Thursday, November 19, 2015

Qui Tecit Consentire

     A few readers were puzzled by this old Latin phrase. Being an old Latin student myself – interpret the “binding order” of the modifiers whichever way you please – I’m given to using such phrases when they strike me as appropriate. However, I do sympathize with those who find them impenetrable. Dead languages studied solely by wizened trolls laboring over ancient scrolls in candlelit dungeons are like that.

     A more or less literal translation would be “Who holds still consents.” Today we prefer this version: Silence gives consent.

     It’s what the entire population of the United States has been doing for some time now.


     I was freshly put in mind of this when I read this piece at The Z Blog:

     I’m no fan of inter-generational guilt or collective responsibility. You are responsible for you. You cannot pass onto your children the guilt of your deeds so that means your ancestors could not have done that to you. Holding white people in America responsible for the deeds of white people located here 200 years ago is madness. White people owe black people nothing more than they owe themselves as citizens.

     But that’s the thing. Like it or not, black, white, red, brown and yellow are here and we all have to get along as best as possible. As citizens, we have a duty to one another to work in concert so that all of us have a chance to make the most of what nature has given us. If that means special accommodations like affirmative action, well maybe that’s what’s best. I can live with it as it is a small price to pay for peace, assuming that’s what results.

     There’s the problem and it is clear in that black lives matter protest. Here we have unqualified blacks on the campus of Dartmouth, displacing better qualified Jews and Asians who would relish a chance at an Ivy League education. Instead of being grateful for the opportunity, these blacks are bitching and moaning, making a nuisance of themselves. Worse yet, they are interfering with the work of others.

     The first paragraph of the above snippet is impeccable. The second embeds the fatal assumptions. The third displays some of the consequences of remaining silent before those assumptions. The consequences have grown ever more visible these past few decades, such that today we’re told of rampaging mobs that render supposed institutions of higher learning places where learning is absent and envy-driven violence is the norm.

     The causal relation is plain and open. Why, then, do we sit here, almost perfectly passive before it? Why do we consent?

     That’s one.


     Particular portions of the United States have been infested by Muslim immigrants, largely from Africa and the Middle East. Those immigrants arrived here under provisions of a relatively young immigration law. That law was passed in reaction against older immigration and naturalization statutes that sought to stabilize the ethnic composition of the American populace. The usual non-arguments about “fairness” and “need” were prominent in the transition. In consequence, we now have some two to three million Muslims – adherents to a militant totalitarian ideology utterly opposed to American and Constitutional norms – within our borders. They grow ever more demanding and aggressive toward the rest of us. Many incidents have illustrated just how bad the situation is. If we look for a moment at England, France, or Italy, we can see how bad it could become. Yet we sit silent before it.

     The permeability of our southern border has allowed millions of Hispanic illegal aliens to flood the American Southwest. They’ve created exclaves within which English is never heard and American law goes unenforced. Today, the region’s “public” schools and other “public” institutions cater to Spanish-speakers. The zone nearest the border is a kill zone under the de facto rule of Mexican drug gangs. Americans are warned away from that region by signs posted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

     We’ve consented to that, too. Despite the conspicuous and entirely consequential deterioration of their states, Texans, Arizonans, Nevadans, New Mexicans, and Californians have accepted the invasion almost entirely without protest. Illegals who filter into the Northeastern states are welcomed tacitly for their “contributions” to our landscaping and pool maintenance. Why?

     That’s two.


     Our freedom has been severely abridged. Our economy has been hobbled. Our currency has been reduced to wastepaper. Our savings have been looted. Our privacy has been destroyed. Our military has been enervated. Our international stature – the influence that once protected Americans abroad from “official” molestation – is down to zero. Yet the tax burden on a typical family is higher than it’s ever been in our nation’s history.

     Those of us who work for corporations – today that’s a large majority of working Americans – have little choice in the matter, owing to the clever “withholding” rules enacted during World War II. Those rules, which were rationalized as necessary to finance our war effort, were supposed to be repealed when the war was over. We were told that, anyway. Yet they remain around our throats today.

     And we consent. We say little to nothing. When someone who doesn’t consent suggests an alternative course, he’s immediately ridiculed as a dreamer, an idealist, a fool. Huge efforts are put to discrediting him. He often suffers “official” harassment.

     That’s three.


     I could go on. I could give details. I could elaborate on the ingenious methods used to cow us, to subjugate us, and to persuade us that “this is how it must be.” I’ve done all that in the past. I’m not here for that purpose this morning.

     Elections change little. Mostly they put a new face to a system whose immensity and anonymity resists all attempts to change it. The best men in the country, afire with a sincere love of freedom and a solemn determination to defend it, have achieved virtually nothing. If you doubt this, consider: When Ronald Reagan left the White House, the federal government was 13% larger by body count, and 100% larger by annual expenditures, than it was when he was first inaugurated.

