Guest Post by The Zman
Anyone who has been through a breakup, like a divorce or the dissolution of a business partnership, knows they take on a life of their own. There is rarely one thing that sets the relationship off on the path to destruction. It is the accumulation of small things that build to an undefinable point where the relationship shifts from natural cooperation to natural opposition. Actions that used to build cooperation suddenly become points of contention until the two sides realize the relationship must end.
This is the dynamic in which most civic nationalist now find themselves with their old partner the “founding documents.” For longer than the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, the civic nationalist has looked at his citizenship as defined by the partnership with the founding of America. The Declaration and to a lesser extent the Constitution have been his life partner. These documents and the mythology that has been created around them are what make him whole.
These documents, along with the founding itself, exist within the larger definition of America that the civic nationalist will defend with his life. There is some variation in that some of them still promote the melting pot idea while others are in the creedal camp, but all of them are married to the general concept of America. They will defend America from critics on all sides, mostly from the Right, of course, but they will even make some noises about defending their love from the Left as well.
The problem is America does not love them anymore. Those founding documents, the marriage certificate of the relationship, no longer matter to America. The reason America keeps them locked away and rarely mentions them is they are just not that important because the relationship is not that important. America is ready to move onto to the new vibrant stage of its life. That means leaving behind the old phase, the marriage to the civic nationalists.
Like a jilted lover, the civic nationalists cannot accept it. Here is an example in a legacy publication defending the Declaration. The elevation of the Declaration over the actual founding documents of the country was the result of a prior rough patch in the relationship during the last century. The Caesarism of Roosevelt needed to be addressed, like an infidelity in a relationship. The solution was provided by Harry Jaffe, a second rate scholar who peddled bromides to third rate thinkers.
There was no way to square what the progressives had done in the first half of the twentieth century with the text and spirit of the Constitution. There was no way to challenge them as they controlled the important bits of society. The solution was to embrace a form of Jacobinism. America was now defined, so the theory goes, by the egalitarian spirit of the Declaration. This also allowed them to embrace the tyrant Lincoln as their new Moses.
The new vision of America the civic nationalist created in response to the authoritarianism of the new regime was made to look like tradition by rewriting the founding history. The real founding document was the Declaration. The Constitution was an imperfect compromise to get started. The Civil War was an effort to address the big flaws to bring the document in line with the Declaration. The Gettysburg Address was a restatement of the genuine founding ideal.
This is utter nonsense, but it kept the relationship going. Like the cuckold who convinces himself the wife is taking night classes at the university so she can get a better job once the kids are in school, the civic nationalists occupied themselves with the Lincoln fantasy. Meanwhile, the America they loved was getting busy with every left-wing fad that came out of the academy. She was no longer even trying to pretend that she cared about the relationship with the civic nationalists.
There are some civic nationalists who see the problem. They hope to refashion the relationship around something they call common good conservatism, which creates an open marriage between themselves and the Constitution. America can still carry on with the latest thing, as long as it does not threaten the marriage. The common good civic nationalists will step in to enforce discipline when needed. They imagine the cuckold finally gaining the courage to call his wife home.
In fairness, there are some within the civic nationalist space who sense that the relationship is over and it is time to move on. They mostly focus on the old originalism idea embraced by the legal wing of civic nationalism. Originalism seeks to elevate the text of the Constitution over legal aspirations to the contrary. The problem is they are left to defend a document that was flawed from the start and has been butchered by previous efforts to minimize it.
The hard cold truth is that the America the civic nationalists claim to love is not around anymore and she is never coming back. In fact, she never really existed. It was a creation of the last century. The America of the founding died at Gettysburg and was buried in Reconstruction. It took two wars in the 20th century to create a replacement, which maintained the trappings of the original, but was fundamentally different from the republic fashioned by the Founders.
The crisis of the present is not over the strains in the old relationship with the America imagined by the civic nationalists. It is the result of the America formed in the 20th century having no rationale in the 21st century. The America of the civic nationalist is dust in a grave, left untended in the 19th century. Not only is she never coming back, but she also cannot be replaced with anything similar. Like the cuckold whose wife has left for good, the civic nationalists need to move on with their lives.
Whatever comes next is going to be fashioned by those who close the door on the past and accept the present, along with what future can be made of it. There are lessons to be gleaned from America’s past. There are lessons to be gleaned from the Franco-Prussian War and Revolutions of 1848. Those lessons only matter if they are put to use understanding the present in order to create a future. That future is not going to include the founding documents moldering away in a museum.
