"They may really hold that the ordinary human feelings about the past or animals or large waterfalls are contrary to reason and contemptible and ought to be eradicated. They may be intending to make a clean sweep of traditional values and start with a new set.
It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.
When all that says ‘it is good’ has been debunked, what says ‘I want’ remains.”
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 1943
"There is a reason why our great American cities, for all of our supposed wealth, often feel and look so shabby. The money goes elsewhere. Poverty—both individual and social—is a policy, not an accident, and not some kind of natural law. These are deliberate choices about the allocation of resources. They are eminently undoable by modest exercises of political power, although if the state- and city-level Democratic leaders of New York and northern Virginia are the national mold, then our nominally left-wing party is utterly, hopelessly beholden to the upward transfer of social wealth to an extremely narrow cadre of already extremely rich men and women."
Jacob Bacharach, The Egregious Lie Americans Tell Themselves, November 15, 2018
“No philosopher would be willing to accept the idea of philosophy as a way of escape, but might there not be a question of the philosopher being in duty bound to refuse to accept a world, like our real world here, of disorder and crime where the values of the mind and spirit can no longer find a home. Today the first and perhaps the only duty of the philosopher is to defend man against himself: to defend man against that extraordinary temptation toward inhumanity to which—almost without being aware of it—so many human beings today have yielded.”
Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, 1952
"The ultimate purpose of crime is to establish an endless empire. It seeks a state of complete insecurity and anarchy, founded upon the tainted ideals of a world thought doomed to annihilation. When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."
Fritz Lang, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933
"For you are not in darkness, for that Day will not catch you unawares like a thief. For all of you are children of the light, and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So let us not fall asleep like the others, but we stay alert and vigilant. Those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who become intoxicated do so at night. But those who belong to the light remain aware, arming ourselves with faith and love as our armor, and as our helmet the hope for salvation."
1 Thessalonians 5:4-8
There is a old saying that if you wish to test a person's character, give them money and the power that money brings.
And in a variation of Lord Acton's dictum about power, power does corrupt, but power attracts the corruptible.
After all, only someone of extraordinary faith and commitment can withstand the temptations of the power of this world.
It is early days yet, and far too soon to draw any serious conclusions about our new Administration, despite the recent experience of only a few years ago.
But we cannot forget that the American republic was displaced by the Imperial Presidency, starting with Reagan. And it has continued, approaching the stage in its development where the facade will be dropped, and the brick wall of lawlessness will be revealed behind the curtain of democratic legality.
Stocks rallied.
The VIX fell to a new near term low.
The Dollar fell.
Gold and silver managed to obtain a gain. But notice how doggedly gold was held at the key resistance level.
Let's see if gold and silver can continue to move higher, despite the wishes of the lord of the empire of fiat in New York and London.
Have a pleasant evening.
