Tar, Feathers and a Fence Rail
Conservatives are fighting with logic and reason while the battles are being won with emotion. That must change.
Yesterday, I observed that our society is controlled by minorities, mostly because the majority simply refuses to exert its will. It was an off the cuff comment, but not an unconsidered one, and the more I think about it, the more I think it is accurate and has wider application.
But here’s where the weirdness enters the picture.
Who is the minority?
I am, as I am sure you are, surrounded by contradiction.
When I observe people within my circle of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, I’ve noticed a couple of things.
First, I live my life in compliance with my philosophical, ideological, and economic beliefs. From the way I handle my money, to my religious beliefs, my political positions, and my personal philosophy, I find alignment in all of them – not perfect alignment because things change, and I take time to consider the changes and compare those changes to what I believe and who I am. I live by a set of personal rules and principles – but I might alter something in my life if there is a good, solid, logical reason to do so. I know that there are things I don’t know, and I always allow for the possibility I might just be wrong sometimes. I’m not comfortable with contradiction, I work my intellectual ass off to resolve them.
Now, when I observe some of my acquaintances, I see them living a similar existence with one difference, the things for which they vote, support, hang signs and profess to believe are completely at odds with the way they live. This behavior is especially prevalent in the wealthier households. I know of many who have the virtue signaling “Black Lives Matter/No Human is Illegal” signs in their front yards of their multi-million dollar homes (in a ski resort town), outwardly support welfare programs out the wazoo, support illegal immigration, reparations, go to progressive churches, and profess to support “equity” and live a progressive lifestyle - and yet these are the people who are very concerned about making money, maintaining and protecting their wealth by shielding their incomes through family trusts and tax shelters, paying expensive accountants and financial advisors to help them avoid taxes and drive expensive vehicles with premier badges like Maserati, Porsche, Lamborghini, etc. and push their kids to do well in school because they want them all to go to prestigious universities.
These are the same people who are never wrong, never stop to consider their positions (except to double down) and believe everybody but them does not pay enough taxes.
So, in a sense, they live a relatively conservative lifestyle at home while presenting a progressive image to the world. It would seem they live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, but I think it is almost a bi-polar situation where the tell themselves they have two separate existences that never intersect.
I accept that is a gross generalization to some extent, but it is accurate as a comparison with the lives of people like me.
So, where is the minority?
It consists of progressive drama queens.
The difference, I think, is that we conservatives tend to be logical and therefore emotionally reserved. When we do get excited or agitated, we show that in private rather than in public. That’s a big reason why we don’t tend to protest, why we don’t yell and scream or post virtue signaling signs in our yards. We shy away from people we see as drama queens because that behavior seems alien and wasteful to us. We don’t seek confrontation.
The progressives live to be, simply put, drama queens. Their reliance on emotional reasoning requires overt and exotic acts of attention grabbing. Things we see a distasteful, they see as perfectly normal. They have no qualms about kicking and screaming, marching in protests or gluing themselves to a painting if that is what it takes to get attention, even if the ultimate effect of any of that is zero. It is about the sizzle, not the steak.
That leads me to believe that we are simply allowing ourselves to be ruled by the Heckler’s veto, the loudest minority – not the majority that is stronger in principle, strength, and number – but the loudest crying baby in the nursery.
It is hard to break now that they have developed entire networks in media, academia, and government where their emotional reasoning and feelings-based actions have no challenge.
We are ruled by irrational, illogical emotional minorities.
Sad to say, but this is happening to us because we conservatives are allowing it to happen.
2 Corinthians 11:19 reads; “For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.”
G.K. Chesterton, the famous English writer and Christian apologist, noted:
“There is an apostolic injunction to suffer fools gladly. We always lay the stress on the word “suffer,” and interpret the passage as one urging resignation. It might be better, perhaps, to lay the stress upon the word “gladly,” and make our familiarity with fools a delight, and almost a dissipation. Nor is it necessary that our pleasure in fools (or at least in great and godlike fools) should be merely satiric or cruel. The great fool is he in whom we cannot tell which is the conscious and which the unconscious humour; we laugh with him and laugh at him at the same time.”
As are many I know, I am growing tired of fools and idiots who are given standing to critique and otherwise criticize rational behaviors while exhibiting, as my grandfather would say, “the lack of enough good sense to pour piss out of a boot.” It is becoming increasingly difficult to “laugh with them and laugh at them at the same time”.
As Chesterton said, we have erred in placing incorrect emphasis on the “suffer”. We have become so politically correct that dismissal of the harebrained and thick witted is unfashionable. Society at large has assigned such a disproportionate amount of deference and tolerance to these imbecilic behaviors that it has allowed these same fools and idiots to ascend to heights of power, achieve an unearned level of status and control academia, government, and public policy.
The fact is, while these people may be credentialled, they are not very smart.
I am most certainly NOT in possession of a remarkable intellect (as a victim of the Mississippi public education system) but I know I could go on MSNBC or CNN and decimate just about every anchor or interviewer on those networks. I have no doubt I could go to a White House press conference featuring Karine Jean Pierre and send her packing or debate any of the leading Democrats in Congress and destroy them.
We must get comfortable with confrontation and stop ignoring and suffering fools – because as much as we would like them to, they aren’t going away. Quite to the contrary, they aim to rule.
I like to think our patience with fools is based on the notion that eventually they'll realize their foolishness and grow out of it. But I'm now seeing intergenerational foolishness, with each successive generation crazier than the last. The system needs a serious shock.
I have a friend who is well-to-do and has lived in two upscale neighborhoods near Chicago. He reports that in both these neighborhoods, all of his neighbors sport BLM decals in their windows and/or signs in their yards. At first I assumed it was like the Hebrews who painted with blood on the lintels of their doors for protection. Now I am convinced these people are truly insane. My ex-friends in Michigan have (with one exception) become vocal and intolerant Progressive Democrats who spend most of their time smoking legal pot.
Somewhere I read that a family of four can get $100,000 a year for sitting home and collecting it. I doubt that's true - especially in my home-state of Tennessee. But still, most businesses have reduced hours or days of service and they still all have Help Wanted signs in their windows.
This is not the America we grew up in and there is no way to reach the fanatics who still believe Biden is sane and that we must preserve fascism in Ukraine and remove Putin from Moscow.
Seemingly overnight, America has become a wicked and dangerous place, a nation that is determined to conquer the world and follow the dictates of Klaus Schwab.
Dear God, wake me from this nightmare.