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I just don’t buy it.
When Satan had more resistence he hid in plain view. Now he dances in the sunlight.
The graveyards are full of Americans who would have faught this current dark, new century reality.
The replacements are too many sad and lost souls.
We collectively are to blame.
I don’t see how “we” come through this intact.
Life has for me been a dificult horse to ride, so I fear the present and near future.
I am not ready to throw in the towel but am disgusted at what is headed our way.
Me neither , the political philosophy that gives the best possible outcomes for the most people has already been figured out because though technology and complexity may grow //human nature doesn’t except perhaps if it is intentionally altered by the few at the expense of the many, and whom gets to decide what pray tell is ” better ” than the original article ? And better for whom ? The few ? No, we had this figured out hundreds of years ago as best as flawed humans can ever expect to be able to do so .Any thing else requires altering human nature with or without individual consent and as I said before that would require a small cadre of deciders assuming the power of gods . What could go wrong ?Alot .
Apologies, Ive just read too many works related to this or similar subject matter like “The Abolition Of Man ” to name one to think that some radical new political philosophy or social science is going to cure what Ails us without perhaps extinguishing what it is that makes us humans in the first place .and it is the fate of human kind after all that should be of primary concern whenever we are looking for something ” better” .
Zman’s writing style is irritatingly faux-academic; he is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. He searches for vehicles for criticizing his parents’ generation, whom he will never forgive for something. Maybe some day we will find out what.
He offers no alternatives. Ever.
Summarizing the entire article:
“People don’t care about the old documents anymore, so people who still care about them are bad, bad, bad!”
Did I miss anything?
Yes, ZM forget to dump on the 1776 Articles of Confederation, the adequate predecessor of a bridge-too-far Constitution. It would have kept us out of this bankrupt Federal super-state, liars take-all, corruption from a high castle… betrayal of the freed colonies.
Unhappily, I walked away from the Oath I swore in youthful naivete.
Are people in China happy? Are people in North Korea happy? Are people in Cuba happy? Communism makes people miserable. The human soul needs freedom to thrive. The communists are anti-human.
You have been fooled badly.
Who here is any happier than they are. The human soul needs God, nothing else. The Planet and all that’s on it needs God, nothing else.
People for some strange reason always need air, water, food and money.
Z(eroed X-ring)Man.
Civics indoctrination-drip covfefe stimulants.
Remember that most expensve brew/rig from The Bucket List? Kopi luwak. Civet coffee. Cat poop coffee.
“Experience Moments of Imperial Pleasure” $24,000
Civics is a feline digestive tract assembly line … Toxofookinplasmosis in a cuppa’ Joe, G(astro).I(ntestinal).
Way to a proto-wo/man’s heart is through the ol’ enteric brain, seated in a hard chair, waitin’ on the next Pavlov bell to tell ‘em to move the the next hard chair.
Do ya’ take yours Bueller? Creamed? Jaffe Latte Lincolnado? That fomented foamy phoniness appeals to many & the drive-thru fuflfilment kiosks are everywhere. As are Kramers. & poor Georges who just cannot stick with the opposite. What’s the apposite opposite of opposite in Fight Club, hey?
Along same, surely, overstim’d synaptic lines, the Lincoln ~ classic suicide doors, ya’ll, the better to handle those steaming hand-offs at the kiosk drive-thrus ~ Lawyer “upgrade” is played by a Mexican. Because unlike McConaughey’s mama, afaik, novel protagonist Mickey Haller’s mama was Mexican, & exploring that Latino heritage is dramatic.
Cat poop coffee – JUST had a conversation this morning about this topic. Wow, WEIRD again and again! Either you’re on my wavelength or I’m on yours. Which is scarier??
Written on the waves that write themselves.
“This stuff writes itself” is a feeling I often have.
Or I write. Then the waves read back what I wrote in a harmony.
I assume waves are at least as individually unique as fingerprints & irises even if a wave by any other name curls its lip & pushes its hip just as Elvis-ly. And I like making each wave stand alone, too … sine waves dancing across oscilloscopes may be sinuous, but they’re also boring.
Synchronised surfing, wave wriding, maybe, eh?
But how many rows of seats did it have? (?Mandela effect)
Mass false memory re the number of seats?
Z, is lost and has given up! His/her choice. Just get out of my way!!!!
No one has ever been governed by a document.
Word.
Right. Only living documents can govern. And then only ostensibly living, documented or not, dock of the bay sitters, wasting time.
