Brilliant analysis. Voting and democracy rarely are coincident. Liberty has to be fought for and won each cycle. Marxism only has to only be successful once.
And conversely, as per Henry Thoreau: “ the civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage.
Really, we are just overclocked chimpanzees. Our hardwired animal psychology always out strips our ability to be rational. Hence the whole argument about violence. It is a truism: the pursuit, attainment and expression of power is our want.
As Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
A prophetic quote, that. Though perhaps the time when such a notion still holds true has long since passed; neither Jefferson nor his contemporaries could have foreseen the technologically bolstered managerial revolution - like a leviathan, consuming everything, its tyranny absolute, its grasp exceeding that of man.
We have had tyrannies before, including bureaucratic tyrannies. The Roman state of the late empire was infamously heavy handed, expensive, and wasteful. That which cannot continue, won't.
That last sentence hits home most. It does not seem that this state of the West can endure, but the time horizon on when a real *fall* will occur is most certainly out of reach. The situation becomes infinitely complex when we consider the swiftness of change in these times - a catastrophic war seems ready to break out on many fronts, and global financial markets are shifting and changing on an almost unfathomable level.
Moreover, for each of us there seems to be a near-infinite number of things we do not know or shall not know, further exacerbating the complexity of the real world. The digital age's propensity for distortion of one's views is also something to consider: we may deem a society to be unstable until we learn otherwise.
This is very much "well, you know that's just like, uh, your opinion, man" kind of stuff.
A fine observation. In this context, however, one man's patriot is another man's violent terrorist. Framing is everything, especially in an age of near-universal deceit. Patriots need great men - righteous, unflinching leaders with charisma and strength in spades - to lead them, lest they do little more than water the tree for the sake of their own misguided ego.
I believe John's words serve well here:
"Acting alone or in small groups is very, very stupid, and accomplishes nothing. Without a Leader to rally around, nothing can be accomplished."
The question is: where will that leader come from?
I don't know the answer, but I have a few guesses.
I do wonder if any of his progeny will try to harness his legacy with a more political approach. It's hard to say. The man has balls of steel quite frankly, and he seems to be one of the few with eyes for things aside from money.
Such men are rare indeed, especially in these times.
I most certainly do. He's a fantastically articulate writer and thinker; one of my favourites, no doubt. Of course I don't agree with him on everything - but one man can only know so much. Some of his conclusions are quite accurate, I think, though as usual, proposing solutions is a far more difficult affair.
At some point the entire legal structure of government basically just comes down to pieces of paper with no more real power than a Christmas list from a toddler. It may touch the heart of someone predisposed to appreciate it and may encourage a voluntary compliance but it can not compel behavior. Only force can actually compel compliance.
No, there's more to government than paper. Take Liberia: it cloned its constitution from the US, but has absolutely failed to live up to that. Paper is not enough.
The quality of the people - biologically, spiritually - is crucial.
The belief of the people is also essential. For many Americans the Constitution - particularly its first, second, and fourth amendments - inspires a near religious fervor. The rights to speech, arms, and privacy live first and foremost in the hearts of the people.
“But would they vote against their material interests? Who you think they are? WHITES?” Was the question that got me banned from a few conservative groups.
But the gamblers will always double down. The Right really need the cold eye of a Lenin to cut through the touchy-feelz.
Generations of civil rights indoctrination have left whites - including conservatives - with the implicit notion that they need the approval of non-whites for moral legitimacy. Even Trump is always going on about how his schemes will benefit black people … but he never mentions whites. Another example is in college affirmative action, where a big deal is made over discrimination against East Asians, but no attention at all is paid to the much heavier discrimination against whites.
They need new leaders. I sometimes wonder if a few Slav leaders would be an improvement. They have far more multicultural experience with the Turks and Mongols than those in the West. Only downside is their crazy rivalry with each other.
I don't think Slavic leaders of Western European nations are the way. Leaders should be from the nation.
But Slavic nations should absolutely show leadership. I expect they will. Center of gravity of European civilization likely to move east in the near future.
The problem with the idea of "slavic leadership" apart from ties to Russia and the orthodox vs catholic/protestant divide is that western European nations (the nomenklatura and elites) to this day regard the slavic nations as retarded country bumpkins.
It is identical to the coastal cities/flyover state-divide in the USA.
Yet at the same time, due to the migration fuck up of the last generation, Western Europe will either get plowed under by browns, or remigrate them. In the former scenario it degenerates into a third world country. In the latter, it deals with a decade or so of severe civil unrest, possibly reaching Lebanon, Balkan, or Northern Ireland levels.
Yes, all true. Why slavic nations (or rather SE European ones) lack our problems is a sort-of "don't mention the war"-issue in western Europe right now.
Everyone and their hamster knows why Romania or Serbia is much safer than Sweden, but it is a truth that cannot be allowed to be spoken aloud.
Poland’s president is a eurocrat, but I don't know if it follows that the Polish people have shifted hard left.
Poles, Balts, etc. have a paranoia about Russia that goes much deeper than party politics, which the GAE is happy to exploit.
That said, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, etc remain much more pleasant places to live than much of Western Europe, due simply to being demographically intact.
The demographically intact is a product of WW2 which killed all the Jews and Roma and ethnically cleansed the German minority. The problem of Transylvania still exists. It has bounced back and forth between Hungary and Romania over the centuries but the people don't really fit in either place. Probably more with Hungary but the Romanians have it now. Same is true in Poland with the added problem that both Nazis and Soviets targeted educated people. In addition to their issues with the Russians, the Poles are currently pursuing a gazillion euro reparations claim against Germany. In addition to WW2, Prussia was an enthusiastic participant in the partition of Poland in the 1700s. It's not just the PM of Poland (not the President who is on our side) that is a globalist, the Foreign Minster is married to notorious neocon, Anne Applebaum. I am not a big fan of Latvia since they were both the shock troops of the Bolsheviks and other then the Ukrainians, the most willing participants in the Holocaust. And now they are trying to drag us into nuclear war.
Brings to mind the example of the UAE... high time the US considers something similar...
UAE Citizenship Requirements
According to the Emirati nationality law, citizenship is granted to foreigners who meet specific criteria. Here are the main categories:
* Arab Nationals: Arabs with ancestral origins in Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar who have been legally settled in the UAE for at least three years and have maintained a good reputation, without being convicted of a crime.
* Descendants of Emirati Citizens: Children born to an Emirati father or mother, regardless of place of birth.
* Naturalization: Foreigners who have been legally settled in the UAE for at least seven years, have a lawful source of income, are of good reputation, and have not been convicted of a crime. They must also:
Be proficient in Arabic.
Have an academic qualification.
Not have a bad reputation.
Not have been convicted of any crime (except for minor offenses, which may be waived).
* Investors and Professionals: Certain categories of foreigners, including:
Doctors and specialists in high-demand fields, with at least 10 years of experience and a membership in a reputable organization.
Scientists, with acknowledged scientific contributions and practical experience.
Inventors, with approved patents and a recommendation letter from the UAE’s Ministry of Economy.
Intellectuals and creative talents, with international recognition and awards.
* Long-Term Residency: Foreigners who have been legally residing in the UAE for at least 30 years, with at least 20 years spent after the effective date of the 1972 law, may be eligible for citizenship.
I once wrote for a college paper that the solution to woefully poor political knowledge among our electorate was to stop acting like its a problem. Our love of universal suffrage, combined with basic differences in knowledge provided by age, education, Income, sex, or race, were either intractable issues, or basically such, and that the real solution was to either restrict the franchise to proven cohorts, or lie in the bed we've made. I wrote that then half tongue in cheek. I've long since stopped joking.
That much of the electorate can't even be bothered to keep themselves minimally politically informed, or for that matter even to vote, demonstrates that the franchise is utterly wasted on them. Most people simply do not care about politics … and this is quite natural, healthy, and good.
The overwhelming majority of people are trying to get home from work. The hearty concerns of health and home matter most to them. Matters of state really don't need the input from most people, and most people would be happy to stay the hell away, as long as things are run well. They've been led to believe otherwise, but they can be led to believe all sorts of nonsense if only exposed to Leftist Claptrap.
Exactly. Peasants have generally not concerned themselves with politics. Their concerns are far more mundane. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Arguably, the politicization of the lower classes is precisely what leads to factionalization. People with no real power to change things, getting in vituperative disputes with one another as though they do.
And just to pre-empt the counterargument, no, I wouldn't care if I was one of those people who suddenly lost their franchise, if in exchange the country were run well. The hell would I care? I have enough of my life to sort out as is without trying to puzzle out what to do about the dying Empire.
As for the factionalizing, obviously some of that will always be around, but the worst excesses will always come from scale, riots from Nika to Floyd can be reliably expected from the "everything is political" enlisting of all of society in squabbles, petty or otherwise.
An excellent article, John. Sadly this change of franchise won't occur peacefully. A demonstration of that capacity to organize and enforce their desire will be required. An Age of Militancy indeed!
I understand the parallel concept but I'm not creative enough to venture into the concept very far. Something like Bitcoin will be necessary as a medium of exchange although I can see bartering re-entering society at a community level. Things like policing will be difficult as only regime-approved minorities are allowed a para-Law Enforcement and whites are still too atomized. Damn I've gotten quite cynical. I need to move to one of those deplorable areas.
I think you're thinking of it as a bottom-up exercise. Now that a counter-elite is forming inside the tech industry - with a side of a private military contractor a la Erik Prince - there's the possibility for things to get built very quickly which could displace the existing system.
People like Prince make me nervous. Blackwater/Xe was all-in on GWOT. Damn needing elites ourselves; Toynbee was right though. Hopefully we can at least remove the parasite class and restore social cohesion.
The Left weaponizes universal suffrage as a means to maintain political control. They do this through open borders and supporting the abolition of voter ID requirements. If this is true, why then can’t the Right do the same thing? Import/incentivize whites from other nations around the world. I’m thinking Eastern Europe and others as those places become embroiled in conflict. We aren’t having enough children to turn the tide, sounds like forced expulsion of migrants/illegals or the relocation of desirable people is the only option to prevent cultural death.
Main issue with that is that, due to the low fertility in Europe, the pool of immigrants is much shallower.
Even inside the EU, non-EU immigration is far more significant than migration from Eastern Europe, and that's with migration from Eastern Europe being so heavy that it has largely denuded the east of its youth.
All true though my favorite description of the phenomena is Mao's.
A couple of comments about the class basis of warriors and then a couple of suggestion. The Athenian army was made up of the rural yeomen. They had enough to buy the equipment you mentioned but not enough to equip themselves as cavalry which the the province of the upper class. Since the cavalry was militarily useless, the yeomen dominated politics. The Athenian navy was the province of the lower classes since it used citizen rowers, not slaves and little equipment was required. It was more important to the Athenian Empire. The Swiss pike phalanx again was yeomen and they were the terror of Europe just before firearms. Ditto for the English longbowmen. To bring it up to date, there are about 1M gangbangers in the US. While they lack skill at arms and organization, they are certainly willing to commit violence and in a conflict, they would learn the skills and organization. Take a lot of casualties against a capable force but they would turn into veterans.
A couple of suggestions. If we are to have voting, let's rediscover the old literacy tests. They weren't really literacy tests but rather difficult exams on Constitutional issues. A government teacher in my HS got one from Mississippi and gave it to the whole senior class of 1966. I would be the only voter and you would like the results. The problem was that the local officials had discretion as to who had to take it.
A more practical method than restricting the franchise is to simply redraw the maps. There is no inherent reason why the US, or the UK or France or Germany should be one country any more than there was for the USSR or Yugoslavia or the British Raj or Czechoslovakia. Splitting them up or perhaps combining them with other countries or parts thereof would lead to more coherent nation states. Practically every country has the city-country problem so at a minimum any devolution would have to address that. One of the dumbest things Africans ever did was keeping the old borders drawn by the colonialists with out regard to ethnicity or geography. This has led to endless wars.
Excellent points about the nuance in the Hellenic world, England, and Switzerland … which all go to the point that political power is intimately tied up with capacity for organized violence.
Gangbangers are violent, but are generally not very good at violence. Blacks in general make poor soldiers. Too excitable, not terribly disciplined.
As to breaking up the country: yes, that is an option, but one that would leave the rump states at the mercy of larger global powers.
My project is the breakup of Canada through the auspices of Quebec sovereignty. I think the Quebecois know they are in peril if they remain in Canada, interprovincial immigration will swamp them out. The departure Quebec is the end of Canada and Trudeau’s “Post National Nation” can serve as an object lesson about stupidity and self immolation.
They took my country from me, so let’s burn the whole thing down; I say fuck’em.
As it stands, the Quebecois don’t seem to have a political voice willing to say and do what is necessary. They remain bound to the boomer truth regime. Hopefully, for their sake, this changes … though I’m more immediately concerned with the fate of Anglo Canadians, whose national identity is so bound up with the Canadian state that it is practically inseparable.
They have just threatened to abandon the Trudeau regime. If they leave, the government falls and God willing brings about the collapse of Canada as Diamond Boy theorizes.
So far nothing has come of that, and Jagmeet Singh has every reason to keep the government propped up. He wants that pension and only has one year to go to get it.
Breakup and consolidation should be considered as a part of eternal process, not the end in themselves. Control of primary resources and manufacturing are more important because it would deny the Gobalists access to resources. Future is too fluid to achieve any final state.
Stripping them of their access to resources is a key strategic objective, I agree. In principle it seems that there should be ways of doing this that don't involve anything physical … their ownership is all based on paper.
And another thing, not all bangers are black (and I don't think your characterization would matter when they become veterans of a real war). At any rate, there is a large and growing Hispanic component and they do make good soldiers if the US Army is any indication. Plus a scattering of Asians and whites (skinheads, bikers and Mafiya). And then there are the cartels. Think of them as the second echelon.
My favorite Mexican gangbanger was Guy Galbadon. Of all the Japanese that surrendered on Saipan, he was single handedly responsible for about half of them. He had drifted out of the gangs and into the USMC. Along the way, he had lived with a Japanese American family and learned Japanese. It was street Japanese, not the cultured, academic version spoken by the official translators so he was especially effective with enlisted soldiers. Probably saved a lot of American lives that would have been lost digging those Japanese out of caves. He got the DSC for this.
