As IF Times

source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/appeals-court-orders-flynn-case-be-dismissed-after-years-long-legal-saga

One of the most overused phrases that we hear these days is, “the new normal”.  This characterization has been applied to changes to many heretofore traditional behaviors that were “normal” for average people.  Now, with the militancy of activists of all stripes, standard rules of societal behavior and conduct are being replaced by newly minted acceptable ones.  As dumb as many of these “new norms” are, given time, they creep in to be part of accepted behavior.  It wasn’t that long ago that men held doors open for women.  This is no longer the norm.  In fact, these days, you’d have to be cautious of even assuming someone is a man or a woman. Think about photographs of people:  The new norm is for people to express a defiant sneer whereas not that long ago,  people smiled pleasantly during their photos.

The recent (and on going) Covid scare has resulted in new rules governing all manner of social interaction and of work, whereby people are segregated like eggs in zip locked cartons to ensure that they don’t physically interact.  All social activity is now to be done remotely via online linkups; the new normal.  Amazingly, the general populace has meekly subscribed to this “new normal” by acquiescing to this most oppressive edict for humans since Mao Tse Tung introduced the fashionable Mao suit.  Ostensibly, this new normal is being mandated to ensure the health and safety of the populace. It’s quite amazing what governments can get away with when policies and laws are framed as “for the safety of the people”.

Fortunately, this edict has not prevented the long hallowed American tradition of protesting, rioting, looting, murder and general mayhem by certain segments of the population.  The Seattle mayor in fact lauds this behavior and characterizes this as the summer of love, 2020.  As in most things, there are always exceptions to the rule and if you get enough people to support your cause, exceptions will be made.  In fact, amidst the Covid lockdown, social rioting to address oppression has achieved an all time high in popularity and participation.  It’s so popular and inclusive, even the entitled and privileged are participating.  Large enclaves of cities have been sectioned off and declared as autonomous zones from their parent cities; thereby manifesting the new normal.  Laws against this kind of thing are openly flouted since, well, this is the new normal.  As we now know, laws are only for the law abiding.

This “new normal” has reached into many other parts of our society as well.  As we observe in the linked article, long established “norms” of legal behavior were disregarded by a judge Sullivan presiding over the highly partisan Michael Flynn case.  Unwilling to follow established legal protocols, to which he must  subscribe since he is employed as a jurist, he chose to try to establish a new normal by bringing in another jurist to advise instead.  Put bluntly, he all but states, “I think he’s guilty, what do you think?”   In essence, he didn’t like the law, so he’s trying to change the rules.  This may establish the precedent for all future legal actions since it’s now been established that the judge can be a partisan and not just an impartial adjudicator. The new normal.

We can extrapolate this principle into the new normal anticipated to be implemented in professional sports.  The NFL is at the forefront of the social justice movement now, but many other pro sports organizations will surely follow in lockstep, *cough cough Nascar*,  The new fairness will usher in a new normal of socially equitable and politically correct competition.  During a game in which the home team is losing badly to the visitors, the partisan sentiment of the home crowd will allow rules to not be applied to the home boys until they win. Maybe goal lines can be moved.  Maybe the homies get 6 downs instead of 4.  Maybe the visitors can’t cross beyond their own half of the field.  Maybe the visitors have to use a bowling ball during their possession.  Most importantly, no white on black violence.

The resulting spectacle may be as interesting to watch as organized nose picking, but at least we know in the end that the home team gets their way.  It’s the new normal.

source:  https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/06/13/nashville-protesters-set-up-their-very-own-autonomous-zone-at-capital-n525485

This is all the rage in America these days, to set up autonomous zones right within the center of a large, urban metropolis.  It’s working so well in Seattle that the idea has spread faster than the Covid virus to other cities as well, with Nashville being the latest aspirant.  But burgeoning nations states are brewing in Texas and Georgia as well.

Parents will recognize this as playing Barbie dream house for the girls or in the case of the boys, building a fort in the basement during their own simpler youth.  You simply arranged a few cardboard boxes as barricades and voila, instant play zone.  Using their fertile imaginations, kids could create their own worlds and and pretend scenarios…up until the time their parents called them to clean up for dinner.

As some pundits have noted, it’s been pretty easy to create a new nation state since there hasn’t been a lot of pushback by those who would be most affected.  Wait, what…I’m no longer in the U.S.?? Thus far, the plucky nation builders have managed to arbitrarily carve out pieces of cities to be declared self governing zones independant of the host cities and limited only by the amount of concrete barriers they can get their hands on.  It’s as if the kids gathered some folding chairs in the basement and declared the boundaries to be impassible to outsiders.  They seem to think that their new zone is so desirable that walls are needed to keep wanna be citizens away.  Hmm.

In Seattle, city officials, who are notionally charged and paid to protect the citizenry, are instead indulging the plucky nationalists by offering support items such as food, Gatorade and of course cigarettes as if they were permissive parents supporting their children’s fantasies.  In fact, there’s quite a list of demands to the outsiders for all kinds of support items including soy and vegan items but with soap being notably absent.  We could dub this zone, state of caricature or SOC instead of CHAZ….or perhaps Soapless In Seattle.

How could this not seem fun to people who would copy this idea? Given that the support demands are being met for all kinds of creature comforts including WiFi and portable toilets, why wouldn’t you hang out and play bongos with like minded people, or more correctly, fellow citizens of the new state? It’s like living in your mom’s basement, adult version. Taking the advice of a former President who infamously invoked “You didn’t build that” the new nationalists are nevertheless living under the figurative roof of those that provide the comfort of their new digs. Except in this case, you get to wield real guns instead of fake ones and you really get to boss people around.

It’s fun, intoxicating and the publicity and notoriety are a large part of the charm in this world of make believe for the heroic nationalists.  Who wouldn’t want to act out childish fantasies as an adult without fear of consequences?  But, just like when they were kids, the adults will eventually want to have their room back and those not complying may get the adult version of a deserved spanking.  In wisdom apparently rooted as far back as Roman times, “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye”.