What We Know Now
Francis W. Porretto

The fourth word in the title is the one to stress. There is much that we suspected – including a few things we were sure of but could not prove definitively – that we now know to be incontrovertible. The evidence is unimpeachable. The implications are unavoidable. (And ending three sentences in a row with a polysyllabic adjective is something I should try not to do.)

We no longer suspect but know:

1. That the 2020 presidential election was stolen;
   
   
2. That the “January 6, 2021 insurrection” was enabled by Nancy Pelosi and provoked by FBI agents;
   
   
3. That the Biden Regime has deliberately done everything possible to suppress domestic energy production;
   
   
4. That the mainstream media and the intelligence community collaborated to suppress reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop and other aspects of the Biden clan’s self-enriching machinations;
   
   
5. That the FBI has been weaponized against Americans in the Right and the free expression of their convictions and opinions;
   
   
6. That the DOJ has been perverted into protecting, rather than prosecuting, high-profile allies of the Democrat Party, while simultaneously mobilizing its powers against Donald Trump and his high-profile supporters;
   
   
7. That the provision of large amounts of money and weaponry to Ukraine has been in service to an enormous money-laundering operation designed to benefit high-profile Democrats and their backers;
   
   
8. That the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has diverted a great part of its resources to the importation and resettlement of thousands of illegal aliens;
   
   
9. That FEMA personnel were instructed, in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, to refrain from rendering assistance to victims who openly supported the Trump for President campaign;
   
   
10. That the prosecutions of Donald Trump, both at the state and federal levels, were entirely political in nature, orchestrated from the White House, and were not about real offenses or “the rule of law.”

We also know that the Left is entirely unrepentant about these things – that they caused them no conscience qualms whatsoever. They would have continued their infamies for as long as they could get away with them.

As I wrote the above, a phrase leaped into my head and sounded a tocsin. You may have heard it before: “morally different.” The time has come to reflect on what it implies for the future of these United States.

Why yes, Gentle Reader: I do feel well rested after yesterday’s break. Thank you for asking. But as you can tell from the above, that doesn’t mean I’m in a pleasant mood.

The foulest cultural developments of recent years have been the ones that flowered from the advancement of moral relativism. Moral relativism is an indispensable adjunct to cultural relativism. Upon embracing the latter, the Left found that it could not do without the former.

Just so there’s no confusion about it: The premise of moral relativism is that there are no absolute moral-ethical laws. This isn’t the same as moral-ethical contextualism, which argues that “circumstances alter cases” – i.e., that under certain circumstances a moral-ethical offense can be justified by its importance in averting a greater calamity. Both propositions involve arguments derived from teleology and utilitarianism, but they are nevertheless separate and distinct.

One who insists that there are no absolute moral laws is very likely to claim that there are no absolute truths. The two notions proceed from a common mindset: the insistence that the universe must conform itself to a human’s demands. They’re part of the foundations of such propositions as Berkelian idealism, the “reality is socially constructed” thesis, and the mental illness called solipsism.

If there are no moral absolutes, then there is no common code of conduct to which some may justly bind others. Those others – the “morally different,” as were Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Pol Pot – could claim that the majority has “no right” to enforce any particular standard, that it would be nothing but an exercise of superior power.

You see the self-contradiction, don’t you, Gentle Reader? I’m sure that underscoring it would be an insult to your intelligence.

With moral relativism as their standard, the “morally different” can gaily trample on anything and anything they please for as long as they can get away with it. All that matters is the possession of sufficient speed, agility, or power to avert undesired consequences such as being arrested, indicted, tried, convicted, and hanged for the edification of the general public. It is the philosophy of Cthulhu.

The most memorable fictions of the immortal Howard Phillips Lovecraft were founded on a mythos of “elder gods:” entities of immense power, that knew no moral constraints and delighted in destruction. The most vividly depicted of these was Cthulhu, whose aim was literally to consume all that lives, if possible with the connivance and cooperation of men.

Cthulhu possessed human acolytes who strove to persuade others that true freedom is most manifest in the act of murder: the deliberate consumption of another’s life. By that standard, to kill was the highest of all individual actions, the deed most true to the vision of oneself as unique in existence. If Cthulhu had a gospel, it would have been exactly that of the Thuggee:

“And now, my brothers, rise and kill. Kill for the love of killing! Kill for the love of Kali! Kill, kill, KILL!“

To Cthulhu’s acolytes, killing was merely the supreme act of consumption. Qualitatively, there is nothing to separate them from those among us who demand that all they desire be provided to them at others’ expense.

That is what moral relativism – the legal and social indemnification of the “morally different” – produces in any society that accepts it. The consequences of its inroads into American society are in plain sight.

The time has come to explain why this is on my mind this morning, after a day’s rest. There are two answers, one long-term and one near-term.

The long-term reason is that it’s always on my mind. The search for absolute and eternal laws, particularly ones that pertain to human conduct, has been the core of my thinking for five decades. It’s propelled my explorations of everything in which I’ve ever taken an interest. Physics, astronomy, software, warfare, economics, justice, politics, demography – you name it.

The near-term reason arises from the nature of those who oppose us today: the Left, whose largest political instantiation is the Democrat Party. If you haven’t spent the past five days in a coma, you’ve seen how they’ve reacted to their electoral defeat. The common factors are accusations, slanders, and threats leveled at the Right. The underlying drive is for unopposed power. They have openly declared that they will use any means expedient to have their way. In those states and cities with left-wing governments, they’re “massing the troops.”

They mean it. They feel that they are under no moral constraints. That’s consistent with both their behavior when in power, and their belief in their moral and intellectual superiority.. Consider the many “you can’t stop me / us” moments from Biden and his henchmen these past four years. He practically started his presidency by slandering us as “extremists” and “fascists.” Remember the “Red Address?”

Many have been preparing for an economic collapse. Perhaps we should all be preparing for civil disorder tantamount to social collapse.

It’s time for a change. I’ve written a great deal about politics, public policy, and current events, so much so that I’ve been repeating myself and getting strident about it. I think I’ll be shifting my emphasis somewhat for the immediate future. Exactly how, I can’t say.

But I’m serious about what I’ve written today.

 

 

I was born in 1952. That makes me an old man by the standards of the Internet. That is not an achievement. As that great sage Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx has written, anyone can get old; all you have to do is live long enough. Having attained a ripe old age should not be taken to connote authority.

I’ve lived essentially my whole life in New York State, the greater part of it on Eastern Long Island. Mine is not the Long Island of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s imagination. Oh, a few rich folks still have houses in the Hamptons, but most Islanders are either middle-class working stiffs or retirees from that condition. I’m one of the latter and enjoying it immensely. But as with age, having managed to retire in comfort should not be taken to connote authority.

I do have some achievements. However, they’re all in fields that few persons are even aware of. Moreover, they’re all well past and growing more remote with each passing day. Neither those achievements nor the field in which they lie are my subjects here. Here, I write social, economic, cultural, religious, and (of course) political commentary. Achievements in one field should not be taken to connote authority in any other field.

     I write fiction as well as the drivel I post here. The subjects I confront in my fiction are intellect-and-conscience-taxing matters that often differ from the ones I address here. That’s a great part of the reason my fiction readers are few in number. That doesn’t bother me: a good thing, as it will probably continue to be the case.

 

 

 

 

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