Looks like nothings gonna change, everything still remains the same ♪♫♪
It is time to recognize Wall Street has been fleecing the US for $30 trillion that is being used for a Great Reset under Rothschild control.
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GOBBLE-DE-GOOK AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Every once in a while, the Federal Reserve feels the public needs a refresher on the intricacies of how the Fed operates. And just like David Copperfield, the Fed wants to tease the public to believe elephants can be vaporized only to reappear at the next show. Together with Ed Griffin, Mike Maloney, and the Fed they have produced three films that disappeared the Fed’s elephants that Steve Bannon has been good enough to post. Ref. https://www.warroomforum.com/threads/3-videos-the-united-states-biggest-money-printng-system-scam-is-the-federal-reserve-they-own-the-goverment-by-debt-with-your-tax-dollars.32208/. If you felt there is something you missed in watching the videos, allow me to add a few steps in the flow of money as it goes through the Fed.
The Fed enters the stage when the government wants money it does not have. If the U.S. Treasury, with the approval of Congress, sends a deficit-spending Treasury Security [Security] to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York [Bank], the Bank, acting as a fiscal agent for the government, will credit a government account with the same number of zeros as the security. Everybody knows this as book-entry creation of money. The Treasury draws checks on the account to pay government suppliers and the suppliers deposit the checks in Anybank in Anytown. New value is thus added into circulation as inflation. If the supplier wants cash to buy groceries, Anybank can buy Bennies from Bank for face value. The Fed had bought the Bennies from the U.S. Mint for the cost of printing [about 15-20 cents each]. The cost of printing is listed in The Fed’s Annual Report to Congress as an expense. In years past, each denomination was listed separately.
So much for how book-entry credit creates inflation in the market. We left the Bank holding the Security and the three videos mentioned above allowed Copperfield to completely disappear them.
The administrators, clerks, and accountants at the Bank need cash to buy groceries, and the Bank has the ideal forum to sell the Security. Securities issued in prior years all have a maturity date and need to be rolled over. The Bank currently rolls over approximately $14 trillion annually. This money, in large part, goes to Primary Dealers for their task in collecting maturing securities. The exact values of auctioned securities are tabulated in TreasuryDirect Institutional Excel listings. Disbursement of auction funds, and any related operation that the Bank wishes to control, are exclusively managed by the Bank. Ref 31 USC #375.3. The auction accounts have never been audited; they are client accounts, not operational accounts. All audits of the Fed are performed according to guidelines established by the Board of Governors. The GAO has made two security reviews of the digital form developed by the Bank for on-line auction bids which are government funds. Footnotes identify them as not audits.
TreasuryDirect Institutional tabulations historically listed auction funds as “new cash” and for roll-over. The distinction appears to have become blurred. The deficit Security is a component of each roll-over security which co-mingle government funds with the Fed’s deficit security funds. Each trillion dollars of annual deficit spending amounts to $4 billion that disappears daily. Since all profit of the Fed legally belongs to the government, it is not understood why the deficit security funds do not show up on any government account.
The last thing the Fed wants you to expose is their nefarious handling of the money from auctions of Treasury securities.
Ref.
THIS IS OUR BANKING SYSTEM
Who else but Zman.
There is something of interest here. A high trust group of people from the same ethnic background can make any system work. Common Good Conservatism implies there is a common and a good. Individualism keeps the common and the good from becoming oppressive, but it cannot undermine the common and the good or we have anarchy.
The liberty of the Founders was a revolutionary liberty, not a community sustaining liberty. The common (same root) sustains community.
It is not the documents, nor the relationship with them that is the issue. The issue is individual sovereignty which is another way of saying self ownership. The average American today is willing to sacrifice that self ownership because they never valued it to begin with.
The reason the “average” American does not value that self ownership is that the average American is an immigrant who’s ancestors never valued or fought for their self ownership. They came from places where feudalism was the norm, and they were comfortable with that, so long as they had plenty to eat and lived comfortably.
Self ownership carries with it, self responsibility, and the fact is most people do not want to take on the responsibility for their own life. They want to believe that they will be taken care of by government and that they are entitled to what others earn.
Immigration has diluted our culture, and our culture is no longer one of freedom and self ownership, but of tribalism and socialism in which we gladly trade our sovereignty for empty government promises.
I see little or no chance for the US to continue as a unified country, as we do not believe the same things. I believe the balkanization of the US is inevitable as the cultures of the people within it are completely incompatible.