The percentage of those who've decided to act as though the law doesn't apply to them--and so far, are getting away with it--is growing exponentially. Consider Amon Bundy, the Malheur Refuge occupiers, Air Force cadets refusing to follow orders to be vaccinated, Kyle Rittenhouse and his mom, George Floyd's killers, Presidents and elected…
The percentage of those who've decided to act as though the law doesn't apply to them--and so far, are getting away with it--is growing exponentially. Consider Amon Bundy, the Malheur Refuge occupiers, Air Force cadets refusing to follow orders to be vaccinated, Kyle Rittenhouse and his mom, George Floyd's killers, Presidents and elected officials lying their heads off in public, Congressmen/women openly selling favors to the highest bidders, Supreme Court justices making it up as they go along, high-echelon treason-weasels ignoring subpoenas issued by the Jan.6 Congressional Investigatory Committee, vote-suppressing autocrat wannabes, as well as too many others to mention here.
So my question is: what's the law-flouters' plan when rank and file American citizens who normally play by the rules--"the system" these creeps seek to exploit and dominate by extra-legal means--respond in kind? How will scofflaws function in a society of folks who've come to the similar conclusion playing by the rules just isn't working for them anymore, and so takes civil disobedience to a grievously predictable, but whole 'nother level? Who's going to intervene on their behalf to ensure they get their day in court when the fed-up-with-their-shit mob says, "Nah, just get a rope"? When all their performative bullshit is reduced, essentially, to the equivalent of a last cigarette? When the governed throw off the yoke of civilization, and deal with out-tribe malcontents who've been going around, aggravating the crap out of everybody, by using their own arguments--"natural freedoms," sovereign citizenship, highly subjective (if not just plain egregiously disingenuous) interpretations of established law, the Bible, Q, white Jesus, etc.--to remove them expeditiously, and in a way that sets an example?
This is America, after all. Law-flouters like Elon Musk, Formerly, Bannon, et al would do well to remember that a country comprised of armed rugged individuals (who've been exhorted for ages to live by the tenets of our revolutionary founding), is, at best, an unpredictable place to set up shop. Sooner or later, there's gonna be tea everywhere.
Holly, this perfectly encapsulates the problem. BUT the "powers that be" already have thought all this out.
Law enforcement will be explicitly dispatched to protect "high value" individuals, properties and resources.That is why so many sheriff's and police departments look more like armored divisions of a military unit than community policing agencies.
There will be a boom in private and well armed security services hired to protect those who can afford the protection.
Gated communities will become walled and well armed communities where all inside can get a good night's sleep.
We already know that the court system operates in four systems. Criminal law where the poor and less affluent receive one kind of justice and those with resources receive something kinder and gentler. Civil law courts where the well resourced have the power to prevail and the ordinary citizen can no longer even get a hearing.
The government has already been captured by the wealthy. In olden days when the wealthy were busy generating and accumulating money they hired politicians to protect their interests. NOW the wealthy ARE the government themselves. 96% of Congress is in the upper 20% of wealth holders. Almost half are in the upper 1% and the other half are in the next 9%. Ultimately they have the entire military at their disposal to protect their interests.
That government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich shall not perish from the earth. And to be honest this has been the organizing principal of all governments down through the ages. But the American experiment and liberal democracy depended on the enlightened self interest of the wealthy. That rational self-interest that acknowledged limits has now been eclipsed by mere greed unbounded by restraint.
Machiavelli could not have dreamed up an environment better suited to for a new age of the Medicis ensconced in every luxury while the bulk of the country fights for survival. In the preoccupation with that fight the majority remain organizationally powerless to challenge the chosen order.
We will live in a world where the wealthy will fly over our heads in helicopters and private jets and enjoy the cultural delights of civilization while the rest of us amuse ourselves with the "Punch and Judy Show" of reality TV and morality is only a much dreamt of superpower possessed by comic book characters in the latest DC/Marvel epic. Bourgeois morality will be a luxury none of us can afford.
This is something I've been aware of for quite some time. Recently, however, it occurred to me the great masses always have and have had the ultimate power to determine a population's destiny--if, that is, they're willing to absorb/suffer the temporary discomfort, pain and mortality occasioned when taking back their shit (read: lives) from those who've blithely stolen from them for so long.
Not saying it's gonna happen anytime next week, but I imagine the courts of Charles I, Louis XVI, the Shah of Iran, and the Empress of China were not at all prepared when their hereditary privileges and so-called "rights" to govern any way they wanted all at once went up in flames either. Frankly, that's what I believe is at the heart of the militia movements not as yet co-opted by the fascist state; they're sick and tired of living like serfs. Abhorrent as I find their politics and actions, I kinda get it, and I suspect more and more ordinary, law-abiding folks are getting it, too.
