Nobody asked but …
Quid pro quo is Latin for dodge, as in dodge ball aka moving target, aka moving goal posts. Regardless of your particular take on the use of foreign governments to stir up the camps of political opponents, there is a reason why the situation might be called a “constitutional crisis.” My point-of-view is that everything relating to the governance of a people ought to be above board. My suspicion is that the phrase politically above board is an oxymoron, literally impossible, factually impossible. The word “political,” to me, means pretending that things are orderly and principled, when they may not be so. The word “compromise,” to me, signals that there is slippage between “is” and “ought.” The American founding documents specify, we hope, how it ought to be, while self-interested wordsmiths and thieves hide, we fear, how it “is.”
Squabbling over quid pro quo is the same as any other dodge that has been foisted on us since the days of Washington and Hamilton. The disputants cannot even use our own language. They use the dead language of an imperial plutocracy that has been fallen for more than 16 centuries. It’s just jargon, an attempt by insiders to block the understanding of outsiders.
The truth is that our system is run by brigands.
— Kilgore Forelle
