I should be outraged by the death of Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny, but I’m not.
It’s not that I doubt Navalny’s persecution by Vladimir Putin and Russia’s security and intelligence services. I'm actually not familiar enough with the specifics of his case to pass judgment on those claims. It's just that I have a finite reservoir of outrage and attention for such matters and right now I’m more than occupied by alarm for the political persecution, oppression, corruption and evil intent here in my own nation. I also can’t help but notice that the ones most responsible for that home-grown persecution, oppression, corruption and evil intent are the very same ones most outraged by Navalny’s death.
It tracks closely with the maddening reality that those most concerned about the violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, who tell me U.S. taxpayers must spend hundreds of billions on Ukraine’s defense, are the very same ones who demand our own borders remain wide open and refuse to spend a dime to secure them.
There was a time when I could concern myself with the well-being and virtue of other nations. It was in those days, not so very long ago, that ours was a nation of laws, with leaders who had its best interests at heart and who, more or less, abided by our Constitution and at least tried to do right by America.
But that time has passed.
Today we have a political class, legal system and press that prioritizes political power and profit above such mundane matters as fidelity to the Constitution, public safety, and prosperity of their fellow citizens. In the power centers of our nation's capital and major cities, our political class now has a majority coalition of leftist ideologies, cultural Marxists and cynical establishment pols feeding on the carcass of our once-great nation.
Our legal system in the capital and major cities has been hijacked to the service of that political class and notions of equal protection and fidelity to the people’s law be damned.
The mainstream press, who once prided themselves on 'comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable', now busies itself with afflicting America’s afflicted and comforting America’s comfortable.
Metropolitan Washington D.C. now has the top four richest counties and America’s crime-wracked big cities are unattainable and unlivable for working-class citizens.
At the same time, our rural areas are increasingly impoverished and suffering the attendant social dysfunction, drug addiction and early death.
I’m told that Navalny and his political movement are the victims of persecution and oppression by Russia’s president, security services and legal system, while I see our own president, legal system and security services violate our laws to jail and destroy their political opponents, great and small, by the thousands -- all the while encouraging the criminality of their fellow travelers.
So forgive me if I seem insufficiently concerned over the death of Alexei Navalny, may he rest in peace.