In my world, gangbanger is an equal opportunity term. Initially, it was mostly blacks but has expanded. But the other gangs have long been there. LA had a Hispanic gang presence back into the 1930s (Pachucos)
From my reading into Ancient Greece, I wanted to point out that the Greeks have a very different idea of democracy.
First, the Athenians doesn’t practice “one man, one vote”. No, their polis was a confederation of cults; familial, clannish, tribal. Each family is a home church and an immortal corporation in which the House Father is the priest and king of the ancestral cult charged by the parliament of dead to manage the practices and estate for the profit of the unborn. Only the legitimate son born of the legitimate wife can and must inherit the office and inalienable estate from his father. The estate consist of the tomb and the sacred hearth over the tomb which can never be sold. From this practice we received the ideas that “a man’s home is his castle”, private property, fatherland, patriotism, nationalism, monogamy, corporation, and so forth. The House Father speak for his wife, children, slaves, and other dependents.
What that means that the Athenian Assembly wasn’t the assembly of men, it was the assembly of kings. The Roman Senate started this way as well. So, it wasn’t “one man, one vote”, but it was “one family, one vote”. Or we could say the Assembly was the assembly of familial corporations. US Senate used to be the assembly of corporations called the States before the Senators could be elected by the popular vote.
In this way, the fathers would not be speaking for only his interests, but also would speak for the interests of his wife, children, and dependents. So, women won’t lose a voice, she only have to appeal to her husband or father.
But Athens didn’t stop there. To avoid the problem of corruption by money, they used the lottery to pick people for the offices (with sole exception of the generalships) and limited the terms to two. So, instead of popular vote for the House of Representatives, there would be the lots with two terms limits. The Senators would be chosen for two terms by the States again, instead of popular vote. The President would be elected by the House Fathers speaking for their familial corporations. All officials would be audited by a citizen committee selected by the lots at end of term. The alien powers and bankers would lose most power under this system.
But even if bad laws definitely get passed and signed, a jury court modeled on Athenian jury would act as a break. Instead of 12 men, the jury would be from 100 to 1,001 men chosen by the lots. Instead of corrupt judges who are part of the ruling class, the jury would be both representative and independent. Any citizen can bring charges to the jury, even against a judge or a Senator. The jury would not be allowed to debate to avoid being dominated by a strong personality. They would keep their independence of thought and conscience and vote in secret. They would have the power to overturn laws like the Immigration Act of 1965. If the jury could do this, the the Congress would be afraid of passing corrupt acts.
Gen Z, Mills, and younger have garnered a (well-earned? un-earned? media-truth?) reputation for being stupid and ignorant, not due to age or inexperience but as a trait.
If so, why? Let's disregard if it's objectively true or not.
In the interest of whom is it to present western white youth as stupid, backwards, incompetent and immature? The stories of Z/Y/whatever bringing parents to job interviews, or putting their Instagram-handles instead of their names on the doors of their dorms at college, or having parties where only those with the requisite no. of followers on social media are welcome`, and people only accepting jobs in the exact slots their college courses supposedly prepared them for as if they'd been through a huge sorting engine - Cui Bono, spreading these stories and making them reality in the minds of people?
My compass is pointing due East to the Midden Kingdom. Why?
Leaning on parents and ancestors, seeing yourself as simply the next step in the family line rather than a discreet individual, using pictogram shorthand in the form of stamps (not the kind used on envelopes, the kind used to stamp a seal/sigil), and using social scoring to associate with others. Isn't that exactly what is outlined above?
I can't make a claim either way or even for some in-between. But subtly causing your enemy to adopt your ways, so that your enemy in time instead becomes your servant is straight out of Sun Tzu.
It is very orientalizing, isn't it? Not sure if it's due to Han influence though ... there's another tribe with oriental tendencies, known for overbearing mothers and an unhealthy monomania for academic credentialism, that has been particularly influential for some time.
As to whether the depiction is true: there's some truth to it in my experience, but I think it is exaggerated. In a very similar way to the depiction of white fathers as fat, lazy, and stupid, or the depiction of fraternity brothers as brainless, bullying jocks. Now, why would they want to encourage such perceptions?
If “no taxation without representation” is a valid principle then the corollary should be that only net tax payers should have the franchise. Only those with skin in the game should be allowed to participate.
Weighting the vote by tax receipts would be an interesting system. Would provide an incentive to pay taxes. Would also introduce an interesting tension into tax policy: as a body the electorate would want to minimize taxes, but individuals - particularly wealthy individuals - would want to maximize the taxes that they pay.
We've had that in the 19th century in Sweden. I doesn't work: it creates even worse oligarchies than in our present.
Your monetary wealth is no indicator on your character in the slightest, and inherited wealth makes for weakness; that's been proven again and again over time.
(From memory, so caveats as appropriate for dates and such)
It wasn't very dramatic, really. During the slow transition from absolute monarchy in the 1600s and 1700s (excepting the Freedom Era as it is called here*, 1719-1772, don't tell the Americans that we were "first") which slowly developed into democracy during the 1800s, voting was tied to income and owning property, and a lot of other bars to clear too, the final one being removed in 1989 - mental retardation ceased to be a disqualifying characteristic, there's a joke in that I'm sure.
In the late 1800s, a yearly income of 800:- was the bar for voting to the Second Chamber of Parliament (sort-of House of Commons), and for the First Chamber the bar was much higher. However, the Second Chamber could out-vote the First if enough of its MPs voted the same way, which led to the First becoming an ornament as incomes started to rise during the final stages of industrialisation (ca 1880 - 1920s), leading to the income/property-bars being dropped in 1921.
Incidentally, this period was characterised by civic unrest threatening to spill over into outright conflict, as the old capitalists and the old nobility tried to prevent the public from having rights or participating in politics. It was thanks to the unification of the Worker's Rights movement, the labour unions, the Socialist Democrat party, the Liberals (classical ones, at the time one of the major players too) and the Farmer's Union that civic unrest was averted, as the new breed of capitalists and industrialists were also democratically minded nationalists, and saw a semi-free market corporativisation as an opportunity to make money and depower the communists, leading to said communists eventually splitting off from the socialists to form their own party (which - and this was a "public secret" - was led directly from Moscow).
The income/property tiered voting system had its origins in historical traditions going back to pre-Christian days, and there are some vestiges left: all villages owns land and forest and water which comes with privileges/rights for residents. However, to have say in how the land et c is to be handled and monetised, you also have to own part of it: you have to invest to have a say in matters, and you also have to be a resident to have full vote, just owning isn't enough. That's pretty much the scale tiered voting works at: local, involving maybe a couple of hundreds of households where all who vote are also directly affected.
Soon as you can kofferdam against the (risk of) negative effects of your vote, it stops working, as does all voting systems.
*Okay-ish wikipedia article on the Age of Liberty as they call it:
Income based voting isn't quite what I had in mind, which was rather to weight votes directly by NET tax receipts. Paid zero taxes? No vote. Paid $100? That's your vote. Paid a million? Your vote counts for 10,000x as much as the guy who only paid $100.
I emphasize ‘net’ because it would need to be calculated as taxes paid minus funds received from the government.
