Calumny.
A very interesting - and appropriate - word.
It means “False accusation of crime, misconduct, or defect, knowingly or maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another; untruth maliciously spoken, to the detraction of another; a defamatory report; slander.”
We have been through decades of calumny, so much so it has become a normal part of the political process.
In a post from a few of years ago, I quoted John Locke, to whom America owes much of its beginning, saying:
“Where-ever Law ends, tyranny begins.”
It is impossible not to recognize the importance of this Locke quote.
And the law ends when the application of the law becomes so arbitrary and capricious, it is tantamount to lawlessness.
Possibly the most important historical aspect of the American legal system has been its stability and consistency. Americans have always been able to rest assured that what a thing means today, it will mean tomorrow. America has frowned on ex post facto (retroactive) approaches to everything. We are “innocent yesterday, innocent today, and innocent tomorrow” as my grandfather used to say - but even that seems to be changing as people are charged with thought crimes, deemed guilty and sentenced to have our historical monuments and symbols summarily destroyed - thereby erasing the identity of generations- as punishment for the wrongthink of our ancestors.
When legal decisions are made in accordance with logic and reason, they tend to be predictable. This lends to a stable environment where risk can be mitigated in even long term commitments. The same goes for legislation, consistent creation, interpretation and application of laws and regulations are the very characteristics basic to economic and social stability.
In Federalist #62, James Madison wrote:
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
"Forget what we said", the left says. "Give us what we want today!" they cry. No matter that the "what we want" will change tomorrow.
In Chapter IV, Section 23 of John Locke’s "Second Treatise of Civil Government", he writes :
“This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases.”
This is why America has the Due Process clause of the Constitution and the concept that all accused are innocent until proven guilty. These concepts prevent any authority from applying, enforcing and/or judging guilt or innocence via arbitrary and capricious application of the law.
Postmodernism is all fun and games until innocence is a matter of opinion and agenda and not based on finding of fact. What is being done here is the State, acting as an arbitrary authority, is essentially saying, "Well sure, either we don't have the evidence to prove you are guilty but we know your type. If you didn't do it, we know you wanted to. So innocent or not, we'll just punish you anyway.
If there is no objective standard, there can be no standard at all. When any authority is allowed to make it up as we go along, it no longer matters who is guilty or innocent - it only matters who is in charge. That is what Locke was saying - people can never be free if the rules can be changed on a whim by any authority because that eliminates the possibility of the individual to control their own life.
What is so idiotic about all of this is the progressive left believes their reliance on malleable "standards", unequal application of the law and fact-free, agenda driven findings of guilt or innocence are the tools to be used to create "fairness" when this approach only destroy any chance of true fairness.
Under the Biden administration, and by any definition, the rule of law is being sorely challenged.
Even the casual observer can see how differently Steve Bannon was treated than was Eric Holder, how differently the J6 protesters are being handled vs. the ANTIFA/BLM protesters and how differently Scooter Libby was treated vs. ANY of the Democrats implicated in the greatest attempt at a coup in the history of modern America, the Russia collusion hoax.
With the end of law comes arbitrary and capricious creation, meaning, and application of laws… and as Locke noted, tyranny follows.
Social, economic and legal instability will result, creating an unsettled populace governed by mob rule, a society dominated by the Various Angry Aggrieved Groups that are less interested in achieving their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment or social cohesion than they are in reward or reparation via terror and retribution. None of this is about “fairness”, it is all about payback.
Such is a guaranteed death spiral that plays directly into progressive hands – the more chaos created, the more evidence more government control is needed. This all too predictable process is as close to a perpetual motion machine as we will ever experience.
Tis an Age of Calumny.
But it is an age we can end by demanding the truth.
PROFOUND.
And true.
Now, how to demand truth from those so long disconnected from it that they cannot even define the most irrefutable biological fact?
Those who cannot abide or acknowledge a history, yet seek reparations for it, from those who were neither present for, nor complicit in it?
Those so lost in their own “re-writes” that they’ve lost sight of truth?
Those who demand that others accept as Absolute “truth” that which is for them, only relative.
Those who impose on others laws they are exempt from.
You were just saying the Left is doomed - and now this! What? A dead cat bounce?