One detail regarding Pence. As VP, he was also "President of the Senate," and I believe it was in that capacity that he was seen as evidencing profound moral rectitude.
One could easily become despondent watching the parade of ignorant, corrupt, and odious midwits who have ensconced themselves in all levels of public and private bureaucracy. The projection is universal. Just as Trump Jr.'s crypto activities are at the very least unseemly, the widely acknowledged explosion in net worth of members of Congress (both parties) is prima facie evidence of profound corruption. (As they preen and mock third-world arrangements, ensnaring some inept business people in FCPA prosecutions while ignoring the Clinton Foundation's shenanigans.)
But there's hope. There's hope in the secular oscillations to which you allude (that Howe, Turchin, Friedman, Dalio, and others have documented). As unpleasant as it is, we are where we need to be as we purge the poison.
There is such profound ignorance in the US of the original intent of The Constitution.
Rights are not granted - by government, neighbors, etc.
They are ours inherently by virtue of birth. The individual, in the American system, is intended to be sovereign and unfettered by all but a few powers explicitly reserved to government. And there is to be an inverted pyramid - with the individual/family with sovereignty, then municipalities, then states, and finally the federal government.
That structure has been abused, serially, through bastardization of specific statutes like the Interstate Commerce Clause, and administrative law courts - unaccountable to anyone, much less the electorate from whom they inherit (illbegotten) authority. And most Americans know the story of rejecting a monarchy, yet are unaware of how we have embraced one that is far more insidious.
I maintain that the most profound single excerpt of our founding documents is found in Federalist 51: "It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices [checks and balances] should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
Men are not angels, as our laptop and government classes illustrate daily.
Thank you for the correction. Mr. French did indeed reference both the Senate and the Congress but didn’t make it clear that in comparing both men they were in fact executing different, albeit related functions.
As to your reference to the famous Federalst 51 Paper, I have noted many times that this is where we end up because the system is incentivized to accrue more power in a geometric progression and those doing the controlling (the “people” can’t be arsed because constant vigilance is time consuming and incrementally notvworth it - only when the compound rot has become too large and wisespewad to ignore do “the people” wake up and want to do something about it. Only their response has to be magnitudes higher as the entrenched position has the means and the incentive to resist. As you note, we are exactky where we need to be!
I struggle with the realization that for voters in the US -- probably everywhere, but certainly in the US, it comes down to whose lies does one prefer? Because they all lie, and they're all corrupt. As a younger man, I was right leaning -- I was sputtering over the brazen corruption of the Clintons, the racial grift of Obama and the influence peddling of the Biden family. I overlooked most of what occurred in Trump's first term figuring much of what happened then was incidental. But this term? My God. The Trump sons make Hunter Biden's influence peddling look like chump change. And they're not even hiding it. Not even trying to hide it. What was that number of trades in the first quarter? Like 4000 stock trades?? And all in stocks/cryptos that Trump was touting from the podium! I have to stop and ask myself, "Am I really seeing this?"
I can't imagine a scenario where if the Democrats return to power in 2028, that we won't see Trumps family and friends hounded once again with prosecution. As Doomberg wrote, "We have already past the point where we arrest former presidents." One has to imagine Trump wondering how he can forestall that fate. Anyone with a sense of history knows that one of the contributing factors to the fall of Rome was that consuls and governors, etc., grew tired of being prosecuted the moment they left office, so they began to plan accordingly, behavior that paved the road for those (Marius, Sulla, Julius) who would eventually say, "You know what? I'm not leaving."
Were it not for my young adult children, I would almost cheer the arrival of the event that will bring down this diseased citadel. I look around me and I say, "Good God, they ARE ALL scoundrels. Every one of them." And you're right, I realized it a little bit at a time. And then, like bankruptcy, it was all at once. The all at once moment for me was the casual tossing aside of inherent rights during the Covid hysteria. How quickly we were willing to yield to others who would tell us what was good for us, even though we knew them to be fools. There was a time we used to ask ourselves, "How did the 'good" Germans stand aside and watch their Jewish neighbors and friends get taken away, never to be seen again?" I no longer ask that question. The answer is just too easy. Just scare everyone enough and they'll sell out their neighbors in a heartbeat, God given rights be damned.
What a gift (Republic) that the last 2-3 generations have been willing to throw away, bit by bit, then all at once.
Thank you for this exceptional comment. Delighted to read it on waking this morning. The reference to the decline of the Roman Empire is a good one because it shows what happens when previous inviolable standards of normative behaviour become eroded to the point where playing by them is neither expected nor rational.
To my mind the social or liberal democratic political “third way” that has been the hallmark of all post war western alliance countries including the US containa the seeds of its own destruction which germinate and flourish through the munificent benefits of free market prosperity which renders a) the bourgeoisie complacent and focused on money-making and consumption, b) encourages the left wing socialist elements through that complacency and disinterest in cultural issues and c) allows the state to compound its power and accumulate vast resources which are supplied by a) and targeted by b). Because the socialist elements are by definition destructive of prosperity eventually the bourgeoisie wake up but are largely clueless as to how to reclaim what they through carelessness had thrown away but now ache for its restoration.
