 |
| The City Mouse |
The City Mouse and I had a long discussion at the Four Star Diner in East Hartford concerning Connecticut’s future prospects. The name of the diner has here been changed to protect all concerned against possible political recriminations.
Asked how he would determine the extent of censorship in
Europe, Voltaire said the depth of censorship can be plumbed by posing the
question: What cannot be written or said? Here in Connecticut, there is
much left unprinted in the state’s left-leaning media, she insisted.
“Such as what?” I asked.
“Well, a couple of days ago, Governor Ned Lamont adjusted
his air travel ban. The ban was installed to prevent Coronavirus seepage into
Connecticut from states that met a certain testing threshold, which you have
said, in one of your unprinted columns, may have been set too low by
‘scientists.’ Like the weather, Coronavirus prognostications change rather
quickly here in ‘the land of steady habits.’
“Presently, all air traffic is subject to regulations that
make air travel unlikely, if not impossible. The withering hand of state
government, having ruined Thanksgiving, has now moved on to Christmas. But
Lamont has carved out some exceptions to his travel killing regulations. He has
exempted New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Connecticut’s incurious media
has not asked him, to my knowledge, upon what firm principle the exceptions
rest, but some of his critics surmise they rest upon a compact between these
three states details which have never been disclosed. One Republican, a
naughty conservative, has suggested that Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has
been exempted because he is Lamont’s ‘fishing buddy.’ All three governors are
Democrats.”
She asked what role I thought the new vaccines might play in
the restoration of Connecticut’s crumbling economy, a very important, little
discussed question.
“The vaccines, along with the change in national government,
should cause Democrats nationally to pivot, both practically and rhetorically.”
She saw little sign of rhetorical pivoting. President-elect
Joe Biden’s cabinet choices were not, to her way of thinking, reassuring -- a submissive bow to intersectionality and far too progressive. The
attack on President Donald Trump has not abated, and we appear to have elected
a question mark as president.
“Sure, but it takes a long time to turn around a forward
rushing locomotive. A rhetorically committed media is very slow in adapting to
new arrangements, which very well might include the capture not only of the
White House, but also the U.S. Senate. Democrats already control the U.S. House
by a margin more slender after than before the 2020 elections. If that happens,
the nation will find itself with a governmental architecture very much like
that of Connecticut. Democrats in Connecticut command pretty much the entire
government, the executive, legislative and judicial branches, as well as all
the Constitutional offices and the U.S. Congressional Delegation, an engine of
leftwing ambitions.”
“Right,” she observed. “But in Connecticut the distribution
of political power, which appears to be the Democrats’ sole concern, hardly
matters at all, because all government power for the last eight months has been
exercised by a plenary chief executive, Lamont, who has been taking his
governing cues from Cuomo, his fishing buddy. It is no accident that Lamont
has exempted New York from his stringent travel restrictions. God, the old saw
has it, does not play dice with the universe, but here we see Lamont playing
dice with Connecticut. The Chinese Coronavirus may have wended its
way to Connecticut from New York. Other Coronavirus tributaries likely were New
Jersey and Rhode Island. Does it make any sense to seal the Coronavirus bucket by
means of travel restrictions while punching three holes in its bottom so that the
virus, lethal mostly to those in nursing homes left unattended by restriction
prone governors, may freely flow into Connecticut from contiguous states?”
She further pointed out that no plans are afoot to provide
incoming vaccines to members of the legislative and judicial branches – because
for eight months these two co-equal branches of Connecticut’s government have
been considered unnecessary.
And we know that the Republican Party has been considered unnecessary
by ruling Democrats for, just to reach for a round number, approximately a half
century in virtually all the state’s major cities, where General Assembly talk
is cheap and performance poor. We are told by Connecticut’s media, chronically unable
to connect dots, that cities represented by Connecticut Democrats are nearly incapable
of producing literate high school seniors, before they graduate to colleges
where their professors will ply them with remedial courses and then dump them
on urban mean streets to search for non-existent jobs.
In matters of cultural deprivation, there is, by the City
Mouse’s count, only one commentator in the entire state who has managed to
weave these disturbing narratives into his commentary – Chris Powell, formerly the
manager of the Journal Inquirer, now retired, though he continues in his columns to pepper the state with intelligent commentary, without
raising so much as an eyebrow in Connecticut's quiescent, Democrat dominated General
Assembly.
“Here’s an idea: Connecticut’s tax prone, expensive
government has been boarded up for nearly a year. Perhaps we should shut it
down permanently and appoint a conservator for our bankrupt state – NOT Cuomo.
Shall we ask the waitress?”
And the waitress said – sure, it might save some money and
reduce Connecticut’s political migraine. Would she consent to serve as
conservator?
“Sure, no telling how long this place will remain in
business anyway.”
Comments