From A Balcony Seat

     Time was, I followed the news almost obsessively. I wrote about it, here and elsewhere, from a conviction that if we’re to save our country, Americans need unassailable facts and the clearest possible thinking about them. With the most recent events, I find my mindset changing.

     A state governor has announced his intention to defy an upcoming presidential executive order.

     Two peaceable ranchers, recently released from prison, are being returned to prison because a federal judge thinks their original sentences weren’t severe enough.

     At least one federal legislator has called for the repeal of the First Amendment. (Others have called for the repeal of the Second Amendment, but these days that’s not news.)

     Despite the discovery that ISIS can now produce counterfeit passports indistinguishable from official ones, tens of thousands of unvetted Middle Eastern Muslims are to be admitted to the country as “refugees.”

     Black-on-white violence is at an all-time high, yet the nation’s “paper of record” thinks it appropriate and constructive to print a black racialist’s “Dear White America” letter.

     There is no longer such a thing as guaranteed non-felonious sex between consenting adults; any sex act, no matter how far distant in time, can be made the basis for an accusation of rape.

     A major party’s probable presidential nominee has stated openly that a man accused of rape should be presumed guilty.

     The great majority of college and university campuses now police the spoken and written statements of both students and faculty for political correctness – while simultaneously, leftists attempt to have the phrase “politically correct” declared politically incorrect.

     The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has made medical care less available by driving a significant fraction of the nation’s health care providers out of business. It’s simultaneously made medical insurance unaffordable.

     Despite healthy Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, the Democrats continue to drive the legislative agenda.

     The federal debt – exclusive of its unfunded liabilities – is now over $18 trillion and is still increasing. With the unfunded liabilities included, the figure is too terrifying to put into a blog post.

     And of course, while the official statistics tell us that unemployment is at about 5.4%, nearly 100 million Americans of working age are without full-time jobs.

     The collapse has begun. The blood-dimmed tide has been loosed. Whether we have any slightest chance to draw up short of the abyss, I cannot say.

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     Commenting on social, economic, and political developments in tones of incredulity and outrage has become a game anyone can play. There isn’t much point in my doing something anyone with three functioning brain cells can do, especially when it costs me so much time, effort, and emotion. In perfect candor, the point at which it became pointless probably arrived some time ago: roughly when the nation returned Barack Obama to the white House for a second term. A country that did such an insane thing probably can’t be compelled to acknowledge the onrush of disaster, much less aroused sufficiently to avert or deflect it.

     There is no salvation available from the political process – not when the Democrats are about to nominate inveterate liar and serial sex-assault enabler Hillary Clinton, and a plurality of Republican-minded voters favor crony capitalist and longtime supporter of Democrats Donald Trump. If those are the major party nominees, it simply won’t matter who wins.

     There’s nowhere to flee, either. The entire land surface of Earth has been partitioned into States. The U.S., despite its accelerating descent, remains the best of them. Owing to the widespread private possession of firearms, it’s also the one with the best chance of reversing the trend toward political totalitarianism in the guise of “democracy.” The survivors might have it pretty good.

     The militia occupying that federal building in Oregon in support of the Hammonds have my admiration for their courage. But unless many tens of thousands of other Americans follow their example very quickly, it will come to nothing: at worst, a bloodbath; at best, a “negotiated settlement” that will leave the usurped powers of the federal government unaffected.

     The Civil War / War Between The States had better prospects for a successful resolution – and look what happened then.

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     I’m one of the more fortunate, at least for the moment. As I’m well provided for and live in a relatively safe part of the country, I can view events with a degree of dispassion. At least, I think I can. But no one is perfectly safe – and no one can stay above the fray when something he loves is menaced.

     Freedom has many enemies. Indeed, the Regime is importing more of them as we speak. If it still has defenders sufficient to turn the tide, what are they doing? More germane to my personal problem, if an individual who is mortally distrustful of groups but who loves freedom and seeks to contribute to its defense has any part to play in the events of our time, what might it be? Just to sit here and keep writing until the totalitarians finally succeed in censoring the Internet and criminalizing all unapproved sentiments?

     It appears we must revolt if our children and theirs are to know a free and prosperous society. But who will bell the cat? Not I.

     Chalk this plaint up to a poor night’s sleep if you will. Maybe that’s really the case; in my current state of mind, I can’t be sure. But I haven’t been this down about developments since late 2008.

     Later, Gentle Reader. I’m going to Mass.