There was some debate last night. The festivities started at nine last night, ESTand thus was past the bedtime of many of us here on the East Coast. Simi Valley, California, was the local and drove the timing at the splendid Reagan Library with the former President’s jet occupying art of center stage. We will have to start with our usual in these frantic days of cascading craziness. We normally start the discussion on the Thursday weekly meeting with “All the stuff on this slide is actually happening…”

Then we try to capture what it all means. Our internet provider, the venerable old American On Line, no longer permits us to imbed the picture here in the text and only permits “attaching” it to the message. But you can see some of the various story lines playing out in what seems to be an endless and emotional campaign. Since we did not see the activity on live-screen, we are absorbing some of it through interpretation by the morning commentators.

Their verdict? It might better be captured in cash-flow terms. Fox News hosted the show and was only able to charge half the rates for advertising they did for the first showing of the GOP hopefuls. Last night they appeared to be looking over their shoulders at Mr. Trump who was in Michigan visiting the United Autoworkers whose strike has spread to twenty states now.

The Border, or what used to be a border, was a topic of direct impact. The other issues flow down from the national security aspect of hundreds of thousands of people seeking better lives by relying on our kindness and generosity. Those two aspects of immigration policy seem to be running in short supply. It strikes us here on the Patio that whatever the current policy might be, it is a scandalous abandonment of what we used to call “Law and Order.”

All the other challenges follow in short order. Those are huddled around the Economic-associated problems, including inflation, unemployment and general befuddlement. The GOP candidates on display were disconcerted by the failure of Mr. Trump to appear to be assailed to his rivals, regardless of how distant their current positions and posture.

We will shortly trip into October, or only thirteen months until the actual voting is supposed to occur. We are exhausted by it already, and polling suggests the current leadership team is fairly deep underwater. That suggests there will be acts of increasing desperation as the campaign stumbles forward. The unexpected aspects are legion, with California Governor Newsom hovering about to remind us there is youth and good hair in his party. At least he was in the same time zone.

For the rest of us, the momentary Big Deal appears to be a failure in the Federal budget process.That is a real and personal issue for active and retired military personnel and paydays, not to mention those connected to defense contracting and other relations dependent on the Government’s issuing of debt and dollars.

We abandoned “Regular Order” in passing the twelve appropriations bills forty years ago. Our lawmakers seem more comfortable in jamming everything in the budget into single gigantic bills termed “Continuing Resolutions,” which have the benefit of leaving our representatives cover from responsibility for the consequences of their votes. Adding to the anxiety is coverage of the first impeachment inquiry being held this morning, with revelations of where large checks were sent to acquire influence over U.S. foreign policy. So there are debates and disasters in progress this morning and indications of much more fun to come.

So, on the one hand we have a government that has shed direct linkage between how our government is funded and how it interacts with the states, local and tribal elements of social organization. The Presidential dog appears to be concerned and nipped another Secret Service agent. There is also mild uncertainty about the internal American social situation. It was displayed this week in a rampage in Philadelphia by packs of teens who swept into a series of stores and shops.

Similar conduct of flash mobs has become common. The youth of some of the participants has been explained as a tactic of the Cartels we have imported along with the other undocumented migrants. The younger the people detained might be, the lesser the punishment. We are left with the idea that no one in their right mind would venture downtown to conduct what used to be common shopping opportunities.

The Boomers among us claim to remember something like this situation. What was permitted in terms of social order collapsed in the late 1960s. We remember the Detroit insurrection in 1967 that marked a distinct change in behavior. Other cities across the country had similar, if less violent events against local civic order. The response was a predictable call to “get tough on crime.” We did.

The levels of incarceration skyrocketed, particularly impacting minority youth. The “de-fund the police!” movement represented the long response to what was called the “school to prison” pipeline. This progression, also known as the school-to-jail link, school–prison nexus, or schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies.

It is hard to avoid noticing the direct cyclic relation between less enforcement of existing law and increased criminal conduct. What is permitted normally grows. The response for tougher enforcement results in increased incarceration rates, which are seen as direct imposition of imposed patriarchal order. One of the troubling characteristics of this social cycle is the deliberate use of juveniles to commit violent acts by the Cartels. We assume the current violence in our central cities can be restrained with stronger law enforcement, which will mean a resumption of this crime discussion on a generational basis. We won’t be here to follow that arc of history, so the verdict is out.

Lately, there has been an increase in discussion of the old Roman Empire and it’s fall. It is because the popular memes involving a fading Empire, Goths, Visigoths and Vandals seem to resonate with current events. The comparison between now and then is a curious matter. We will see how it plays out, but when we return next Thursday, we may be in a government shut down and all of us will be a little uncertain about where we are going in this great nation. We have survived government shut downs before, and assume this one will be rectified in a similar manner. We hope so, anyway. We need those retirement checks!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com