The Camel's Nose

Modern era governments have come this far through a series of evolutionary paths that humans went about to organize themselves.  Kingdoms and monarchies that depended solely on the skill and power of an individual who then passed it on through the hierarchical  bloodline, have been gradually replaced by a process where the power is generated from the bottom up. At least, that is how it was supposed to work.  Democracies are definitely that but even socialism, communism and totalitarianism are still required to wield their power through the people, albeit, forcibly either through coercive or veiled subtle means.

Let us not forget that true democracies were born out of establishing individual freedom so that in the process people are allowed to express their views unhindered and to be able to pursue their livelihood towards economic freedom within certain sets of rules and laws agreed to and with concordance from the people.  Such rules and laws must be confined optimally towards fairness and equal distribution of rights and privileges but none of those must favor one group or disallow another for reasons of race and gender.  All of that encapsulated in the nobility of a true justice system.

The American style democracy had a unique history in that, while there was a clear majority of skin color in the beginning, there was diversity of culture and national origins from where they came.  Later on, as the word spread around the world about what was then a new nation, more diversity of people came over on their own while many others were brought in by force. It did not take long for the new nation to go through another evolutionary path by way of The Civil War. Incredibly, democracy was preserved and renewed.

Today it seems that it must endure another evolution. It might seem subtle except that this nation may find itself divided by an ever widening chasm right in the middle.  Long gone were the days when a sitting President from one party and the Speaker of the House from another would get together for an early evening beer after a grueling and contentious debate between opposing legislators in the Hall of Congress.  That was 38 years ago - today's generation cannot relate to - when Ronald Reagan was President and Tip O'Neil was Speaker. That was when politics worked as politicians worked together.  Today, we have politics in great turmoil, a democracy in a delicate balance, except that the two scales are weighted down with seemingly irreconcilable differences. 

Each new administration has every right and all the prerogative to shape the agenda of how it will run the country.  How  was it different after the 2020 election? A year before that election, I wrote, "In Awe of Climate", not truly realizing that what I feared actually came to be:

"Yesterday, Sept. 4, 2019, 425 days from next year's U.S. 2020 election, ten presidential aspirants gathered for a Climate Town Hall for hours. It and almost all the next get together and discussions to follow will be pivotal in one particular way. One of these candidates could conceivably shape the critical agenda for running the next government in case the present administration is voted out of office. It shall be a huge switch in policy because as one of the candidates said last night, "Every Policy Should Be Informed by Climate Change."

Well, what do we have today? The new political party is in power and what we have is, "Every Policy Is Horribly Informed by Climate Change."

I would rather not use the old and tired cliché, so it is with great trepidation that I must: the new administration has succumbed to and had been hijacked by the "perfect storm" of young minority member-legislators of far left wing climate activists and hyper active woke generation. When the then presidential candidate, now President, declared to put the U.S. oil industry out of business, it was a pandering signal to the climate activists of the party that he followed through immediately upon taking office.

It was another clear example of my favorite analogy about reaching the height of insanity when the administration curtailed oil exploration and production here and then go out shopping for the same commodity from Venezuela and Iran; both run by totalitarian regimes.  Shamelessly planning to fly to and visit Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil to come this way after calling that country's regime a pariah to the world during his political campaign is impenitent political amnesia.

Enough about oil, lest my U.S. readers are reminded of the inevitable pain at the gas pump.

In an ideal world the governed expects and gets what the government provides - safety, peace of mind, protection from those who will do them harm (foreign or domestic), general well being and the freedom to express their views without fear.  The government may take from the people in the form of taxes to be able to provide all of the above.

The California Energy Commission now mandates against the use of natural gas for cooking, water  and home heating for all new home and apartment constructions in the name of climate change.  Again, clearly unencumbered by careful logical or common sense thought, this is despite the fact that all electricity to provide for all the appliances are produced mostly by fossil fuel burning plants.  Add to that the mandate to outlaw the sale of combustion engines in the State in the next few years to come will exacerbate the problem.  But, ""Every Policy Should Be Informed by Climate Change."

When Homeland Security created the Disinformation Board, the 1st Amendment Right on free speech was both the intended and non-intended consequence of another ill informed policy.  Anyone who remembers reading Orwell's "1984" in high school or college will find it more than a devilish amusement that a more than real Ministry of Truth had been unfurled out of the fictional pages of a dystopian novel into the inner sanctum of government in 2022.

Now the 2nd Amendment is on the block.  Perhaps not entirely  but it is another thing eyed for curtailment legislatively.

The people will be best served to notice these little things chipping away subtly but slowly before realizing much had been taken. First it is the gas stove, the internal combustion engine, etc. 

Slowly but surely there is a trending desire of taking away from the people by a government created to be a provider and not a taker. We could be witnessing what once was a desert fable about letting the camel's nose inside the tent during a sandstorm.  Soon the camel is fully inside​,​ ​its master pushed away outside into the raging blast of the proverbial sand and wind of woke-ism and the most powerful force of the​​ ​political ​human mind - self delusion.

"The camel's nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions".

Totalitarianism anywhere it exists began as a camel's nose that slowly worked its way from one bureaucrat to the next, from one political operative to another, then through the entire political party apparatus until all there is inside that tent is the entire camel.

An entire country could lose its original collective spirit of exceptionalism not from a weakened general populace but from the insidious corruption of its political system by the oligarchy made up of politicians.  Beware of the camel's nose for there is a sand storm brewing.