Quotation of the Day
19th February 2025
ZMan:
Back in the 1980’s when Reagan was riding high, public officials would often talk about the need to avoid bad precedents. Today’s exception to the rules for a good purpose could become tomorrow’s exception to the rules for bad purpose. Then you had Republicans who were developing their act where they say, “If we use our new power to serve our voters, we will be as bad as the Democrats!”
From a civic nationalist perspective, these sorts of things were correct. If one side abuses the rules to their advantage, then other sides will do the same and before long you have a man on a horse crossing a river he is never supposed to cross. On the other hand, if only one side gets to make exceptions, then the only precedent being set is that the side breaking the rules keeps winning.
That has been the shape of things since Watergate. The people we call the left run everything and they get to make exceptions. When they need a break and the other side gets to take a turn at the wheel, they make a fetish of the rules. This is the source of those vaunted principles the conservative love so much. The first principle is they follow the rules and everyone else cheats like hell.