One detail regarding Pence. As VP, he was also "President of the Senate," and I believe it was in that capacity that he was seen as evidencing profound moral rectitude.
One could easily become despondent watching the parade of ignorant, corrupt, and odious midwits who have ensconced themselves in all levels of public and private bureaucracy. The projection is universal. Just as Trump Jr.'s crypto activities are at the very least unseemly, the widely acknowledged explosion in net worth of members of Congress (both parties) is prima facie evidence of profound corruption. (As they preen and mock third-world arrangements, ensnaring some inept business people in FCPA prosecutions while ignoring the Clinton Foundation's shenanigans.)
But there's hope. There's hope in the secular oscillations to which you allude (that Howe, Turchin, Friedman, Dalio, and others have documented). As unpleasant as it is, we are where we need to be as we purge the poison.
There is such profound ignorance in the US of the original intent of The Constitution.
Rights are not granted - by government, neighbors, etc.
They are ours inherently by virtue of birth. The individual, in the American system, is intended to be sovereign and unfettered by all but a few powers explicitly reserved to government. And there is to be an inverted pyramid - with the individual/family with sovereignty, then municipalities, then states, and finally the federal government.
That structure has been abused, serially, through bastardization of specific statutes like the Interstate Commerce Clause, and administrative law courts - unaccountable to anyone, much less the electorate from whom they inherit (illbegotten) authority. And most Americans know the story of rejecting a monarchy, yet are unaware of how we have embraced one that is far more insidious.
I maintain that the most profound single excerpt of our founding documents is found in Federalist 51: "It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices [checks and balances] should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
Men are not angels, as our laptop and government classes illustrate daily.
Thank you for the correction. Mr. French did indeed reference both the Senate and the Congress but didn’t make it clear that in comparing both men they were in fact executing different, albeit related functions.
As to your reference to the famous Federalst 51 Paper, I have noted many times that this is where we end up because the system is incentivized to accrue more power in a geometric progression and those doing the controlling (the “people” can’t be arsed because constant vigilance is time consuming and incrementally notvworth it - only when the compound rot has become too large and wisespewad to ignore do “the people” wake up and want to do something about it. Only their response has to be magnitudes higher as the entrenched position has the means and the incentive to resist. As you note, we are exactky where we need to be!
Awesome surmise of our political state and the state of those entrenching their lives and sleep in their beliefs
I struggle with the realization that for voters in the US -- probably everywhere, but certainly in the US, it comes down to whose lies does one prefer? Because they all lie, and they're all corrupt. As a younger man, I was right leaning -- I was sputtering over the brazen corruption of the Clintons, the racial grift of Obama and the influence peddling of the Biden family. I overlooked most of what occurred in Trump's first term figuring much of what happened then was incidental. But this term? My God. The Trump sons make Hunter Biden's influence peddling look like chump change. And they're not even hiding it. Not even trying to hide it. What was that number of trades in the first quarter? Like 4000 stock trades?? And all in stocks/cryptos that Trump was touting from the podium! I have to stop and ask myself, "Am I really seeing this?"
I can't imagine a scenario where if the Democrats return to power in 2028, that we won't see Trumps family and friends hounded once again with prosecution. As Doomberg wrote, "We have already past the point where we arrest former presidents." One has to imagine Trump wondering how he can forestall that fate. Anyone with a sense of history knows that one of the contributing factors to the fall of Rome was that consuls and governors, etc., grew tired of being prosecuted the moment they left office, so they began to plan accordingly, behavior that paved the road for those (Marius, Sulla, Julius) who would eventually say, "You know what? I'm not leaving."
Were it not for my young adult children, I would almost cheer the arrival of the event that will bring down this diseased citadel. I look around me and I say, "Good God, they ARE ALL scoundrels. Every one of them." And you're right, I realized it a little bit at a time. And then, like bankruptcy, it was all at once. The all at once moment for me was the casual tossing aside of inherent rights during the Covid hysteria. How quickly we were willing to yield to others who would tell us what was good for us, even though we knew them to be fools. There was a time we used to ask ourselves, "How did the 'good" Germans stand aside and watch their Jewish neighbors and friends get taken away, never to be seen again?" I no longer ask that question. The answer is just too easy. Just scare everyone enough and they'll sell out their neighbors in a heartbeat, God given rights be damned.
What a gift (Republic) that the last 2-3 generations have been willing to throw away, bit by bit, then all at once.
Thank you for this exceptional comment. Delighted to read it on waking this morning. The reference to the decline of the Roman Empire is a good one because it shows what happens when previous inviolable standards of normative behaviour become eroded to the point where playing by them is neither expected nor rational.
To my mind the social or liberal democratic political “third way” that has been the hallmark of all post war western alliance countries including the US containa the seeds of its own destruction which germinate and flourish through the munificent benefits of free market prosperity which renders a) the bourgeoisie complacent and focused on money-making and consumption, b) encourages the left wing socialist elements through that complacency and disinterest in cultural issues and c) allows the state to compound its power and accumulate vast resources which are supplied by a) and targeted by b). Because the socialist elements are by definition destructive of prosperity eventually the bourgeoisie wake up but are largely clueless as to how to reclaim what they through carelessness had thrown away but now ache for its restoration.