Above Photo: Charles Dickens
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
So begins Charles Dickens’ epic novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Although analogies can often be suspect, I believe I might be meandering along a similar mental path as most Americans right now. Whether on the left or on the right, the vast majority of us unwashed peasants believe that, more than any other time in our history, there are two Americas — one for the elites and one for the rest of us.
Although we dance around this idea, we really don’t get down to the basic foundation. How is that? Simple. The folks who hold the levers of power in these United States, both government and private sector, just don’t hold us proletarians in any real regard whatsoever. The only time they consider effects on individuals is to make some political point, one that, if accepted, likely would not help us anyhow. Go figure.
I understand that the larger a political jurisdiction, the wider in scope our viewpoint needs to be. I get that. The President, Congress, and the Federal Bureaucracy that executes laws and executive orders manage huge numbers of people and money. Even their rounding errors amount to more money than the vast majority of Americans make in a lifetime. However, dealing with such large numbers can foster unhealthy attitudes towards the citizenry, even assuming no malice on the front end.
We’ve all heard the old adage, A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Trite, but true. But that little saying also manifests a profound lack of respect for the American taxpayer who has to work an entire year, just to produce his contribution to the treasury, so the Federal Government can squander it on a rounding error.
That’s how these folks look at us as taxpayers. Moving on to justice, let’s contrast how the legal system views us vs the elites. Remember the Durham Investigation? You know, the bright shiny object that was finally going to bring DOJ/FBI corruption out into the light and garb a few miscreants in prison orange? Dr. Thomas Lifson over at American Thinker, reports that we are out of luck in that particular arena. Lucy has again snatched the football away from Charlie Brown. Surprise, surprise.
The message is out to the next rogue federal bureaucrats who contemplate committing crimes in the name of wiretapping (or otherwise abusing the rights of) opponents of the Deep State: don’t worry! You won’t be doing any jail time and may even get sympathy from the judge — in the unlikely event you ever get caught.
My colleague, shipwreckedcrew has some pithy comments you can read here: About The Clinesmith Sentencing — Color Me “Not Shocked”
That’s how our betters get treated. At the other end of the spectrum where most of us reside, things are a little different, as the Miami Herald reports:
In a case likely to explore the limits of free speech and the policing of disinformation, a social media influencer from West Palm Beach was arrested Wednesday and accused of attempting to dupe New Yorkers into skipping the 2016 election.
Douglass Mackey, known online as Ricky Vaughn, was taken into custody Wednesday morning in West Palm Beach, according to federal prosecutors in New York. Authorities say Mackey, 31, exploited his substantial social media following by encouraging people to vote in the 2016 presidential election by social media and text — both invalid methods.
Read: Social media influencer charged by feds for spreading disinformation in 2016 election
Are we all tracking together here? If you are on the inside, you can deliberately, with malice aforethought, alter a piece of written evidence, with the intent of deceiving a federal judge. However, if you are some random prole (not a Democrat) and do something that had less than zero effect on an election, basically something at the low end of usual Democrat skulduggery, the Feds are gonna put you through the Full Monty.
How about finances? Again, if you are on the inside, or too big to fail, you are bulletproof. If for some reason, those dirty peasants outside your gated community should perchance make a few bucks at your expense, you can expect your buddies, the Federal Regulators, to swoop in and cover your backside, even though as the smartest people in the room, you should have been aware of the risks inherent in short sales.
Read: App Force-Sells Investors’ GameStop Stock
And from Rush Limbaugh: There Are Those Of You Who Are Allowed To Make Money And Those That Aren’t, “Everything Is Rigged”
Then there is the entirely predicted fallout from IPOTUS Biden’s absolutely craven decision to singlehandedly slash between 10,000 and 50,000 (counting secondary) jobs from the economy with a stroke of the pen. The IPOTUS, once again pandering to elements of his base who contribute not one bit of value added to American society, signed a Presidential Executive Order halting construction of the Keystone Pipeline.
We aren’t talking minimum wage, temporary service industry jobs either. These are high skill positions that pay well, with their tax contributions filling federal and state treasuries, while incidentally helping real Americans achieve the American Dream. Here’s how one of the victims feels about things.
Like the other thousands of workers, Crabtree fears for his future and admits to having broken down into tears inside his truck after his team was laid off.
“I’m in the process of building a house, trying to live the American dream, and the bank might own it before I get a chance to live in it,” he said.
Read: Newly Unemployed Keystone XL Pipeline Worker Drops a Reality Bomb on Both Biden and Buttigieg
Nice job, Joe. Tossing people out of their homes before they are even finished building them and while you are at it, gut shooting the construction industry and the real estate market at the same time. Brilliant. And what does former Secretary of State and now Presidential Climate Envoy (whatever that is) John Kerry, have to say about these now jobless folks?
“What President Biden wants to do is make sure that those folks have better choices… That they can be the people to go to work to make the solar panels.”
Better choices?! Build Solar Panels?! That’s almost as tone-deaf as the horribly trite and clueless, Learn to Code trope used by leftist politicians, as they almost gleefully destroy real jobs of real Americans who actually make this country function. By the way, those real Americans are the ones who pay the taxes that fund the government cheese programs that ANTIFA/BLM looters, arsonists, and cop killers live on.
Don’t get me wrong. I have absolutely no issues whatsoever with John Kerry and his fortune, nor anyone else’s for that matter. As long as you gain your wealth the old fashioned way, by legally earning it (or marrying it like Kerry) more power to you. My beef is that his wealth, like so many others of his ilk, even those ostensibly on our side, insulates him from the trials and travails of us ordinary folk. Spending his whole life in politics and never actually producing anything of value or being responsible for the well-being of others, makes him singularly incapable of understanding how clueless his attitude is, even if he had one iota of concern for his fellow Americans.
Back to, A Tale of Two Cities. Kerry and his fellow DC mandarins, along with the titans of Big Tech remind me of a scene therein, where a rich nobleman runs over and kills a small child in the street. He has absolutely no comprehension of the deep down, gut-wrenching pain he has caused the father of that child. He cannot see that father or that child as someone of value. He looks down his nose, just like John Kerry does at the pipe fitters who used to work on the Keystone Pipeline. Here’s the Video:
Here is an excerpt in Dickens’ classic prose (emphasis mine).**
But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not?…
…“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out…
…“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is a child.”
“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?”
“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes.”…
…“Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!”
The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.
He took out his purse.
“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that.”
He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!”
A gold coin. Learn to code. Make better choices. Go make solar panels. The best of times and the worst of times…Indeed.
**I abridged some of Dickens’ excerpt due to space limitations.
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