Several times on this bandwidth I have recommended the book 1775: A Good Year for Revolution for an excellent history of the immediate run up to the revolution. Well, I am now about a third of the way through what (so far) promises to be another fine recommendation. This one takes a little bit longer view: The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams. (Of course, a thorough read of The Farmer Refuted by Alexander Hamilton, (1775) would provide a contemporaneous reporting in wonderful style.)   Anyway, as fate would have it, my notes-in-progress will serve my agenda this morning.  Hang tight folks…

To those with willing ears, our part of the world has echoed with many stretched rhymes of critical American history since (at least) the election of undefined “Hope and Change” and the subsequent ramming of (the intentionally destructive) PPACA down our throats. I’ll take the liberty of tagging the relevant rhyming echo here:

Some viewed the Stamp Act as a Pandora’s Box. [Samuel] Adams deemed it a blessing in disguise. It had awakened millions to the fragility of their rights and privileges. It has exposed those “tools and sycophants” whose treachery might otherwise have done undetected. – Page 95

I think that is an important perspective. Or, should I say, I still think that is an important perspecitve? In a post back in mid-2020 I referenced an outstanding essay titled Liberty: “One Very Simple Principle”? by Gertrude Himmelfarb that introduced (to me, anyway) an equally important and complimentary perspective:

It is “…not about the evolution of Freedom but the evolution of the consciousness of Freedom. … Consciousness is paramount in Freedom, just as Reason is paramount in History. And it is the consciousness of Freedom that is the unfolding agenda of History.” – Page 57

[emphasis added]

Armed with such things, I posit that I will get little disagreement that any intellectually honest – something that is in short supply these days – assessment of recent American history will reflect many events since (and deriving ideological anti-Americanism parentage from the convoluted and corrupt exercise in powers utilized in) the “passage” of what is now known as ObamaCare continuously serve to “awaken” those Americans with some level of consciousness of liberty to the fragility of their rights and privileges. I further submit that recognizing and noting such things does not constitute anything close to exceptional thinking…it is played out before our eyes on a daily basis anymore.  Additionally, recognizing and noting such things also does not constitute a “hope for bloody revolution” or planning for “Civil War 2.0“. Personally, I take such charges (and the threats behind them) to be little more than the anti-intellectualism of the “tools and sycophants” Mr. Adams referenced in the above quote. While engagement on the level with these rationalizers is never fruitful, having them exposed is better than the alternative. (I warned you that I had an agenda this morning…but I will tap the brakes here.)

Alas, I have written about the historical and modern forms of this behavior and personality before. While a favorite of mine is posted in its entirety below, please feel free to see also Cancer of the Soul: Stool Pigeons Then and Now and The Stoolie Refuted.

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On Loyalists and Stool Pigeons (October 26, 2019)

Apropos of nothing at all (I assure you), a few select notes from the morning’s reading…who knows, maybe a real discussion will break out? I will leave it to you, dear reader, to update the title terms into our more modern, platform-specific vernacular.

On Loyalists

He is imperturbable. He speaks in a language which requires no effort of the mind. – Page 341

Unfortunately, whether it be simple regurgitation from the well-worn, intellectually inconsistent (or just plain intellectually dishonest) progressive talking points generator or yet another oh-so-clever, sophomoric, bubblegum analysis repeated over and over again, so many get sucked into the discussion. What harm can come of that?

And here’s what: All those arguments seem in retrospect to have coalesced into one argument… It is as if all these dogmatists taken together had been rolled into…one person. Time after time he would advance the very same argument in the same words at the same point. And would be equally impenetrable—impenetrability, that was their chief trait! Armor piercing shells for iron-heads have not yet been invented! In arguing with them, you wear yourself out, unless you accept in advance that the argument is simply a game, a jolly pastime. – Page 338

Oh, that’s right. It can suck all the oxygen out of the room. It advances nothing. It wastes everyone’s time. Well, at least you get your money’s worth…

And, thanks to the nature of the platform we live in, when one finds is too hard, intellectually speaking, to be impenetrable then selective responsiveness (i.e. sudden silence or ignoring those direct, precise queries aimed straight at the heart of the matter for more friendly lines) is sure to be the fall back.

On Stool Pigeons

It is difficult to school oneself to ask that constant question: Who is the stool pigeon among us? … It is difficult to school oneself, and it is repulsive to become schooled—but for safety one must. It is impossible to expel the stoolies or to fire them—they will recruit new ones. But you have to know them… – Page 354

Well, I guess you really don’t “need” to know them, but it would be wise to recognize that many around you are not who or what they pretend to be.

The keen neighborhood observers have probably also noticed how some have faded away over the last several months but there are always new names popping up to carry on the torch. That allows for a certain amount of regression in the greater discussion…the group must go back and re-cover old material before again advancing the still pointless argument. The game continues…

The poetry of recruitment of stool pigeons still awaits its artist. There is a visible life and there is an invisible life. The spiderwebs are stretched everywhere, and as we move we do not notice how they wind about us. – Pages 355-356

I just really liked that passage, especially the first sentence. I wonder what the artist of today’s incarnation of the creature will come up with.

Have a nice day.