The Pursuit of Ruin

Permit what destroys and destroy with stupid interdictions.

By JOHN LEAKE

This morning, on Bastille Day, I woke up thinking about one of the prison’s most notorious inmates—the Marquis du Sade, who was transferred to the insane asylum in Charenton on July 4, 1789, just ten days before the Bastille was stormed.

The Marquis de Sade’s novel, 120 Days of Sodom, is about a group of dissolute and vicious aristocrats in the waning days of the reign of Louis XIV who kidnap several boys and girls, sequester them in a castle, and do terrible things to them. Most of the novel is unreadable, but the opening section, in which the villains are introduced, contains a few vivid descriptions.

The main bad guy is the Duc de Blangis, who is described as “the monstrous repository of all vices and crimes.” Of all his terrible qualities, the most memorable is that he “grossly extravagant with needless luxuries and miserly about basic necessities.”

Chateau de Lacoste, the Sade family’s ancestral castle now lies in ruins.

This morning I read the news that President Biden has authorized the deployment of as many as 3,000 reservists to Europe, purportedly to strengthen NATO forces for possible military confrontation with Russia.

In other words, instead of simply negotiating with Russia for an Austrian-style neutrality deal for Ukraine, the United States government deems it necessary to escalate the possibility of armed conflict with a nation that has Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles aimed at America’s cities.

This is the same United States government that hastily and abandoned Afghanistan, after a twenty year occupation, leaving it under the control of the Taliban, just a few months before it embarked on its latest, even more extravagant military adventure.

This is the same United States government that currently holds $32.54 trillion of debt and will soon have to start paying $1 trillion per year in interest on this debt.

And while this same U.S. government deems it necessary to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it can’t be bothered to defend its own territorial integrity on its southern border—at least not with any rigor.

It’s important to note that the Duc de Blangis approach to life is not only applied to foreign affairs. The United States government—and local governments in major states such as California, Illinois, and New York—have implemented the following vicious paradoxes.

RESTRICT the free speech of ranking academic doctors like Peter McCullough or presidential candidate RFK, Jr.

PERMIT the distribution of pornographic material and transgender propaganda to children.

LOCK DOWN small to midsize businesses and their vigorous taxpaying owners in May of 2020.

PERMIT hordes of rioters and vandals to destroy and loot American cities in response to the action of one police officer in Minneapolis—a police officer whose boss, Chief Medaria Arradondo, was a black man.

RESTRICT the prescription of hydroxychloroquine for high-risk patients (obese, with high blood sugar) during the pandemic, even though HCQ was known to reduce inflammation caused by the cytokine Interleukin-6, which is especially prevalent in the obese.

PERMIT the aggressive marketing of alcohol, foods made with high-fructose corn syrup and other highly caloric and unwholesome ingredients.

PROHIBIT church services during the pandemic.

PERMIT liquor stores to remain open for business during the pandemic.

MANDATE: Injections with an experimental gene transfer technology.

PERMIT: Homeless people to defecate on the street—in flagrant violation of basic sanitation laws—in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.

I could go on, but the pattern is clear. In America today, state policy is to PERMIT all that is inimical to a wholesome and enduring civilization in which children are raised to be disciplined and responsible adults.

At the same time, the state embarks on aggressive interdictions, such as lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and foreign wars that are ruinous to prosperity, public finances, and possibly threaten the very existence of civilization.

And so we see that, like the Marquis de Sade’s great anti-hero, the Duc de Blangis, the United States government has become “the monstrous repository of all vices and crimes.”