They must be able to speak their anti-American sentiments, this is required. It is already illegal to act on anti-American ideas within America. All we need to do is enforce the law. All of the institutions that push the anti-American agenda benefit from the fed and the petrodollar system. This system is unconstitutional (I argue). If it were to be abolished, I think everyone would be astonished as to how quickly Americans could reassert political control over the USG. The principles are the entire point of being American. Let our enemies sully themselves by calling for anti-American means to justify their anti-American ends. It also makes it very clear cut who has principles. Remember, one of the reasons the dialectic is so effective is because conservative Christians were happy to shroud the Iraq war with allusions to biblical prophecy among other anti-American endeavors in the Bush years that paint an inaccurate straw man. This strategy will work as long as American ideals are demotic within the population. I think we have that now. If we lose that though, all is lost until the whole system comes crashing down. Just my .02, appreciate you writing on this important topic!
Constitutional Republic versus the (unelected) Administrative State. The downfall of the Petrodollar and the Fed Reserve, however, would/will bring about considerable domestic upheaval. So long as you and your family are prepared for the chaos that will follow. But given the daily chaos that many Americans are now facing, in terms of potential criminal violence and economic uncertainty, a purge-like event might seem to some people almost a relief.
I used to live not far from where one person was shot to death in PA on Route 1 for driving slow. Add to that recent incident the two young Subway employees, both women, who were shot over allegedly too much mayo on a sandwich. The individuals committing such acts have opted out not only of the American Republic but of civilized society more generally. Yet on a national scale, through transfer and welfare payments, we continue to subsidize their behavior -- effectively although perhaps not intentionally. How much longer can that continue, particularly if the dollar hegemony ends? Should it even continue?
I might well be wrong , and hope that I am -- but I do not see any peaceful transition back to the Constitutional Republic. As it now stands, the government can continue printing money (31.6 trillion in debt, and rising) and handing it around, but inflation will have its say. Our global competition, likewise. Under such conditions, the domestic civil unrest will only increase. It does look like the USA will face a reckoning.
cut off the supply of unearned income and watch how fast leftists adjust to the new reality and suddenly become open to peaceful solutions. They have the coercive apparatus of the state at their back insulating them from the costs of the violence they advocate. This situation is artificial and vulnerable to rapid paradigm shift. In any case, if violence happens it can be dealt with while adhering to American principles. Such a situation would generate large scale trust coalitions that would quickly deter further aggression on the part of anti-Americans. Or so I speculate. If we can't make it with our principles intact, we can't make it.
The widespread loss of faith is authorities, their loss of legitimacy, indeed primes things for a preference cascade. They're like earthquakes - impossible to predict the when, but one can observe the distribution of building tectonic tensions and guess the where and the how big. When they come, they're abrupt.
Strongly agree that principles have to be maintained. I'm quite aware of the ethnic dimension of nations - but humans are not genetic robots, we require higher things than mere reproduction to give our lives purpose and meaning. That's where I break with the white nationalists. Mere perpetuation for its own sake is spiritually sterile stasis. America is an idea, and a people (or rather, an alliance is peoples). If it is to survive in any meaningful sense, both the peoples and the idea must continue. As it is, both are threatened.
You are perfectly right. There is no peaceful transition. And attempting to force breath into the corpse of constitutional procedure has obvious limitations.
In the real world regimes gain legitimacy and respect from their ability to deliver common goods (prosperity, public safety and order, success in war). Compliance with the written declarations of men who wore wigs and carried muskets several centuries past is an issue for legal students showing off for the benefit of their professors, not a priority with the wider society. The ease and transparency with which the election of 2020 was stolen exposes the cult of the constitution for what it has become: a piece of Palladian decoration for the Potemkin village of post-democratic America.
Were the Administrative state to make a few of the right gestures to public opinion, it would extend its life for another half-generation, more than long enough to fortify constituencies of regime-support in key places. I don't see them doing that, the regime is intoxicated by the political success of its own incompetence and bad faith, but dissenters are putting themselves at risk by focusing too much on constitutional thought.
The connection between the economy, family structure and the reproductive well-being of both sexes will determine the future more completely than any law or constitutional arrangement ever could. Winning the constitutional game is one thing, securing the future another.
You write: "In the real world regimes gain legitimacy and respect from their ability to deliver common goods (prosperity, public safety and order, success in war)." The challenge is do so for more than one generation, and more than one special interest group or even majority population. If like me you believe that principles might matter then history also matters. If like me you believe that something like human nature exists, and people are not infinitely malleable or programmable, then the debate over principles and what history might teach us is not merely academic. I do agree with you that the only reality test that matters is reality itself. But I think pragmatism without historical context can quickly become self-serving delusion and expediency.
My problem with the current administrative state: we have no examples from history -- from reality -- of it working, as being sustainable. Of it being anything but a bureaucracy ultimately in the service of tyranny : or totalitarianism, if my old-fashioned words are part of the problem here.
You write: "Winning the constitutional game is one thing, securing the future another." Agreed. But securing the future at least implies you have a vision of it. A plan for action. And what both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, despite their considerable differences, would understand as a social contract. A buy-in, with mutual responsibilities. The challenge of articulating and sharing that is not one to be taken lightly, or dismissed as belonging solely to the era of men with wigs.
I'd like to hear more about your understanding both of securing the future, and what that future might look like. As I have nieces and nephews ranging from grade school to high school to graduate school, this is not -- let me say -- an "academic" issue for me. If the average life expectancy applies to me, I have about two more decades. But they might -- and certainly their children should -- see this century to an end. What sort of American century will it be for them?
I thank you for your provocative and thoughtful reply. All best.
The coming American century will see the US attempting to stabilise itself by developing a new social contract. A multiracial form of fascism (the integration of public and private power) is more likely than anything else. Whether this is accomplished through a decentralised, neo-federalist, approach applied across a range of jurisdictions or a centralising one will make a difference, but I am not certain how significant this difference might be. And any viable form of fascism will camouflage itself very carefully.
The future is determined by resources, energy and family structures from within and success in war and the ability to resist, or manage, population movements from outside. Resource-wise the US has substantial reserves of resources, but not enough for the kind of widespread mass prosperity people would like. Energy will be a big problem...there are vast problems within the much neglected nuclear industry. As far as families, the single-earner male-led family unit is now reserved mostly for the well-off. This will continue to transform the US for the next several generations. The effects will be felt on the ethnic composition of the nation and also the content of its various class-based cultures. A caste system is certain.
Biopolitically, the US corporations and oligarchs have no interest in the posterity of the many, who are replaceable. Key constituencies benefit from the disruption or de-prioritisation of traditional family structures (employers, feminists, civil society), while others benefit from the mismanagement of fertility on a mass scale. This fortifies the elite’s interest in sponsoring anything hostile to inherited social and cultural norms (feminism, gender fluidity, LGBTQI). These constituencies cannot be voted out of existence and their influence can barely be contained by the most vigorous political efforts.
The permanence of a sub-proletariat (by definition either involuntarily unmarried or unable to support stable families) reduces pressures for higher wages, facilitates further mass immigration and disrupts the transmission of unchosen or inherited attachments. Both the sub-proletariat and the voluntarily infertile understand intuitively that they have no personal or familial stake in the posterity of the country and, hence, have a diminished interest in maintaining any commitment to its future.
As for wars, the US cannot win them against any industrialised peer. The US can apply ground forces to some effect in Latin America and the Caribbean, but US air-power is now limited in key parts of Eurasia. The navy can expect to lose against China (red team beats blue at the Rand all the time). Migration pressures will intensify as the population of sub-Saharan Africa swells by more than a billion.
In short, things look grim. As for securing the future, I'll have to think a lot more about that. It all depends whose future needs to be secured.
YOU GOT IT IN ONE. Finance is the key. Money and debt. Washington's great strength is finance, also its greatest potential weakness. Few people realise anything of the historic significance of what Biden is doing.
The sanctions applied to Russia undermine traditional contract and property law. They annihilate the foundations of liberal modernity or classical liberal politics and return the West to pre-modern standards of arbitrary governance.
Liberal politics only became viable in the first place in the British Isles during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. When the Dutch authorities refused to finance any campaign for the English throne William of Orange got an unsecured commercial loan to finance his army. Following his victory Parliament voted the new King the funds required to repay his personal obligations. The willingness of William of Orange to honour debts that he could have repudiated very easily created the trust in, and respect for, government necessary for the establishment of the Bank of England, the national debt, fiat currency and the eventual emergence of modern finance.
Confidence in the inviolability of property remains the essential basis of both political freedom and global finance. By contrast, the sanctions of the Biden Administration and other Western governments against Russia make such confidence impossible. Disregarding the property rights of individual Russians across the West (without any pretense of due process) and seizing the financial reserves of the Russian government restores pre-modern standards of illiberal governance. Property is now once again merely a gift from the sovereign. On a practical level, they are attempting to set up a constructed default by Russia on the bond market, with incalculable implications for the financial markets.
The managerial class is returning us to Stuart England. A very dumb move, IMHO. The struggle between Russia and China etc and Washington will possibly be determined by which set of currencies attract confidence and which ones don't. The euro is now fixed into a subordinate position re the dollar, which buys Washington time. We live in the most interesting of times.
The constitution might just be paper, but it is paper that our ideological enemies are required to pay lip service to. This makes it useful at outlining the hypocrisy of anti-Americans. Additionally, it is the law, and so there is potentially a path back to sanity using it as a framework. I think discarding it would benefit our ideological enemies at our expense.