This would incentivize the wealthy to pay at much into the public treasury as possible, since their personal voice is directly proportional to the size of their investment. And it would nullify the voice of wards of the state, who would not be able to vote themselves larger subsidies since they pay no taxes. Government employees would also have no voice, because their income also comes directly from the state. And of course, wealthy business owners receiving large taxpayer subsidies would see their own voice proportionately reduced.
If you did something like this you would have to cap the votes earned, say at some measure of the middle class. It's bad enough that Bill Gates has a billion times as much money as me which he uses to meddle in my life but the thought of him having a billion times the number of votes is appalling.
We know the why and we know the means, both ideas-wise and practical, for what has for all our lives been employed against us (and by extension against all our forebears and offspring, since a people's future and history both will cease to exist when that people is no more), mostly by women and men of our own kind.
There are some nasty words for that kind of human.
We also suspect the dual nature of the How? that is before us, one part which cannot be spoken aloud due to the arbitrary application of laws co-opted into political tools.
The other part we can talk openly about. What is to be done?
The peaceful and more-or-less legal way is to bring to the attention of our fellows the actual facts of the matter, in our respective theaters of culture war (which for us westerners is existential). To combat relentlessly and mercilessly the misinformation and propaganda from regime-media in all its forms.
To better do that, have a list of sources handy. Easy enough, in your portable tracking device, yes?
I'll go one better: today, when talking to someone in a parking lot, a man parking next to us overheard me saying: "Most female police aspirants can't hack it, they close their eyes when firing on the range". The man quipped: "That's just prejudice" in a friendly jocular tone, to which I calmly replied: "No, that's from the Police Academy's own reports on problems with aspirants. I can pull up the article if you're interested?". The conversation proceeded amicably from there with him agreeing that the sex of the aspirant isn't the issue: the ability is. As I also pointed out to him - I would flunk out too on shooting, due to my eyesight.
Of course with more inflamed issues and equally inflamed people it is lots more difficult. But remember this:
Most people are followers. They want to know what to follow in order to have a comfortable life. They do not care about actual truth, the collective consensus is quite enough for them. This trait is differently strong in different cultures and interact/-sect with sex too: women being naturally more emotionally oriented and also naturally more group-oriented are more susceptible to opt for collective consensus rather than objective truth, though it must be stated the difference between mena and women in this regard is gradual rather than definite.
I do not mean followers as a pejorative in any sense, I want to stress. I mean it as a compliment - a large group simply will not function if everyone is going to state their point on every issue all the time; group consensus must rule, but that consensus must be reached under the guidance of people who view leadership as a hated burden and as moral imperative duty to their fellows more than anything else.
We cannot create such leaders, they create themselves, but what we can do is shun and shut out the fakes (or weaponise and utilise them). I could give Swedish examples that those would mean little to people outside of here.
The follower-majority can and must be shaken enough that they are riled to anger. If that can be stoked hard enough, the regime will swerve too. How can I say that?
Remember always, that to the regime - whatever "isms" we want to designate it as - them being in power, always and forever, is what matters. No race, not history, not culture, not people, not even wealth - them being in power for ever is the only thing that is real to them.
When you understand and remember that, you will come to know that every method you employ which shows the regime a way to garner more power is a method they will jump on - even if it turns them towards where you are and where you want them to go.
For a real-life practical example, study the history of the Moslem Brotherhood, who excel at this strategy and tactic.
Of course, the same goes for new regimes - they are established by men who desire power, for whatever ends. I think that to desire power for its own sake is a form of degeneration; it should be sought for higher reasons. But in late stage polities, power always becomes its own end.
The point being that in some cases one may try to steer an existing regime … and in others, to throw one’s weight behind a new one.
Much obliged by the way; I understand what you mean with the quest for power for the sake of power being a form of degeneracy. I'd agree as far as the waymarker reading "Depending on what it is used for".
Tangent:
Let's imagine Covid actually was as lethal as the Black Plague was seven centuries ago - if so, then the coercive measures taken would have been far too light a touch. In that fictious example, power failed not for reasons of morality but for reasons of ability.
In the real world, power failed due to degeneracy, a very well-chose word I think.
But that elusive why when it comes to power. That wisp leading us ever deeper into the Swamp if we would but follow it.
At what point can awareness be kindled? There are examples of senior academics (or business-people like Musk, or politicians like RFK) coming to their senses because they accidentally overstep the bounds of political correct decorum. There are plenty of us who consciously experienced, at some point under some circumstances that the choice was to become a dog to get a bone, or to decline and remain free.
I keep returning to state/officially organised kindergartens being a source of this weakness of character and will - but that runs aground of the fact that most regime-leaders did never attend communal kindergartens of the plebeian variety, but instead had highly paid nannies and such. Are we to conclude that there's a secret cabal of nannies operating since the 1800s turning men born into the leadership caste into willing vessels for whatever politics have delivered us where we are today? Kindergarten-Karens or Bene Gesserit?
End of tangent, before I go full Molly Bloom.
I tend to always see power as its own end, always has even before I could articulate the thought. Power means seeing my will done with no other concerns than said will, after all.
Making a moral pre-judgement on how power is to be obtained, or on how it is to be employed, or to what end, is always a matter of voluntarily hampering oneself, for one reason or another.
Sounds a lot more psychopathic than intended. To me, being /able/ to recognise that there is a moral issue to consider - even if only to ignore it - brings on the impertive duty to actually consider it before acting, an element I cannot rid myself of (nor would I want to). Perhaps it is there betwixt the two - the unthinking impulsive psychopath revelling in animalistic freedom and the human being acting without excuses and on his own choice - we must balance.
After all, the only way to lose is to stop fighting.
It seems to me that powerful men often experience the very opposite of freedom. The necessity of maintaining power limits their ability to wield it, at least if they're wise enough to avoid undermining the very basis that their power rests upon - heavy lies the head, etc.
Brilliant analysis. Voting and democracy rarely are coincident. Liberty has to be fought for and won each cycle. Marxism only has to only be successful once.
Sadly for Marxism, it has never actually succeeded, not even once 🙃
Marxism will fail because it opposes the second law of thermodynamics: that is entropy. It takes too much energy to keep a Marxist society running.
Systems that run counter to nature, rather than working with it, will always take far more energy to maintain.
A fearsome reputation is a better keeper of peace. The fist establishes boundaries. Pain increases the attraction of negotiation.
People are very happy to talk with a brute who is prepared to be civilized.
Someone once wrote, “an asshole who share the loot get to have an army”.
If only our assholes shared the loot.
"I'll talk to this humongous... he seems like a reasonable fella!"
And conversely, as per Henry Thoreau: “ the civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage.
Really, we are just overclocked chimpanzees. Our hardwired animal psychology always out strips our ability to be rational. Hence the whole argument about violence. It is a truism: the pursuit, attainment and expression of power is our want.
DP, funny name and great post, true and also funny.
As Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
A prophetic quote, that. Though perhaps the time when such a notion still holds true has long since passed; neither Jefferson nor his contemporaries could have foreseen the technologically bolstered managerial revolution - like a leviathan, consuming everything, its tyranny absolute, its grasp exceeding that of man.
We have had tyrannies before, including bureaucratic tyrannies. The Roman state of the late empire was infamously heavy handed, expensive, and wasteful. That which cannot continue, won't.
