Thread by @ThyConsigliori

27 June 2020 #MAGAanalysis

Riots scare me, and so does masking, but then again...

Here's a very interesting story. It offers me a new thought, and I always appreciate that. I have never really understood the function of our sheriffs, have you?

mysanantonio.com/news/article/D…

2) This is from the wiki article on topic:

"In the United States, a sheriff is a sworn law enforcement officer, whose duties vary across states and counties.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriff

3) "A sheriff is generally an elected county official, with duties that typically include policing unincorporated areas, maintaining county jails, providing security to courts in the county, and (in some states) serving warrants and court papers.

4) "In addition to these policing and correction services, a sheriff is often responsible for enforcing civil law within the jurisdiction."

5) Never quite with full conscious attention, I've often wondered why we have both a police organization and a sheriffs organization. I kind of think I get it now. Check this article out:

quora.com/Whats-the-diff…

6) Skipping every possible detail, police are part of some other executive entity like a city or a state, whereas sheriffs exist as a legal entity with law enforcement responsibilities of their own, and, most important, sheriffs are elected where police chiefs are appointed.

7) Please, though, correct me if I'm wrong, as I never studied the topic before just now. Getting to the first article above, I never felt quite so comforted by the existence of sheriffs in America - as opposed to other kinds of cops - as when I read that article this morning.

8) I've said before, the Constitution must stop being words on paper that no one quite gets or understands. It must become words written upon and residing within our souls. Most of all, it must inspire action. Know what? I have never voted for a sheriff. That's going to change!

9) That's how this all works. We're asleep. I have been asleep to the importance of sheriffs for my entire life until just this morning. And how did I get awakened (I hate the word "woke," don't you?) this morning? Due to face mask laws and Constitution minded sheriffs.

10) That gives me more comfort than I can actually express, as it is so new. I can consider, right now though, the courage it takes for a sheriff to face down a governor over a law. That face down is, for me, the Constitution in action. We're still here, America, it says.

11) A city police department cannot disobey the orders of the mayor. A sheriff, elected by the people, is responsible to the people. A sheriff faces his state government as a state governor faces the federal government. That is a very interesting dynamic. Elections are good.

12) Riots scare me. I avoid them personally. I don't live where they'd be likely - never thought about that before either, but it's true - and I never show up at protests of any sort. If I were single, that would be a different story to be sure. As a family man, won't happen.

13) I honor and revere all the other family men who do show up at protests. I'm even a little jealous of them, as there really is a pent up fire brand in me. I'm a natural born fighter, and I'd love to be there arm in arm. But, that's not how I am able to live. Honor to them.

14) Masks scare the living daylights out of me. I'll walk a bit more slowly through this. First, there's no way you'd get a somewhat younger America to surrender to masks. This is a sign that we're changing, have changed, fundamentally. This is a deep cultural transformation.

15) I want to be clear to get cause and effect in the right order, though. Masks do not, cannot cause our nation's character to change. They are not the cause. They are the effect of change put in place long, long ago, and only now maturing to show its intended fruit.

16) If I could only trust that there would NEVER be a mask law, then I'd wear one when guided to, without demure. The moment it crosses from guidance to law, I see that we're not dealing with public health anymore. We're dealing with surrender and compliance. That's the change.

17) It took about a month for masks to go from socially optional to social shaming for not wearing them. But another month for their to be social pride, the sense of positive sacrifice for the greater good. And it's perfect. It gives you no benefit. It benefits the collective.

18) The logic is simple. Less sputum flying about, and going shorter distances when it does. No obvious cost - the rebreathing of CO2 has not been discussed enough - and that sense of positive participation in the public good. We now have a face tax.

19) It is again, perfect. What are you covering up? Your face. If there's a single thing that reflects your individual identity, I'd like to know what that is. You are your face. Now, you are faceless. How deeply profound is this symbolism? And what do criminals do? Wear a mask.

19) So, faceless citizen, you no longer matter quite the same way, and, hey, in a riot, you might as well steal something as you already have a mask on, legally mandated. Whoa. Do you see how deep this goes? And that's why it's not the mask that is the cause, it's the effect.

20) The cause is this. Some gigantic proportion of Americans have now been indoctrinated against their own individuality. What is the greatest force opposing the Constitution? It is the destruction of individuality. The Constitution protects individual rights.

21) Yet some vast proportion of Americans have done more than just surrender their rights, they have already, long before mask laws sprang up, given up their individuality. We weren't watching the line. Give up rights first, individuality second. Then came masks.

