We have leapt off the precipice

Two news items for you to consider in their sum total.

A couple of days ago, LITD posted about Bill de Blasio's request for a 90-day review of "symbols of hate" around NYC.

How long did you think it was going to take for this landmark to get included?

It now looks possible that de Blasio may consider one of Manhattan’s most famous statues as such a symbol.

As reported by CBS News, the mayor said during last night’s Democratic mayor debate that the statue is under review, stating that “[w]e have to look at everything here.”

Earlier in the week, one of de Blasio’s key allies in the city council spoke out against the statue, calling Columbus a “controversial figure” for many.

“I will wait for the commission, as I said Christopher Columbus is a controversial figure to many of us particularly in the Caribbean and I think that that has to be looked at, when you have to look at history we have to look at it thoroughly and clearly,” City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said during a rally calling for another statue to be taken down.

And then this development from the other coast:

California may see itself as a leader on criminal-justice reform, but it is on its way to creating a whole new class of criminals: citizens who use “him” to refer to a man and “her” for a woman.

The “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Resident’s Bill of Rights” has already been passed by California’s state senate and unanimously recommended by its state assembly’s judiciary committee. It would impose left-wing dogma by force of law if it gets much further.

For now it is limited to nursing homes and intermediate-care facilities, but there is no reason for it to stop there. According to First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh, it is “pretty unlikely that, if this law is enacted, such prohibitions would be limited just to this [nursing home] scenario.” The focus on nursing homes, one suspects, was chosen not because there is an epidemic of elderly transgender people being “misgendered” by their caretakers, but simply because the elderly make for a particularly sympathetic test case.

However, our sympathy should also extend to the caretakers. If one of their residents wants to be called “ze” and “zir” — or really anything else, according to the law — they had better think twice before refusing. While New York City threatens all employers and landlords with large fines for refusing to use an individual’s preferred pronouns, California’s politicians are going further — they want jail time for dissenters.

How to speak meaningfully about our current juncture is an increasingly vexing challenge. Is there a way to frame it that doesn't come off as trite? "Ten years ago all this would have been met with derisive laughter!" Well, yes, but clearly something very insidious was working steadily past all and any assumptions about basic normalcy, and allowed to metastasize until ready for its surprise attack.

The fact that government, with its monopoly on the use of legitimate force, is being brought into it, passing laws that force us to untether ourselves from all that our common sense confirms, is perhaps not as grim in its implications as the backing this madness has from powerful cultural institutions: professional sports leagues, manufacturing and technology companies, universities. That it's all now being made the stuff of legal code is just kind of the final, inevitable step in the process.

Yes, polls show that the majority of post-Americans don't want all these statues coming down, and, while I haven't specifically looked into it at this point, I daresay that sentiment regarding "ze" and "sir" nonsense runs in a similar fashion.

But something pivotal has occurred that renders that moot. The Great Leveling Project will move forward, and what you and I think about it matters not.

The problem is that this Project will at some point so irrefutably run into the basic architecture of this universe - also known as hard reality - that failure of basic societal functions will be the norm. It will be an utterly unforgiving moment.

I suppose, like medieval monks, the handful of Christians and Jews who actually put the doctrine of their faith before worldly concerns can provide a safe haven for those who refuse the Kool-Aid and look for refuge somewhere in the ruins. But most post-Americans are going to wear their badge of preference - "Trump is great and the fake-news media and Congressional squishes are all that prevent him from blessing this country with his agenda!", "Trump overtly enables bigotry!", "Trans people are being excluded from the larger movement for black liberation!", "If we can get GDP growth above 4 percent, everything will be great!" "I just want to be left alone to amuse myself!" - and thereby become less and less equipped to see the final ruin.

Another day, another hope that perhaps the name of this blog will be rendered obsolete dashed.