This is long, and disturbing. If you're conservative you'll be distressed. Dems won't get it

One of the most obvious signs that a civilization is in precipitous, terminal decline is when its rulers and elites embrace an ever-increasing number of utter absurdities.

The pols who rule the United States have been embracing many absurdities for seven decades or so.  But for the first 40 years or so people ignored anyone who pointed this out, because we had a high standard of living and saw great achievements.  Thus anyone who warned of the inevitable, dire results of any insane, absurd trend was ignored.

As a result, we are now witnessing an epidemic of politicians and elites endorsing utterly fatal absurdities.  

Historian Victor Davis Hanson is a lifelong resident of California, so he uses his state as an example.  But other Democrat-ruled states are in the same situation.  Here are a few examples:

Reparations

If someone from a tiny Balkan nation demanded that descendants of "Group A" pay him and his tribe $3 million apiece because his great-grandfather endured discrimination, rational people would instantly recognize the absurdity.

Yet the greedy, power-hungry, governor of California, pandering for votes, created astate commission to "study" the notion of paying a large sum of money to most blacks in that state.

California's deficit this year alone is $31 billion (and climbing).  The state's income tax rates, sales taxes, electricity cost, gasoline taxes and home prices are among the highest in the country.  So a rational person would instantly conclude that any commission created to "study" paying reparations to blacks would recommend a huge sum per person, which would push the state further into debt.  

But of course Democrats don't worry about debt when the payoff is more votes and more power.  So what should have been seen as clearly absurd--insane--is embraced by a public too frightened by the prospect of being fired to speak out against the insanity.

For the state to even contemplate racial reparations is absurd.  Yet Newsom set that in motion, and the Democrat legislature slobbered that this was a great idea.

Crime, homelessness, and medieval decay characterize the once great downtowns of San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Shoplifting and smash-and-grab theft are no longer treated as real crimes. The result is that flagship stores are leaving crime-filled downtowns.  Meanwhile the state legislature passed a law allowing people to steal up to $950 at a time without being jailed.

"Woke" public prosecutors refuse to indict  those arrested for smash-and-grab crime if they're a favored race.

The state's infrastructure, once the best in the county, is now among the worst. Once-thriving oil, gas, mining, and timber industries are nearly inert.

The state’s public schools are disasters.  Flagship universities have stopped using test scores for admissions, instead pushing racial quotas.  They've been pushed by black racists to introduce race-segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies.

It's absurd.  Insane.  Yet they've done it.

Twenty-seven percent of California’s residents were born outside the U.S. and have no American ancestors.  While many are probably nice people, they have no intrinsic interest in the survival or welfare of our nation.  That's a key to all the problems.

Two Sets of Laws

Liberal ideology has made a mockery of the Founders' unprecedented idea that the law should apply equally to everyone.  But in the last few years it's become clear that whether one is arrested and charged for a crime depends on the politics of the offender.

In 2020 we saw 120 days of riots, looting, arson, and assault.  Between 35 and 40 were killed.  There were no mass arrests, only a tiny handful of convictions, no long prison sentences handed out to Antifa and BLM members for burning police precincts or federal buildings.  Cuz, "justice."

But with the installation of biden, all that suddenly changed:  The January 6 demonstrations at the Capitol saw only two violent deaths.  Both were demonstrators, and both were killed by capitol cops:  one was a woman fatally shot by a black officer with a record of incompetence.  The other was another woman, this time brutally, relentlessly beaten to death by cops with metal batons.

Neither killer was prosecuted.  The black cop who shot Ashli Babbit was not only not prosecuted, the Democrats fawned over what they called his "bravery."

Absurdities.

By contrast: George Floyd—a 6’4”, 223-pound black career violent felon, arrested for passing counterfeit money, resisting arrest, with a lethal dose of fentanyl in his system—died while being arrested.

The Media praised Floyd as an American hero, ignoring his violent past.  Murals even portrayed him with a halo and angel wings.

The officer was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving combined state and federal prison sentence of over 40 years.

