Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
Reading Ngaio Marsh’s Scales of Justice I realized that the word, “impertinence” has gone out of use. Indeed, what was once an outrage is now so common that no one recognizes it as impertinence. Impertinence has become accepted routine behavior and is no longer recognized when it occurs.
The phenomena of impertinence requires a polite, somewhat formal society in which privacy, self-control, and respect for others are requirements. Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail. Tell that to the NSA, CIA, FBI, Google, and all corporations who spy on Internet usage. In England prior to 1950 it was impertinence for a male to go too far in his compliments to a woman. When I was a student at Oxford University in the 1960s, it was an impertinence to telephone a person to whom you had not been introduced. Today we live with constant telephone intrusions from telemarketers, robots, and scam artists. A society in which impertinence is understood no longer exists.
Consequently, civilized life has taken on a purely technological meaning. Insouciant Silicon Valley nerds build more police state tools for Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984 and see this as civilization’s progress.
Another concept that has disappeared from use is ladies and gentlemen. This term implies distinctions among people and cannot survive in a time when even gender differences are denied. The ultimate impertinence would have been a male declaring himself a women and competing in women’s sports.
We see the extermination of Western civilization in its politics. In America the fight between Democrats and Republicans is settled by which side’s lies are most convincing to the voters. Shame has lost its meaning. A recent Republican fundraiser asks if we “believe that Democrats in Congress are tough enough to stand up to China and Russia?” How is this question possible with the Biden regime threatening war with China, declaring its commitment to Russia’s defeat in Ukraine, pumping into Ukraine $40 billion, heavy weapons, diplomatic support, sanctions on Russia? The Democrats oppose parental rights and support sexual perversion and are able to make appeals to voters on this basis. Florida Democrats are rallying against Gov. DeSantis because he supports parental rights. Really, this is true. Democrats expect to be elected, because they are against parental rights and the 1st, 2nd, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Censorship of free speech (contrary to the 1st Amendment) and imposition of discriminatory quota regimes ( contrary to the 14th Amendment) are mainstays of the Democrats’ agenda.
As I have emphasized in my writings, the United States is the Constitution. In the absence of the Constitution, the United States no longer exists. Some other entity has taken its place. The disrespect for the Constitution is bi-partisan. It was the George W. Bush regime that declared the power to suspend habeas corpus and hold citizens indefinitely without due process. It was the Obama regime that declared the president’s ability to execute citizens on suspicion alone without due process. It is the Democrats who discriminate against white males, declare white people “racists,” impose censorship, and attack the 2nd Amendment. Law schools dissolve the Constitution into an ever-changing “living document” changed at will by judges and law professors.
Western civilization has been replaced by a rootless tower of babel, a structure without strength. The question Republicans and Democrats should be asking is how can a civilization as weak as the West go to war against Russia and China?
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Past
Customer : Thank you
Service Provider: You’re welcome .
Current Year
Customer : Thank you
Service Provider : No problem
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”
Robert A. Heinlein
The Talmud has taken its place.
The constitution was a corrupt bargain imposed on a free people in 1789. This was made clear when Washington led an army into Pennsylvania, and again when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Though it served passably well in peace times, it has served as a tool of oppression where it suited the powers, e.g. in the “reconstruction” of the Southern states, the concentration of ethnic Japanese into camps in the 1940s, and the murders of millions across the world with bombs, bullets, and fire rained from the sky, in the name of a twisted doctrine of “freedom.”
Well said.
The only question that needs asking is, When are we meeting in DC?
metaphorically speaking of course
Alert! “Insouciance” is being replaced by “impertinence”.
I want to know when honor was replaced with pride? Why should we celebrate vice?
There is only one question you should ask: who is the enemy?
There is only one feeling you should have after positively identifying the enemy: recoil.
ZFG, out.
P.S. keep it simple
Actually, if we are to survive, we need to learn to fight and to kill.
This was an excellent article. What Paul Craig Roberts says about America is also true of Canada. It is half amoral and the other half is immoral. It would appear to be past the point of no return. For the long term good of our species Liberal Progressivism must die.