The Death of the Liberal Class foreshadowed our current collapse in social cohesion

Some years ago, I started reading but did not finish Chris Hedges' book The Death of the Liberal Class. (liberal of course meaning classical liberalism, not left-of-center politics)

Published in 2010, it described the collapse in credibility of the public institutions that long served as the foundation of western liberal democracy. This collapse has led to the comprehensive pan-ideological breakdown in social cohesion that we've experienced the last several years, which has been laid even more bare by the pandemic. 

This breakdown was accelerated by the Trump presidency, who exploited it mercilessly to get (s)elected in the first place. But the unraveling did not start with Trump's inauguration and will not end with his long overdue eviction from the White House. I think it's time I picked the book back up.

Baltimore charges help civilized society fight impunity

I’ve read a lot of snotty memes this week supporting impunity. If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen them: the pictures of black (always all black) men rioting with wording along the lines of “if you don’t want to be killed by police, then all you have to do is not break the law.”

 

I’m sure the people sharing these memes are saints of the law who have never texted while driving or gone 1 mph above 65 on the highway.

Not surprisingly, this was shown to be untrue. Today, the Baltimore prosecutor announced that Freddie Gray didn’t actually commit any crime, before he was arrested and died in police custody.

According to her, his very arrest was illegal in the first place. And that's before his alleged murder.

With charges including second degree murder against thearresting officers, I applaud the prosecutor for striking a blow against impunity by forcing the accused to answer for their actions before the justice system.

Impunity has no place in a civilized society. As this week’s riots illustrated, when law enforcement acts like the law doesn’t apply to them, it makes their job harder by giving license to everyone else to act the same way.

Bits and pieces

DEATH THREATS IN THE NAME OF ‘LAW AND ORDER’
Albany (NY) County’s district attorney David Soares has admitted that he and his office has received death threats in response to his refusal to prosecute participants of the Occupy Albany movement for non-violent activities like violating curfew. From the infamous pepper spray police thug in Davis, CA to the violent crackdown against peaceful Occupy movements in places like Oakland and Denver to the above death threats, you’ve seen remarkably little violence from those protesting in the name of democracy with most of the violence being committed by people doing so in the name of ‘respect for law and order.’ Quite a different reality to the one intoned by the yapping heads.

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WHAT’S THE STRANGE COMBINATION OF LETTERS ON THAT STREET SIGN (B-I-K-E L-A-N-E) SIGNIFY?
Bravo to the Burlington, mayored by a Progressive Party mayor not coincidentally, for lowering the speed limiton the Vermont city’s streets. The Burlington Free Press reports that it was done to enhance the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians. Yet another reason Burlington is probably the coolest city in the northeastern US.

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YES, EVEN REFS ARE HUMAN TOO
Recent stories in the soccer world a very troubling, from the attempted suicide of two referees, to the apparent suicide of Wales national team manager Gary Speed to the suicide not that long ago of German goalkeeper Robert Enke. It should serve as a wake-up call reminding soccer fans that a little re-humanization is long past due. There is so much vitriol and nastiness in soccer fandom that it’s easy to forget that the targets are all human beings, with families and emotions. Passion should never be used as an excuse to act like barbarians.

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IN DISTRACTION WE TRUST
Economic inequality, unemployment, massive corporate welfare, institutionalized anti-democracy... the country is facing so many problems and what is the latest meaninglessness that Theocrats want us to freak out about? The president’s failure to mention God in his Thanksgiving address (only the spoken one; he did include it in the written one). You can just call it The Great Distraction.

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THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED... JUST NOT HERE
I saw this great graphic on Facebook, which showed the covers of TIME magazines editions for other parts of the world compared to its US edition. Gives you an insight into the editorial judgment [sic] of their vaunted professional editors.

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THE PROBLEM WITH COLLEGE STUDENTS: THEY HAVE TOO *LITTLE* DEBT
I was gobsmacked to read a newspaper article with this headline: "The other student loan problem: too little debt." Only a bank-obsessed culture would look at this issue and wonder if the problem is students with too *little* debt rather than taking a hard look at whether a university education, whether the cost of a fancy piece of paper is massively overpriced. Investigative journalism at its finest.

Clerks claim 'right' to flout law

WAMC News did a story about how some municipal clerks in New York are claiming the 'right' to refuse to issue same sex marriage licenses, now that it has become law in the state. The so-called Alliance Defense Fund rails against "threats from top officials of the Empire State to charge clerks who decline to issue such licenses with a criminal offense--forcing clerks to decide between their career and their faith"... as though this is somehow both illegal and unprecedented.

If a Muslim clerk wanted to refuse to issue marriage licenses to Christian couples because of religious beliefs, would these organizations defend their right to do so? What if a gay clerk wanted to refuse to issue marriage licenses to a straight couple? What if a racist white clerk wanted to refuse a marriage license to a black or interracial couple?

Let’s take this further. What if an evangelical clerk wanted to deny a birth certificate to the newborn of an unmarried woman? What if a strict Muslim DMV worker wanted to deny driver's licenses to women? What if a Protestant bureaucrat wanted to deny a building permit to a Catholic church?

Would any of these be tolerated on the basis of the ‘rights’ of the bureaucrat? Of course not.

The clerks, like all citizens, have the right to their religious beliefs. They do not have the right to a job.

A job is a privilege, not a right, and is subject to conditions and expectations defined by the employer. For example, I may have the right to freedom of speech as a citizen, but if I exercised that right by shouting in the workplace that my boss was a lying crook, I probably wouldn’t have that job much longer. No one would argue with a straight face that my firing would be a violation of my free speech rights.

Rights outside the workplace and those related to the execution of your job duties are two very different things. Why should religious public sector workers be subjected to a different standard?

Taxpayers have the right to expect that public sector workers they are paying will apply and respect the law as written, regardless of their personal biases, prejudices and beliefs. They have a job to do. If they can’t do their job in good conscience, they should have the principle to resign, as some already have. If they won’t do their lawful jobs, the public has the right to replace them with somebody who will.

Supreme Court: rule of law not dead yet

If you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

A lot of the self-described defenders of freedom were disgusted by today's Supreme Court decision which declared that the rule of law was still valid.

However, they can calm down.

President Bush has stated that he disagrees with the ruling.

And Bush has made it clear with his past actions that he views the constitutional powers of other branches of government as mere suggestions, to be ignored at his whim.