The madness of crowds
Ruh-roh, here we go again.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) took to Twitter to make a major announcement. She wrote that “New York put your MAGA hats on. Under our constitutional rights, we WILL support President Trump and protest the tyrants. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
The Georgian Republican seems to hint that she will be attending a protest in New York on Tuesday, which is the date in which Trump will turn himself in for arraignment. The criminal indictment of a former president of the United States has no precedent in American history.
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), former two-time Speaker of the House and staunch enemy of Trump, celebrated the indictment. She tweeted that “The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law. No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.” Twitter users rightfully pointed out that “Ms. Pelosi mistakenly says that Trump can prove his innocence at trial. Law in the US assumes the innocence of a defendant and the prosecution must prove guilt for a conviction.”
While it is certainly true that no one should be above the law. No one should be below the law either.
Oh, indubitably so. And yet. Anybody wanting to learn just how “below the law” they are in Amerika v2.0 should definitely attend this incipient disaster of a gathering, right in the very maw of The Beast. They’ll get themselves a schooling they won’t soon forget, at enormous expense.
The dearly departed Ol’ Remus’s well-known, oft-repeated, and nearly painfully-wise cautionary injunction comes into play in a YUUUUGE way here.
History whispers its horrors plainly if we properly understand it. There are no victories without defeat, and defeat goes deeper than victory. Julius Caesar sometimes commented on this in his dispatches from the Gallic Wars. Our own time has had Mao, Pol Pot, Himmler, Beria and a long list of others who, unlike Caesar, were not warrior-builders so much as agents of annihilation, our darkest fear.
The signature event of survivalists is bugging out on Doomsday Morn, the harrowing dash to their fortified bolt hole as society collapses in a fiery heap behind them. For preppers it’s the remote homestead with gardens and solar panels, a comfy redoubt to weather the storm with grace and style. Either may be part of a militia, bands of brothers training to defend their own in Mad Max times. All are responding to a partial, almost optimistic understanding of the coming disaster.
DC has plainly stated, in public documents, they will requisition food, transportation, equipment, supplies and involuntarily servitude of any kind, in any amount, to whatever extent that pleases them in a “national emergency”. Their control of the cities would rest on food distribution and essential services, then as now, and the rest of America would be stripped to make it happen. This is, plainly said, calculated annihilation, held as not only necessary but just.
DC considers their power base—the urban west and east coasts and a few colonies in between—to be the real America, supported unwillingly but rightly by deplorables living elsewhere who would otherwise act solely from pathologies born of willful ignorance and native ill will. In other times and places “deplorables” were the “untermensch” or the “masses”, always seen as a dangerous, undifferentiated hive, uneducable but trainable, to be cowed and dazzled by turns, and in extremis better mourned than saved.
Compliance with DC’s quotas would become law enforcement’s number one priority. It would fall to the military to deal with organized resistance, which history suggests is a near-certainty. Calories and survival are nearly the same thing. The European undergrounds of World War II grew into effective forces only when workers and foodstuffs were transferred to Germany. Propaganda had no effect, it was seen for what it was: kidnapping, slave labor and looting. And so it would be here.
DC needn’t target survivalists and prepper communities directly, they’d feel the follow-on effects. Towns and villages forced to ante up their quota to support the cities wouldn’t endure famine when known stores of food and supplies were retrievable. Those preppers who didn’t voluntarily hand over their deep larders “for the common good” would find armed committees at their door. Nor should they expect equitable treatment, they’d be condemned as unconscionable hoarders, feasting while toddlers with empty stomachs cry the night away.
Survival strategies as we know them today are all good enough, going in. And “good enough” is the gold standard. But should the disaster continue unrelieved, classic survival communities with valuable assets and permanent facilities would tempt the fate of the Erie. It’s not for nothing disciplines associated with “Escape & Evasion” are the default basis for survival, meaning bushcraft, stealth, anti-tracking and the like, perhaps exampled by loosely allied groups of a dozen or so each, cycling with the seasons between proven but minimally developed sites, the twenty-first century’s redux of Depression Era migrants.
The ifs, ands, and buts of retro-survival on a large scale are fascinating but outside this essay’s scope, and my intent, so I’ll end this with Rule One: stay away from crowds. Like the speed of light, it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.
In America That Was, peaceful, orderly protest was a cornerstone, the proper and most reliable way to influence and rein in the central government whenever it appeared desirous of exceeding its proper bounds and crossing certain lines. Alas, the time has arrived when we all must acknowledge once and for all that that nation is no longer in existence, and can never be revived or restored.
Any appeal for relief from oppression made to the agency of said oppression is a mug’s game. None but a fool could seriously hope that a demonstrably broken government might be able to FIX a broken government, or is even interested in attempting to. For them, it’s working exactly as it should.
I devoutly wish I could applaud MTG for her bold call to confront the voracious Beast in its very lair and demand that it not devour one of our own, but…well, frankly, I just can’t do it. Any of those who might actually be considering joining her in this reckless, doomed venture chances being eaten alive. It’s like handing over all your money to a notorious thief and asking him to keep it safe for you; when you go back for it, you can’t be shocked or angry to learn that he's spent it all.
MTG should consult with the inmates of DC’s J6 gulag and find out just how well exercising their right to peacefully petition THIS government for redress of grievances worked out for them, before she hares off to NYC for an encore performance. As if the current illegitimate junta gives a tinker’s damn about what SHE thinks her “rights” ought to be, versus the radically expurgated version of them she actually enjoys.
No, there is but one way out of this now, and that dark road does NOT pass through any more “peaceful protests.” As we have been shown, it’s far too late to indulge ourselves in such flippant fantasy at this point. If and when another J6 rally is attempted, all participants need to be sure to bring their guns along with them this time. And they’re going to want to be sure those guns are loaded, too—in battery, with spare magazines also loaded and ready to hand. Because they’re going to need them.
We all live in AINO now; go on acting as if the character of its government isn’t what it so clearly is, and current reality is going to provide you with a very harsh cram-course of remedial instruction. The final exam is strictly pass-fail—no cheat sheets, no do-overs, no appeals for review. The teacher is a stone bitch, and she doesn’t grade on a curve. If you flunk this course, it’s forever.
Figure that the indictment is the bait on a hook, and MTG and any crowd she manages to lure are the fish. Somebody wants/needs a big blowup right about now. The sensible thing would be a Motion for Summary Judgment, on the grounds that the statute of limitations for state charges - this is a state court, the charges are for violation of NY state statutes - was not tolled by Trump being in office. If based on the 2016 incidents, they're five years out, if on the 2018 incidents with Michael Cohen, they're three years out. One day out is sufficient to flush the case. As for anything having to do with Cohen's actions, it's actually all on him. Two possibilities - Trump tells Cohen "do whatever you have to do" and Cohen breaks the law - can't prove that Trump had intent to break the law. The other possibility is that Trump told Cohen to break the law or suggested he do it, and in that case, the rule is for the lawyer to not break the law, and to withdraw from the representation, and that's that. And a lawyer can't aid or abet his client in lying to a court, either.