But that's a digression. My question remains: what's the scofflaw class going to do to subdue an un-subservient populace, besides beginning to shoot everything that moves, I mean? And trust me, they can't build walls high enough or hire enough guns to defend themselves from a people they've not only cultivated to despise any and all authority, but have made damned sure are armed to the teeth as well. How do they game out their options when 90% of the world really is out to get them, and has become so inured to violence, it no longer has the capacity to care if it has to die to see that it gets done?
Elon Musk's plan to evacuate rich guys to the Moon or Mars doesn't count, BTW.
To be fair, the lowest salary in Congress is $174,000 putting 100% of congresspersons in the upper 6% regardless of their wealth or lack thereof before being elected. 20% of Americans are upper class with a median household income of $200,000. I do not think there was ever a time when members of congress were not wealthy compared to all Americans.
One hundred years ago, America faced a similar period of wealth disparity. Partially the Great Depression, but also the aggressive action of government against monopolies, brought it under control. We are in a similar situation where mergers have created effective monopolies in almost every good or service we purchase. The baby formula crisis may well be the trigger that motivates Congress to break up these monopolies and encourage healthy redundancies in the economy.
There's a depressingly cynical part of me that wonders whether police thought that as minority shopowners, the proprietors were probably supportive of the protests, so they deserved what happened to their stores.
It's the same where I live. Crime is rampant in the lower income communities of color I used to live in, while where I live now is virtually crime-free. When I called the cops before, they never came. Never. For example, the obviously out-of-his-head-on-something guy who took off all his clothes in broad daylight in front of my house, and started trying to climb the 8' iron fence between the street and my courtyard. My dogs were barking their heads off (rather menacingly) and I told him to stop over and over, but he kept trying to climb and falling down even after I turned the hose on him in desperation. This went on for 30 minutes. Innumerable 911 calls later, I finally told the dispatcher I didn't want to shoot the crazy guy, but I couldn't let him on my courtyard. If the cops weren't coming, I said, I wanted to be on the record as having tried everything before resorting to lethal force. She told me to go ahead and shoot him. Luckily for me, the crazy guy's system ran out of whatever it was juicing him up, and he wandered off, naked, down the street, never to be seen again.
Contrast that charming vignette with my daughter's call to 911 in my new neighborhood, informing them her mom "was being mean to her," which was answered by two of the city's finest within 3 minutes, whereupon I was questioned about this reported "domestic violence incident" for nearly an hour.
This is the way of the world--until we make it different.
The percentage of those who've decided to act as though the law doesn't apply to them--and so far, are getting away with it--is growing exponentially. Consider Amon Bundy, the Malheur Refuge occupiers, Air Force cadets refusing to follow orders to be vaccinated, Kyle Rittenhouse and his mom, George Floyd's killers, Presidents and elected officials lying their heads off in public, Congressmen/women openly selling favors to the highest bidders, Supreme Court justices making it up as they go along, high-echelon treason-weasels ignoring subpoenas issued by the Jan.6 Congressional Investigatory Committee, vote-suppressing autocrat wannabes, as well as too many others to mention here.
So my question is: what's the law-flouters' plan when rank and file American citizens who normally play by the rules--"the system" these creeps seek to exploit and dominate by extra-legal means--respond in kind? How will scofflaws function in a society of folks who've come to the similar conclusion playing by the rules just isn't working for them anymore, and so takes civil disobedience to a grievously predictable, but whole 'nother level? Who's going to intervene on their behalf to ensure they get their day in court when the fed-up-with-their-shit mob says, "Nah, just get a rope"? When all their performative bullshit is reduced, essentially, to the equivalent of a last cigarette? When the governed throw off the yoke of civilization, and deal with out-tribe malcontents who've been going around, aggravating the crap out of everybody, by using their own arguments--"natural freedoms," sovereign citizenship, highly subjective (if not just plain egregiously disingenuous) interpretations of established law, the Bible, Q, white Jesus, etc.--to remove them expeditiously, and in a way that sets an example?
This is America, after all. Law-flouters like Elon Musk, Formerly, Bannon, et al would do well to remember that a country comprised of armed rugged individuals (who've been exhorted for ages to live by the tenets of our revolutionary founding), is, at best, an unpredictable place to set up shop. Sooner or later, there's gonna be tea everywhere.
Holly, this perfectly encapsulates the problem. BUT the "powers that be" already have thought all this out.
Law enforcement will be explicitly dispatched to protect "high value" individuals, properties and resources.That is why so many sheriff's and police departments look more like armored divisions of a military unit than community policing agencies.
There will be a boom in private and well armed security services hired to protect those who can afford the protection.
Gated communities will become walled and well armed communities where all inside can get a good night's sleep.
