When Falls the Coliseum

Winning

Posted on March 23rd, 2012 by Ken Watson

Where have you gone, Carlos Estevez?

A nation turns its lowly eyes to you.

Woo woo woo.

What’s that you say, Carlos Estevez?

Tigerblood will burn away your soul,

lol lol lol!

This is an area of Charlie’s expertise. Winning. What does a vulgarian like Sheen mean when he talks about Winning? Only the most crass satisfaction of his most immediate and unexamined desires, as we know. Winning has nearly killed him but only nearly so. Mr Sheen, carry on, as the stubborn reprobate whoremonger has nothing on the nation at large nor the holders and seekers of our highest offices. Recall that Nancy Pelosi spoke for every Democrat in the country and many non-Democrats when she suggested that those irksome Constitutional requirements of this or that were to be overcome with polevaults or HALO drops; whatever it takes. The only important thing? Winning. And win they did. The contest was also the prize. Obamacare we call it though Obama and his hordes do not care for that name. Whether it is the man or the act that is slandered never is explained but they won. Through the most delicate acts of chicanery and treachery, they won. Despite the single voice of objection, they won. And we won. We Americans won an advance into the modern world, as it was said. Did you not know how America lagged behind the balance of humanity? It is true. Until this usurpation and corruption America was a global and historical disgrace; a moral slug-a-bed compared to prodigies in fairness and prosperity like Cuba. Like China. If the goal of the American Care Act, the true legal name of Obamacare, was to bring us closer to these states in our medicine and finances then truly it is a stunning victory.

That victory is nothing but the echo of an even greater triumph; the election of 2008. Now that was winning indeed. Seeing off Hillary and the also-rans, especially by a half-time, half-term and half-black Senator by means half-legal and half-exposed was but a precursor to the full ascent over the half-baked and half-dead half-witted half-Republican, John McCain. As the new President reminded the old Senator, to his face on national television, the election concluded in his Winning. Yes, and we are all very proud.

Winning is all that counts. Winning isn’t everything? The devil you say. But in these times of desperate bravado (which is the prime antecedent to Winning) a bit of blasphemy has stolen in. Again the eye of the hellmouth is erstwhile choir boy Rick Santorum. He dares to speak as candidly as Pyrrhus of battles won but armies lost or more accurately, of elections won with principles lost. He vomits into the public aorta a sentiment far from rare in the capillaries of our space-age Republic. Speaking for many but yet not a majority he states, in essence, that Willard “Mitt” Romney, one term governor of Massachusetts, has betrayed the principles of the Constitution and common sense no less than has the presumptive foe, Barack Obama and his Democrats. Not only this but he has waged something close to open war on the political plurality known to demographers and poll-dancers as “conservatives”, purging them from ballots and at the least standing by as they are purged from their elected offices! Foremost is one Allen West, a man whose sin seems to be that he actually IS “severely conservative”, a claim made by Mr Romney opportunistically that would not survive genuine scrutiny alongside West or indeed any example, even the nearly late McCain.

So preventing that scrutiny while concluding the contest becomes the imperative. Team Romney, like the Axis, does not have the resources for a long war. Oh, they certainly have money and they certainly have the support of the Mini-me political structure of their Party that apes, in mockery, our system of electorally determined consent. Indeed, in objective terms Romney and his band hold all the cards and they play them aggressively, outspending their rivals by four, seven, twelve, eighteen-fold on the most bilious and mendacious ploys to eke out modest victories or even the occasional defeat. This is not, as the lingo has it, sustainable. Not when the obstacles to be overcome are a near destitute Newt and a caricature of the scolding school marm, also as poor as a churchmouse. Against this pair of pipsqueaks, even with his open allies, Romney has yet to break through to 50% any old where. You call this Winning?