That last sentence hits home most. It does not seem that this state of the West can endure, but the time horizon on when a real *fall* will occur is most certainly out of reach. The situation becomes infinitely complex when we consider the swiftness of change in these times - a catastrophic war seems ready to break out on many fronts, and global financial markets are shifting and changing on an almost unfathomable level.
Moreover, for each of us there seems to be a near-infinite number of things we do not know or shall not know, further exacerbating the complexity of the real world. The digital age's propensity for distortion of one's views is also something to consider: we may deem a society to be unstable until we learn otherwise.
This is very much "well, you know that's just like, uh, your opinion, man" kind of stuff.
It's all good banter, though.
But it did for 1000 years after the fall of Rome.
In what sense?
Byzantium or did I misinterprete what you meant by Late Empire
Ah. I was specifically referring to the Western Roman empire.
That is the normal use of Late Empire
The part about tyrants is more satisfying but the part about patriots is more important.
A fine observation. In this context, however, one man's patriot is another man's violent terrorist. Framing is everything, especially in an age of near-universal deceit. Patriots need great men - righteous, unflinching leaders with charisma and strength in spades - to lead them, lest they do little more than water the tree for the sake of their own misguided ego.
I believe John's words serve well here:
"Acting alone or in small groups is very, very stupid, and accomplishes nothing. Without a Leader to rally around, nothing can be accomplished."
The question is: where will that leader come from?
I don't know the answer, but I have a few guesses.
I've got a few guesses myself. Right now Space Caesar is at the top of the running.
Elon? Perhaps.
I do wonder if any of his progeny will try to harness his legacy with a more political approach. It's hard to say. The man has balls of steel quite frankly, and he seems to be one of the few with eyes for things aside from money.
Such men are rare indeed, especially in these times.
Right now, Elon is definitely the one to watch.
James the Hun, you sound like you read NS Lyons. Good work and I agree with you.
N. S. Lyons is great, but then, you knew that I thought that.
I most certainly do. He's a fantastically articulate writer and thinker; one of my favourites, no doubt. Of course I don't agree with him on everything - but one man can only know so much. Some of his conclusions are quite accurate, I think, though as usual, proposing solutions is a far more difficult affair.
"It’s all just paperwork in the end."
Would you say that it's "a scrap of paper"?
At some point the entire legal structure of government basically just comes down to pieces of paper with no more real power than a Christmas list from a toddler. It may touch the heart of someone predisposed to appreciate it and may encourage a voluntary compliance but it can not compel behavior. Only force can actually compel compliance.
No, there's more to government than paper. Take Liberia: it cloned its constitution from the US, but has absolutely failed to live up to that. Paper is not enough.
The quality of the people - biologically, spiritually - is crucial.
The belief of the people is also essential. For many Americans the Constitution - particularly its first, second, and fourth amendments - inspires a near religious fervor. The rights to speech, arms, and privacy live first and foremost in the hearts of the people.
Some people anyway. The Constitution is not valid in the cities.
Do people still obey the Twelve Tables of Law in Rome?
“But would they vote against their material interests? Who you think they are? WHITES?” Was the question that got me banned from a few conservative groups.
But the gamblers will always double down. The Right really need the cold eye of a Lenin to cut through the touchy-feelz.
Generations of civil rights indoctrination have left whites - including conservatives - with the implicit notion that they need the approval of non-whites for moral legitimacy. Even Trump is always going on about how his schemes will benefit black people … but he never mentions whites. Another example is in college affirmative action, where a big deal is made over discrimination against East Asians, but no attention at all is paid to the much heavier discrimination against whites.
They need new leaders. I sometimes wonder if a few Slav leaders would be an improvement. They have far more multicultural experience with the Turks and Mongols than those in the West. Only downside is their crazy rivalry with each other.
I don't think Slavic leaders of Western European nations are the way. Leaders should be from the nation.
But Slavic nations should absolutely show leadership. I expect they will. Center of gravity of European civilization likely to move east in the near future.
The problem with the idea of "slavic leadership" apart from ties to Russia and the orthodox vs catholic/protestant divide is that western European nations (the nomenklatura and elites) to this day regard the slavic nations as retarded country bumpkins.
It is identical to the coastal cities/flyover state-divide in the USA.
That's absolutely true, and not without merit.
Yet at the same time, due to the migration fuck up of the last generation, Western Europe will either get plowed under by browns, or remigrate them. In the former scenario it degenerates into a third world country. In the latter, it deals with a decade or so of severe civil unrest, possibly reaching Lebanon, Balkan, or Northern Ireland levels.
The Slavic countries don't have this problem.
Yes, all true. Why slavic nations (or rather SE European ones) lack our problems is a sort-of "don't mention the war"-issue in western Europe right now.
Everyone and their hamster knows why Romania or Serbia is much safer than Sweden, but it is a truth that cannot be allowed to be spoken aloud.
Poland has gone hard left. And the Baltics are trying to drag us into a nuclear war.
Poland’s president is a eurocrat, but I don't know if it follows that the Polish people have shifted hard left.
Poles, Balts, etc. have a paranoia about Russia that goes much deeper than party politics, which the GAE is happy to exploit.
That said, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, etc remain much more pleasant places to live than much of Western Europe, due simply to being demographically intact.
The demographically intact is a product of WW2 which killed all the Jews and Roma and ethnically cleansed the German minority. The problem of Transylvania still exists. It has bounced back and forth between Hungary and Romania over the centuries but the people don't really fit in either place. Probably more with Hungary but the Romanians have it now. Same is true in Poland with the added problem that both Nazis and Soviets targeted educated people. In addition to their issues with the Russians, the Poles are currently pursuing a gazillion euro reparations claim against Germany. In addition to WW2, Prussia was an enthusiastic participant in the partition of Poland in the 1700s. It's not just the PM of Poland (not the President who is on our side) that is a globalist, the Foreign Minster is married to notorious neocon, Anne Applebaum. I am not a big fan of Latvia since they were both the shock troops of the Bolsheviks and other then the Ukrainians, the most willing participants in the Holocaust. And now they are trying to drag us into nuclear war.
Brings to mind the example of the UAE... high time the US considers something similar...
UAE Citizenship Requirements
According to the Emirati nationality law, citizenship is granted to foreigners who meet specific criteria. Here are the main categories:
* Arab Nationals: Arabs with ancestral origins in Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar who have been legally settled in the UAE for at least three years and have maintained a good reputation, without being convicted of a crime.
* Descendants of Emirati Citizens: Children born to an Emirati father or mother, regardless of place of birth.
* Naturalization: Foreigners who have been legally settled in the UAE for at least seven years, have a lawful source of income, are of good reputation, and have not been convicted of a crime. They must also:
Be proficient in Arabic.
Have an academic qualification.
Not have a bad reputation.
Not have been convicted of any crime (except for minor offenses, which may be waived).
* Investors and Professionals: Certain categories of foreigners, including:
Doctors and specialists in high-demand fields, with at least 10 years of experience and a membership in a reputable organization.
Scientists, with acknowledged scientific contributions and practical experience.
Inventors, with approved patents and a recommendation letter from the UAE’s Ministry of Economy.
Intellectuals and creative talents, with international recognition and awards.
* Long-Term Residency: Foreigners who have been legally residing in the UAE for at least 30 years, with at least 20 years spent after the effective date of the 1972 law, may be eligible for citizenship.
That's actually more open than I'd thought. My impression was that residency in the UAE was quite easy, but naturalization generally locked down.
I once wrote for a college paper that the solution to woefully poor political knowledge among our electorate was to stop acting like its a problem. Our love of universal suffrage, combined with basic differences in knowledge provided by age, education, Income, sex, or race, were either intractable issues, or basically such, and that the real solution was to either restrict the franchise to proven cohorts, or lie in the bed we've made. I wrote that then half tongue in cheek. I've long since stopped joking.
That much of the electorate can't even be bothered to keep themselves minimally politically informed, or for that matter even to vote, demonstrates that the franchise is utterly wasted on them. Most people simply do not care about politics … and this is quite natural, healthy, and good.
The overwhelming majority of people are trying to get home from work. The hearty concerns of health and home matter most to them. Matters of state really don't need the input from most people, and most people would be happy to stay the hell away, as long as things are run well. They've been led to believe otherwise, but they can be led to believe all sorts of nonsense if only exposed to Leftist Claptrap.
Exactly. Peasants have generally not concerned themselves with politics. Their concerns are far more mundane. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Arguably, the politicization of the lower classes is precisely what leads to factionalization. People with no real power to change things, getting in vituperative disputes with one another as though they do.
And just to pre-empt the counterargument, no, I wouldn't care if I was one of those people who suddenly lost their franchise, if in exchange the country were run well. The hell would I care? I have enough of my life to sort out as is without trying to puzzle out what to do about the dying Empire.
As for the factionalizing, obviously some of that will always be around, but the worst excesses will always come from scale, riots from Nika to Floyd can be reliably expected from the "everything is political" enlisting of all of society in squabbles, petty or otherwise.
An excellent article, John. Sadly this change of franchise won't occur peacefully. A demonstration of that capacity to organize and enforce their desire will be required. An Age of Militancy indeed!
Things are very unlikely to change peacefully. Historically, they almost never do.
Yet I wonder how much might be accomplished simply by building out parallel systems that provide governance more effectively than the present system.
I understand the parallel concept but I'm not creative enough to venture into the concept very far. Something like Bitcoin will be necessary as a medium of exchange although I can see bartering re-entering society at a community level. Things like policing will be difficult as only regime-approved minorities are allowed a para-Law Enforcement and whites are still too atomized. Damn I've gotten quite cynical. I need to move to one of those deplorable areas.
I think you're thinking of it as a bottom-up exercise. Now that a counter-elite is forming inside the tech industry - with a side of a private military contractor a la Erik Prince - there's the possibility for things to get built very quickly which could displace the existing system.
People like Prince make me nervous. Blackwater/Xe was all-in on GWOT. Damn needing elites ourselves; Toynbee was right though. Hopefully we can at least remove the parasite class and restore social cohesion.
Cynical, no, accurate, yes.
The Left weaponizes universal suffrage as a means to maintain political control. They do this through open borders and supporting the abolition of voter ID requirements. If this is true, why then can’t the Right do the same thing? Import/incentivize whites from other nations around the world. I’m thinking Eastern Europe and others as those places become embroiled in conflict. We aren’t having enough children to turn the tide, sounds like forced expulsion of migrants/illegals or the relocation of desirable people is the only option to prevent cultural death.
Main issue with that is that, due to the low fertility in Europe, the pool of immigrants is much shallower.
Even inside the EU, non-EU immigration is far more significant than migration from Eastern Europe, and that's with migration from Eastern Europe being so heavy that it has largely denuded the east of its youth.
When Eurabia is finally “opened” by the conquest of Islam except millions of white refugees to swamp the U.S. and Canada.
I meant to type “expect” instead of “except.”
All true though my favorite description of the phenomena is Mao's.
A couple of comments about the class basis of warriors and then a couple of suggestion. The Athenian army was made up of the rural yeomen. They had enough to buy the equipment you mentioned but not enough to equip themselves as cavalry which the the province of the upper class. Since the cavalry was militarily useless, the yeomen dominated politics. The Athenian navy was the province of the lower classes since it used citizen rowers, not slaves and little equipment was required. It was more important to the Athenian Empire. The Swiss pike phalanx again was yeomen and they were the terror of Europe just before firearms. Ditto for the English longbowmen. To bring it up to date, there are about 1M gangbangers in the US. While they lack skill at arms and organization, they are certainly willing to commit violence and in a conflict, they would learn the skills and organization. Take a lot of casualties against a capable force but they would turn into veterans.
A couple of suggestions. If we are to have voting, let's rediscover the old literacy tests. They weren't really literacy tests but rather difficult exams on Constitutional issues. A government teacher in my HS got one from Mississippi and gave it to the whole senior class of 1966. I would be the only voter and you would like the results. The problem was that the local officials had discretion as to who had to take it.
A more practical method than restricting the franchise is to simply redraw the maps. There is no inherent reason why the US, or the UK or France or Germany should be one country any more than there was for the USSR or Yugoslavia or the British Raj or Czechoslovakia. Splitting them up or perhaps combining them with other countries or parts thereof would lead to more coherent nation states. Practically every country has the city-country problem so at a minimum any devolution would have to address that. One of the dumbest things Africans ever did was keeping the old borders drawn by the colonialists with out regard to ethnicity or geography. This has led to endless wars.
Excellent points about the nuance in the Hellenic world, England, and Switzerland … which all go to the point that political power is intimately tied up with capacity for organized violence.
Gangbangers are violent, but are generally not very good at violence. Blacks in general make poor soldiers. Too excitable, not terribly disciplined.
As to breaking up the country: yes, that is an option, but one that would leave the rump states at the mercy of larger global powers.
My project is the breakup of Canada through the auspices of Quebec sovereignty. I think the Quebecois know they are in peril if they remain in Canada, interprovincial immigration will swamp them out. The departure Quebec is the end of Canada and Trudeau’s “Post National Nation” can serve as an object lesson about stupidity and self immolation.
They took my country from me, so let’s burn the whole thing down; I say fuck’em.
As it stands, the Quebecois don’t seem to have a political voice willing to say and do what is necessary. They remain bound to the boomer truth regime. Hopefully, for their sake, this changes … though I’m more immediately concerned with the fate of Anglo Canadians, whose national identity is so bound up with the Canadian state that it is practically inseparable.
They have just threatened to abandon the Trudeau regime. If they leave, the government falls and God willing brings about the collapse of Canada as Diamond Boy theorizes.
So far nothing has come of that, and Jagmeet Singh has every reason to keep the government propped up. He wants that pension and only has one year to go to get it.
He is NDP not PQ. It may take both of them to take the government down but the spiral is obvious.
Breakup and consolidation should be considered as a part of eternal process, not the end in themselves. Control of primary resources and manufacturing are more important because it would deny the Gobalists access to resources. Future is too fluid to achieve any final state.
Stripping them of their access to resources is a key strategic objective, I agree. In principle it seems that there should be ways of doing this that don't involve anything physical … their ownership is all based on paper.
And another thing, not all bangers are black (and I don't think your characterization would matter when they become veterans of a real war). At any rate, there is a large and growing Hispanic component and they do make good soldiers if the US Army is any indication. Plus a scattering of Asians and whites (skinheads, bikers and Mafiya). And then there are the cartels. Think of them as the second echelon.
"Gangbanger" generally just means black.
Agreed that Hispanics make better soldiers. Particularly the ones with more white admixture.
My favorite Mexican gangbanger was Guy Galbadon. Of all the Japanese that surrendered on Saipan, he was single handedly responsible for about half of them. He had drifted out of the gangs and into the USMC. Along the way, he had lived with a Japanese American family and learned Japanese. It was street Japanese, not the cultured, academic version spoken by the official translators so he was especially effective with enlisted soldiers. Probably saved a lot of American lives that would have been lost digging those Japanese out of caves. He got the DSC for this.
Textbook Japanese is ridiculously formal. I suspect they do this because it amuses them when the hairy gaijin barbarians talk like homosexuals.
In my world, gangbanger is an equal opportunity term. Initially, it was mostly blacks but has expanded. But the other gangs have long been there. LA had a Hispanic gang presence back into the 1930s (Pachucos)
As to the last, America will still have nukes.
And most are either in Midwest or on subs
From my reading into Ancient Greece, I wanted to point out that the Greeks have a very different idea of democracy.
First, the Athenians doesn’t practice “one man, one vote”. No, their polis was a confederation of cults; familial, clannish, tribal. Each family is a home church and an immortal corporation in which the House Father is the priest and king of the ancestral cult charged by the parliament of dead to manage the practices and estate for the profit of the unborn. Only the legitimate son born of the legitimate wife can and must inherit the office and inalienable estate from his father. The estate consist of the tomb and the sacred hearth over the tomb which can never be sold. From this practice we received the ideas that “a man’s home is his castle”, private property, fatherland, patriotism, nationalism, monogamy, corporation, and so forth. The House Father speak for his wife, children, slaves, and other dependents.
What that means that the Athenian Assembly wasn’t the assembly of men, it was the assembly of kings. The Roman Senate started this way as well. So, it wasn’t “one man, one vote”, but it was “one family, one vote”. Or we could say the Assembly was the assembly of familial corporations. US Senate used to be the assembly of corporations called the States before the Senators could be elected by the popular vote.
In this way, the fathers would not be speaking for only his interests, but also would speak for the interests of his wife, children, and dependents. So, women won’t lose a voice, she only have to appeal to her husband or father.
But Athens didn’t stop there. To avoid the problem of corruption by money, they used the lottery to pick people for the offices (with sole exception of the generalships) and limited the terms to two. So, instead of popular vote for the House of Representatives, there would be the lots with two terms limits. The Senators would be chosen for two terms by the States again, instead of popular vote. The President would be elected by the House Fathers speaking for their familial corporations. All officials would be audited by a citizen committee selected by the lots at end of term. The alien powers and bankers would lose most power under this system.
But even if bad laws definitely get passed and signed, a jury court modeled on Athenian jury would act as a break. Instead of 12 men, the jury would be from 100 to 1,001 men chosen by the lots. Instead of corrupt judges who are part of the ruling class, the jury would be both representative and independent. Any citizen can bring charges to the jury, even against a judge or a Senator. The jury would not be allowed to debate to avoid being dominated by a strong personality. They would keep their independence of thought and conscience and vote in secret. They would have the power to overturn laws like the Immigration Act of 1965. If the jury could do this, the the Congress would be afraid of passing corrupt acts.
Brilliant context. Based and de Coulanges pilled.
Another thought emerges:
Gen Z, Mills, and younger have garnered a (well-earned? un-earned? media-truth?) reputation for being stupid and ignorant, not due to age or inexperience but as a trait.
If so, why? Let's disregard if it's objectively true or not.
In the interest of whom is it to present western white youth as stupid, backwards, incompetent and immature? The stories of Z/Y/whatever bringing parents to job interviews, or putting their Instagram-handles instead of their names on the doors of their dorms at college, or having parties where only those with the requisite no. of followers on social media are welcome`, and people only accepting jobs in the exact slots their college courses supposedly prepared them for as if they'd been through a huge sorting engine - Cui Bono, spreading these stories and making them reality in the minds of people?
My compass is pointing due East to the Midden Kingdom. Why?
Leaning on parents and ancestors, seeing yourself as simply the next step in the family line rather than a discreet individual, using pictogram shorthand in the form of stamps (not the kind used on envelopes, the kind used to stamp a seal/sigil), and using social scoring to associate with others. Isn't that exactly what is outlined above?
I can't make a claim either way or even for some in-between. But subtly causing your enemy to adopt your ways, so that your enemy in time instead becomes your servant is straight out of Sun Tzu.
It is very orientalizing, isn't it? Not sure if it's due to Han influence though ... there's another tribe with oriental tendencies, known for overbearing mothers and an unhealthy monomania for academic credentialism, that has been particularly influential for some time.
As to whether the depiction is true: there's some truth to it in my experience, but I think it is exaggerated. In a very similar way to the depiction of white fathers as fat, lazy, and stupid, or the depiction of fraternity brothers as brainless, bullying jocks. Now, why would they want to encourage such perceptions?
The economic case for mass immigration is completely grounded up by this guy
https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/the-economic-case-for-mass-immigration?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3u57OIMhMi9q0ObAIdktyokA7iKnNuvkuAEcxuYx61N7WQ4x58OVS3Aok_aem_tXNAjc1b5hOsFFjIsmMOFg
Thanks for that link. Good stuff.
" This is the coalition of parasitism. They produce nothing, create nothing, build nothing, and prosper through interference and extraction. "
Damn well said.
If “no taxation without representation” is a valid principle then the corollary should be that only net tax payers should have the franchise. Only those with skin in the game should be allowed to participate.
Weighting the vote by tax receipts would be an interesting system. Would provide an incentive to pay taxes. Would also introduce an interesting tension into tax policy: as a body the electorate would want to minimize taxes, but individuals - particularly wealthy individuals - would want to maximize the taxes that they pay.
We've had that in the 19th century in Sweden. I doesn't work: it creates even worse oligarchies than in our present.
Your monetary wealth is no indicator on your character in the slightest, and inherited wealth makes for weakness; that's been proven again and again over time.
Sweden tried this? Interesting. Thank you for pointing that out, I'll need to look into that.
In general I agree that character tests are far more important.
(From memory, so caveats as appropriate for dates and such)
It wasn't very dramatic, really. During the slow transition from absolute monarchy in the 1600s and 1700s (excepting the Freedom Era as it is called here*, 1719-1772, don't tell the Americans that we were "first") which slowly developed into democracy during the 1800s, voting was tied to income and owning property, and a lot of other bars to clear too, the final one being removed in 1989 - mental retardation ceased to be a disqualifying characteristic, there's a joke in that I'm sure.
In the late 1800s, a yearly income of 800:- was the bar for voting to the Second Chamber of Parliament (sort-of House of Commons), and for the First Chamber the bar was much higher. However, the Second Chamber could out-vote the First if enough of its MPs voted the same way, which led to the First becoming an ornament as incomes started to rise during the final stages of industrialisation (ca 1880 - 1920s), leading to the income/property-bars being dropped in 1921.
Incidentally, this period was characterised by civic unrest threatening to spill over into outright conflict, as the old capitalists and the old nobility tried to prevent the public from having rights or participating in politics. It was thanks to the unification of the Worker's Rights movement, the labour unions, the Socialist Democrat party, the Liberals (classical ones, at the time one of the major players too) and the Farmer's Union that civic unrest was averted, as the new breed of capitalists and industrialists were also democratically minded nationalists, and saw a semi-free market corporativisation as an opportunity to make money and depower the communists, leading to said communists eventually splitting off from the socialists to form their own party (which - and this was a "public secret" - was led directly from Moscow).
The income/property tiered voting system had its origins in historical traditions going back to pre-Christian days, and there are some vestiges left: all villages owns land and forest and water which comes with privileges/rights for residents. However, to have say in how the land et c is to be handled and monetised, you also have to own part of it: you have to invest to have a say in matters, and you also have to be a resident to have full vote, just owning isn't enough. That's pretty much the scale tiered voting works at: local, involving maybe a couple of hundreds of households where all who vote are also directly affected.
Soon as you can kofferdam against the (risk of) negative effects of your vote, it stops working, as does all voting systems.
*Okay-ish wikipedia article on the Age of Liberty as they call it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Liberty
Fascinating. Thanks for explaining this.
Income based voting isn't quite what I had in mind, which was rather to weight votes directly by NET tax receipts. Paid zero taxes? No vote. Paid $100? That's your vote. Paid a million? Your vote counts for 10,000x as much as the guy who only paid $100.
I emphasize ‘net’ because it would need to be calculated as taxes paid minus funds received from the government.
This would incentivize the wealthy to pay at much into the public treasury as possible, since their personal voice is directly proportional to the size of their investment. And it would nullify the voice of wards of the state, who would not be able to vote themselves larger subsidies since they pay no taxes. Government employees would also have no voice, because their income also comes directly from the state. And of course, wealthy business owners receiving large taxpayer subsidies would see their own voice proportionately reduced.
If you did something like this you would have to cap the votes earned, say at some measure of the middle class. It's bad enough that Bill Gates has a billion times as much money as me which he uses to meddle in my life but the thought of him having a billion times the number of votes is appalling.
We know the why and we know the means, both ideas-wise and practical, for what has for all our lives been employed against us (and by extension against all our forebears and offspring, since a people's future and history both will cease to exist when that people is no more), mostly by women and men of our own kind.
There are some nasty words for that kind of human.
We also suspect the dual nature of the How? that is before us, one part which cannot be spoken aloud due to the arbitrary application of laws co-opted into political tools.
The other part we can talk openly about. What is to be done?
The peaceful and more-or-less legal way is to bring to the attention of our fellows the actual facts of the matter, in our respective theaters of culture war (which for us westerners is existential). To combat relentlessly and mercilessly the misinformation and propaganda from regime-media in all its forms.
To better do that, have a list of sources handy. Easy enough, in your portable tracking device, yes?
I'll go one better: today, when talking to someone in a parking lot, a man parking next to us overheard me saying: "Most female police aspirants can't hack it, they close their eyes when firing on the range". The man quipped: "That's just prejudice" in a friendly jocular tone, to which I calmly replied: "No, that's from the Police Academy's own reports on problems with aspirants. I can pull up the article if you're interested?". The conversation proceeded amicably from there with him agreeing that the sex of the aspirant isn't the issue: the ability is. As I also pointed out to him - I would flunk out too on shooting, due to my eyesight.
Of course with more inflamed issues and equally inflamed people it is lots more difficult. But remember this:
Most people are followers. They want to know what to follow in order to have a comfortable life. They do not care about actual truth, the collective consensus is quite enough for them. This trait is differently strong in different cultures and interact/-sect with sex too: women being naturally more emotionally oriented and also naturally more group-oriented are more susceptible to opt for collective consensus rather than objective truth, though it must be stated the difference between mena and women in this regard is gradual rather than definite.
I do not mean followers as a pejorative in any sense, I want to stress. I mean it as a compliment - a large group simply will not function if everyone is going to state their point on every issue all the time; group consensus must rule, but that consensus must be reached under the guidance of people who view leadership as a hated burden and as moral imperative duty to their fellows more than anything else.
We cannot create such leaders, they create themselves, but what we can do is shun and shut out the fakes (or weaponise and utilise them). I could give Swedish examples that those would mean little to people outside of here.
The follower-majority can and must be shaken enough that they are riled to anger. If that can be stoked hard enough, the regime will swerve too. How can I say that?
Remember always, that to the regime - whatever "isms" we want to designate it as - them being in power, always and forever, is what matters. No race, not history, not culture, not people, not even wealth - them being in power for ever is the only thing that is real to them.
When you understand and remember that, you will come to know that every method you employ which shows the regime a way to garner more power is a method they will jump on - even if it turns them towards where you are and where you want them to go.
For a real-life practical example, study the history of the Moslem Brotherhood, who excel at this strategy and tactic.
Of course, the same goes for new regimes - they are established by men who desire power, for whatever ends. I think that to desire power for its own sake is a form of degeneration; it should be sought for higher reasons. But in late stage polities, power always becomes its own end.
The point being that in some cases one may try to steer an existing regime … and in others, to throw one’s weight behind a new one.
Much obliged by the way; I understand what you mean with the quest for power for the sake of power being a form of degeneracy. I'd agree as far as the waymarker reading "Depending on what it is used for".
Tangent:
Let's imagine Covid actually was as lethal as the Black Plague was seven centuries ago - if so, then the coercive measures taken would have been far too light a touch. In that fictious example, power failed not for reasons of morality but for reasons of ability.
In the real world, power failed due to degeneracy, a very well-chose word I think.
But that elusive why when it comes to power. That wisp leading us ever deeper into the Swamp if we would but follow it.
At what point can awareness be kindled? There are examples of senior academics (or business-people like Musk, or politicians like RFK) coming to their senses because they accidentally overstep the bounds of political correct decorum. There are plenty of us who consciously experienced, at some point under some circumstances that the choice was to become a dog to get a bone, or to decline and remain free.
I keep returning to state/officially organised kindergartens being a source of this weakness of character and will - but that runs aground of the fact that most regime-leaders did never attend communal kindergartens of the plebeian variety, but instead had highly paid nannies and such. Are we to conclude that there's a secret cabal of nannies operating since the 1800s turning men born into the leadership caste into willing vessels for whatever politics have delivered us where we are today? Kindergarten-Karens or Bene Gesserit?
End of tangent, before I go full Molly Bloom.
I tend to always see power as its own end, always has even before I could articulate the thought. Power means seeing my will done with no other concerns than said will, after all.
Making a moral pre-judgement on how power is to be obtained, or on how it is to be employed, or to what end, is always a matter of voluntarily hampering oneself, for one reason or another.
Sounds a lot more psychopathic than intended. To me, being /able/ to recognise that there is a moral issue to consider - even if only to ignore it - brings on the impertive duty to actually consider it before acting, an element I cannot rid myself of (nor would I want to). Perhaps it is there betwixt the two - the unthinking impulsive psychopath revelling in animalistic freedom and the human being acting without excuses and on his own choice - we must balance.
After all, the only way to lose is to stop fighting.
It seems to me that powerful men often experience the very opposite of freedom. The necessity of maintaining power limits their ability to wield it, at least if they're wise enough to avoid undermining the very basis that their power rests upon - heavy lies the head, etc.
Of course, not all powerful men are wise.