Sometimes it’s good when things come to a head
Bookworm on Jun 24 2010 at 1:18 pm | Filed under: Elections
For many years (probably more than a decade), I battled a subcutaneous staph infection. Most of the time, it wasn’t a problem, but when my immune system got low for any reason, I’d get painful outbreaks. I hated the outbreaks, but tolerated them without medical intervention because they invariably went away on their own. Given that tincture of time worked, I was loath to try more aggressive treatment, which would have come in the form of antibiotics. I react very, very badly to antibiotics, veering between disabling nausea and hives, which are scary, since they can be the predicate to a full blown anaphylactic reaction. In other words, I had a problem and, while it often had a debilitating effect on me, I avoided addressing it directly, since passivity seemed to work.
A couple of months ago, possibly because years of dealing with the staph infection had finally compromised my immune system beyond the point of no return, I had an outbreak that I couldn’t ignore. A trip to the doctor’s office gave me only three alternatives, none of which was tincture of time: surgery, which wasn’t likely to be successful; antibiotics; or almost certain sepsis. I bit the bullet and took the antibiotics. I was sick as a dog for 10 days, but I didn’t get hives, so I stuck with the horrible cure.
I’ve now gone two months without an outbreak, which is a record for me. It’s also a great relief not to suffer the pain and inconvenience of the outbreaks. The fact is, though, if things hadn’t become serious — that is, if matters hadn’t come to a head — I would have just bumbled along, dealing ineffectually with a chronically recurring problem, rather than submitting to a comprehensive treatment that terminated the staph infection entirely. As I’d feared, the treatment was awful but, in retrospect, the relief from a chronic staph infection made it all worth while.
It occurred to me looking back on my experience that it works pretty well as a political analogy. America has had a Statist infection for a long time. Most of the time it wasn’t a problem but, whenever the opportunity arose, Statists inserted themselves into the body politic. America was always big enough to absorb the hits to its “immune system,” whether those hits occurred in the areas of education, the economy, social norms, or national security. The country bumbled along, electing Democratic presidents and booting them out (1980) or bringing them to heel (1994). Meanwhile, without our becoming aware of it, our national immune system weakened incrementally in the face of these continued, but tolerable, assaults.
Starting in 2008, however, the American immune system had clearly become too weakened to bounce back from the continued hits. In the past two years, we’ve seen that tincture of time is inadequate to deal with the sustained Statist assaults on the American body politic. Matters are coming to a head in the form of a corrupt, inept, and quite possibly highly malevolent White House and Congress, both of which seem to be unconstrained by constitutional concerns.
Under the watch of this malignant duo, we’ve seen our economy come near collapse under policies that are stupidly, or, perhaps, intentionally, geared towards its total destruction; our national security become a “man caused disaster” joke; our southern coast line, not to mention our energy underpinnings, threatened with destruction as a result of federal policies that reflect either gross incompetence or a deliberate intention, either to destroy Big Oil or to enrich president-maker George Soros (or both); our health care system become subject to legislation that will bring down America’s premier health care system; our enemies empowered; and our allies assaulted.
In other words, matters have come to a head. The Statist infection that’s been lurking forever has so compromised our nation that we are on the verge of going septic. We can no longer sit back and wait for things simply to resolve themselves by virtue of America’s social and political immune system. We, as Americans, must act. And indeed, that’s what Americans have been doing. The Tea Party movement, which has seen normally placid conservatives taking to the streets in the hundreds and thousands is a form of aggressive treatment that is already putting the Statist infection on the defensive. The internet is another weapon in the arsenal, as people committed to individual freedoms exercised within a strong and safe America bypass the media that has helped spread the infection.
The last weapon, of course, is a totally engaged electorate. Being passive, saying that one political party is pretty much like the other, or that one vote really doesn’t matter very much, is a death sentence to a healthy body politic, and an invitation to going toxic and going down. In November, people who care about America’s fundamental health, people who recognize that matters have finally come to a head, must vote.
We’ve seen this moment before in American history. I’ll leave you with Thomas Paine’s immortal words:
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
This is our winter and we must soldier on.
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6 Responses to “Sometimes it’s good when things come to a head”
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It has long obvious, IE since at least the 1930s, that we have this infection. It breaks out whenever the country needs its strength to deal with external threats, and to make reasoned responses to internal problems. Until recently, our constitution and Constitution have been enough to hold it at bay. With the most critical part of our immune system, the press, co-opted, it has finally become a fully fledged outbreak. With luck, and a good bit of prayer, we can drive it into remission for another generation. Sadly, it appears impossible to permanently excise.
Treg
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
It remains to be seen whether the host will be able to survive the cure for this parasitic infection, given how far it has progressed. It appears that a series of treatments will be needed, including:
Massive deregulation of industry, such as repeal of Obamacare and the long-overdue restoration of healthcare to private enterprise.
1) Weaning the public off the government teat
2) Taking personal responsibility for each individuals’ lives.
3) Learning to make and sell real things of value, rather than ethereal illusions.
4) Massive layoffs in the public sectors.
5) Massive haircuts to public pension systems (including bankruptcies in order to effect change).
6) Miassive cuts to public university systems to cleanse them of worthless rent-seeking degree mills, such as ethnic and gender studies, social services, community organizing, education and related “studies”.
7) Elimination or massive restructuring of entire branches of government, such as Depts. of Energy, EPA, OSHA, USDA, FDA and Education.
9) Massive tort reform
10) Reduction of personal taxation and the re-incentivization of personal and corporate investment.
11) Tangible Social Security and Medicare reform.
12) Free-Trade
Think that the American Public is ready to take the cure?
Nah…didn’t think so. But we really have no choice!
Folks almost always remember, with a misattribution to the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson’s words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Few, however, remember this gem from the same paragraph of the D of I, “… all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” It explains so much of human behavior from avoiding simple medical treatment to the slow loss of liberties. We so easily become used to unpleastries til we no longer see them as abnormal. From time to time, we must be reminded.
Danny, good list and you are correct we have no choice but to do these things if we wish to maintain our economy and our form of government.
However, what if the goal among the elite is not to fix our problems, but make them worse, forcing us to turn to a totalitarian government because our economy collapses?
Alternately, maybe they aren’t trying to destroy our economy but are so ignorant that the idea that there are limits to how much debt our nation can support doesn’t occur to them.
I think you have to consider these two possibilities (malicious destruction or economic ignorance) are the motivating forces behind our current descent into economic madness.
OR…Could they just want to live like rock stars until the money runs out. Kind of a “let’s fiddle while America burns” kind of an attitude since they know they are the smartest guys in the room, they’ll come out on top, they always have.
Lot’s of possible motivations, none of which make me think that anything helpful will be done before it is too late. As the lady said, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!”
Nero was said to have fiddled while Rome burned. A sort of lesson on how a apathetic leader condemns his own people to starvation and death.
But historical accounts imply a different version of the tale. Nero confiscated the burned property and erected a huge monument to his own narcissistic self. Never waste a crisis, you see. But this crisis, given how fast he reacted, was most probably started by Nero himself or his orders. He ordered the burning of Rome because the aristocracy refused to give up so much land to Nero’s self-aggrandizement. Well, he taught them a thing or two about the true meaning of power.
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