A must read over at the Belmont Club

I'm going to quote extensively here, but by all means go over and read the whole thing.  We are indeed seeing the gathering disintegration of not just the Obama administration, but also the entire post war world created by the US and it's allies.  Events that in and of themselves would have been a scandal and a subject of deep concern only a few years ago now fly past us fast and furiously.  With over two years of Obama's active anti - Americanism, or even anti Western Civilization ahead of us, it remains to be seen what will be left at the end, and whether much can be recovered.  If the LIV's elect Hilary or some other similar politician, we will be well and truly cooked.

But back to the present, and what these current events can tell us:

   "But rebellion begins involuntarily, at the Hayekian level. It doesn’t happen as one big wave. It is simply an accumulation of multitudes ignoring the official line bit by bit and thereby gradually placing themselves unwittingly in opposition to it. Perhaps the biggest example of this is a CBO report that while 30 million people will technically be liable to pay the Obamacare Individual Mandate fine but in practice all but 4 million will have their fines waived or exempted.

Almost none of the uninsured will end up paying the ObamaCare mandate penalty, according to an updated analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, which found that 87% will be able to claim an exemption. …

Whatever the reason, the result is that the penalty will raise $27 billion less over the next decade than the CBO had originally expected.

And that assumes more don’t simply dodge paying the penalty because of the ease with which they can claim a hardship exemption, or because the law places strict limits on the IRS’ ability to collect the money.

The hardship exemption rules, for example, let anyone who “experienced domestic violence” avoid the mandate, without providing any documentation of abuse. Getting a shut-off notice from a utility is also sufficient to claim a hardship exemption.

In addition, the law forbids the IRS from using its normal enforcement tools to collect unpaid penalties. Tax experts say the best it can do is withhold the penalty amount from any tax refund due.

The mighty Law of the Land is exposed as all bark and no bite; a fine they can’t enforce. The administration’s threats, so dire on paper, are toothless in practice because they actually can’t afford to carry out the threat. Any actual attempts to fine 30 million Americans would end in a political disaster.

The slippage that attracts the most attention of course, is discontent within the United States military. Diane Dimond writes in Real Clear Politics about the low level grumbling that risen to detectable levels since the Bergdahl affair.

The president of the United States is the commander in chief over all branches of the military. It is a historic time, given that no military member goes public to speak negatively about the ultimate commander. …

Now career military personnel are speaking out through gritted teeth, insisting they speak for active-duty personnel who cannot talk without being punished. They are speaking about injustice, ineptitude and impeachment. …

Forget what the politicians on Capitol Hill are saying about the prisoner swap. Forget the pontifications from the myriad talking heads on TV and radio. Now you know what members of our U.S. military are thinking and saying. They have lost all respect for their commander in chief.

It chills me to the bone.

And so should such reports chill one to the bone. Yet there is a big difference between grousing, which is endemic to the military, and actual rebellion.  Nobody is likely to rise up and become a Man on Horseback. What may happen of course, is that like a frog slowly being boiled in a pot, the process happens so slowly that people aren’t aware of it themselves. For example, there is a silent falling away among American allies.  

The Times of Israel quotes Israeli oppositionists as accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of “loathing” Barack Obama so intensely it has endangering the Jewish state’s security.  A little noticed article in the Sydney Morning Herald notes that Australia will support Japan’s effort to repeal its pacifist constitution.  A later article shows that Australia is moving towardpurchasing Japanese submarines to replace its existing fleet. Lech Walesa has openly accused president Obama as unable to lead in world.

One day Obama may wake up and find the alliances just gone.

Like a jalopy falling apart on the road, dropping a screw here and a spring there, the Obama administration is gradually shaking itself to pieces.  It can go on for a long time shedding parts, but eventually the axle falls out. Centralized regimes may seem to collapse suddenly, yet in reality they have been coming apart for a long time.