I'm appalled at the rioting that took place in the United States Capitol on Wednesday. I'm appalled at the series of bone-headed decisions that made it possible, made it likely and made it last a lot longer than it should have.
I'm appalled (but not surprised) that the chump in the White House -- who, by the way, works for us -- didn't match his actions to his words and march his wrinkled Boomer "law and order" behind down to where a bunch of thugs were breaking stuff I as a taxpayer own and threatening my other employees in the House and Senate (who don't get much good work done when they're not being chased out of the building, let alone when they are). I'm appalled that two gents who've sold themselves as really smart guys because they clerked for Supreme Court justices understand neither history nor their operating instructions well enough to see that following the lead of Barbara Boxer as well as the engineers of the Compromise of 1877 are bad ideas.
I'm appalled at stupid tactical decisions that emboldened rioters enough to charge armed guards and get one of them killed. I'm appalled that this whole mess gives a group of people (the aforementioned employees) who do very little more than talk about themselves and posture the opportunity to do more talking and posturing. I'm appalled at the years-long history of people who keep trying, with the same single-minded delusion that you can pick up a cow chip by the clean end, to use the inexplicable appeal of the aforementioned chump for their own benefit and thus put him in a place where he can break things.
But attempted coup? Because some reform school dropout sat in the Speaker of the House's chair? Because some goon with a buffalo headdress ran through the rotunda? Let's say that these people were somehow able to occupy the Capitol Building. Just what levers of governmental power would they have then taken over? Just what would they have been able to do? The United States Congress met in a hotel for three months in 1814 because the British burned the Capitol Building down. A completely inaccessible Capitol Building would not weaken Congress's ability to do its job by one bit (an absence of TV cameras, on the other hand...) If this truly was an attempted coup, it was easily the most cuckoo coup imaginable.
Let's assess why this happened. Let's assess how this happened. Let's assess ways to reduce the chance it happens again. And then let us waste no more time on it. The human capacity for indignation may be inexhaustible but time and energy aren't -- and these mouth-breathing would-be "Rubespierres" and their vain, shallow Napoleon wannabe have taken up enough both already.
2 comments:
I haven't verified it but I've heard reports of people doing things like urinating on Representative's doors. In Congress. In what amounts to all Americans' house.
I am sorry, I cannot get past that. I cannot get past a lot of this. To me, it is similar to the people who show up to a Target and scream and spit at the minimum wage teenager who asks them to please put a mask on because there's a pandemic.
I don't know. I spent many years in my early adulthood building up a trust and liking for people again after bad experiences in my teen years destroyed it, 2020 has broken a lot of that, and 2021 seems to be continuing in pattern.
Yes I know there are a lot of good people in the world but what good people can do is so small and limited and seems often to be swept away by the bad. And many days now I feel like anything I can do is ultimately futile, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
This was indeed a horrid set of events; I am eager to see the perp walks that will result from it.
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