For the establishment that enjoys its own privileges, the Double Standard doesn’t exist. For those outside privilege the Double Standard is “in – your – face” and “in – your – wallet ” government. As in suffering endless rules and regulations that Washington’s version of Moscow’s “Nomenklatura” generally ignore. Perhaps it should be described by a term Progressives can understand – “Standards 2.0”.
As history shows, those who impose rules don’t like to follow them.
On the civics side, the value of common law is that it usually prevents predatory governing classes. Lately it has been daunting to insist that various government agencies stop acting in their own interests. This is the political struggle of this century.
At the beginning of the previous century the feature of liberalism was the sanctity of the individual and limited government. Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living” was widely regarded.
Today’s corruption of liberalism insists that good comes from government without limits. This has forced the greatest intrusion into ordinary life in American history. To the point where a recent headline sums up the persuasions of the younger generation: “Millennials think socialism would create a great safe space”. Ancient theorists about democracy could not imagine the new world of “The uncoerced life is not worth living”.
It is not just terms that have been corrupted. Agencies voluntarily formed to ensure law and order have been corrupted. The FBI and DoJ, formerly “of the people”, have become swamp critters.
The integrity of free markets and economic engineering in electricity production has been displaced by the passions of CO2 zealots. Costs of basic electricity in many regions are sky – rocketing. In a bizarre form of Gresham’s Law, bad electrical power has driven out good electrical power. Then the promoters discover that the wind does not blow all the time. So, they are forced to duplicate politically correct power generation with, for example, economical natural gas.
The brilliance of sound money has been corrupted by reckless financial adventurers in central banking. The transfer of wealth to the Deep State through depreciation has been the biggest scam in financial history.
The term “Deep State” is an appropriate description of relentless ambition, now very defensive.
And it won’t quit voluntarily. Thankfully, history provides examples of the senior economy going authoritarian and then being reformed. Through popular uprisings. When the money runs out.
In the Third Century, Rome was corrupted by ambitious bureaucracy into a police state. When confiscatory taxation became inadequate, the state imposed chronic depreciation. The combination of central planning and bureaucratic greed destroyed the Empire’s economy.
Christianity 1 along with the independence of the Northern Provinces 2 helped collapse the Roman Deep State. Ironically, by the 1500s the church had the only organization that could be corrupted by ambitious bureaucracy. The combination of church and state imposed regulatory intrusion, confiscatory taxation and chronic inflation. It ran until the economy was impaired. Serious reform in England began in the early 1600s.
Historians called it the Protestant Reforma tion. Every authoritarian agency and belief was examined and eliminated or reduced. Under the advance of real science, astrology became astronomy; alchemy became chemistry. The corruption of the Church was exposed and reduced. Overall, it should be called a Great Reformation.
Sixteenth Century indulgences provided absolution from sin. Today’s indulgences provide absolution from the “sin” of emitting CO2, which while a trace gas is essential to all, repeat all, life.
Both indulgences were available for only those who could afford them and were integral to bureaucratic corruption.
The other form of absolution from destructive behavior has been the inside loop. Such as the one that enabled and protected Hollywood’s predatory habits. Another offense is the Main Stream Media that never criticizes either the methods or results of the Deep State.
That there is a “thermostat” that will perfectly set the Earth’s temperature is the greatest delusion since the solar system rotated around the Vatican.
Carbon dioxide emissions are, of course, the latest in the concept of “original sin”. In these days, ambition about Biblical morality will not advance an activist’s career. However, the concept that just living is an original sin has been a winner for anyone beguiled by authoritarianism.
Recently, the power of today’s authoritarians seems to be faltering.
Even with out the edition of yet another Star Wars , Hollywood’s force field is collapsing rather quickly.
The very strong El Nino warming of 2016 was a weather event , and is now over. Even before the next Al Nina there is solid evidence for a cooler winter. An Ipsos – MORI survey notes that those who are “Concerned” about “Climate Change” reached 82 percent in 2005 and has declined to 60 percent now.
The popular uprising has not been “put down” in the US and reform is spreading with Brexit to Austria and Czech elections. Saudi Arabia could be starting a reform. In all cases, the struggle is between a corrupt culture and reformers.
In his Death of Liberalism , published in 2012 Emmett Tyrrell reviewed “Liberal – Progressivism”. He wryly observed “A double standard is better than no standard at a ll.”
Criticism of Standards 2.0 has only just started.
Bob Hoye
Institutional Advisors
1 Two important Christian concepts were “Render unto Caesar…….” And free will.
2 Rome had a “top down” legal system. Northerner’s code did not grant exceptional powers to central authority.
