“With ignorance virtually institutionalized, how can we get man to see? Bewildered by his curious alienation from reality, he is unable to prescribe for himself, for he imagines that what he needs is more of the disease.”
— Richard Weaver
The coronavirus is getting people to see that Americanism is incompatible with reality. The nation-state suffers from a moral sickness, which is largely to blame for what propelled these “United” States into our current realm of confusion and chaos. I think it’s becoming abundantly obvious to everyone that the system is ill, debilitated, and clinging to life.
In my last post, I wrote about how I believe the public-school closures due to the pandemic will help tear off the scab of government “education.” Well, I say we tear off the scabs of all the infected institutions, letting the social pathogens and cultural contagions bleed out, which is likely coming, whether we like it or not.
Some of my favorite content-creators are saying that this is the beginning of the real ascent of technocratic globalism and centralized overreach. In his famous work “Crisis and Leviathan,” economist Robert Higgs described it as the “ratchet effect,” in that government grows during crises, propelling forward never-ending expansionism of the state.
While I understand the principle and get that politicians are opportunists, but I don’t think the oligarchs are going to pull it off this time. It’s just too big a catastrophe to keep up the charade. After all, governments require money and enforcement, two things that are going to be in increasingly short supply in the coming days.
But what about states implementing quarantines, martial law, and calling in the National Guard, they say? Well, legally, that is all within a governor’s purview, as long as it doesn’t violate said state’s constitution. “The dirty little secret in American politics [is that] the States ALWAYS have more real power than the general government,” explained historian Brion McClanahan.
Again, once police and part-time soldiers start getting sick in these viral urban areas and the economy really tanks, where’s the enforcement going to come from? And if the oligarchs want to outsource some enforcers Hessian-style, where’s their payment coming from? Eventually, (a) the Feds’ printing presses are going to stop, (b) the bubble’s going to burst, (c) the dollar will simply collapse when China finally calls on payment for US debt, or (d) all of the above.
“After lowering the interest rate to zero and pumping trillions into the market, the Fed is finding that it has no tools to address the inevitable bursting of the bubble,” says Ron Paul. Now, the unconstitutional central-banking system is going full-bore, making unprecedented bond purchases and buying corporate debt as to “calm markets.” Describing this as untenable would be an understatement.
Due to the madness, an invigorated push for decentralization is rising, poking a much-needed hole in America’s modern imperial presidency a la Lincoln worship and Unionism by bayonet, and surprisingly, it’s not coming from the usual states-rights advocates. “The myth of a single person in charge taking control and running this is a myth,” argued Craig Fugate, former FEMA administrator under Obama.
“This is going to be dealt with on the front lines and local and state levels, and each state is going to be addressing this unique to their systems,” continued Fugate, who then exclaimed, “I don’t have time to listen to bullshit, people!’” when he stormed off the cable-news set after the other guest demanded for even more top-down, one-size-fits-all governance – the very same diseased ideology that got us to where we’re at.
Even Slate gets it … sort of. “All over America, the coronavirus is revealing, or at least reminding us, just how much of contemporary American life is bullshit,” wrote editor Dan Kois. He rightly points out how the TSA’s “security theater” is a sham, since it was so darn easy for the federal agency to simply wave its 3.4-ounce-limit rule for hand sanitizer, proving that it wasn’t truly necessary in the first place.
Kois then goes on to call for paid leave, rent control, universal housing, and other such “reforms.” Turns out the progressive actually does want to empower the regulatory state, but at least he’s starting to question some inanity of the nanny state.
I bet a surge in dead tax payers, medical demands in an already-overpriced government healthcare system, high unemployment, struggling and shut-down businesses, broken supply chains, fiat currency, and hyper-inflation will squash Kois’ do-gooder dreams. Hell, when there’s no money to fund food stamps, seems kinda silly to cry a river over the interest people have to pay on their fed-backed college loans. Don’t miss the forest for the trees, Danny boy; the entire system’s a racket.
Speaking of college, I agree with Tucker Carlson. Why rack up debt to the federal government in order to chase the illusion of “higher education” when you can do some real learning by controlling content and costs via online distance learning? I think the golden-paved luxury universities with their state-of-the-art rock-climbing walls, subsidized whiteness-studies departments, overpaid false intellectuals, and indoctrinated student body will soon be a relic of the past. Your days are numbered, Ivory Tower.
Streamlined job-readiness is what people will need to survive and, honestly, it’s all most will be able to afford. I bet on-the-job training and apprenticeships will make a huge comeback, as well. You could be a skilled tradesman, like a plumber, who owns his own business, or an Uber driver with a PhD in sociology. Who’s the dummy now, elitists?
