Every conservative and libertarian who has any education at all has heard of the tragedy of the commons. It’s even been co-opted by the left to claim that climate is suffering a tragedy of the commons, and we must act right now. (Act now. Double the oppression. Be the first on your block to have a jackboot on your face!) But then again, what precisely doesn’t the left co-opt to serve their ruthless drive for total power? They’d even co-opt (two) Mom(s) and (fat-free) apple pie if they thought that would help them. They’ve even tried to claim patriotism. (Because open borders are the best way to be a patriot. Or something.)

And yet, the left is enacting a tragedy of the commons right here, in our polity, and doesn’t see how and why it’s happening.

And yes, that tragedy is our fault too, the fault of everyone who doesn’t push back and smack the left on the snout. But it is more so the tragedy of everyone who didn’t do it long before we were born. Not that we can do anything about that. Not that they could imagine how blatant and crazy the left would get. The question now is how we stop that train before the buckets of blood station, and it starts with knowing where we are and looking it unflinchingly in the eye.

First, let me start at the beginning of my reasoning.

It has been said that the U.S. is a country of laws. To an extent, this is true, though it would be more accurate to say the U.S. is a country of belief. Belief in the document on which our laws are built. Belief in those laws. And the willingness to follow those laws.

We’ve had centuries of peaceful transitions of power, with a few minor glitches and one major glitch, but nothing to compare to any other country welded together from disparate peoples and traditions. What holds us together is those laws and the respect for them.

The respect for them is important. I’ve talked before about my greatest shock, as an exchange student, when I figured out that my host parents put Christmas decorations on the outside of the house. It would never happen in Portugal. (Might now, but I bet you still not in gardens with no gates or security.) Ever. Those lights and shiny balls would be gone before you could blink. And it isn’t a case of need or even having a use for the stuff. No. In Portugal, you have to put in a deposit to pull out a supermarket cart, and you only get the money back if you return it because otherwise, people would take them home “to find a use for them.” Air quality stations are practically welded into the concrete by the roadside, otherwise, people would take them home to “find a use for them.”

Then there are laws. Portugal was one of the first countries to forbid child labor. Yet, in 1972 most of my class went to work in the factories at 10 when they graduated fourth grade. It took a little extra step of having your kid see a doctor who, obligingly, said they were mentally retarded and unable to learn more. It wouldn’t stand up to any scrutiny, but there was no scrutiny. The law was there to be circumvented and got around.

And Portugal is not the worst of the rest of the world, not even close. I’m not particularly running the country down, even if every Portuguese is convinced you need more laws for those other people, but none apply to him or her.

That’s with varying minor amounts of civil respect the condition of the rest of the world.

In places from which the left likes importing immigrants, there’s practically no civil respect for laws, and the civic trust makes Portugal look like a paragon of obedience and good behavior.

Mostly the reason is that the laws are imposed from above, never fully explained, never fully bought into, and the people behave as though they were a dead letter. Partly because the laws are irregularly applied and not to those who are connected/wealthy/leftist enough. Partly because– partly because it’s the way things have always been done. You don’t know what a miracle the U.S. is.

One thing about the U.S. was an exception to the respect for laws: voting.

I came to the U.S. when I was 17 – I had been involved in the electoral process in Portugal, and I knew how it was done. Registration WELL ahead of time. Verification of ID (even though everyone in the village knew everyone else). Signature. Etc.

Oh, sure, we knew that emergency votes could be found at counting time, but it was a suspicion that absolutely could not be proven. (And it probably only happened in extreme left strongholds.)

Bizarrely and puzzlingly, the U.S. joked about their voting fraud. Chicago, for instance, mentioned at a party (remember I came here at election time) immediately brought mention of how the dead voted. And everyone more or less openly knew that JFK was elected by fraud and “found” votes.

That the U.S. worked despite this was a wonder and a miracle to me.… Oh, if it were only that. Oh, if it had not gotten insanely worse in the last 38 years.

Eventually, after my exchange student year, I went back to Portugal, and, yes, voted, and watched all the precautions taken.

It wasn’t that much different when I came to the U.S. – I didn’t naturalize till 1989 – and started voting. I remember, though I no longer remember when, that at one time I had to be in Portugal for family reasons, at election time.

Getting permission to vote early started two months in advance, and my husband and I had to show our tickets for those dates to be cleared to vote, for instance.

Then came Clinton, and motor-voter, which facilitates fraud immensely, by allowing one to register to vote when one gets a driver’s license. This is done not only without requesting proof of citizenship, but in fact sometimes over the protests of the person being registered.

I remember a report in the Colorado Springs Gazette sometime in either the late nineties or early two thousands about a Japanese journalist who was enrolled to vote in the U.S. despite showing his passport and international driver’s license as proof of identity to get a driver’s license. I, myself, and those who’ve heard me know I have an accent you could cut with a chainsaw, have never been asked for proof of citizenship to register to vote, since motor-voter. It is assumed that I would be mortally offended at this “discrimination” if I were. (Look, I know I have an accent. I actually don’t understand it very well, which is the reason I don’t record stories to type in later. I value my citizenship enough that I don’t want myself and others like me disenfranchised so as not to “give offense.”)

Sure. There’s no proof this happens systematically. Has anyone looked for proof?

But that apparently was not enough to ensure Democrat majorities forever (how few of them are there really? No, I mean that: how many really?) so more fraud measures had to be added and sternly defended by the left.

