning to become a rather unpleasant question we can no longer avoid; people like Nick Freitas are beginning to make some noise about this. I could literally make a year-long calendar featuring daily youtube episodes about how "This Time Ilhan Omar Is REALLY Cooked!!"...and yet nothing ever happens. And apparently a certain number of Republicans seem to agree with the Dems that voter ID is raciss.
What's even the point of having so many combat veterans on our side of the aisle in Congress, if they can't muster coalitions of the willing to save our culture from those who want to drive the bus over a cliff?
The comparison is nuts.
The Left eats its own for not acting crazy enough.
The Right used to at least shame its own for not working hard enough. Now it barely expels anyone for doing nothing at all.
That is how you get a movement full of warriors on television and spectators in office.
At some point, doing nothing stops being strategy and starts looking like permission.
If the strategy in Congress is a moral quid pro quo spiral into the abyss, I don't see the point. Especially for combat vets who risked their lives, and lost many friends, for what? Because it's too embarrassing to admit that everyone saw names in the Epstein files they wish weren't there? I wish they weren't there too. I wish Trump didn't do certain things that are curiously friendly to Qatar and Turkey. I wish Tom Barrack wasn't our ambassador to Turkey. etc. But the road to hell is paved with apathy. I hope people on the inside like Nick Freitas can shame his legislator peers [especially veterans] to bite the bullet and turn this ship around before the waterfall.
Another incentive asymmetry, even more difficult, is how entitlements are great marketing for politicians; but reversing them is political poison. Even acknowledging that social security is a ponzi scheme is taboo, because the cure is quite painful and will take longer than a campaign cycle to produce meaningful results. So the question every reformer should be asking these days is this: How did Milei succeed on a campaign of austerity in Argentina? Did it get so bad that most people realized entitlements are like addiction? Because there are two valuable lessons there: People will eventually learn to vote for good policy, when they finally realize there is no free lunch; and it might be possible to turn things around much quicker than expected, once the old mindset is discarded.
There are so many root causes it's hard to narrow them down to a manageable scope. IMO, the biggest contributor to the decline has been the "slow march through our institutions" which Gramsci and the Frankfort dorks advocated back in the 1930's. Once they hippy-dippy lefties took over universities and government bureaucracies, our goose was defeathered and placed in the warm pot. Since then the heat has been turned up while we all slept through it.
I don't like being pessimistic, but looking at the rapid rise of Islam and the recent results in NY (now Denver also), I think our goose is cooked. I really don't see a return to rational public discourse without some version of a violent civil disruption. I believe the left will keep pushing until they provoke such violent reactions from the right. I think that's what they intend. I think our social and cultural norms have been disrupted (they like to call it 'deconstructed') to the point we are ripe for such chaos.
I see it in my own kids. I knew it was really bad when both of my sons had sympathy for Luigi Mangione's cold-blooded murder. I could not believe these were my sons. However, both of them went to universities and received masters degrees (which I helped pay for). Their favorite slogan is "this economy is just not working for us." I am disgusted. I was born to a stay-at-home mom and my father worked for the railroad (not in administration); however, according to this generation, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. According to this generation, it's too much trouble to "build" a life over time. You should have a $600,000 home, fine cars, cell phones, cable TV, and a pension when you graduate with your "gender studies" degrees. Oh, and by the way, "love is love."