Had It

     I think I’ve reached my limit.

     For twenty years I’ve been writing analyses and opinion about various matters of public policy, political dynamics, the various premises, the rational processes, and the emotional substrates that produce those things. The time and effort involved in producing these pieces are considerable. No one does such a thing except in the hope of improvement. But there’s been none. Not one BLEEP!ing thing has changed for the better. Every element of our sociopolitical malaise has worsened. America continues to slide toward totalitarianism – a totalitarianism that defies election results.

     I’m beginning to think that it’s due to cowardice on the Right. Virtually no one with his head on straight will speak plainly.

     Today, the worst of America’s bad actors rule our streets. They’re open about it. They make YouTube videos about their success at violently suppressing gatherings of conservatives and talks by conservative spokesmen. Yet supposedly Right-aligned commentators, including nearly all the prominent ones, can’t bring themselves to condemn the Left’s Brownshirts. Rather, they apologize for the Right’s existence.

     I probably read more in a single day than 99.9% of the American populace – including most of the aforementioned commentators – reads in a month. The greater part of that is news, analysis, and opinion. But with all that I read, I almost never encounter a statement about the plague of street violence – politically motivated street violence that's afflicted this country for more than a year – that places the odium squarely upon those who consciously set forth to initiate it.

     Instead, we get stuff like this:

     Monday morning, Ken Cuccinelli, former Attorney General of the Commonwealth, appeared on CNN’s “New Day” program opposite Symone Sanders, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders. They spoke about the Charlottesville events, and the President’s underwhelming, confounding response to them. Things got out of hand. When Cuccinelli didn’t seem contrite enough of behalf of Donald Trump (because, being a conservative, he’s clearly Trump’s biggest fan, because REASONS) and wouldn’t initially condemn Robert E. Lee as “emblematic” of white supremacy and racial hatred, Sanders continually talked over him and interrupted, with host Chris Cuomo’s passive cooperation. Cuccinelli eventually had enough of being interrupted and talked over, and said “…can I finish Symone, will you just shut up for a minute and let me finish?” Sanders became apoplectic, as if her civil rights were being violated by being asked to ‘shut up.’ The height of irony was Sanders, doing her best impression of a screaming harpy, demanding ‘decorum’ from Ken Cuccinelli, in almost every instance a thoroughgoing gentleman, who in this case was pushed to his limits. Sanders has no sense of fairness, decency, or decorum of her own. Chris Cuomo, of course, being Chris Cuomo, jumped in and remonstrated with Cuccinelli for using the phrase, “shut up” and did nothing to address Sanders’ antics, including using the same phrase herself.

     So far, so good, right? But we’re not quite finished:

     Cuccinelli, being the gentleman that he is, apologized, even calling Sanders after the fact.

     Why did Cuccinelli apologize for demanding to be treated with respect – reciprocal respect, at that? Had Sanders been a man, a true gentleman would have demanded a pre-dawn accounting: pistols or swords, sir; your choice. A woman exhibiting that sort of conduct is beneath contempt.

     At this point in our devolution, contempt is too good for the Left. Yet our luminaries continue to treat them with undeserved respect – and equally undeserved mercy for their outrages – while castigating the Right for daring to attempt a counteraction.

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     I’ve also had it with “Fox News.” The best of its productions, Bret Baier’s Special Report, has become completely unwatchable. The appearances of supposedly Republican, supposedly conservative office holders, are so irritating that I’ve begun changing the channel to Animal Planet or The Food Network upon the instant one such appears on-screen. Not one of them ever gives a straight answer to a simple question. “Yes” and “no” seem not to be part of their vocabularies. However, the panel segments are its worst feature: an appalling display of Establishmentarianism and pusillanimity. The most regular panelists have been “in the business” for far too long. They’ve too obviously had their consciences numbed and their spines ripped out, and ought to consider a retirement trade; perhaps begging on street corners. The occasional guests, being mostly younger, tend to be somewhat better, but the regulars routinely outweigh them.

     The nadir arrived in this past Monday’s exchange between regular panelist Steve Hayes and occasional panelist Mollie Hemingway, over the nature of the events in Charlottesville. Hayes led off with a cringingly apologetic statement that condemned “white supremacists” and “neo-Nazis” as the reasons for the violence. When Hemingway dared to disagree – and not entirely, at that – Hayes actually tried to shout her down, insulting her unforgivably in the process. It was grotesque beyond my powers of description. Charles Krauthammer’s contribution added to the abuse of Hemingway in a predictably Establishmentarian fashion.

     Hayes’s behavior might be explicable. He might be angling for a billet at CNN or MSNBC, both of which are in desperate need of token “conservatives.” Krauthammer has no excuse. The experts required to raise him from his coffin and make him look lifelike in time for every evening’s fifteen minutes of breathless filibustering blather are under exclusive contract to Fox.

     It seems that those who predicted that Fox would swiftly deteriorate with Roger Ailes’s resignation were correct.

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     The bastions of hard evidence and sound reason are being worn away. Whether it’s from fatigue or fear, they whom we trusted to be our public voices are failing us. It would be better for them to retire, but there’s precious little money or fan mail in that.

     For twenty years I’ve strained to add a microdecibel or two in favor of freedom and justice. I just don’t know whether there’s any point. Maybe there never was.

     It’s time for me to sit back and take stock, but before I close, have a giggle. A dear friend is about to issue a T-shirt design through Cafe Press. He told me about it a couple of weeks ago, and is currently deciding upon the final design. It’s likely to bear the following legend:

White Men:
Bringing You Western Civilization For 3000 Years

     ...over an image of a cathedral. I can’t wait to order mine...that is, if Cafe Press has the stones to accept his design and offer it for sale.

     We shall see.