Things That Suck Less Than The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

Forgive me. I just inflicted a 5 part, zillion word, thesis on y’all; complete with historical analogies far fewer fart jokes than desirable. Now, when I should call it a day, I’m going to write more.

That last set of posts was counter-indicated for maintaining a popular blog. In a world where people bitch about 280 character, bumper sticker level, Twitter-nuggets I might as well be stapling chapters of War and Peace on telephone poles. But… I gotta’ be me.

Shockingly, folks periodically voice opinions not unlike mine. I’ve mentioned that something has to happen. I think it has to be “unusual”. Why? We’ve been so mistreated and propagandized that the people simply cannot digest and pass the truckload of stupid that was 2020 using normal methods. Resignation, endurance, and cynicism only go so far.

Each of us, individually and in our own way, must squat over the throne of self-analysis, pass the turd of untrusted elections, and flush it down the tubes of “that wasn’t fun”. It’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen in an unusual manner. I don’t say it necessarily has to suck, only that the “winner” shouting “suck it up buttercup” isn’t working. If it was going to work, it would have. Screaming at the sky amid the smoking ashes of civilization isn’t going to bend reality to anyone’s goals.

So, what will happen? Nobody yet knows. But there are a few good ideas!

American Greatness shines a light on one path. Federalism.

America was meant to be States managed locally by people with local interests and local knowledge. That’s long gone. Ditching it was a disaster.

Maybe it had to go this far to have gone too far? An urbanite condo dwelling Boomer vegan cat lady in Atlanta controlling the size of my rural homestead’s toilet flush is fuckin’ nuts! I have a different life with a different situation. I have deeply rural, far northern, seemingly Neanderthal, needs. A condo dwelling person will never know what it is like. For one thing, conserving water is absolutely a bad idea in my situation. Each January, I must keep the septic lines thawed during -30 degree blizzards. It’s an environment that would strike dead an Atlantean dilettante the instant zer emerged from them’s leased Prius.

A person who’s never been off city water ruling over a man who digs trenches with a shovel is madness. So too, it would be unwise if I ruled over her. “New rule promulgated by Commander in Chief and Head National Asshole Curmudgeon! All cats must be fully clawed and encouraged to kill every mouse in the nearest chicken coop.” Certainly our hypothetical citified cat lady has no idea why mice in a chicken coop is a “thing”. Why should I control her beloved herd of seventeen cats who never leave the house?

Here’s how American Greatness gets the ball rolling:

One of the difficulties with human nature is our tendency to remain frozen in a familiar construct. Right now, many Americans are still living in a construct that is no longer germane to the present. They have failed to detect the significant changes in our society’s institutions.

Here, I’d like to elaborate on “frozen in a familiar construct”. Have you noticed discussion of “fixing” whatever the hell happened on November 3rd 2020 come in two flavors? One side says; “Biden won fuckheads! If statistical and other evidence to the contrary gives you concern, you’re a terrorist. If we had enough power we’d put you up against the wall.” The other size says “Trump was robbed, he should be put in charge. I want the cheaters tried for treason.”

Both sides see no alternatives. They just want more fights about the choice between two suit wearing jackasses! They’re locked into a two sided shit sandwich. They can see no third option.

We’ve gone beyond “pick one of two”. Other people have seen this situation in their world and tried to adapt accordingly. Roman Emperor Diocletian killed his way to stable governance but realized things couldn’t go on that way. Civil war was the national pastime. Rome had become a never ending shuffle of corrupt incompetent Emperors getting stabbed by the incoming flavor of the week. Each usurper less stable than the last. When Diocletian died they’d be back at each others throat before his corpse was cold. So, he tried a new idea. He divided the Roman Empire into a Tetrarchy and retired to his cabbage patch.

Brilliant or stupid, it was at least a good attempt. It had never before been tried in human history. Results were mixed. Maybe he was the last Emperor who had his shit together. Maybe he kept the decrepit shambling husk of Rome toddling along a few more centuries. Maybe he wisely kept Eastern Rome’s lights on for nearly a thousand years… long after the Goths fucked the Western side into the Medieval period. Maybe he should have just kept killing, Game of Thrones style, until he croaked.  It depends on your point of view.

Diocletian was a bad ass but he couldn’t bend reality to his whim. Evil or not, he did what he could to create a new way. Folks thinking about the last election as merely a “wrong pick” haven’t yet sized up the enormity of the thing. Diocletian would be administering dope slaps en masse by now. But I digress…

American Greatness continues:

The founders were constantly concerned about governments’ trend towards tyranny, and they sought tangible methods of ensuring America would be secure from that threat. The result of their hard work was the republican concept of federalism.

. . .

No nation, divided as we currently are, can be governed effectively by a central government that does not represent the entirety of the people. One only needs to read and listen to the proclamations of the current regime in Washington, D.C. to know that it represents much less than the entirety of the citizenry.

. . .

The regime in Washington, D.C. cannot effectively lead America. Neither can it rule it by the heel of the boot. Its fantastical ideas of doing so will only lead to civil unrest of massive proportions and, potentially, to the dissolution of the republic. So, instead of waiting for this train wreck of governmental malpractice to ruin America, perhaps it’s time to decentralize our system of government and rely on the concept of federalism to maintain our union until a time when we are less divided.

It should not matter to a Californian what a Texan does in Texas—just as there is no benefit to Texans to impose their way of life onto Californians. Likewise, a regime in Washington, D.C. composed of bureaucrats whose belief system and way of life do not represent that of the majority—or even a plurality—of Americans does not have the moral authority to impose its version of America onto those who see that version as anathema to their way of life.

All this is a good point. A big deal to me is that a rebirth in Federalism can happen without things getting bloody. We have the framework and the historical tradition. All we need is a willingness to see that the dumbassery of right now ‘aint working. (State representatives with the balls to do the job wouldn’t hurt either.)

As I’ve said before, things went too far in 2020. It’s no longer about one particular party or politician. It’s about whether we’ll have elections or “elections”. America needs to choose a solution to what went wrong or it will get one imposed by outside forces; good and hard. Federalism is a great way to get past the spastic interregnum we’re enduring.