On July 23, Jeffrey Epstein, the world’s highest profile prisoner, attempted to commit suicide while in federal custody in New York. Or somebody tried to kill him while he was in federal custody in New York. No one knows. On August 10 Epstein killed himself while in federal custody. Or he didn’t. No one knows.
Likewise, no one knows what happened to President Trump’s several orders, during the past year, for the declassification of all documents bearing on the attempt by our secret police to prevent him from becoming president, or continuing to be president. Or was it all documents? Or was it all documents about the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ? Or was it . . . ?
This is the behavior of the federal government, at its highest and most visible ranks, regarding matters that are known by all.
In addition, no one knows what is happening with the current innumerable investigations of this and similar events, events that are so well attested as to have become, at this point, crashing bores. When, or if, the investigations are completed, will we hear again that Such and Such Grand Inquisitor “lacked candor” and might be prosecuted, except that he or she will not be prosecuted?
This is the behavior of the federal government, at its highest and most visible ranks, regarding matters that are known by all. Yet leading members of one of our great political parties are demanding that still more power be given to the state — power over healthcare, over incomes, over guns, over history itself — while leading members of the other great party, having promised to drain the swamp, demand that the state take unto itself the role of policing speech on the internet, targeting “unstable” speech with red flags, and so on.
Our descendants, should they still be able to read, and allowed to do so, will marvel at this childlike faith in the great god of government.