By contrast, Ashli Babbitt--white, unarmed, 5’2”, 113 pounds, a 14-year military veteran, was fatally shot by a black capitol cop as she climbed through a broken window in the Capitol.

After she was killed, her life was smeared and slandered by the Democrats and the Media, and her killer was praised.

Absurdities.

After the January 6th demonstration the ruling Democrats quickly took advantage of the chance to demonize Trump supporters and Republicans, convening a "congressional commission"  designed to show it was really an effort to overthrow the incoming Democrat regime.

By contrast, there was no congressional commission to investigate the deaths and destruction caused by groups who crossed state lines to plan and orchestrate the riots of 2020.

Dems Allow States to Ignore "some" Laws

The Constitution contains a provision called the "supremacy clause."  As the name implies, the clause provides that state laws must comply with federal law.

And yet under Obama, 550 local and state jurisdictions were allowed to declare that they would not comply with federal immigration laws.

Obviously Democrats and Leftists would never allow a state to permit, say, civilian ownership of fully automatic weapons, or to violate the Endangered Species Act, or to permit slavery (all contra to federal law), but they totally approve of refusing to cooperate with federal agents when it comes to illegal immigration.

So per the Democrats, states can ignore *some* federal laws.  But which ones can be ignored?  Answer: whatever the Democrats want to ignore.

Absurdities.

And once that line is crossed--that Dems can ignore laws with impunity--it's inevitable that a Democrat preznit will join that group, ignoring federal laws as he wishes.  Because the precedent has already been by the states, and tolerated, with no prosecution or pushback.

By what constitutional authority did the biden regime simply suspend all valid U.S. immigration laws to welcome 6-7 million aliens illegally entering the U.S. since he took power?  Did Congress quietly pass a law allowing anyone to enter the U.S. without a visa and government permission?

Of course not--but biden did it anyway.

The Constitution *orders* the president to "faithfully execute the law."  biden's sneering, casual violation of U.S. law should have triggered immediate impeachment and removal from office.  But with the Democrats having majority control in the senate, Republicans didn't bother.  (Except that impeachment alone, without removal, would have made a *huge* point.)

So now that biden has set the precedent, will congressional Democrats allow all future presidents to order executive agencies not to enforce federal law?  Would they allow a Republican president to ignore, say, environmental laws by simply failing to enforce them?

Of course not.  Two sets of laws--one for Democrat presidents, one for Republicans.

Absurdities.

If the regime allowed foreigners without passports and visas to fly into JFK or LAX and still enter the country, the criminality  would be obvious to everyone.  But biden and the Dems now allow anyone to enter the U.S. by crossing the Mexican border.  They're even given free phones and EBT cards.  No vetting needed.

Two sets of laws, citizen.  

Absurdities.

Rogue Agencies

How can a former FBI director, under oath, claim amnesia or ignorance 245 times during congressional testimony, or leak a classified account of a private conversation with a president with complete impunity, as did James Comey?

How can a later FBI director--Andrew McCabe--lie to federal investigators on four occasions, yet not be charged or convicted?

Former FBI director Robert Mueller, head of the investigation into possible "Russian collusion," deny under oath any knowledge of Fusion GPS or the Steele dossier--the controversies that prompted the very thing he was appointed to investigate?

The FBI admitted that it paid a foreign national (Christopher Steele) to compile dirt against a presidential candidate—and paid his source in Washington to provide Steele with false information, yet no one was prosecuted.

The FBI knowingly submitted information to a federal judge that it knew was false, to get a FISA warrant to allow it to spy on an American citizen.  No one was charged or punished.

Is there any law the FBI won't break?

The FBI's own inspector-general reported  that Peter Strzok sent a text to his mistress, on his official FBI phone, promising her that "We have a secret plan to prevent Trump from being elected."  Yet Strzok was never charged.

Using biden's bullshit claim that "the greatest threat to this nation is White Supremacy," the FBI has infiltrated Catholic church services and school board meetings to monitor the activities of church-goers and parents in attendance?

We have emails from FBI agents to Twitter, pressuring the latter to delete user posts the agency didn't like.  No one has been, or will be, prosecuted.

Again: Is there any law the FBI hasn't broken, or won't break?

