The coup we never knew

[Ron]

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/04/the-coup-we-never-knew/

Did someone or something seize control of the United States?

What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?

Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas—furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked? Was it legal suddenly for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival?

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports? Did Congress enact such a law? Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women? Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed?

When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic? In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension? How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during a quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target?

Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day? Was this revolutionary change the subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of dozens of state legislatures?

What happened to Election Night returns? Did the fact that Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take so much longer to tabulate the votes? 

When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, assault not a felony? How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods, without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?

Was there ever a national debate about the terrified flight from Afghanistan?  Who planned it and why?

What happened to the once trusted FBI? Why almost overnight did its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs? Did Congress pass a law that our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie with impunity under oath?

Who redefined our military and with whose consent? Who proclaimed that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could call his Chinese Communist counterpart to warn him that America’s president was supposedly unstable? Was it always true that retired generals routinely libeled their commander-in-chief as a near Nazi, a Mussolini, an adherent of the tools of Auschwitz?

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race? How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on a campus? Whose idea was it to reboot racial segregation and bias as “theme houses,” “safe spaces,” and “diversity”? How did that happen in America?

How did a virus cancel the Constitution? Did the lockdowns rob of us of our sanity? Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare to a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we never knew.

[Ben]

As usual, VDH is right all the way down the line.

[dogmush]

Some of those are very valid questions (On whose orders did the FBI decide to censor election information being a pretty big one), but a lot of those have pretty obvious answers, even if they are ones you don't like. 

The natural gas questions can be traced back to congress empowering the EPA, to some extant the Clean Air Act, and the rule making process, as it is distinct from the law making process.

"When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic?" The Public Health Service Act and to a lesser extant the National Emergencies Act.

"Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day?" When they elected State Representatives that changed the voting procedures in their states.  Elections are a state thing.

Same with the "assault is no longer a Crime" question.  Local People elect Local governments that put forth these policies, and they are tried out.  It's not a conspiracy, or a coup, it's how government works.  And those local officials often get reelected after passing the new policies, so folks aren't all as outraged as some of us are.


I'm not going to pedantically fisk the entire thing as for the most part I agree with VDH that pretty much all of those are bad policies that should be changed at minimum, and some are flat out illegal and should require jail time, but it's disingenuous for someone as intelligent as he is to pretend that we "woke up one day" and those things were happening when they are for the most part pretty easily traced back to the government operation that enabled them.  Government operations that VDH knows damn well were happening as he's made a career of pointing them out.

There was no quiet coup.  At least 80% of those things are a direct result of Americans voting for representatives at local, state, and national levels that said they would do those very things.  The issue here is, at it's heart, that Americans are too stupid or lazy to run a small, individual centric government.  They are too easily convinced to indulge in their flavor of authoritarianism, and after decades of layering laws upon laws enabling government power over the individual, and investing that power in cops and bureaucrats, they can pretty much legally do whatever they want. 

[Ben]

There was no quiet coup.  At least 80% of those things are a direct result of Americans voting for representatives at local, state, and national levels that said they would do those very things.  The issue here is, at it's heart, that Americans are too stupid or lazy to run a small, individual centric government.  They are too easily convinced to indulge in their flavor of authoritarianism, and after decades of layering laws upon laws enabling government power over the individual, and investing that power in cops and bureaucrats, they can pretty much legally do whatever they want.

I don't think VDH really means "woke up one day". It was more of a grabber headline. Just like I often think, "How the hell did we get from gay marriage to operating on ten year olds to change their sex?" That's not me "waking up one day", but rather lamenting the "give an inch, lose a mile" of it all.

 "Quiet coup" or not, these things he listed have all happened. You might connect it to the stupid sheep, or you might use the "frog in the water" theory. I'm kind of in the "frog in the water" camp, where the heat was somewhat quickly turned from low to high.

[dogmush]

Are we a Frog in water, or a Butterfly emerging from it's cocoon?

Isn't it Ron that always says that Politics, and by extension Government is downstream of culture?  None of those things he mentions are surprises, and most were at least tacitly approved by the folks that have legitimate power over that sphere, be it University boards, city councils, state reps, congress, whatever.  VDH *repeatedly* asks "when did a law pass", "when did the people decide", "when did we vote", hearkening to legitimate government processes, and implying that they didn't happen, when they verifiably did, for the most part.

I guess I refute his core premise that there was a coup that no one noticed.  Or rather the answer to his question "Did someone or something seize control of the United States?" is no, not really.  It's still being mostly guided by the work of Representatives democratically picked to follow the wishes of the folks that elected them.  Those folk's wishes just tend to suck.

