Courage Cannot Be Outsourced

From a just published review of the book:

Who Lost America? Why the United States Went “Communist” and What to Do About It

By Stephen Baskerville

Since the early months of 2020, what Stephen Baskerville fittingly describes as “a junta of amateurish, semi-adolescent ideologues” has been able to seize control of America while millions opposed to them were “forced to sit by, virtually helpless.” In rapid succession we witnessed a manufactured epidemic accompanied by demands for compliance with absurd response measures, orchestrated rioting in America’s larger cities, government-led censorship of the internet, the elimination of electoral safeguards and a stolen election, mass incarceration of citizens who protested, staged trials of opposition politicians and their supporters, the abolition of the nation’s border controls, and a reckless response to the Ukrainian crisis that risks plunging us into nuclear war. It is the closest thing to a revolution this country has witnessed since the radical phase of reconstruction.

Some good accounts of these events have already been written, but Baskerville claims his new book is the first to try to explain why they occurred—or more precisely, why they were not prevented. For the motives of those who carried out the coup are less important than the inability of wiser men to stop them.

The author begins from what he calls the Iron Law of Washington: People who are paid to solve problems acquire a vested interest in perpetuating the problems they are paid to solve. In other words, ineffectiveness is a consequence of the perverse incentives created by professionalization: “We are now experiencing the culmination of the long tragedy of Americans delegating and abdicating their civic responsibilities to a professional political class.”

Most efforts to influence policy are now the business of “public interest” lobbying firms staffed mainly by attorneys. The resulting mindset is typified by conservative columnist Rod Dreher; after bemoaning the decline of religious freedom, he exhorts his readers: “We have to fight!” But how does he suggest we do this? “If you aren’t donating to the Becket Fund and/or the Alliance Defending Freedom, please consider it.” Citizenship now means writing a check to a bunch of lawyers.

Continued in the review

https://www.unz.com/article/courage-cannot-be-outsourced/