The Barbell of Exemptions from Accountability

 

I think most would agree that something is out of kilter in our society right now.  It feels raw, unstable and unsettled.   Many of us don’t quite know what to make of it.   Our political system is being stretched in ways we never imagined.  COVID19 rules seem totalitarian and arbitrary.  Crime is ascendant in major cities and shows no signs of abating.  Race relations are worse than they have been in more than a half century.   The U.S. is abandoning some allies, ignoring others and coddling totalitarian regimes.

At the top of the list is General Mark Milley.  Leading a catastrophic and abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 marines and untold other Afghani allies, while leaving U.S. citizens behind, Milley still has a job.

Under Milley, a family was droned, which included 7 children, and Milley had days before considered it a “righteous strike.”  And if the reports by Bob Woodward are true, Milley subverted the chain of command and had unauthorized conversations with our principal geopolitical adversary.   In an earlier era, Milley would have faced a firing squad. 

Anthony Fauci is still employed and spouting off recommendations even though Rand Paul caught him in a flat out lie about his role in funding “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Lab.  Despite inconsistent and flawed projections and recommendations, Fauci still graces the covers of magazines and is lauded as an “expert” by the mainstream media.  In any other venue, someone with Fauci’s track record would have gotten the heave-ho long ago.

Then, there are the real sewer rats-  people like Eric Slawell and Ilhan Omar.   Slawell slept with Chinese spy Fang Fang.  Omar purportedly married her brother to flout immigration rules, funneled campaign money to her lover’s consulting firm, and made breathtaking antisemitic pronouncement.  In neither case were they held accountable in any way.

The entire F.B.I. deserves its own essay on accountability, beginning with the fabrication of the Steele dossier used to “trump up” the collusion charge with the FISA court (as an aside, there were no consequences or reforms proposed by Chief Justice John Roberts for this, either).  But worse was the F.B.I.’s handling of the sexual abuse of the Olympic gymnasts.   McKayla Maroney’s testimony last week was particularly heartbreaking as she made clear that the F.B.I. not only failed to protect these girls, but actively enabled Nasser to continue to abuse them.  To my knowledge, not a single person has suffered a consequence as a result.

At the bottom of our society, criminals are no longer accountable.   SF can’t be prosecuted for shoplifting for under $950.   In cities like Chicago, murderers are not prosecuted or are released on no cash bail.   Disturbing the peace and public nuisances aren’t dealt with at all.  Violent criminals in Chicago go free on cashless bail.  The Antifa and BLM melees last summer resulted in few arrests and even few perpetrators that spent time in prison, even though deaths, injuries and billions in property damage resulted.

The rest of us are always accountable—abiding by the law, paying our taxes, performing at work, living up to our familial obligations.    We are accountable to our employers, to all the government rules and regulations, and to our families.

But what is completely out of kilter is that the elites exempt themselves and the bottom of our society from accountability.  We cannot have a society in which the very top and very bottom escape accountability while the rest of us are held accountable.

This cannot go on much longer.   It is the stuff that populism is made of…and if things do not change, rebellions.