Yep, he does. He and his surrogates declare the contest concluded with every sunrise if not with every tick of the clock. And if the struggle were truly with the former Speaker and the Pennsylvanian Catholic, that might be so. But Mr Romney’s true struggle, as it is with all of us, is with his precious self or many competing selves, some of which are plausible electoral Winners in this contest for Republican hearts and minds, and some which are not. The problem is a piddling one though, easily handled with a bit of editing, mirrors and puffs of smoke. The Severe Conservative is on display while the tractable consensus player, the one acceptable to George Soros waits in the wings making stage-whispers in Shakespearean style that those in the rafters are meant to miss. A stage hand has broken the fourth wall however. In less than 48 hours this colorful eruption of truth has become so well known even to the casually informed that I feel no need to link it. Yes, it is the gaffe now heard ’round the world. One of Romney’s paid spokesmodels repeated on an open mic what is certainly a little term of art constantly heard in the closed strategy meetings of the Mormon aspirant. Far less substantial than even painted plaster, scrim and greasepaint, Mitt Romney’s displayed principles are no more than a doodle on an Etch-a-Sketch; perpetually destructible, infinitely malleable and constructed only by the manipulation of two knobs.

If he were watching this catastrophe live I doubt the Governor would have understood the size of the iceberg the Romtanic had just encountered and the length of the gash it has opened beneath her waterline. His was the unsinkable candidacy. I mean, what’s the problem? Everyone knows the pander to the base followed by the seamless tack to the Center is the tried formula for Winning. And Winning is what it’s all about, right? Winning is the first duty of the public man. The more glibly one performs this crucial head fake, this setting of the hook, the better. We may forgive the empty husk masquerading as a man. Fed with silver spoons and raised on demented mythos; breeding resentments and self-deceits on a Jong-Ilish scale, of course his vaporous nature seems an asset to himself. What we may not forgive and can no longer indulge are citizens who DO make claims, both public and in their private hearts, to adhere to the Declaration of Independence, to the Constitution, the concept of Natural Law and the Duties as well as the Blessings of Liberty who openly subsume them to the delights of self-deception. You know, I know, Romney knows, Obama knows and every person in our connected world knows that as far as governing is concerned there is not a scrap of difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. No, there is not. But the two are NOT created equal as Romney has the added sin of malicious deception. Yes, friends and neighbors, Mitt Romney is conspicuously MORE deceitful even than the fading mirage that is Barack Obama. I assert he is a greater danger to the Republic therefore with one caveat; if he is to gain the highest office it will NOT be on a wave of Hopium with the polls and winds at his back, with the sword and shield of race privilege at his beck. Sketchy will rather be seen and treated far more as a President or any functionary should; with unanimous suspicion.

So, if the stars do, in the end, align and deliver the nomination to Romney, yes there is a reason for consistent Constitutionalists or even house-trained anarchists like Yours Truly to punch the chits for Romney but that monstrous event is still in the future. Despite what many millions in self-serving ads have claimed, nothing is over although the odds are long. Understand though that the odds are ALWAYS long. As Franklin said to the scullerymaid, a Republic, if you can keep it. How is it kept? By resisting the primal urges of the monkey to grab whatever he sees. When the populace understands that whatever may be promised them to win an election, that bounty comes not from the pockets even of the famously well-heeled pilot of a brace of Cadillacs. It comes from YOU, meaning the citizenry at large. Is this so complex a point? When the claims are relatively small, yes it is. Even those conversant in mathematics can dismiss the burgeoning debt and escalating deficits on grounds of necessity. When the claims explode, as they do, and the levies multiply, as they must, then the tide of necessity shifts. It becomes less necessary that we have the crapulent socialism than it is vital to escape it.

For those lately coming to this state of mind, welcome aboard. No, it is not too late. It will never be too late as additional suffering will slowly and haltingly persuade more minds, but it is a difficult road for the catechism of Winning also has compelling mathematics. We may nominally win elections as we did with the Bushes and may with a Romney but in choosing men whose principles are negotiable we lose, since the negotiations only ever have one result; greater government largess. So we may and have lost by Winning. Then there is the circumstance we find ourselves in now where we openly lose to someone already invested in rapid expansion of government; so we may lose by losing. The saving grace is the statists also lose by Winning since the enthusiasts quickly drive matters to conclusive disasters. Exhibit A is all around you so there is some Winning by losing though it does not gain you the final prize. For the ultimate victory that restores our Inalienable Rights there is only one way; to Win by Winning. That is to have the principles of the American founding openly described, frankly discussed and forcefully defended from the rum charges of parsimony, primitivism and despite. Only victories won in this fashion are truly desirable and to be eagerly sought. Any fool can declare he is Winning but it takes a nation of fools to believe it.