22) There is no bottom here. How do you convert a proud individual into a faceless member of the collective? For one thing, you understand what virtues and vices are, and you appeal to vices in order to overcome virtues. The key virtue of an individual is courage.

23) The mirror image vice that attends courage, is cowardice. It takes courage to fight, and most especially to fight the collective. Even the most courageous among all - each one of us does - suffer from cowardice. There are no cowardice free humans. We all have vices.

24) Suppressing courage and tapping into cowardice is not the only character shift. Consider laziness, slothfulness, in combination with gluttony and greed. It is very easy to appeal to a cowardly, lazy, gluttonous, and greedy soul. And all souls have all those vices.

25) The rise of these vices within our souls, and worse, within our very society itself is the necessary cause before you can cow people into accepting, into supporting mask laws. The fact that we now have those laws tells us how very far down the road we are.

26) So, as I said, I am afraid. Very. And yet, it is just such a thing as a mask law that awakens me, this very day, to the goodness of Constitution-minded sheriffs. I know I'm not alone, too. Not only about sheriffs, but about this entire trend reaching so far back.

27) There is still there, just underneath the surface, real America waiting. A real American, one who prizes his virtues over his vices, no matter how great his vices may be, can find his face getting a bit itchy beneath that damned mask. He might just scratch a little.

28) There comes a moment for a real American where he reaches up, takes off the mask, and faces risk. Social risk, legal risk, even virus risk, and says, sure, there's risk, but this is my choice not yours. Note those words:

My choice not yours.

29) Maybe that should be a hashtag:

#MyChoiceNotYours

An individual has to have a line. He's on one side, others are on the other. He is him. They are them.

30) This is not a new fight. How many black men fought and died in the Revolutionary war? How many slaves escaped to fight with the British in the War of 1812, commented upon in our National Anthem? And yet, how many black regiments fought with the Confederacy?

31) Can you feel the ancient story here, and the complexity of the issue? Consider the black slaves fighting with and for the Confederacy. This is a phenomenon that goes under discussed. What is the fundamental question? This individual or the group.

32) Consider the phrase tax-paying citizen. I always cringe over that, as my deep anti-tax libertarian ideals still carry the emotion that tax is theft. My inner libertarian considers it no more than the local thug's protection squeeze money. I can't stand on that, but I feel it.

33) But how did a nation who's individuals paid low or no taxes, and where taxation was designed to be against entities, not people, become a nation of loyal tax-payers? And now we have a face tax rising. It is the same old fight.

34) How does the slave become free? How does the free man surrender his rights, his individuality, his freedom?

My friend @ASpotIntheCloud refers to our Enlightenment Nation moment, all the time. America is the national embodiment of the Enlightenment.

35) We created a new type of freedom. We elevated the individual as the core principle of our nation, as no other nation ever had, and we changed the entire world thereby. The forces against us are doing everything in their power to erase that history, destroy that moment.

36) In discussing the Emancipation Statue, @realDonaldTrump expressed the truth, perfectly. That statue shows a newly freed slave as he's rising from his slavery and standing up to walk forward into his freedom and proud future. Yeah, have to tear that one down.

37) Here is my cowardice. Where the law requires me to mask up, I do. I still shop at Costco where I'm not allowed to walk in without one. I wore a mask when I recently voted in our state primary. I am a law abiding citizen, yes, even when in my soul I rebel against that law.

38) But I do still have a soul hiding behind that damned mask. And I won't forget my individuality, my rights, or my Constitution. And, I'm going to start studying up on sheriffs departments. I have to discover how to build a positive relationship to my own sheriff, if I can.

39) Although he's since broke my heart, the first POTUS that I looked to as MY POTUS, was Bush 43. No need to mention Obama. Trump is my POTUS in a totally different way, of course. I have never yet had a "my Governor," or a "my sheriff." That's going to change now.

40) And I will get to the bottom of this masking thing, and won't let it go. I will still avoid riots. But I'm not going to be afraid about the loss of our Constitution as long as I can find individuals who want to still be individuals, and grow virtues and suppress vices.

Thread ends at #40.

Don't know if this will work. But, while I love discussing these topics live, I often do have to disengage and it feels a bit rude not indicating so. So, I'm going to attempt this new protocol:

10:00 AM EST, and Scopes out for now...

This is what I turned to next!

https://twitter.com/ThyConsigliori/status/1276923366805569537