Lucas Cranach the Younger:
page from book: The Art of Wrestling: Eighty-Five Pieces
[Ringer Kunst: Fünff und Achtzig Stücke] (1539)
written by Fabian von Auerswald
printed by Hans Lufft

"I suspect this might be you and fear it will be me."

What better way to get your way than to simply ignore the rules as if they didn't pertain to you? The rules, after all, exist as mere agreements, and any associated guardrails are enforced more by practice than by police forces. We mostly police ourselves; when we don't, we tend to let the matter slide until some perfectly predictable accident occurs. Then, if then, the Justice Department might step in. If NextWorld has demonstrated anything, it's been how much civilization still depends upon the goodwill of upstanding citizens. Inject a few ill-willers into the mix, and everyone's world turns chaotic. Our incumbent stands as a cautionary tale in this respect. He always was the sort of personality we build jails to house, yet his brushes with justice found him slippery. He represents the worst our culture produces, unrepentant and insistent upon receiving much more than he's due. It was a huge mistake, if nonetheless typical that The Senate refused to convict and impeach him when they had the chance. I can find no evidence that showing mercy under such circumstances ever produces anything but worse behavior. It's no mercy, even to the offender, to find him not guilty when he's guiltier than sin.

Perhaps most of all, we prided ourselves on being a country of laws. Due Process stood as our prima facie evidence that we were at least just. Superman fought on the side of Truth, Justice, and The American Way, our mythical holy triumvirate, evidence of our deep-seated underlying decency. Ours was an elite insistence that nobody, however otherwise highfalutin', was above the law. Our justice was deliberately blind to superficialities and laser-focused on what defined meaningful difference. The pauper and the potentate would stand equally humbled before the law, and justice was our most serious business, more serious than even business, more even than legislation. When our incumbent began his assault on common decency, he started here, in the courtroom and the justice system. He characterized judges not as impartial but as prejudiced elites. He slandered them as members of an entirely mythical Deep State. He refused to accept impartial findings as in any way definitive, refusing to acknowledge the results of investigations as anything more than retaliations. He first declared himself the scofflaw in chief before escorting us all into chaos.

The result couldn't help producing obscenity. Of course, he had to align himself closer to Russia because his relationship with Truth, Justice, and The American Way clearly demonstrated that, in practice, he'd always preferred Lies, Injustice, and something much more akin to The Russian Way of operating. He spoke openly of creating gulags and of punishing people who merely disagreed with him, even on issues of little public importance. He took absurd positions on any issue that came into his grasp. He, alone and without evidence, declared that only two genders existed. He characterized up as down and down as up until only those who had been suckling on his Kool-Aid® weren't disoriented or discouraged. He steadfastly refused to drive exclusively in his lane. He insisted upon spanning lanes as if he and only he owned the whole road and everyone else would have to adapt or else. On his first day in office, he swore to defend the Constitution against all foreign and domestic enemies before violating every tenet of his oath, proving his word worthless and his honor nonexistent.

How delicate is the balance upon which civilization depends? Our founders focused on democracy because of the utter impossibility of governing responsibly otherwise. The authoritarian streak that's migrated into government via a burgeoning libertarian turn has encouraged a less responsible focus, or one more focused upon the responsibility to self over God, country, truth, justice, or even the more traditional interpretations of The American Way. In the libertarian's fantasy, everybody should be free to do whatever they please, regardless of how that behavior might infringe upon the rights of others. It's a form of democracy devoid of public responsibility and decidedly self-centered. And there lies its undermining paradox, for democracy simply must first be about We, The People, not Me, The Individual. It depends upon a more mature worldview than might be the default for a cranky eight-year-old. The libertarian perspective seems better suited for an adolescent street gang than any decent country, one who, by intention, was mine, for thee, rather than thee for me, me, and me.

In short, Due Process, like Due Diligence, depends upon the people's discipline and their ability to forego immediate satisfaction in the interest of longer-term achievements. It's about investments in the future more than current expenditure and preservation more than willful destruction. The Truth demands a decency it easily repays. Justice, too, returns more than ever gets invested in it. The now-reviled American Way was, indeed, largely mythical, yet it still colored everything we attempted. It allowed us to recognize when we'd fallen short, even if it didn't always encourage us to live up to our best intentions or agree to provide reparations. At least we could know when we'd been wrong. In NextWorld, wrongness prevails. Injustice has become an everyday expectation. Petty punishments, common as quarters. The incumbent sounds like a teenage drug dealer explaining away every caution every one of us was earlier warned about: Undue Process. He promises greatness through degradation, subjugation, and violation of first principles: Truth, Justice, and, especially, The American Way.

We openly wonder now who might reign him in, for it was previously always common decency that reigned in such abysmal behavior. This might be a test to see how a democracy does that in the absence of the usual constable. When the cops have been corrupted and the military, too, and also the attorneys and the justices, then who, what, or how might enforce the otherwise unenforceable decency required to maintain any halfway decent democracy? I suspect this might be you and fear it will be me.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz