I am as Cassandra, and it pains me. I know what is wrong with Western Civilization, at the root, and how to fix it so it will never need fixing again. So much good does this do me – or anyone else, for that matter.
Instead we are here, agog as the world we thought we knew crumbles around us, aghast that no one rises to its defense.
Whose job IS that, anyway?
I’m looking at you, thumbsucker…
It is beyond all doubt unconscionably rude to hector your clients about politics. And yet: We are at a place where the free real estate market itself it at peril. Absurd? Who saw the country in flames a year ago? And the private and widely-distributed ownership of the land we live, work and play on is the freedom that undergirds all our other freedoms. The enemies of human splendor will destroy it – if they can.
Me, eleven Independence Days’ ago:
The essence of our freedom is the free ownership of the land, and yet everywhere we turn, private property is subjected to one law after another, and everything that is not forbidden is compulsory instead.
This is a grievous error. The men who become Brownshirts or Klansmen or Khmer Rouge — the men who make up murderous mobs — are men without land. It is the husbandry of the land — each man to his own parcel — that most makes husbands of us, that sweeps away our willingness to live as brigands or rapists or thugs.
By robbing the private ownership of the land of its meaning, the state is, by increments, robbing its citizens of their humanity. No one burns down his own home, nor his neighbor’s home. But when the time comes that we all seem to own our homes only by sufferance, none of us will have anything left to defend.
So what can you do about all this?
I think you have to talk to your clients, those who trust you enough to listen to you – and this doubled-periled epoch is one of those rare moments in the lives of adults when minds are open to better ideas.
The elephant in the room? The GOP, of course.
Just typing that makes me want to wash my hands, but certifiably kleptocratic rent-seeking gonophs are nevertheless preferable to murderous militant Marxists. Strange but true.
So, yes: The gristly steak consists of voting for every Republican running, simply to renounce Marxism as resoundingly as possible. But the sizzle is the freedoms that grow from the free cultivation of our homesteads, our farmsteads – and our commercial empires.
Know it or don’t, Realtors and lenders are always the front-line evangelists of the middle class. How do we do that? By ringing them bells and closing them deals: The middle class lifestyle is what we sell – tacitly and mostly without any overt strategic awareness.
I’m saying that for now, at least, and for the next two months, you need to help your clients identify their own long-term interests. Not to argue, and certainly not to insult anyone. But homeownership makes conservatives of us all, and you are the ship’s captain for your portion of that journey. People who trust you will really listen to you right now. Show them the map you’re working from.
Brian Brady says:
“certifiably kleptocratic rent-seeking gonophs ”
That’s my tribe ! I’ve grown used to the GOP’s robust verbal promotion of Liberty and inert actions in defense of it. As a lifelong Republican, that drives me nuts. But the Hobson’s Choice Greg points out is real– offer up your neck or lose a limb.
Right now, any Realtor or Lender can look at the elections selfishly; which direction is likely to put you out of business ?
“The Squad:” promotes a world of rent-control, higher property taxes, and more land-use regulations. “The Squad” will build a halfway house next to the community pool– your CCRs be damned! Eventually, private property ownership will be an artifact of the past.
At least the Gonoph’s will rig the game for the SFR owner to make money
August 27, 2020 — 11:14 am
Greg Swann says:
Urf. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
August 27, 2020 — 11:17 am