Porretto: Making Amends

From Francis Porretto, on the hard choices ahead. An excerpt:

We stand, God willing, at the end of the Progressive Era in American politics and political thought. One way or another, the edifice will shortly come crashing down. The only questions that remain are whether a recognizable United States of America will rise from the rubble.

Many Americans, however, will not. That's guaranteed.

Our current political order does not resemble our Constitutional basis in any way. Every stricture of the Constitution has been abrogated. Most states treat their own constitutions as palimpsests, from which any clause may be deleted and to which any permission might be added, entirely at the will of the rulers. As for county and municipal charters...do I really need to go on?

The prevailing order compounds Corporatism[1] with Social-Welfare Fascism.[2] Under such a scheme, persons will flow steadily away from the "economic means"[3] and toward the "political means,"[4] in obedience to the established incentives. As the current state of affairs has obtained for nearly a century, a terrifying number of Americans and pseudo-Americans have made themselves utterly dependent on the State for their sustenance. They own no means of support -- no skills by which they could create value for others.

The key phrase in the paragraph above is "made themselves." Reflect on it.

When -- not "if" -- the Corporate Social-Fascist State exhales its bloody final breath, the economy that results will not have provisions for those dependents' support. As they will be unable to support themselves, their continued existence will depend wholly upon the kindness of others. But, given the immense damage that's been done to our economic foundations by Progressive policies, the crash is overwhelmingly likely to be massive. Many of us who can support ourselves on our own abilities will be hard pressed. Many others will disdain to succor of persons they deem complicit in their own fates.

There will be suffering. It will be massive. Some will die.

Yet the reckoning is at hand. It cannot be delayed much longer: even if the rising some foresee should fail to materialize, our current profligacy and laissez les bon temps roulez insouciance cannot last more than a year or so from here. No matter how well politically connected you are, you cannot consume what no one has produced.

Americans' charitable impulses and capacities, even if nominally quantitatively adequate to the demands that will be placed upon them, will fail to reach some persons in time. That, too, is guaranteed.

As one who holds notions of collective responsibility in low esteem, I dislike to proceed from here, but intellectual honesty requires it:

We brought this on ourselves. ...

Read the rest here. If you aren't preparing yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally for the coming storm, which will likely make our current economic situation look rather pleasant by comparison, you're doing yourself and your family a grave disservice.

Mr. Porrento adds to his analysis here, and here.