Shall we then ignore the expressed preferences of the people and enforce the "correct" solutions to those problems on them?  By force if needed?

[Ben]

Are we a Frog in water, or a Butterfly emerging from it's cocoon?

To continue the homey phrases, I guess it depends on if your ox is being gored or not. 

My ox is, for the most part, being gored, so certainly I see the US that I knew/want as a frog in the water. It's party time for the trannies though.

[dogmush]

So than I repeat:

Shall we then ignore the expressed preferences of the people and enforce the "correct" solutions to those problems on them?  By force if needed?

Or if I want to be more pessimistic: Other than word count, what's the point of the article in the OP?

I think it's reasonable to assume that we'll see a little pendulum back on some of the really out there stuff (Transing kids, Porn in schools) but a lot of that stuff (Govt bureaucratic power, Borders, Surveillance state/LE being sicced on the other tribe) more people want, or can be convinced to ignore, than don't want.  Voting seems unlikely to turn this around, especially if you are of the opinion the elections are rigged, and getting more rigged as we go.

So now what?


I've been pretty open I want no part in the violence I think is inevitable, and am hoping the country (and more importantly economy) limps along long enough I can punch out of society and live out my old age in the back woods letting society crumble around me. 

If my plan is too fatalistic (and I can see why it would be) what then would VDH, Ron, or Ben have us do?  What's the point of the article, or the Post?  Even I, while kibitzing VDH's take on the cause, agree that those things ain't great.  I suspect no one on either APS or American Greatness.com thinks those are good trends in American life. 

[RocketMan]

VDH's article very aptly describes a constitutional republic dying of old age, or natural causes if you prefer.

[Ben]

what then would VDH, Ron, or Ben have us do? 

I can't speak for Ron or VDH, but I wasn't posting a "We've got to do something!" post. I was agreeing that all the things he mentioned have happened and lamenting that they did. I mean, I've voted all my life, so I "did something" but it wasn't enough to stop any of this, which some part of the country wants, and that I don't.

So I guess if I'm "doing something" now, it's what you plan to do at a later date - I'm in BFE, staying under the radar, and ignoring any immoral laws and social trends that I can get away with ignoring until I kick the bucket. Or, I guess, if it gets to that, as Herohog says, I'll be a pain in their ass for a minute before they gun me down.

[Nick1911]

Agree with Ben and dogmush on this.  It's not so much a coup, it's just the direction of culture.  I've fallen into the trap of thinking "How is this passing, no one I know wants it!", but the truth is that many-to-most actually do at least approve if not champion these changes.

On the economic point, I understand that the stagflation in the 70's lead to a general rejection of Friedman's economic models, and embraced Keynesian model which holds that debt is okay as long as there is growth to support it.  The politicians have stretched that pretty hard.

[dogmush]

I can't speak for Ron or VDH, but I wasn't posting a "We've got to do something!" post. I was agreeing that all the things he mentioned have happened and lamenting that they did. I mean, I've voted all my life, so I "did something" but it wasn't enough to stop any of this, which some part of the country wants, and that I don't.

So I guess if I'm "doing something" now, it's what you plan to do at a later date - I'm in BFE, staying under the radar, and ignoring any immoral laws and social trends that I can get away with ignoring until I kick the bucket. Or, I guess, if it gets to that, as Herohog says, I'll be a pain in their ass for a minute before they gun me down.

That's a great point I often gloss over, even in my internal ponderings, but I find Heinlein's quote speaking to me more and more these days:

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do

There are a LOT of laws that, for me, obeying has become a tactical rather than moral decision.

[Ben]

Agree with Ben and dogmush on this.  It's not so much a coup, it's just the direction of culture.  I've fallen into the trap of thinking "How is this passing, no one I know wants it!", but the truth is that many-to-most actually do at least approve if not champion these changes.

The one caveat I would have to that is that as far as laws/voting, you can't refute that some majority voted for this stuff in some geographic area. For the cultural stuff, I would argue that a small but screeching minority on social media / the MSM are in fact pushing something most don't want.

Not to harp on the tranny stuff, but I still can't believe a majority of the country wants it, especially the gender identity stuff / medical procedures for children. That kind of stuff certainly seems to be pushed by a loud, minority segment with an agenda that sounds like a majority.

[zahc]

It's the character of the people that causes this decline. The character of the people is forged by their upbringing and early influences. The character of the American people, such that it is, is changing at generational pace as expected. The primary cause factor is decline (undisputable, clearly documented and obvious to the eye) of the family. You can argue about the causes (the invention of birth control cannot be ignored), but we are running an experiment on what happens when you basically punt on raising the next generation. This is my shocked face.