No ID. Because apparently, some people are too poor to get free IDs, even though they need those for any government assistance. (Maybe they mean some people are too addled to get IDs. Yeah, we really would hate to miss the crazy and stupid vote.)

Then there is same-day registration, because heaven forfend we miss the vote of people who didn’t plan to vote until five minutes before they did.

And then there is vote by fraud, I mean, vote by mail, which the Democrats institute in any state whose legislatures they conquer long enough.

Oh, and I know, I know, right now half of you are saying that I don’t want the military to vote. The other half are saying they can’t take time off to vote on the day. Because our ADHD population has forgotten there were always exceptions and workarounds for those: given enough proof of inability to be there on the day. And there was always an exception for our armed forces, who frankly most of the time don’t get their ballots counted, at least not in lefty-held precincts.

Why do I call it vote by fraud? Guys, it’s not even constitutional. It does not safeguard privacy. Or do you believe that all households are so constituted as to let people vote in peace and isolation? And then there are ballots going to the houses of people who have died. Ballots going to people who registered same day with cockamamie address verification documents (it ain’t hard, in these days of home printers) and ballots going to people with advanced dementia who cannot fill their own ballot, but have eager family members ready to do it for them.

And yeah, I know: signature verification. Sure. And as always conservative precincts are scrupulous about it, but do you really trust the lefty precincts?

Do not tell me there’s no fraud because one thing all those measures did was exponentially multiply the Democratic vote. In Colorado Springs – COLORADO SPRINGS, not the world’s most lefty stronghold – people who have been dead fifty years have impeccable voting records. If we don’t scrutinize our voter roles, of course there’s fraud.

And the Dems fight – fight like demons – to preserve all the fraud-facilitating measures. We’re to believe, btw, that they went vote-by-mail in CO to save money. Because the party of “Medicare for all” is all about saving money, doncha know? They went after Truethevote for a reason.

Then there are blatant recounts and “found ballots.” And there is proof right there. Not that anyone is looking for proof of fraud, of course, but it’s impossible to ignore that every time ballots are found they’re obviously mostly Democrat so that the greatest vote margins can be erased.

Years ago, I had an attack on my blog, where one of the kids’ teachers instigated her students to come and harass me. (I questioned her idea that culture is genetic. Yeah.) When I pointed out that they were obeying a crazy person, every one of these critters tried to tell me they had all come there, on the same day, with the same talking points without any prompting. And did I have proof otherwise? My friend Dave Freer pointed out that those facts were proof enough. It was about as likely otherwise as throwing a coin in the air and having it turn into a fluffy duck at the top.

Well, for recount after recount to happen, and ballot box after ballot box to be found always giving the election to the Dems (yes, there is one case of a Republican pulling this trick, against another Republican, in a very small precinct and a run for something like recording clerk. Let’s be real. To all those now eagerly ready to post that link, it doesn’t matter. Go with elections of statewide and nationwide importance instead. The left always “wins” these contested contests) is about as likely as a mouse giving birth to a clock.

We know it too. We joke about it. Or at least we tell each other. “If it’s not close they can’t cheat.”

Only they can. They’re doing it. Heck, have you considered the votes that go into it being close or not? Given everything they pull, how many of those are even legit?

The only reason Trump won was that they underestimated him. They chose him to lose to Hillary. The fact that he didn’t sent them insane. Because they’d planned it the other way. And now they’re being ultra blatant about stealing the votes in plain sight.

And no, they don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt. Most of them have been convinced either by liberal professors or by their social workers that we’d all be naturally socialist if it weren’t for some kind of invisible magic called “systemic oppression.” They feel the fraud is the least they can do to “liberate” us, even those of us who say we disagree with them. We’re just too “colonized” to realize we’d also be naturally socialist. So they think their fraud is doing God’s work. Fake but accurate.

By letting them do this, by letting them get away with this, we’re putting our fingers in our ears and going lalalalala while we turn our voting and governance processes into a commons. In fact, it’s so advanced the left is enacting the full-on tragedy.

The question is, will you stop denying what’s happening now and fight it with law while we can? There are violations of the civil rights of people whose votes are being denied by dilution in made-up votes, for instance. There are violations of civil rights due to forcing everyone to vote by mail in conditions of no privacy.

There are abuses and elder abuse in our nursing homes. There must be some lawyers on our side, right?

Because if we don’t stop it now and legally, you and I know very well where this is headed.

Sure it’s easier to pretend that everything is legal and aboveboard, even as the Dems throttle our economy and destroy our schools and civic institutions. It’s easier, because we still live way better than most humans now, let alone throughout history.

But each time they win by fraud it encourages them to employ fraud more. And meanwhile, we like to pretend nothing is happening here.

And yet, populations governed from above without their consent lose all respect for the law. And yet nothing else welds together our disparate populations and our immense land mass.

Yes, I know. Doing something now is hard. Even if the something is just emailing the Broward County fraudsters and their supervisors and saying “I can see you.” And the Arizona fraudsters and saying “I am sick and tired of your shenanigans.” Even if it’s “just” citizens in these areas bringing civil rights lawsuits.

But if you do nothing and keep insisting you don’t hear the music, sooner or later you’ll hear the rough music of blood and death. When all memory of civil discourse and respect for the laws is gone. When it’s all about two different laws, one for the people in power and one those without. When Marxism-Leninism is imposed from above and fills mass graves as it always does.

One day you won’t be able to avoid the rough music. And then you must dance.