In December of 2019 the FBI confiscated Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop.  Despite images of the laptop's drive showing total corruption, the FBI claims they've never examined contents of the laptop.

Two sets of laws, citizen.

When the story broke three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a biden operative asked a CIA friend to have former intelligence officers sign a letter claiming the story about the abandoned laptop had "all the earmarks of Russian disinformation."

51 former intel officers signed it.  The FBI could have exposed the claim of "Russian disinformation" as false, since they had the laptop.  Yet the FBI chose to say nothing, which allowed the Mainstream Media to dismiss the story, allowing biden to be declared the winner of the 2020 election.

Financial Absurdities

As biden and the RINOs continue farcical last-minute "negotiations" to raise the U.S. debt "limit," the Mainstream Media carefully ignores the fact that every year the amount of authorized federal spending is more than the government takes in from all sources.

If you're an informed American you have a good idea what the annual deficit--the amount the government adds every year to the nation's $33 trillion national debt, right?  Sure ya do.  So take your guess, out loud.  When you've done that, highlight the answer at the end of the next line and see how close you were.

The annual deficit is: over $1.5 Trillion.  That's one-thousand five hundred Billion dollars.  And it's projected to increase to TWO Trillion per year, every year for the next ten years.

And of course that entire amount is borrowed from...somewhere.

Let's try your knowledge on another key element of reality:  Say you make $40,000 a year.  If you or your family have to replace a home a/c, or have a major car repair, and end up spending, say, five percent more than you make that year, the extra $2,000 goes on a credit card.  But you hope that in the next two years, by cutting your other spending by $80 a month you'll be able to pay off that balance and return to living within your income.

So that's five percent over income.  What percent above total income do you think congress has passed laws to let the government spend?  Say your guess aloud and then highlight the answer below.

This year the federal government will spend... 33 percent more than it takes in.  All authorized by the morons in congress to bribe voters.  Hell of a system, eh?

As rational people would guess, endlessly spending more than the government takes in every year--borrowing the difference--will eventually be fatal.  But the Mainstream Media trivializes spending more than the government takes in, because...

Actually there is no "because."  Instead the Mainstream Media simply ignores the issue completely--in part because most journalists are frankly too damn stupid, and in part because they want the government to spend more, since that supports Democrat policies.

The closest the Media comes to mentioning the government endlessly spending $1.5 Trillion a year (soon to be $2 Trillion a year) more than it takes in is when (as now) congress supposedly "negotiates" with the regime to supposedly "demand" spending be cut as a condition of raising the debt ceiling.  

Democrats laugh all the way to the bank on this, because the Media have scared the public (as they did with covid) into believing that if congress doesn't raise the debt limit the nation will be destroyed.

This of course is horseshit, but the Media screams it every year, and as a result nothing is done to reduce spending.

The idea that any government can simply borrow unlimited amounts of money without consequences is an idiocy dreamed up cunning socialist professors to allow a corrupt congress to spend any amount it wishes.  And as you'd quickly guess, a congress eager to bribe voters eagerly does so.

Of course both parties have voted for laws that spend money we don't have.  And the smug, sneering elites who actually control what congress does love the status quo.
 
Meanwhile the Mainstream Media don't even try to fact-check Porridgebrain when he falsely claims he's keeping the government from irresponsible spending.

A sane country would cut spending, and maybe in a century we could pay off what we've borrowed.  But thanks to the Media  that's not possible: the Media would scream that any attempt to cut spending (other than defense spending) would be racist, heartless and cruel.

So congress and the regime will keep borrowing and printing money until, as with imperial Rome near the end, the annual interest cost eventually forces the government to cut expenditures.  And what will be cut?

Social security?  Medicare?  Medicaid?  "Gender-affirming surgery paid by Medicaid (which is actually covered now)?

Hahahaha!  No.  The only thing congress will cut is defense spending.

It's been said that what cannot continue, won't.  And at that point all the absurdities we're suffering through will end.

There still might be time to change things.  But the Media and the elites and the "useful idiot" voters won't allow it.

Hat tip to Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/21/the-absurdities-of-our-age/