You can see a similar dynamic in a company organization that fails to hire or retain good people, one that has a bad management takeover.  No matter what kind of tailwind or capital or other prospects they might have, or how well they operated just a few short years ago, it just slowly rots. And fixing it is impossible because you'd have to fire and replace most of the people to fix it, and there's no mechanism available to do that.

[Perd Hapley]

What's the point of the article, or the Post?

So I just skimmed the article, but it looks like something designed to make people think; to help us realize how far things have gone, and how bad things have gotten. That's something a lot of people still need. Seems perfectly normal to for a columnist to write things that assert a certain opinion, to try to influence others to agree with him. (In this case, more like provoking people to think about the same questions he's asking.) That's the job, or part of it.

I may have missed the part where VDH (or anyone else?) calls for everything to be changed by force. Not sure where that comes in.

[RoadKingLarry]

Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
Weak men create hard times.

[Pb]

I think that most of the points in the article are good ones.

I know the "why" of some of it.  Christian morality is exceedingly unpopular in the USA.

Rejecting fornication, bastardry, killing children in the womb, homosexual sodomy, transvestite fetishism, frivolous divorce, and other seemingly obvious Christian truths is now considered either quaint or evil by society, especially anyone with any power.  And of those without power-  the "working class" is abandoning not only any semblance of Christian morality as well, but also working. 

In the past, even when people did these things (and some were common at times, ie, fornication) society as a whole condemned them.

Not now.

Evil has become good, and good, evil.

The morals of the USA are starting to resemble the ancient morality of the Roman empire in many respects.  Their other vile practices will follow, I expect.

[Bogie]

I don't really care what people do in the privacy of their own homes, as long as they aren't harming anyone else who does not wish to be harmed...
 
What I'm seeing is that groups are manipulating people on the fringes into becoming fringier... It is not necessarily a right/left/liberal/conservative thing - More like a massive pie, exploding in all directions.

[Ron]

Politics is downstream of culture, yes.

What I've come to appreciate is how much our culture has been manipulated by powerful and wealthy interests who've used the education system and the media to manufacture consent.

The shift away from historical American culture, values and belief systems wasn't organic but was instituted over time through school curriculums and media entertainment.

It doesn't even have to be a conspiracy. Those who write the checks always have more say and get their way. The "elites" abandoned rationality and embraced post modernism, unleashing their insanity onto the masses.

Neat trick. Miseducate the masses, corrupt them through "entertainment" then when they vote for the insanity call it democracy in action.

As someone mentioned above, end stage collapsing empire stuff. Nothing new under the sun.

[230RN]

dogmush said,

"There are a LOT of laws that, for me, obeying has become a tactical rather than moral decision."

Check.

"It is in the nature of all governments that they trend toward totalitarianism."

[RoadKingLarry]

“Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.”

― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

[Perd Hapley]

I don't really care what people do in the privacy of their own homes, as long as they aren't harming anyone else who does not wish to be harmed...

As Ron (and everyone else on the Right) says, politics is downstream from culture. Legalizing vices is one thing, but not even caring about our neighbors' souls has ruined us.

Alcohol is legal, but we still care whether or not people around us are alcoholics. Why did legalizing sodomy mean we could no longer disapprove of it? Or to pick another issue, having children out of wedlock has (I think) generally been legal, even when it was strongly disapproved of. I don't think its legal status has changed, but we no longer disapprove of it, no matter how terrible it is for the children.

Edit: I should add, we're also proud of not caring, and frequently tell others that we don't care about the moral health of the people around us. It's disturbing, when one thinks about it.

[230RN]

“Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.”

― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

An eye-opener back in college when the Ayn Rand books were suggested by a fellow dorm resident.

Those elected to power wanted it.

Terry, 230RN

[Pb]

What people do in their own homes makes divorces, bastard kids who need welfare, single mommies who vote for socialists, and perverts who recruit children.  It doesn't stay in their own homes.

Our vile politics is direct consequence of our rotten culture that calls evil good.

[Kingcreek]

Our traditional culture has been usurped. The liberal progressive (socialists?) have slowly wormed their way into control of education and politics and the social narrative.
A lot of people have suddenly realized society has changed. Maybe the Covid lockdowns accelerated the process or made it easier for the progressives to move the markers.
Homosexuality has been around forever. But the gay males didn’t claim they weren’t male and the female likewise. This whole transgender ideology is new. I don’t even see how it became part of the new and bigger LGBTQ+€¥^ movement.

[Bogie]

I cannot fix other people.
 
I've tried.
 
It didn't work out well.
 
And it has cost me dearly - I figure if I'd stayed on the path I was on, I'd be retiring on over $6,000/month instead of about $2,000...