We had characterized Angelo Codevilla's essay as 'one of the most important of the decade.'
We were wrong. It's one of the most important of the entire century. Codevilla's work pointed to the "Ruling Class" as perpetrators of a number of aggressions against the "Country Class"--us peeps who pay & obey. We put excerpts on this post for your pleasure, but as refresher:
...As over-leveraged investment
houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican
and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders
stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation
magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy
the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S.
economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and
his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the
Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.
...The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.
When
this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power
in either party or with a national voice would take their objections
seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in
bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws
on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the
term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power
changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in
banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they
reasserted their right to decide ad hoc
on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the
general public's understanding, the American people started referring
to those in and around government as the "ruling class." ...
Yes, it's bi-partisan. Decidedly bi-partisan.
And it's not new; talk of the "ruling class" was present in the mid-1800's and--guess what?--it was a Senator who defined that group and detailed its reason for existence:
... Accordingly, by nature, superior men subdue inferior ones as they subdue lower beings or try to improve them as they please....
And they have plans!!
.... The ruling class knows that
Americans must learn to live more densely and close to work, that they
must drive smaller cars and change their lives to use less energy,
that their dietary habits must improve, that they must accept limits
in how much medical care they get, that they must divert more of their
money to support people, cultural enterprises, and plans for the
planet that the ruling class deems worthier....
Eradicating Constitutional norms about "laws" and "justice," we also have this:
... Ordinary people have also gone a
long way toward losing equal treatment under law. The America
described in civics books, in which no one could be convicted or fined
except by a jury of his peers for having violated laws passed by
elected representatives, started disappearing when the New Deal
inaugurated today's administrative state -- in which bureaucrats make,
enforce, and adjudicate nearly all the rules. Today's legal --
administrative texts are incomprehensibly detailed and freighted with
provisions crafted exquisitely to affect equal individuals unequally.
The bureaucrats do not enforce the rules themselves so much as
whatever "agency policy" they choose to draw from them in any given
case. If you protest any "agency policy" you will be informed that it
was formulated with input from "the public." But not from the likes of
you....
And the "country class"?
...It has no privileged podiums,
and speaks with many voices, often inharmonious. It shares above all
the desire to be rid of rulers it regards inept and haughty. It
defines itself practically in terms of reflexive reaction against the
rulers' defining ideas and proclivities -- e.g., ever higher taxes
and expanding government, subsidizing political favorites, social
engineering, approval of abortion, etc. Many want to restore a way of
life largely superseded. Demographically,
the country class is the other side of the ruling class's coin: its
most distinguishing characteristics are marriage, children, and
religious practice. While the country class, like the ruling class,
includes the professionally accomplished and the mediocre, geniuses
and dolts, it is different because of its non-orientation to
government and its members' yearning to rule themselves rather than be
ruled by others.
Codevilla goes on, but doesn't mention the last several years' abuses, which include the Covid Fraud, the likelihood of Election Fraud on a massive scale (81 MILLION votes??) the obvious 'They Will Not Be Punished" two-tier justice system, the also-obvious nascent beginning of PanOpticon--which--together with Data Center capabilities--will create a surveillance state that Stalin would have died for. No need for "snitches'!!
So to those who ask "What's the Problem with Data Centers"?
Let's start with hubris, move on to "Who Pays" and then to that Surveillance State that they facilitate.
It's not really "Data Centers" per se. They just happen to be the Ruling Class' newest toy which will be shoved down your stinking throat no matter what you say or do--just like those damn cameras.
By the way, this whole Codevilla thing is also why JDVance is popular, and why his Catholic Social Doctrine-fueled "populism" is attractive.
This is not over, friends.
N.B.: The original (entire) Codevilla essay can be found here.