VDH: America Shows All the Symptoms of a Civilization in Collapse

NBC’s Al Sharpton shakes hands with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as she prepares to speak at a summit to address issues surrounding the death of Freddie Gray and its aftermath at New Shiloh Baptist Church, Thursday, April 30, 2015, in Baltimore. Note the “No Justice, No Peace” slogan behind them. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

“What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional 4th-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece?,” asks Victor Davis Hanson. “The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them.” After first noting the huge unpaid tax bills by Al Sharpton and other NBC spokespersons, and Lois Lerner’s attacks on innocent Americans who did pay their taxes, in Investor’s Business Daily, VDH writes:

If the Obama administration reaches a controversial agreement with Iran that will not meet the constitutional test of ratification by two-thirds of the Senate, then it will not be called a treaty and instead be imposed by presidential executive order.

Prosecutors have never been more ideologically driven. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., opposes administration policies on Cuba and Iran — and then suddenly faces federal indictments on charges covering a period from 2006 to 2013.

In the tragic Freddie Gray case, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby all but assured an angry crowd that she had provided them indictments for murder and manslaughter and thereby expected calm in the streets in return.

She indicted six Baltimore policemen on charges that are likely to be reduced or disproved in court, but those charges served the short-term purpose of defusing unchecked rioting and looting. Warping the law was thought to be more effective in easing tensions than enforcing it.

Increasingly in the United States, the degree to which a law is enforced — or whether a person is indicted — depends on political considerations. But when citizens do not pay any income taxes, or choose not to pay taxes that they owe and expect impunity, a complex society unwinds.

And when the law becomes negotiable, civilization utterly collapses.

If so, then the conflagration whipped up over the past two weeks by the DNC-MSM will be seen as a significant mile marker on the road to perdition. Regarding last week’s riots, in his weekly PJM column, VDH decodes “The Rules of Baltimore.” As for how the media have portrayed the events in Garland on Sunday, well: