I started thinking about this (on the surface, not very logical) question a few days ago, prompted by some things the current occupant of the White House said in the past few weeks:
- We're not going to have a recession, and if we do it will be a minor one
- The border is secure
- He is, amazingly, part of the Puerto Rican community
I'll admit that last one is essentially irrelevant; from Hillary adopting African-American speech patterns when speaking to an African-American audience to Francis O'Rourke spouting Freshman-level Spanish during a presidential debate, there have always been politicians so vacuous, so essentially devoid of any really genuine conviction or identity that they chameleon into whatever crowd they're pandering to at the time. That's not to say it's admirable, but it's at least traditional in some parties.
The first two, however, defy objective reality; by the definition that was universally in place until about a month ago (two consecutive quarters of negative growth = recession) we're ALREADY in a recession. Retroactive definition-wrangling notwithstanding, the statement 'we're not going to have a recession' is false on its face. (Unless in true Jedi Master, Three Dimensional Chess fashion, Biden was answering about ANOTHER recession? Hmmmmm......)
Of course, following the initial report we'd officially entered a recession, followed by the White House's redefining of the term, a host of media and governmental figureheads chimed in to explain to the uneducated masses that the definition we'd all understood (and many of those same figureheads, in fact, had very recently referred to and used themselves) wasn't ACTUALLY the correct definition of a recession. As planned, this gave the denial just a bit of wiggle room, all they needed to stop talking about it.
And while the government's own statistics say that there are more folks entering the US illegally than ever before, the WH and its occupant, along with its spokesperson, continue to state with a straight-face that the border is 'secure.' When confronted, they repeat the lie, chuckle condescendingly ("look, another one too dumb to understand what 'secure' means!") and move on.
Hence the game vs. war speculation. And what I've come up with, essentially, is that in a game both sides agree to and follow the rules of the game; you can tackle the guy, you can steal the guy's ball, but you can't knife him in the ribs. You can move the rook and knight in certain ways, but you're not allowed to set your opponent's pieces on fire.
Most importantly, both sides agree to accept the results of the game in deciding who won it. The most points in a basketball game decides the winner, the first one across the line in the 100 yard dash gets the ribbon.
And as far as rules, the most basic, elementary and unchanging rule is that of objective reality; we saw the ball go over the fence, you get the run; we saw the puck go in the net, you get the point. Agreed upon rules, based on objective reality, underly every human game.
So when one side/party/group/whatever stops paying attention to reality, stops paying attention to the defined meaning of words (and enlists allies at dictionaries to support their post-hoc redefining) and just generally refuses to abide by any of the agreed-upon rules of the game, it's NOT a game any longer. When you disagree with the Supreme Court's ruling and decide the appropriate response is to reconfigure or dissolve it, you're no longer within the rules of the game, which is important because this game is called 'Western civilization.'
So if we're not playing a game, what are we doing? Well, think of it this way:
- All that matters is the end, regardless of the means
- Rules, conventions and even reality can be discarded if they prevent our side from winning
- There is no sense of shame or failure for those who break these rules, defy logic or redefine the world to allow them to win; their overarching purpose is to win, and anything which furthers that end is noble, so there can be no shame in deception, cheating or anything else
And when you add that all up, what does it sound like? Yep, it sounds a lot like a war. All's fair, and all that. And why is that important? Because the single most dangerous kind of war is the one you won't acknowledge you're actually in; the one you keep telling yourself is a game with rules, and where you're perpetually shocked to find your opponent disregarding them.
Nobody's surprised when the guys in the trench opposite yours start shelling and opening fire at you. Nobody is surprised when the other side's planes drop bombs and not candy bars. It's time people stopped being surprised that their opponent, who's made it apparent time and time again that they aren't playing by any rules, are actually at war with them, and to realize that you don't have to WANT to be in a war to be in one.
