Judge Emmet Sullivan’s required response to the filing of the Writ of Mandamus illustrates the problem with the pandemic, the riots and governance.

It’s reason.

Or more accurately, the total lack of it.

Sullivan’s response was more or less “Don’t worry about law, precedent or whether or not the parties agree there is nothing to adjudicate, me and Scooby are on the case and we’re gonna find the real villain. Just chill and watch me go!”

Yesterday, I watched Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager wontonly lie about Trump’s response to the riots, casually recycling the Charlottesville “good people on both sides” lie.

CNN is total 24/7 anti-Trump propaganda. THey are the “butterfly effect” of networks – there is literally NOTHING they won’t try to tie to Trump if it can be spun negatively. MSNBC is the mouthpiece of progressivism (but at least they don’t pretend to be fair and balanced). The major print media and social media are cesspools of fanatic fabulists. Drudge is gone and every day, FOX News slides toward uselessness. None of them want to be right, they just want to be mad – and make their viewers mad, too.

The hypocrisy and weakness of our ruling class is grating and nerve wracking.

Even the Supreme Court decision on church attendance in California makes no sense to me – churches have clearly been treated differently than a Walmart or Target – but because there is an arbitrary “public health emergency”, the Constitution can be suspended by an appointed health official in Loma Linda? I don’t think so.

The arbitrary and capricious decisions and rules promulgated by various governmental entities are infuriating – while those same rules are ignored if you are protesting.

Last night, I watched our local news interviewing people at a Salt Lake protest who were spouting reasons for the protests that do not exist – rumors and innuendo abound. People are making connections between totally unrelated events and situations.

The one role of government we expect is that it protect the citizens – they can’t (or won’t) even do that, displaying a distinct preference for (or fear of) the lawless. I guess Ayn Rand was right – criminals are easier to rule – but the fact remains that if government can’t even fulfill that basic responsibility and duty, people will take on that task themselves… and that means the end of civil government and society.

The lawless always count on law abiding citizens not to drop to their level, to the lowest common denominator – to be protected by the very laws they disobey. But that ain’t what history shows. Force works both ways and in absence of a governing force to manage things, force will be applied to the lawless.

What drives me crazy is that the problems we have are 1) not as bad as they seem and 2) are solvable, it’s just that people in power avoid working on the real problems because they see profit in the chaos and there are too many people who choose to abandon reason because they just want to be mad.