The demand that we “release the J7 hostages” reminds me of how we live in a time dominated by the basest of zoo-like base politics. Where extremists demand they be allowed to do whatever they want to get what they want. No accountability need apply.
    Meanwhile those whose job it was to serve up justice took years to even start serving justice. Even then insisted on handing it off to someone else.
    IMO, the only “justice” served on J7 was a righteous bullet into Babbitt. We’re real lucky I wasn’t a Capitol cop that day: more bullets would have been spent. The police’s ability to hold back? Amazing. I wish I had that kind of restraint. Especially in a time of “Stand Your Ground.”
    Apparently “Stand Your Ground” doth not apply to Capitol Police, or anyone else except the wild, ravenous beasts in this political zoo.
    Contrast that to the slow serving of justice that should have been served from day one. I suspect these are the same people who excused the kneeing to death of George Floyd, the murder of Trevon Martin, laughed at the hammer to the head…
    Apparently when it comes to them no rules, no laws, not even common decency, need apply. They can do, say, be anything: no matter how dangerous, crazy, lawless, or unconstitutional their actions, their demands, are.
    All brought to you by out of control base politics based on performative politics.
    Imagine a zoo filled with as wide a variety of creatures as the political spectrum has. Mild mannered creatures to extremely dangerous predators. Extremely dangerous predators who have one thing on their mind: consuming the rest and any zookeeper who tries to prevent them from doing so. It would be hard to blame the good zookeepers if they took an occasional shot of rum, especially since other zookeepers not only deliberately remove the bars, remove any restraints, but join beasts… or at least enable them any way they can.
    That is our out of control zoo-like politics as it exists today, and it’s only getting worse.
    We have our norms, our rules, our Constitution… but none of those matter to the beasts nor the worst zookeepers. When it comes to anything that might hold back the wild beasts and the worst zookeepers… they want those limits eliminated, like peaceful transitions…
    They want them GONE. Gone for everyone but themselves. If they don’t like a prosecutor, the laws, common decency: all must be gone. If they don’t have the power to do so they’ll eliminate them anyway, or just ignore them and do what they want.
    It is a time when name calling and accusations: adjectives, verbs, scurrilous nouns qualify as sole means of debate, discussion, and proof… despite they prove NOTHING, mean nothing, except reflecting poorly back on them.
    Rules for the behavior of defendants in court and outside of court: gone.
    If they don’t like the result of an election then endless challenges are OK, or they simply give themselves the power to vacate, insist we “redo” an election. One assumes those who disagree with them don’t have the same “rights.” They, and only they, have the right to intimidate, threaten, stalk, kill police, election workers, those who manage elections… there’s far more to this lest than I have.
    Over time as a nation we have been going from ignoring our worst monsters, to feeding them, to unlocking cages, to removing bars, to rewarding the zookeepers who remove the bars. Zookeepers who want to hold the line are forced to resign, or conditions so unworkable, so nasty, they simply decide to resign. Their families threatened, attacked.
    Those who lead this chaos-filled parade laugh, wink and approve when those they hate are swat-ed, get the hammer to the head, yet mourn the “hero” who tried to break through so she could help hang, help execute, public servants. Unlike similar happenings in Brazil they are celebrated, or cried over if held to any account.
    The strength of any zoo mirrors the strength of a free, truly representative, nation: diversity. That is being drained away in favor of the wildest beasts.
    It’s no accident that those pushing for bloody anarchy hate the very concept of diversity. All brought to you by the basest of base politics.
    Of course one feeds one’s base. I understand that. In politics, as I grew up, a candidate and surrogates would feed the base, but also feed to a lesser extent the other beasts: the more moderate, to an even lesser extent the more extreme in their party. Finally, even the more moderate in the other party might be cast a bone or two, or some meat because encouraging them to break from their party could be helpful.
    Today seems the standard is not only to just feed the worst of the beasts, but to over feed them. To encourage the wildest beasts to eat the less wild. To take away the bars. To only appoint those who lovingly join in the carnage. To consume moderates.
    This partial parable, partial analysis, was brought to you by the “set them free” rhetoric surrounding the 1/6 guilty, spoken by a former head zookeeper who let out as many of the beasts as he could. And is demanding to become zookeeper again.
    How quaint is Paul Simon’s At the Zoo these days?

Somethin’ tells me it’s all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it’s true
The monkeys stand for honesty
Giraffes are insincere
And the elephants are kindly but they’re dumb
Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum
Zebras are reactionaries
Antelopes are missionaries
Pigeons plot in secrecy
And hamsters turn on frequently
What a gas, you gotta come and see
At the zoo

At the Zoo
Written by Paul Simon

                                      -30-

    “Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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