Changing Tides
Atlanta, GA
August 14, 2022
Today is my maternal grandparents’ eightieth anniversary. I wish they were here to celebrate their marriage. But I’m relieved they’re not around to mourn their country.
A couple years ago we imagined what one of their contemporaries might’ve thought of how their descendants have treated their bountiful inheritance. Today I’m not sure they’d be able to watch what’s become of the America they built, or to endure the insults for having bequeathed it.
The week started with a former president’s mansion being ransacked by his successor’s secret police. But its not just rival rulers that the regime is roughing up. It’s coming after the rubes too. A few days later we learned that the IRS will double the number of dogs it uses to sniff out our income. And to join the kennel, the new hounds must be comfortable attacking their prey with the sharp teeth of “lethal force.”
But our money isn’t the only thing being taken. Common sense is also being stripped away, and in ways that would’ve recently warranted free boarding in the bin.
For whatever reason, men and women suddenly find it necessary to inform fluent English speakers which pronouns should be associated with either sex. And as often as not they they manage to get it wrong!
Yet those who know better are expected to humor these delusions. And many of them do. It’s a bizarre phenomenon for someone who’s sane, and a cruel detriment to the person who isn’t. Addressing a person by the wrong pronouns is like “helping” a schizophrenic by pretending to see his imaginary friends.
Like a rich scion who made a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood, the English language continues to get mugged. As with “vaccine” and “woman”, the word “recession” is now being robbed of meaning.
Economic downturns used to be called “depressions” or “panics”. Then, to reduce rhetorical impact, they became “recessions”. Under the current regime they’re known as “recoveries”.
“Inflation” is another term stripped of all semblance of its historical definition. Known correctly as an increase (“inflation”) of the money supply, the disease was eventually conflated with one of its symptoms.
Colloquially, ”inflation” became synonymous with a rise in prices. That connotation was incorrect, but at least it was understandable. What we’re supposed to believe now is neither.
Last week the number molesters in the Bureau of Labor Statistics finished fondling the figures. They assured us that consumer prices felt no different in July than they did in June.
What a relief. Apparently, there is no inflation after all. But believing that obvious lie makes one rhetorically wonder why Congress passed a bloated boondoggle to reduce something that doesn’t exist.
Yet while the “aggregate price level” was no heavier from one month to the next, it put on considerable weight since last year…albeit with obesity increasing at a slower rate. But even with a pause for breath at these elevated levels, the price of essentials weighs so heavy that were it wearing high heels it would strike oil.
Upon learning that bureaucratic tailors had found sufficient fabric to hide the inflationary fat, markets rallied and elation erupted. Political opportunists preached predictable absurdities to make us think an annualized inflation rate that produced panic in April should be considered wonderful in August.
Shifting from the sorcery of macroeconomics to that of epidemiology, the CDC conceded this week that we can ease up on the idiocy. This enlightened agency informs anyone who is still listening that “social distancing”…one of many dystopian terms to proliferate during this mess…can now cease.
The stupid floor stickers, absurd “separation signs”, and paranoid plexiglass that normal people have always ignored can now be compliantly disregarded by even the most deranged captives of the Covid cult.
But I’m sure they won’t be. The psychological damage and mental trauma that purveyors of “The Science” inflicted the last three years is too great to be overcome by a belated press release. They’ve created germaphobic die-hards who will continue to cover their face and keep their distance, for which I suppose the rest of us should be grateful. As vile as face fabrics are, they at least help the rest of us identify who we should avoid.
As if trying to board a bus that departed two years ago, our “public health” hacks finally acknowledge that “exposure” doesn’t require quarantine, that people who aren’t sick need not be tested, and that the unvaccinated should suffer no unique restrictions simply because they didn’t take the shots.
It’s as if Rochelle Walensky turned into Emily Litella. Except that while Litella was funny, Walensky is a joke. After thirty months of relentless propaganda and sinister restrictions…that cost careers, destroyed lives, decimated child development, and severed relationships…Walensky’s agency in effect uses Litella’s words to wave away the wreckage:
“Never mind.”
It’s been said that a wise man learns from others’ mistakes, a fool from his own. I’m not sure that’s entirely true. But it’s obvious that wicked people don’t learn from mistakes at all. They don’t want to. Besides, they don’t think they’ve made any to learn from.
To them, their calamities weren’t “accidents”. They were accomplishments. It’s just that the victims don’t appreciate the “safety” and “protection” they were forced to endure. Or, like a spontaneous Stasi, in which far too many of them became complicit.
The people who inflicted the confinement, closures, cruelty, and carnage must be called to account. After the most catastrophic experiment in state control, social engineering, and domestic devastation since the Lincoln’s body left Fords Theater, a lukewarm announcement of relaxed “guidance” is insufficient. We need tribunals.
The talking points, press releases, and teleprompters assure us all was well with the world. But, as usual, the real story is what isn’t on the page. As often as not, it’s edited out. And it usually can’t be counted or quantified. It must be read between the lines.
The covid response caused our current crises. The lockdowns, mandates, and money printing produced the inflation they tell us isn’t there, the recession they insist doesn’t exist, and the personal devastation so many feel, but that sterile statistics can’t capture.
And…as many of us warned when the madness began…it was all for nothing. As “mitigation measures’ caused deprivation to proliferate, the only thing they didn’t seem to stop the spread of was covid.
While the virus was doing what it would do no matter what we did, divorce rates rose, families frayed, experiences were stolen, drug use spiked, drinking soared, and depression abounded. And all “The Science” can say is its job is done, and we can (at lest till the mid-terms) “focus on individual decision making.”
The system is rotten. But to clear the plumbing, we need to flush the toilet. Unfortunately, the pipes are clogged. For decades…but especially this century, and particularly the last couple years…they’ve backed up, flooding society with flawed philosophy, insidious ideas, nefarious schemes, and legal larceny. Meanwhile, the world wades thru the raw sewage of lies, lockdowns, worthless mandates, and fake money.
Like everyone, our ancestors had their flaws. But most of them knew they were there, and struggled to overcome them. There were choppy waves along the way. But the prevailing current carried them the right direction. As freedom flourished, prejudice eased. Prosperity increased and civilization advanced.
In our age, the tide is going out. We’ve tried for years to swim against it, yet the cultural undertow keeps pulling us down. It’s obviously time to get out of the water, and build our own pool. We need parallel economies, self-sustaining schools, information outlets that don’t despise us, and sources of sustenance that can’t be severed by those who toss us anvils after pushing into the sea.
We can’t help but occasionally be splashed by the flailing sharks in the adjacent ocean. But we do our best to keep from drowning.
JD
