The Paramount Social Principle

     Way back when the world was, if not new, still only gently used, I wrote a rather melancholic piece about the loss of trust. It evoked a range of reactions from “C’mon!” all the way to “It’s even worse than you think, Fran.” But I was mostly right. Where I failed was in noting that we still had farther to fall.

     This morning, statistician William F. Briggs discourses on the current sham posturing as “science.” Here’s a quick taste:

     “Wait two weeks,” the political appointee who heads the CDC said, repeating the Safety First Mantra. “Wear your masks and the Dreaded Delta will subside. Our new The Science, which you must believe, says so.”

     I might have got the quote wrong in detail. But it’s right in spirit.

     I did, however, get right their new The Science report. And it’s perfect.

     A perfect example of how The Science is conducted these days. Which is to say, badly. The conclusion foregone, the assumptions unverified, the methods shoddy, the results political.

     Indeed. I could not have put it any better than that. But the consequences of prior pseudoscientific posturing by the CDC is what really matters: The great majority of Americans have declined to take its “advice.”

     Our political class being what it is – i.e., vicious garbage that deserves to be stood up against a wall and shot to rags – we know what to expect. The Fearsome Frontman of the COVID Clowns, Anthony Fauci, has given us a rather broad hint:

     In this clip from Anthony Fauci on ABC This Week Sunday [Rumble Link], the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, claims that individual rights no longer exist during the era of COVID-19. When you consider the mindset of the far-left, his opinion on communal rights -vs- individual rights is right in line with the collectivist perspective. These people are dangerous.

     “The fact is, if you get infected, even if you are without symptoms, you very well may infect another person who may be vulnerable … So in essence, you are encroaching on their individual rights.”

     Scared yet? You should be. And not just because the federal government is edging toward explicitly suspending the Constitution. You see, even if you’re not scared, your neighbors are – and that should worry you:

     Gun and ammo sales are soaring under this administration. Shortages are reported by hunters, law enforcement, and other gun users.

     Manufacturers say they are producing as much as they can but in many gun stores shelves are sparse and prices are concurrently rising.

     Why are so many people arming themselves? I’m sure there are several reasons, but the one I find most compelling is the possibility that, as has already happened in Australia, our federal government might deploy the military to enforce its will upon us. Mask mandates? Lockdowns? Mandatory vaccinations? Should posse comitatus not be respected, the sky’s the limit. The only imaginable countermeasure would be armed resistance. Should the lead start to fly, you’d better be ready to declare your allegiance. The category of noncombatant would swiftly disappear.

     Concerning the political class’s arrogance and undisguised determination to have its way, Kurt Schlichter has a few thoughts:

     Imagine, and this will be hard, these masterminds getting up and saying, “America, we were wrong about something. We thought it was right, but we tested it and we found we were not right. Here is the data, and now that we have better information, we are changing our recommendation.”

     What would we say? “Oh, okay. They were doing the best they can and being straight with us. People make mistakes. We need to learn from them. After all, it’s been a century since the last pandemic so we have a lot of lessons to re-learn. Let’s move forward.”

     But no. No, there’s no humility. They make a mistake and they don’t stand up and admit it. Instead, they just change the narrative and act as if the narrative du jour was always the narrative. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. But we’re not blind or stupid for noticing.

     They tell us the vaccine is going to make us immune from COVID. Then it turns out you can still get it, just not as bad. Yet when people notice this 180-degree spin, the smart set shrieks like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

     Humility and the willingness to admit to error are not characteristics one should expect to find in persons determined to wield absolute, unbounded, and utterly unaccountable power. Moreover, they’ll use any and every means available:

     “When I was COO at Paypal,” writes David Sacks, “we worked with law enforcement to restrict illegal activity. What Paypal now proposes is very different: shutting down people expressing views that are entirely lawful, just not popular in Silicon Valley.”….

     In an article on Bari Weiss’s substack, Sacks, a liberal, wrote, “But now PayPal is turning its back on its original mission. It is now leading the charge to restrict participation by those it deems unworthy.”

     That might not strike you as a huge threat, until you consider that PayPal is a bellwether for the electronic funds transfer industry. Its competitors are likely to follow its lead, with consequences you and I would feel rather keenly. And don’t shrug and say that we’d all just go back to writing checks and licking envelope flaps. Other major financial institutions, including credit-card backers and commercial banks, are being pressured to do much the same. What would life be like for you if you couldn’t get paid, or cash a check, or access the funds in your savings or IRA?

     How many major institutions will comply with the Left’s pogrom against us, we cannot know. What we can know is that the Usurpers will use every lever available to bend as many of them as possible. The banks are particularly vulnerable, owing to the nature of the Federal Reserve System. No payments processor can function without the banks.

     The quintessential requirement of human life in peace is trust: the common man’s readiness, willingness, and ability to turn his back on a neighbor. (Here neighbor means anyone near enough to you to affect you materially, not just the people with addresses on your block.) But the traditionally high-trust society of these United States is disappearing as we speak. It’s being destroyed by the federal government, the many institutions dependent upon its good will, and the left-wing totalitarian activists who seek the destruction of everything and everyone they don’t control absolutely.

     Quoth Benjamin M. Anderson:

     There is no need in human life so great as that men should trust one another and should trust their government, should believe in promises, and should keep promises in order that future promises may be believed in and in order that confident cooperation may be possible. Good faith — personal, national, and international — is the first prerequisite of decent living, of the steady going on of industry, of governmental financial strength, and of international peace.

     Buy guns and ammo? Hell, yes! I’m already well armed, and I’d still be buying more, if there were any left on the shelves. The balloon hasn’t gone up yet, but the fingers holding it are getting awfully twitchy. You don’t want to be unprepared when they let go. Trust me on that…if there’s any trust left in you, and with that it’s time to close.

     Have a nice day.

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  1. Quoting Kurt:

    But no. No, there’s no humility. They make a mistake and they don’t stand up and admit it. Instead, they just change the narrative and act as if the narrative du jour was always the narrative. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. But we’re not blind or stupid for noticing.

    As our host wrote some time ago, one of the critical keys in life is humility, as in the ability to admit one was wrong (among other things).  This ties in very well with Thomas Sowell and his books Vision of the Anointed and Intellectuals and Society.  They are the Elites – how can they be wrong?

    • Malatrope on August 2, 2021 at 10:56 AM

    I know that my wife and I are trying to get as much travelling done as possible (as in sight-seeing and pretending this is all still our country and home) before it is impossible so to do.

    We’re prepared to fort up at home and help our small town defend itself. Our county and state are heavily “red” and I do believe the fighting lines won’t get all the way to our house, but with that said it would take a helicopter 15 minutes to clean out the town.

    My wife is severely disabled. We cannot “run to the mountains”.

    Godspeed.

    • Ward Dorrity on August 2, 2021 at 1:05 PM

    Savagely on point as usual, but particularly so here. The US appears to be making the leap directly from a high-trust society to a no-trust society with breathtaking speed. One only has to contemplate other no-trust societies to understand what that portends for us. Our motto for action is now: KTF.

    • Butch DuCote on August 2, 2021 at 4:08 PM

    ”  Buy guns and ammo? Hell, yes! I’m already well armed, and I’d still be buying more, if there were any left on the shelves.”

    That’s a good first step. The big step is training and more training. I consider the following skills, in no particular order, minimum:

    1. Can I deliver accurate fire while moving? If you are shooting you’d best be moving.

    2. Can I shoot under pressure while trying to discriminate targets?

    3. Can I shoot bad guys without flagging good guys?

    4. Does my gun follow my eyes, or do my eyes follow my gun?

    5. Can I shoot, move and communicate as a team? Is your spouse trained to shoot as a team?

    6. If I have to leave my car under duress, do I know how do do so and get my family out safely?

    7. Do I know the difference between cover and concealment?

    8. Do I know how to properly use cover?

    9. Do I know how to properly use a weapon-mounted light without flagging good guys?

    10. How do I protect my family in an active shooter situation?

    11. How many shots should I take into a bad guy?

    12. How do I break tunnel vision?

    13. What is getting off the “X”?

    14. Can I think under pressure? Do I have a system to do so?

    15. Do I know the three ways to stop a threat?

    16. Can I reload if my shooting arm is hit?

    17. Have I trained to shoot with my support hand?

    18. Do I know how to reload without taking my eyes off of the threat?

    19. Do I know the proper procedure if my weapon fails to fire or jams? What would be my “immediate action”?

    20. Do I know how to properly draw from a holster?

    21. What do I do if I am hit by gunfire?

    22. Do I know how to stop the bleed?

    23. Do I know how to deal with multiple threats?

    24. Do I have a plan for a home invasion?

    25. Can I shoot accurately from various positions?

    26. Can I transition from a rifle to a handgun?

    27. Is my firearm choice appropriate for my living environment and conditions? Will it over- penetrate?

    28. Can I hit a moving target?

  2. From a comment over at Surak’s place:

    [M]y son gave me an unusual phone call, in which he warned me to stay alert. He couldn’t tell me why, of course … which frustrates me to no end, as you might suspect.

    This corresponds with sightings by me of long lines of military vehicles on tractor trailers heading west. Two days ago, I saw enough M1A2 tanks to equip an armored brigade. Now, I’m getting reports from friends that the US military is on the move in several states.

    Surak then follows up with a comment about Lindell’s upcoming symposium purporting to show “absolute proof” the election was stolen.  Leaving aside the rather obvious fact that there’s no Constitutional method of which I know to remedy the situation should this pass evidentiary muster, what next?

    Ever since forever, or so it seems, we’ve been told by even Conservative Inc. that we must respect the election even if we disagree, that there must be a peaceful transition of power, and so on.  We are hectored again and again and again about the need to “remain peaceful” regardless.

    I am treading a very fine line here, and certainly do not advocate for the start of any violent action.  But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Left, having power, is 100% determined to hold it regardless.  Regardless of honor, decency, fealty to America, love of the Constitution, etc.

    Something is coming, I can feel it.

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