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.

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     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.

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     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.

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     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.

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     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?

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     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.