     (Yes, Reagan outfoxed and outmaneuvered the Soviets. Bravo to him for that; it needed doing, and he saw to it. But what about life and freedom here at home? How much did the Reagan presidency do to loosen our fetters, lighten our State-imposed burdens? Think about it.)

     It is not enough to protest.
     It is not enough to write letters to the editor.
     It is not enough to become major-party committeemen.
     It is not enough to campaign for new executives and representatives.
     It is not enough to exhort “good people” to become involved in the political process.

     The system rolls on, lubricated by our consent. We believe ourselves engaged because we speak, write, blog, and so forth. But these things are not enough. In actual effect we are silent; we have consented; and we continue to consent even as we protest. We have neglected a critical bit of home wisdom:

Actions speak louder than words.

     Though verbal dissent is required, by itself it is not enough. Merely to speak, to write, and to vote will change nothing. Millions of individual Americans must withdraw their consent, in a fashion those who have saddled and bridled us must respect: We must change our ways.

     It is unclear whether there are still sufficient alternatives to “the way things are” to make a difference. We can’t all be subsistence farmers, surely. We can’t do all our commerce by barter. Some of us must, in the nature of things, work for wages for corporations that will inevitably withhold federal, state, and local taxes from our pay. But if we still have a chance to free ourselves, the path points away from the many shacklings, overt or covert, we have endured over the century behind us.

     What, then, must we do?


     Is the above overwrought? Unrealistic? Even somehow dangerous? Perhaps. I could be wrong; it’s happened before. But I had to get it out.

     No doubt the System will roll merrily along. Human inertia is considerable. We tend to choose the path of least resistance. Most of us will tell ourselves that “there’s nothing I can do,” and pass on to some more manageable set of considerations, such as where to have lunch.

     Have a nice day.

4 comments:

Bob Parish said...

Concise - direct - uncomfortable - revealing . . . . . . .

Now that you have knocked the scab off, I am staring at the wound deciding what to do?

Manu said...

It will come to war. It always comes to war. There is a certain type of person that does not respond to anything at all except threat of death. There are a few (especially in the Islamic world) who do not even respond to that.

But what will convince Americans to go to war against... themselves?

Anonymous said...

You say, "It's happened before." Which I take to mean you being wrong.

Not to worry, you're NOT wrong, or overwrought, or unrealistic. And the situation you describe is accurate. I can tell you this because "It's happened before."

"But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty—
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty—"
-- John Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1671.

The date of that quote is interesting in that it predates America's founding by quite a bit, and that it is 3.5 centuries before many clearly see evidence of its truth in this country. But Milton was describing the servitude of Israel to the Philistines 3.5 millennia ago. And, acknowledging that, even then, Samson knew it to be the fate of nations back to oldest antiquity.

Truly, "There is nothing new under the sun." "There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those who come after." (Eccl. 1:11)

We face a fundament of human nature. The ass-end of the fact that the masses are asses. I wish it weren't so. I've tried to pretend it isn't so; tried to blind myself to the simple truth of it.

America is a stockyard. The American people are chattel. And, they are content.

Oh, there are a handful of unruly livestock. But should they pose a serious nuisance to the stockman and his operations, they will be dealt with as intractable livestock are dealt with.

The remainder of the herd blithely chew their cud as they are guided this way or that. Rounded up or separated out. And all become hamburger in time. Unruly or intractable beasts are shunned and avoided as naturally as a maddened bull in a pasture of heifers steer. The startlement and panic caused by their mere presence in the herd will only single them out for culling.

So, "change your ways" as you like. You won't change the ways of the stockman or his herd. Please be careful.



There is no America as you have ever known it or believed it to be. Your fellow "citizens" will be of no help in restoring liberty. They do not know what it is and cannot be made to understand it, much less to desire it at the price of mere inconvenience, let alone peril.


Remember, "There is nothing new under the sun." This has all gone down before. Some other place; some other time; some other nation; some other people. It has been known that it would happen here; now; in The United States of America; to us.

“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves.”
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787


“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
– John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
– John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775


Anonymous said...

Unfortunately I have to agree with the individual who posted before me with regards to the "stockmaster" and their cadre. A perfect example would be the reaction by the elites to the primary defeat of Eric Cantor a few years ago. I first thought their reaction would be, "Uh oh, the peasants are furious." but instead their reaction was, "How effing dare you! You actually believe you're going to screw up our plans and get away with it?!" There really is only one option left, but alas as the previous person commented, "Be careful."
As for the first paragraph of this post, "Jewish students are being discriminated against." Are you effing kidding me!? A good friend of mine home schools her four kids and earlier this spring they went to a college fair, as her oldest son was graduating and was college shopping. Every one of the Ivy-league schools told them the same thing, "No white males need apply." She spoke with a rep from Harvard who looked a little put out when her superiors told her son that and commented to her something to the effect of, "It really pisses me off when they say that to people like you. It's a foregone conclusion that Jewish kids are let in no matter what, especially if their parents are alumni." Discrimination against Jewish kids? PLEASE!