"Blow up your TV Throw away your paper Go to the country Build you a home Plant a little garden Eat a lot of peaches Try an' find Jesus on your own"
-John Prine
There's something to be said for not reading the paper. The news from back home in Florida is, well, alarming.
The governor has decided he needs a private militia that doesn't answer to the federal government, only him.
This has been tried before of course, back in the 1850s. The end result was the Georgia Militia marching into battle against the United States Army armed with Joe Brown Pikes, all in the defense of chattel slavery. The notion that a political minority should decide gerrymandering isn't enough, and that they need a private goon squad to keep the libtards in line, should give voters in Florida pause. But it probably won't.
He's also decided to take on climate change by denying it exists but spending a fortune on addressing its consequences.
Sort of like the obese guy living on 6000 calories a day who chooses to address the problem by investing in stretch pants and a Hoveround, all the while denying that a couple less Twinkies might help.
And the War on Truth now extends to academia in our public universities and health training facilities, where professors and doctors are warned to self-censor their work and actually hide data that might offend the leadership of the party in charge.
Terrified? Don't answer yet--let's turn to the national stage, where our most well-known congressman and serial sex offender recently promised that once the Rs retake Congress next year, which seems inevitable in light of the careful rigging of our electoral politics first by the Founding Fathers through the Senate and the Electoral College, and then by R dominated legislatures determined to hold onto power at any cost as they re-draw electoral maps, the QAnon fringe will unleash its campaign of revenge on the left.
Blaming the left for the January Insurrection is a novel way to deal with the spectacle of one's own constituents engaging in mass treason, but whatever.
Telescoping a little further out, yesterday's NYT featured an opinion piece by Bret Stephens, a conservative voice I've come to admire over the last couple years, observing that while we are engaged in this national navel-gazing a 1930s moment has arrived, with our authoritarian adversaries emboldened to settle old scores by force while we turn our backs on the world.
Stephens observes correctly that we lack a Roosevelt or a Churchill at this most dangerous crossroads in my lifetime, and it's questionable whether this country has the will to do whatever it takes to prevail against the forces of darkness gathering on the other side of the globe. I have my doubts as well.
This is what I get for reading the paper, only a few days after proclaiming the need to perform an inventory of my life and discard what no longer works. At 57, there's not much I can do about any of this; old, formidable, ambitious me has given way to the tired guy who just wants to bill his day and move along to happy hour. Most of all, I wish to emulate Montaigne and go back to the farm, fix the fences and take care of a new family of critters and grow satsumas with Peg. Maybe I'll fish a little more, or learn how to use that still I bought Peg for her birthday last year to create our own moonshine. And there's golf right around the corner.
Pondering this national eschaton on which we've embarked is just too depressing.
Cold and snowy out there this morning, 23 degrees with the promise of more snow on the way later today.
Today's agenda consists of a Zoom deposition in an hour or so, a call with clients and co-counsel in one of my bigger cases to discuss strategy, and figuring out how to deal with a couple poorly reasoned orders that hit the docket late yesterday. All welcome distractions.
While France doesnt have a golden visa program to join Montaigne - Portugal does.. Nothing wrong with buying a farm in Portugal and leave the failed American experiment behind.