We already know that the court system operates in four systems. Criminal law where the poor and less affluent receive one kind of justice and those with resources receive something kinder and gentler. Civil law courts where the well resourced have the power to prevail and the ordinary citizen can no longer even get a hearing.
The government has already been captured by the wealthy. In olden days when the wealthy were busy generating and accumulating money they hired politicians to protect their interests. NOW the wealthy ARE the government themselves. 96% of Congress is in the upper 20% of wealth holders. Almost half are in the upper 1% and the other half are in the next 9%. Ultimately they have the entire military at their disposal to protect their interests.
That government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich shall not perish from the earth. And to be honest this has been the organizing principal of all governments down through the ages. But the American experiment and liberal democracy depended on the enlightened self interest of the wealthy. That rational self-interest that acknowledged limits has now been eclipsed by mere greed unbounded by restraint.
Machiavelli could not have dreamed up an environment better suited to for a new age of the Medicis ensconced in every luxury while the bulk of the country fights for survival. In the preoccupation with that fight the majority remain organizationally powerless to challenge the chosen order.
We will live in a world where the wealthy will fly over our heads in helicopters and private jets and enjoy the cultural delights of civilization while the rest of us amuse ourselves with the "Punch and Judy Show" of reality TV and morality is only a much dreamt of superpower possessed by comic book characters in the latest DC/Marvel epic. Bourgeois morality will be a luxury none of us can afford.
This is something I've been aware of for quite some time. Recently, however, it occurred to me the great masses always have and have had the ultimate power to determine a population's destiny--if, that is, they're willing to absorb/suffer the temporary discomfort, pain and mortality occasioned when taking back their shit (read: lives) from those who've blithely stolen from them for so long.
Not saying it's gonna happen anytime next week, but I imagine the courts of Charles I, Louis XVI, the Shah of Iran, and the Empress of China were not at all prepared when their hereditary privileges and so-called "rights" to govern any way they wanted all at once went up in flames either. Frankly, that's what I believe is at the heart of the militia movements not as yet co-opted by the fascist state; they're sick and tired of living like serfs. Abhorrent as I find their politics and actions, I kinda get it, and I suspect more and more ordinary, law-abiding folks are getting it, too.
But that's a digression. My question remains: what's the scofflaw class going to do to subdue an un-subservient populace, besides beginning to shoot everything that moves, I mean? And trust me, they can't build walls high enough or hire enough guns to defend themselves from a people they've not only cultivated to despise any and all authority, but have made damned sure are armed to the teeth as well. How do they game out their options when 90% of the world really is out to get them, and has become so inured to violence, it no longer has the capacity to care if it has to die to see that it gets done?
Elon Musk's plan to evacuate rich guys to the Moon or Mars doesn't count, BTW.
To be fair, the lowest salary in Congress is $174,000 putting 100% of congresspersons in the upper 6% regardless of their wealth or lack thereof before being elected. 20% of Americans are upper class with a median household income of $200,000. I do not think there was ever a time when members of congress were not wealthy compared to all Americans.
One hundred years ago, America faced a similar period of wealth disparity. Partially the Great Depression, but also the aggressive action of government against monopolies, brought it under control. We are in a similar situation where mergers have created effective monopolies in almost every good or service we purchase. The baby formula crisis may well be the trigger that motivates Congress to break up these monopolies and encourage healthy redundancies in the economy.
Re: baby formula crisis, you may very well be right.
There's a depressingly cynical part of me that wonders whether police thought that as minority shopowners, the proprietors were probably supportive of the protests, so they deserved what happened to their stores.
Depressing indeed. Cynical? Maybe not.
It's the same where I live. Crime is rampant in the lower income communities of color I used to live in, while where I live now is virtually crime-free. When I called the cops before, they never came. Never. For example, the obviously out-of-his-head-on-something guy who took off all his clothes in broad daylight in front of my house, and started trying to climb the 8' iron fence between the street and my courtyard. My dogs were barking their heads off (rather menacingly) and I told him to stop over and over, but he kept trying to climb and falling down even after I turned the hose on him in desperation. This went on for 30 minutes. Innumerable 911 calls later, I finally told the dispatcher I didn't want to shoot the crazy guy, but I couldn't let him on my courtyard. If the cops weren't coming, I said, I wanted to be on the record as having tried everything before resorting to lethal force. She told me to go ahead and shoot him. Luckily for me, the crazy guy's system ran out of whatever it was juicing him up, and he wandered off, naked, down the street, never to be seen again.
Contrast that charming vignette with my daughter's call to 911 in my new neighborhood, informing them her mom "was being mean to her," which was answered by two of the city's finest within 3 minutes, whereupon I was questioned about this reported "domestic violence incident" for nearly an hour.
This is the way of the world--until we make it different.