FRIDAY short TAKES.

The pass we have come to because we've lost sight of enumerated and limited powers.  "On an older and more mature understanding of democracy – an understanding in which democracy is no synonym for raw majority rule – that objection would have weight. But because today so very many people, no less on the left than on the right, equate 'democracy' with 'almost unlimited rule by the latest electoral majority,' [John] Hasnas’s use of 'democracy' here is – sadly – accurate."

Decline is a choice.  Recognize it.  "Things are so strange, so surreal, so nihilistic in contemporary America that the chaos can only be deliberate. Chance, incompetence, and accident could not alone explain the series of disasters."

You don't know what you have until it's gone.  "By the end of the Cold War, Americans were generally living better than ever before." Now, aging hippie, or is it Silent Generation relic, Tom Engelhardt laments, "Wherever I look, nothing seems to be faintly working right." Did you look in the mirror, Tommy? "You can be nostalgic for the rebellion, and still realize that the culture you rebelled against was, overall, better than the one you replaced it with."  Yes, and when that begins to dawn on the Thirteeners, and their next-youngers, the restoration of a state of good repair can begin.  First, though, the dorm-room bull session in the White House must end.  "Foreign policy in this administration is essentially being influenced by loud, ignorant college kids."  Reality is re-asserting itself.

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

1.  Yet here we are.  "The United States cannot have a derelict corpse for a figurehead."  We see it.  “Diminished faculties in advancing age,” for sure.   So why give him one?  "The polls show a majority of voters don’t think Biden can complete a second term."  Let us reject the false binary.  "Given how unpopular and incoherent the president is, perhaps it makes more sense to try to disqualify potential competitors than to debate them."

2.  A powder keg of stupidity.  When the homecoming queen dates the football hero, that's normal life, right?  "Left-of-center social and economic attitudes are, for Millennial and Generation Z women, the closest thing to not having any politics: They are the path of least resistance — and least reflection."  What did Rush Limbaugh once say about gutless choices?  Perhaps that includes enjoying anodyne music.

3.  In your heart, you know he's right.  "Liberalism is surviving its disconnect from what remains of American normalcy account conservatism’s inability to just be normal itself."

4.  The trans mess.  “What should be a medical and psychological issue has been morphed into a political one.”

5.  I'm from Milwaukee, and Bud Light is water.  "I'm not going to suddenly start drinking beer I don't like even if they're doing great things for first responders."

6.  Does that include the cheap labor subsidy?  "Your yearly reminder that undocumented immigrants pay roughly $12 billion in taxes every year—and contribute far more than they receive in benefits!"

7.  Thomas Jefferson, prescient two centuries ago.  “I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”

8.  Why is Bidenomics any different from any other boondoggle?  "A philosophy of throwing money at programs, people, political allies, and favored constituencies."

9.  The constituency for the fatal conceit.  "Ordinary people simultaneously underestimate the market’s achievements as they overestimate the power of government intervention to produce good outcomes."

10.  The issue is not Competence.  The issue is Diversity.  "Never mind if the beneficiaries of these policies appear far less able to perform to the standards which the job requires … it seems to be the intentions that count."

11.  I see dead people.  “Yeah, that’s what voters will say if they see [The Donald] and Joe [Biden] on the ballot.”

12.  Another great moment in leftist logic.  "There might come a time when a conservative Republican person of color might be the best defender of white supremacy."

13.  We already are in a wider war.

14.  Go ahead, Dementia Joe, make my day.  "The veto threat won’t force the illegal immigration provisions of the 'emergency' appropriations bill down anyone’s throat."  Particularly if it's bad legislation.  "Its authors don’t want it to be fully aired before lawmakers vote on it."

15.  I see more rich people, getting richer, taking destination vacations.  "The world’s population of deep pockets" keeps increasing.  Sam Pizzigati never ceases to amuse, does he?  "When accurately measured, 'income inequality' has actually barely changed since 1962."  And yet, the market for destination vacations and curated wine collections has grown.

16.  In the long run, Keynes is dead.  "Large increases in the number of Americans employed by government are nothing to celebrate. Just the reverse is true: more bureaucrats (and the spending necessary to finance their hiring and retention) are drags on, not boosts to economic growth, liberty, and prosperity."

17.  Reality has the final say.  "Nothing is less efficient to go to war with than a military designed for an efficient peace."

18.  Tlusty Czwartek:  "There is a superstition that if you don't eat at least one paczek on Shrove Tuesday, bad luck will follow you for the rest of the year. So, we'd advise erring on the side of caution and eating at least one."