19 October 2020

Editor’s Note: I don’t know how you are handling the coming election. I have been relatively diligent in attempting to follow the twists and turns of the narratives driving both sides of this strange election. The most recent developments, captured in the last two weeks of the normal cycle have been curious. One of the candidates- pick one- has a child who lost possession of a laptop which includes email suggesting a link to corrupt practices. The other candidate is energetic, but widely disparaged by what used to be a media that once held a certain neutrality in covering this sort of madness. This time they are not, and I have been reading with alarm some of the commentary about all of this novel activity. Yesterday got me down, and I can see I am not alone. Arrias jumps on another aspect of all hilarity. Two weeks to go, and then we are off on pursuit of something completely new- an elected President. I am determined to stay the course. I think I would prefer to grab a bankroll and head into the trees until someone convinces me sanity has returned to this once gentle land. In the meantime, stay tuned. Maybe oral surgery on Wednesday will help me regain perspective.

– Vic
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A Lesson From the Gracchi

Attempts to strip power from those that have held it for decades can be difficult. And once violence is unleashed it can lead to dire outcomes. Calling for demonstrations, and failing to uphold law and order, can suddenly rupture the system. And what happens after that is anyone’s guess.

Meanwhile…

One Vice Presidential candidate, has stated specifically that protests will continue. It is worth noting that both the Presidential candidate and VP candidate continue to endorse protests, while insisting that there are few riots; that the “protests” and “demonstrations” are “mostly peaceful.”

But a look at downtown areas of Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and several other cities would suggest a strident disagreement in the meaning of the word “peaceful.”

One Kristopher Jacks, a member of the executive committee of the Democratic Party in Colorado, reportedly stated that he’ll do “everything morally acceptable to win. I will lie. I will cheat. I will steal.” That’s an interesting definition of morally acceptable.

Meanwhile, Antifa, BLM and the far left has insisted there’ll be more violence. Statues have been torn down, names removed from building, statues even of those one would, at first blush, think safe from attack: Lincoln and Frederick Douglass for example.

The Speaker of the House has talked blithely about using the army to remove the President.

The police departments of many cities have seen their funding cut, even as they have seen the relevant district attorneys willing to charge them for a wide range of crimes before any investigation is complete, and unwilling to charge “protesters.” The fallout is the early retirement of ever more policeman.

A major foreign affairs magazine has labeled this “the Most Important Election. Ever.” And the foreign policy establishment makes it very clear who they favor: “It Trump wins, the whole postwar liberal order continues to unravel.”

It’s worth noting that the same magazine, in the shadow of agreements between Israel and the UAE, and Israel and Bahrain, with others certainly just over the horizon, has an article that announces “The End of Hope In the Middle East” and a subtitle that: “the region has always had problems – but it’s now almost past the point of recovery.”

And the Associated Press accuses the President of fear mongering.

What does all this mean? Protests, demonstrations, violence and threats of violence, establishment figures – who were in power for decades, suddenly fear for their status under Trump – fighting back, suggesting an end to everything good if Trump remains in office for another 4 years.

Consider…

The establishment had held power for generations. They considered themselves reasoned, temperate, wise. They referred to themselves as the “Optimates,” the best. In modern parlance they were the “adults in the room.”

This was Rome of the 2nd Century BC.

But the veterans and many of what might be called the middle class were angry that the Optimates held all the power and all the land. They selected Tiberius Gracchi as Tribune – as the representative of the people. Tiberius was a “Populares” – a populist, one who had support of the people. Tiberius, aided by his brother Gaius, began reform of the system, trying to strip power from the Optimates. In the end, he was attacked by the Optimates and killed (he actually took his own life in a scared grove, at the last minute rather than fall into the hands of the mob – a mob the Optimates claimed they did not control).

Ten years later his brother Gaius tried the same thing, and again partly succeeded. And then the Optimates put him down as well, another “out of control” mob killing him and many of his followers (estimates run from several hundred to several thousand killed in a massacre, and then several thousand more being arrested and tried, many of them then being executed).

The parallels are worrisome. At the very core of all this is the sense that real bloodshed – wide-open violence – is just around the corner.

In our case, at the root of all this, these calls for throwing out Trump, and these calls for more demonstrations and, in some cases, more violence, there rests one common theme: the idea that the real establishment, the legacy of Western Civilization, the legacy of a long line of notable figures, is fundamentally and tragically flawed.

Under this thinking, Lincoln is not a great figure; Lincoln is not even a great man who was also a man and made mistakes. No, Lincoln must go. The Roosevelts – both of them. In fact, all of them. Everyone in the past who failed to recognize the “systemic nature” of the flaws in the system, they are, by definition not worthy.

Logically, this has to be so. You cannot insist that a system is “systemically evil” and then accept that this or that historic figure, who supported that system, is not also evil to a large degree. Such a figure cannot and must not be admired or in any way remembered. Such a figure must be removed from society.

San Francisco school district is engaged in this process right now, planning to rename most, if not all, of its schools.

Let me repeat: these calls for change (and suggestions of violence) rest on a single glaring issue: the assertion that the problems with the United States are systemic. The Left is not saying that there are crimes, or that there is racism, or anything else, issues that can be addressed within the existing system. They are asserting that it is systemic, that it is an intrinsic part of the system.

That means it has always been here. Donald Trump departing office will not fix a systemic problem. Democrats taking over the senate will not fix a systemic problem. A systemic problem by definition can only be fixed by substantially altering the system. The system has always been bad. And people who support the system in the past were wrong, they abetted the wrongs of the system. Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan – they were wrong. If you think they were good presidents, you are wrong. And this system must go. That is the argument here.

If you believe that, if you believe the system is fundamentally flawed, and that those who support it – and therefore all those who did support it, who fought for it and died for it, Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan were wrong, and you now must call them evil as well, and that correcting that more than two century old evil system is essential, then vote for the Democratic platform.

If, on the other hand you think that the basic system is good and should be maintained, you must not support the Democratic platform. They wish to fundamentally alter the system. If they are given the power, they will.

Even if you think there are evil and ignorant people in government, but the system of government in the US works, then you must support the Republican platform. No one is asking you to like any particular candidate. Perhaps you think Trump is a bore; fine. But, he represents a belief in the fundamental good of the American system, a belief that no longer exists in the Democratic Party. That is your choice.

Copyright 2020 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com