The Backbone Estate

It's funny-not-funny how people who demand backbone,

with their fists pumping rarified air,

expel it from their ranks like moral leprosy.

The Backbone Estate

Wanna know something about people who roar the loudest

for virtue,

for dignity,

for pride?

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Who, at every opportunity, insist they aim

to restore it,

to save it,

to venerate it?

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Because

no one personifies - nothing embodies - no place exemplifies -

backbone,

anymore?

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Never mind,

why people flex "piety" as absurdly as wannabe 'lebrities; how people heave low bars, plummeting beyond the pale; who people stand with for power, influence, wealth, status plainly improbable without promises, promises, promises.

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Never mind,

"purity" of purposes or foundations draining bottomless seas of salt to swallow a single, solitary particle without tremendous skepticism exercised by people of common sense, everywhere.

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Never mind,

the very real, very material, very cacophonous rage to which any whiff of "spine" is subject.  As if the nobility and heroism of "spine" is, of course,

it's manifest absence.

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When disavowals of unflattering friction are couched as a feature, not a flaw, of faith, because "unified fronts" are a feature, not a flaw, of obedience and loyalty to power, commanded of followers and true believers -

when does it become apparent to people that "structures" like these, or "institutions", are not immune from misuse? Moreover,

when does it become apparent to people that one such misuse of "institutions", is to replicate these "structures" like they're

blueprints?

Until a feature, not a flaw, of society is baked into its fabric.

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For example:

one, that patriotism embraces rebellions against tyrants - that because the root of rebellion is patriotism, rebels cannot be traitors - that acts of so-called "betrayal" or "treason" are therefore, acts of heroism;

or two, that patriotism demands inflexible fidelity - that defiance of rules, official or unwritten, is never justified nor tolerated - that unflinching enforcement against ostensibly "treacherous" rule breaking is therefore, dutiful and brave;

or three, that patriotism is how courageous citizens "live their values";

or four, that patriotism is the backbone of glorious societies;

etc.

Until the meaning of "virtuous character" ceases to mean what it purports to mean, because "a character virtue" means everything and nothing.

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The fabric of our peoples, communities, nations are no more baked with virtue, dignity, pride - than with backbone. After all,

what's pride without backbone? sycophancy unfurled like flags flapping on poles;

or dignity without backbone? obsequious mellifluousness; 

or virtue without backbone? sanctimonious window dressing;

as for backbone without virtue? dignity? pride?

mercenary.

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So about people who roar the loudest for virtue, for dignity, for pride - who, at every opportunity, insist they aim to restore it, to save it, to venerate it - because no one personifies, nothing embodies, no place exemplifies, backbone, anymore -

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they are the very people

they proclaim

they oppose

with self-righteous venom;

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they are the very people

they proclaim

they are not

with smug condemnation;

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they are the very people

who root out "spine" and lionize spinelessness -

who valorize tailors that invent "new clothes" for emperors and coteries that praise "new clothes" for emperors and audiences that behold "new clothes" for emperors with the practiced awe of choirs -

as if parading through rarified air, expelling from their ranks the truth like moral lepers, is how the triumphant obey a decisive mandate to be

wrongdoers.

Epilogue

Speaking of "piety" flexers, low bar lowerers, "do"-boys and "do"-girls -

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Wanna know something about

true believers?

They're not "amazing because they see the truth".

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Unless pretending "to see" what followers invent - including the axiom that "seen truths" are the cornerstone of what disciples "do" - is praiseworthy.

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Not only do invented "seen truths" not "tell a real story" about anything - or

anyone -

but assumptions of the factual reality of fakes and acts

explain nothing.

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This unrepentant bilge - this deceptive narrative pretending not to be dishonest - is how ruthless extremists "protect" their "plots" from unflattering friction, from

reasonable scrutiny.

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Because rigorous examinations defy groveling obeisance - zealots attack informed publics as rotten and demented. Because any whiff of scrupulous transparency is abhorrent - radicals disavow oaths to observe reason as a feature, not a flaw, of ethical guidance and forswear moral conscience severed from inhuman determinism.

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From media personalities who promote invented "seen truths" to public-servants-to-be who promote invented "seen truths" -

the "chosen" are not "chosen" because the rarified air of glorious societies sacralize their testimony and their witness to "seen truths".

Please.

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The "chosen" are "chosen"

because people who are spineless are

for sale.

M

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Note of Understanding

(i) Not unlike floridly grandiose statements like "the people have spoken", the backbone estate (from The Backbone Estate (tvfs)) references the electorate and obviously also, the total population of a state or nation (see (iv)).

(ii) Needless to say, neither 22.9% nor 22.2% of the total population of a state or nation speak for 77.1% or 77.8% or

the majority.

Which is to say, to be elected by 0.7 percentage points, is neither a decisive triumph nor

a win for the majority.

(iii) Calculations for (ii): votes in millions divided by population in millions; (percentage points are differences of percentages from percentages). Sources for (ii): Google search population (ex. the most recent: 2023, Government Census); Google search election (ex. the most recent: 2024, The Associated Press).

(iv) Votes divided by the electorate who are eligible to vote is a metric for "voter participation" that inexplicably also concludes that election results are unequivocally generalizable to the total population of a state or nation (see (i)).

But unlike votes divided by the total population (see (ii)), analysis of elections employing "voter participation" metrics statistically excludes people "subject to taxation without representation" or the people of a state or nation who are not eligible to vote but are subject to such state's or nation's rule nonetheless.

(v) It goes without saying of course, before a definitive mandate is declared because "the people have spoken", I offer pause herein.

etc.

M