Knives

     Circus knife throwers go through a lot of beautiful young assistants in scanty costumes. That’s not because they “miss” all that often; obviously not, or their unique occupation would have been banned long ago. Rather; it’s because the young beauty’s fear that sooner or later the day will come eventually wears her down. She “retires” alive, well, and determined to find a less emotionally trying trade.

     I have a feeling that this is what’s happening to the Usurper Administration.

     The stories about departures from Vice-Usurper Kamala Harris’s staff are already legion. While the reasons given for those departures are varied, many of them cite hostile working conditions and a lack of appreciation from Harris. It doesn’t surprise me. It’s the no-talents of the world, like Harris, who are most prone to blaming others for their failures.

     But give Harris this much: she’s sentient. She’s aware of her surroundings. She reacts consciously rather than needing to have her strings jerked. Rather a lot of knives have been hurled at her for her inability – or unwillingness – to deal with any of the matters placed in her orbit, particularly the crisis at the southern border. There’s a sense in the air that this is wearing her down…and that she’s transmitting the stress to those around her.

     I doubt that the staffers around Usurper-in-Chief Joe Biden are receiving the same sort of treatment from their marionette. Biden is barely able to stir the needles on an electroencephalograph. The rumor is that the White House physician was given two EKG charts, one from Biden and one from a bowl of lime Jell-O®, and was unable to tell which was which. At any rate, Biden has given no indication that he’s resisting being told to spew pure shit.

     Yesterday’s rant from Biden is evidence that he still does what he’s told, without rebelling. It was tripe liberally seasoned with lies and slanders of a man whose name he’s not fit to speak. It was the sort of emission that’s dropped his credibility to zero and his approval ratings to below Jimmy Carter. Only his boughten allies in the media treated it as serious statecraft. If Biden were even dimly aware of its absurdity – or of the public’s reaction to it – he wouldn’t have emitted any of it.

     The public knows he’s a puppet. But that doesn’t bother him. Why should it? He gets to sit in the Oval Office and “play president,” with all the perquisites of that post, which is all he’s wanted or sought since 1987. The sort of knives that are gradually flaying his vice-president don’t affect him. They don’t even register on his awareness, such as it is.

     But those are not the only knives of significance.

***

     A rational man of, say, 1945 would look upon our current political situation and reject it immediately. “A federal government knowingly doing its damnedest to destroy the country? C’mon!” he would say. “This is a plot for an absurdist novel, right?” But it is not so. That is our predicament at this time. It doesn’t look as if it will change soon.

     And as threatening as it is, it’s not the only knife at our throat. Consider all of these:

  • The COVID-19 pseudo-pandemic and the vaccine mandates;
  • The decimation of the American workforce;
  • Red China’s stranglehold on our electronics industry;
  • The truncation of American energy production and exploration;
  • The feminization and politicization of our military;
  • The supply-chain crisis;
  • The paralysis of law enforcement by accusations of “racism;”
  • The penetration of the schools by explicitly anti-American doctrines;
  • The insane evangelization of “transgenderism;”
  • The destruction of trust in the integrity of America’s elections.

     That’s ten critical threats to the nation off the top of my head. Any one of them could cut our national throat. I’m sure the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch can think of several others.

     How long can we possibly have left? Sooner or later, one or more of those knives will bite flesh.

     Private, law-abiding citizens are weary and more. They’re disaffiliating from the public discourse, unwilling to give it any more of their sharply diminished energy. This is not a formula for improvement. Rather, it’s a key to the corridors of power for the very worst men in the world.

     Perhaps it had to happen. “States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude and their decay.” (Walter S. Landor) Or we have this poignantly funny formulation from no other than Allan Sherman:

     Every government is a geejy bird.

     The geejy bird is a strange creature; it flies only once in its lifetime, but that flight is a spectacle to behold. The geejy bird appears suddenly, standing on a limb, young, elegant, proud, and respectable. Surveying the horizon, it spreads its majestic wings and swoops upward in a wide graceful curve, with magnificent wing flappings, and loud glory whoops. When it reaches maximum altitude, it begins its elegant descent, an ever narrowing spiral. It makes smaller and smaller circles in the sky until, suddenly and mysteriously, it vanishes through its own asshole.

     No one knows where geejy birds go—probably back where they came from. Unfortunately, when they go, they take us along. We are all subjects of one geejy bird or another; we are born and live and die during one of these mad flights. To be born early in the flight is, at least, exciting; the air sparkles with hopes and dreams, and there are worthwhile things to be done. To board the flight in the soaring stage is next best; there is a fresh wind and a feel of strong wings and a dizzying view of the world.

     But what about those of us who are born near the end of the flight? We can’t jump off; the fall would be fatal. In vain we scream, “Turn around, great geejy bird! Turn back in thy flight!” Too late. There is nothing to do but make the best of it. We snap to attention, salute, and begin to sing our stirring anthem. “God Bless Our Geejy Bird!” Together we bravely enter the turd tunnel to oblivion.

     Even the friendliest geejy birds share certain boorish instincts with the disgusting ones. The species is fundamentally predatory. Thus, over a 200-year period the American geejy bird slowly gobbled up all the power it could eat, until it began to look suspiciously like the Louis XIV geejy bird.

     Sometimes I get so mad at government, I could almost become an anarchist—but not quite. In my opinion, anarchy is nothing more than the embryo of government—an inadvertent way to hatch another geejy bird, and there are enough geejy birds already.

     I’ve written about anarchist societies and their inherent instability, too. But that’s merely a special case of a general rule, first formulated in pre-Christian Era China for the benefit of a troubled Emperor: “And this, too, shall pass away.” All the signs of the moment point to a “passing away” of the Republic in the foreseeable future.

     What, then, must we do?

***

     “For centuries Galactic civilization has stagnated and declined, though only a few ever realized that. But now, at last, the Periphery is breaking away and the political unity of the Empire is shattered. Somewhere in the fifty years just past is where the historians of the future will place an arbitrary line and say: ‘This marks the Fall of the Galactic Empire.’
     “And they will be right, though scarcely any will recognize that Fall for additional centuries.”

     [Isaac Asimov, Foundation]

     The five-word question that ends the preceding section was Lenin’s question to the Bolsheviks in pre-Revolution Russia. (Sometimes quoted as “What is to be done?” but I prefer the active-voice form.) It’s a serious question. If the Republic is fated to “pass away” – indeed, it may have done so already – that does not mean that our communities and our lives as individuals will pass away with it. What constructive actions can individuals or small communities take to lessen the sting of the blade?

     It’s not an easy question to answer, for the answer depends heavily on one’s context. I know several people who’ve purchased land and constructed refuges for their families and similarly minded friends. I was invited to join one. I found the prospect appealing, but my personal circumstances forbade it. For myself and others, personal preparations for shortages, the collapse of collectivized services, the demise of established institutions, and an outbreak of unrestrained predation may be the best we can do. But for all of us the key insight is common:


Things are changing,
And not for the better.

     Mind you, there is still a small but non-zero probability of righting the ship. We can certainly hope for it…but as has been said too many times, hope is not a strategy. While our prayers are with those laboring to save the Republic, the odds are not.

     The ideals of freedom, of individual rights, and of objective justice under easily understood laws can be preserved. But needless to say, that won’t be a role for to those who fall with the Republic. It will be the job of those who outlast it. As Mark Steyn and others have noted, the future, whatever shape it may take, will belong to those who show up for it.

     For those who marvel at our ability to stagger from crisis to crisis without experiencing a disaster and think we can continue indefinitely to overload our economic and social system with laws of plunder and legislative nonsense, I will remind you that the man who is guillotined is breathing right up to the moment the blade hits his neck. — “John Galt”

     Have a nice day.

3 comments

    • Grumpy on January 7, 2022 at 8:52 AM

    Those that matter and outlast the Republic are the Remnant. See here for ideas on what to do:

    https://mises.org/library/isaiahs-job

    Only a few will actually survive to rebuild. They are the remnant. My efforts are on them. The rest are already lost.

    Happy Trails.

    Grumpy

    • Hoagie on January 7, 2022 at 5:27 PM

    Today is my 71st birthday.   I seem to be on schedule.

    • ontoiran on January 8, 2022 at 11:22 AM

    “While our prayers are with those laboring to save the Republic, the odds are not.”

    all they have to do is tell us who they are; what they’re doing; where they are and what they want us to do

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