BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

or...

 

LIBERAL LAMENTATIONS

 

The DJ held his finger an inch above the button in nervous anticipation. Then…cheers went up and the bass started thumping. Men kissed each other. Lesbians, well, they were still scowling but inside they were happy. The announcement outside the Supreme Court confirmed it: Gay marriage is the law now. Despite the imminent collapse of Western Civilization, seeing people so blissful is kind of touching. It’s not really their fault, of course. It’s straight people that don’t think much of marriage anymore despite the mountain of evidence for its positive benefits.

 

Most cheering this pyrrhic victory write off conservative anger as mere bigotry. They always do. But most conservatives know that gay marriage probably would’ve happened even without the courts. (Thanks, Millenials!) No, the current frustration isn’t about gay marriage per se; it’s about the rule of law. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the decision might be nice but it has nothing to do with the constitution. Justice Scalia argued, “Who do we think we are?” This argument about process seems petty and officious to the left and the perpetually ignorant (But I repeat myself.) Their aversion to the constitution allows them a simple doctrine: “I like this issue. I don’t like that one. Who cares how it happens?”  

 

Why does this matter? John Adams said, “We are a government of laws, not men”. Terrified of a tyrannical executive, the specter of King George III hovered over the constitutional convention. Media went ballistic over George W. Bush’s signing statements but when Obama stated, “Elections have consequences,” he meant his election, not the groin kicks he took in the mid-terms. Armed with a pen and a King George-sized ego he did the following:

1.        Despite settled law, he tried to sink the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository. He was spanked by an appellate court.

2.       Obama tried backdoor amnesty. Spanked again.

3.       Obama unilaterally made 37 illegal changes to Obamacare, one of which subsidized congress after they realized they would be forced to use Obamacare.

4.       Obama appointed the head of the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was technically in session. Spankedagain.

5.       Forbes provides a good list of other constitutional violations but there are other lists far more exhaustive.

Obama’s lawlessness and extreme partisanship also encouraged an atmosphere where the IRS punished its foes and the EPA rejected 90% of Freedom of Information requests from conservative groups while accepting 90% from liberal groups. Also, though it gained little attention, some of the Solicitor General’s arguments at SCOTUS suggested there really should be no limit to executive authority at all.

 

Conservatives are obsessed with this “Rule of Law”. It seems obvious that without it, we are Mexico. Maybe one reason the left doesn’t much care about this issue is their view of history itself. Woven into the Oval Office rug is a saying: “The arcof the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”. Intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama and Obama uber-advisor Cass Sunstein believe that history is indeed always progressing. Sounds nice except that it’s, you know, stupid. There are notable examples such as slavery being mostly eradicated thanks to Western civilization which forced the changes on their unwilling colonies around the world. But liberty and prosperity have risen and fallen throughout the ages. Greece invented democracy and then lost it. Rome was at times a republic but succumbed to tyranny.  Its conquering plunged the world into the Dark Ages. Even the Muslim world was once tolerant and innovative. And now? European social democracies are close to bankruptcy, pseudo-totalitarian Russia is ascendant, and the Middle East is even more aflame than usual. The arc of history is more like Chutes and Ladders.

 

Western Europeans are a decaying and morally effete race but American liberals still try to emulate them. Greece’s implosion should be a case study for them. Debt played a major part, of course, but the real reason they’ll soon be eating out of garbage cans and dying because they can’t get their insulin is cultural. The top Greek pastimes are 1. Tax evasion. 2. Work evasion 3. Blaming Germany. Petty corruption is endemic. Everything from traffic tickets to building codes is negotiable so what’s astounding is that anybody could be surprised at this self-imposed calamity.

 

If liberals really wish to destroy the rule of law to get what they want, they should be careful what they wish for. Weather changes. American history is full of religious revivals. One terrorist attack, a war, a handful of scathing government scandals and ‘voila!’ America is conservative again. After LBJ? Nixon. Carter? Reagan. Clinton? Bush. See the pattern? Maybe conservatives should make a list of things that just won’t be enforced when we get power.

 

“Hey! Is that bicycle helmet made from an endangered Desert Tortoise shell?”

 

“Why, yes it is!”

 

“Where can I get one?”

 

“Ebay”.

 

In a brilliant piece, Kurt Shlichter laments how liberals are willing to destroy lives over wedding cakes and flowers. He argues that these scorched-earth cultural battles and the incessant chipping away at the constitution have bottled up conservative anger like never before. And human nature favors payback.

 

Schlichter recalled his experience during the Bosnian war. Rule of law had become primal law. Villages were slaughtered, untold numbers of women raped. God forbid, but if the apocalypse arrives (zombie or regular), one week after 24 hour Chinese food goes away, 25% of urban liberals will be dead. Mormons will do fine because their apocalyptic theology requires expertise at canning and freeze-drying. But “the coastal elites, the ones who brought us helicopter parenting, ‘trigger warnings’ and coffee cups with diversity slogans are uniquely unsuited to a world where force rules instead of law”. The survivors will be the people who always understood that the current façade of civilization hides a human nature that can be animalistic and selfish. Liberals who know how to compost might last longer but when THEY are finally killed and eaten, there will only be one thing left to say: “MORMONS GOT FOOD! GET ‘EM!”