Of course, government medicine is another systemic veil being lifted back. Without the power of plunder, everyone will see just how feckless Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare really are. Sure, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may think the coronavirus crisis is going to gain her traction for socialist schemes like universal “healthcare,” but coronavirus will knock over the already-teetering systems.
As of now, the feds are letting states, medical associations, and hospitals handle rationing. And once the numbers of sick start to overwhelm the system, I pray that ingenuity of local healthcare professionals and ingenuity of the private sector take hold, and that meddling bureaucrats stay the hell out of the way.
This anti-Washington sentiment is reverberating even in the newsroom of the New York Times, which reported that “a series of missed chances” by the CDC and FDA (caused by governmental regulations) exacerbated the spread of coronavirus here in the States. “This crisis has exposed the deep fissures and failures in our culture and the incompetence of so many of our federal leaders,” wrote a policy analyst on the Times opinion page.
Sure, I get that some of this criticism comes from the left just because they hate Trump. But I also think it’s becoming increasingly apparent to many that the emperor has no clothes. Pretty soon, everyone will see.
“Our economy is fragile, our society shallow, and our democracy rotten to the core,” continued the op-ed. She even called for more local, state, and regional leadership, but that was before demanding universal internet, a universal basic income, and higher teacher pay. Yeah, that’s not going to happen, especially after the coronavirus economic relief bill breaks the bank, with its $3,000 for families and $4 trillion in liquidity for the Fed. The gravy train is headed straight off the cliff, folks. Good.
Sure, you have some true believers hanging on by their fingernails. There are still progressive professors who are clamoring for an increase in “expert bureaucracy in charge of our government,” and more centralization, more immigration, more regulation. They know where their bread and butter comes from.
And some left-wing journalists claim that Trump has “hollowed out federal agencies and belittled expertise.” If only. “The sidelining of career expertise over the last three years puts you at a disadvantage in dealing with crises,” whine elitists as they screech for more elitism, all while citing anonymous White House aides and ex-officials in a Hail Mary to try to save the dying Deep State. Tribesman gotta stick together, I suppose.
Let’s not forget that these are the very same people who initially accused Trump of overreacting to the coronavirus. It’s just the flu, bro! Only racists and xenophobes suspend travel from China and Europe. Now, they’re bashing Trump for not doing enough quickly enough, while simultaneously wasting everyone’s precious time and energy by making hay out of the president saying “Chinese virus.”
Turns out, half the country doesn’t trust the corporate media – data that runs along partisan lines, perfectly illustrating America’s entrenched sickness. So when Jim Acosta gets triggered by Trump calling COVID-19 a “foreign virus” (as opposed to simply reporting facts so folks can be informed), it’s obvious the apparatchiks care more about scoring political points than they ever will about you.
It “smacked of xenophobia,” proclaimed Acosta, who would rather protect the communist country of China and take marching orders from the World Health Organization (a specialized agency of the United Nations) than he would cut the US president some slack.
Is it any wonder that the WHO, which has “long promoted abortion under the premise of health,” aided the Chinese to keep a lid on the truth? Sanctity of life is not one of their top concerns, but politics is, just like Acosta and his ilk.
“In naming the disease COVID-19, the World Health Organization specifically avoided mentioning Wuhan,” wrote Shadi Hamid. “Yet in de-emphasizing where the epidemic began (something China has been aggressively pushing for), we run the risk of obscuring Beijing’s role in letting the disease spread beyond its borders.”
Just ignore the fact that Wuhan hosted a family-style communal meal after the initial outbreak had occurred. “Grab your chopsticks and dig in, and we’ll handle the enemies of the people, dear comrades,” Chinese officials assured citizens as a way to save face, all while willfully spreading the virus among their populace, and censoring, detaining, and even killing any doctor or citizen-journalist who dissented to the cover-up.
And now, the pernicious press is scourging Trump for saying “Chinese virus.” Nope, they say you can’t talk about the culpability of the Chinese government and its globalist apologists. Otherwise … well, you know the old drill.
“It’s not racist at all. No, not at all,” Trump stated emphatically when questioned by PC propagandists about his perceived insensitivity. And why? “It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.” Funny that it is precisely inaccuracy that ails America, and coronavirus is finally revealing the deep-seated sickness, for which the bitter pill of reality is the prescription.
Be sure to check out part 2, which is coming soon.
Source: Dissident Mama – America’s sickness, part 1