Posted on 09/22/2025 6:19:47 AM PDT by MtnClimber
When merit is replaced with ideology, fires rage unchecked, killers walk free, and fragile systems collapse—leaving lives and cities in ruin.
America has a lot of built-in safety backups and redundancies.
But every once in a while, when tradition, science, time-tested protocols, and common sense are ignored, a fragile system utterly collapses.
Usually, an iconic event reveals how vulnerable the entire country has become, and predictably occurs when suicidal ideologies and nihilism, in perfect-storm fashion, wreak havoc.
The media, academia, the bureaucracy, and higher education can mask the dangers of their political agendas—at least until their sheer incompetence or toxicity can no longer be hidden or excused, and a predictable disaster ensues.
Take the January 4-5, 2025, Pacific Palisades fire that destroyed an entire historic neighborhood of Los Angeles. The embers had not even cooled when we were lectured that “climate change” was responsible for the historically predictable annual autumn and early winter Santa Ana winds that whip up horrific fires before the first winter rains arrive—a phenomenon documented for over two centuries.
The media, in reporting the conflagration, downplayed human culpability. But over the next few weeks, outraged former homeowners and independent journalists began cataloging the real symptoms of a total system failure that turned the normal end-of-year fire season into a catastrophic inferno.
A lot of things had to go wrong to utterly destroy an ancient, coveted neighborhood. But DEI managed to do all of that with ease.
First, we learned that the incompetent mayor, Karen Bass, had cut the fire budget. Then, despite warnings of dry hillsides, underfunded fire protection, and predicted high winds, Bass was nowhere to be seen during the most dangerous weeks of the year.
Why? She was junketing in Ghana, an African nation rarely considered vital to the running of the third-largest city
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
It is a cautionnary tale about what DEI “accompliches”.
VDH ping.
Looks like we are operating at 10 o’clock.
The system was built by WHITE GUYS and once they’re out of the picture, the system collapses. South Africa is further along in this spiral to a pre-industrial stage.
Ping
VDH does an excellent job connecting the dots.
“Looks like we are operating at 10 o’clock.”
My observation?
Those of us on the RIGHT fall into the Faith, Courage, Liberty, Abundance sector and we need to STOP at Selfishness.
Those on the LEFT are BORN into Complacency, Apathy, Dependence and Bondage to Mother Government.
I know that’s NOT what Tytler was trying to convey, but that’s my take on where we are as a Nation.
I have no answers and I’m certainly not as smart as VDH! :)
I’ve seen variations of this over the years. It’s a map of our human nature.
Valves could have cut off water to a house sometime after it caught fire so the neighborhood wouldn’t lose water pressure.
Remote control sprinklers could have been operated by homeowners.
A pump system like I have here in Florida for well water could have sucked out pool water to fight fires at nearby houses.
Yep. Every fallen form of government or nation has followed the same steps.
It’s right in front of our very EYES and yet we can’t SEE it!
The Soviet Union was built by "WHITE GUYS" too, just sayin'.
When VDH speaks, people should listen.
Victor Davis,
Excellent write up connecting the dots.
This writer often presents well thought out articles worth reading.
“Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth ofdisarmed victims – then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.
Now THAT is funny!
Rand was a prophet.
L
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