You are substantially right, but I'd counsel caution. The constitution shapes expectations. Ordinary people have an unshakeable belief that government belongs to them, that their active and sincere consent provides the government with its legitimacy. The Declaration of Independence (separate from the constitution per se) expresses that brilliantly. You are 100% right about the law being the path back to sanity. If SCOTUS continues to dismantle the shoddy legal thinking of the Warren era this may be an effective means of reaching a constructive solution. I will wait till they make a decision on affirmative action before finalising my thinking on the value of the courts.
The danger is that courts are not a deus ex machina politically and are never a substitute for an alert, suitably mobilized, citizenry with legitimately high expectations. People who go to court seek vindication, affirmation, approval from on high. They are petitioners, not citizens. Politics is not about affirmation, but power and citizenship is not about being a good guy but about sharing in the decisions. I am sceptical about the political value of getting people to be patient...legal processes are a great way to drain energy from popular movements. Beyond brilliant at misdirection.
Gratuitous lawsuits are not the answer to anything -- except enriching lawyers and clogging the system. But I'd still be careful in saying "People who go to court seek vindication, affirmation, approval from on high. They are petitioners, not citizens. " Both the right to having a hearing in court and the right to have a trial have been hard-earned. Both are also checks against state and corporate tyranny, albeit highly imperfect ones.
You're obviously a learned individual. I would encourage you to review the history of Habeas corpus. I do agree with the generic point that "lawfare" is not the answer. But under no circumstances do I think we should voluntarily forfeit our rights under law in the hopes that a popular uprising will reset the game. You're not calling for that . But your rhetoric leans into it.
What is going on right now with the January 6th prisoners requires much more public attention. But it also requires that our established legal procedures are followed, and our political leaders held accountable. What is going on here in part is a failure of due process. I do not think we improve the situation by abandoning the concept of or a commitment to due process.
The problem with the legal process is that the powers that be consider themselves above it. The problem that creates for them in the long run is what happens when people conclude that the legal process doesn't work. The ruling class is under the mistaken impression that the legal process is there to protect us from them; they don't seem to realize that goes both ways. To quote Rorsach, they think we're locked in here with them....
Under no circumstances should anyone ever forfeit their rights and the likelihood of a successful uprising right now is zero. The USA is in uncharted waters. Those who want regime change can expect to live in a political grey zone in which increasingly illegitimate authorities, incompetent at anything except plunder and keeping formal opposition severely constrained, remain in power indefinitely. It is vital to ensure that people keep their eyes on the courts - public attention is a powerful force in its own right. It is a force the regime cannot control and to which it must make concessions. Public expectations of due process can, if the circumstances are right, constrain the authorities. They would have crucified Rittenhouse if they could, but they could not because of the publicity so the judge, the prosecution and the defence cooperated to let Rittenhouse off. [I say this because the judge and prosecutors were over-acting, while the defence did not call key witnesses who could have raised awkward questions about the role of the agents provocateurs at work in the riot/protest that night]
The most effective resistance will likely come from the states, under pressure to meet the needs of businesses under threat from Washington. One day, perhaps sooner than you think, someone will organise a miniature Colour Revolution at a state or county level.
I am very cautious on this front, and I think we have a powerful ally to disseminate this exact message in the new and improved libertarian party. Familiarity with the works of Mises and Rothbard will go far to explain the inherent limitations of the state, and this is the main strategic objectives of the Mises Caucus in running a LP presidential candidate. I agree regarding the declaration of independence, and this being a core document that articulates what being American is all about is why I think a focus on Americanism can help us build an effective political coalition to reverse the trends that you articulate so well in your other comment. Regarding courts I share Robert Barnes realpolitik conception of the law. Since he has adopted a public profile he has become increasingly influential with respect to how to engage productively in legal processes. I am optimistic that the ideas he promulgates will assume greater influence in counteracting the misdirection you speak of over time.
This is turning into quite a thread and subthreads. Well done, Dr. Grant Smith, for getting this Barsoom party started. My thanks as well to our host, John Carter, and to Phillip for his challenging, informed, and cogent comments. A better discussion here than I had at any point in graduate school. All best!
I'm sure a reckoning will be faced, but I'm not so sure it will necessarily be violent. Just difficult times adjusting to economic reality. The effects of the fed are far reaching, but just to give one powerful example of something I don't think is sustainable, the current system where students incur upwards of 6 figures in debt for the privilege of being indoctrinated must end. It is an affront to nature that this has continued for so long, and the market always exerts itself in the long run. I know you're all too familiar with the problem that I speak of, I just came across this video which I think is the best introductory overview of the situation in academia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hybqg81n-M
I watched that. It's indeed a good overview of the problems, but while he's got a few plausible solutions overall I'm skeptical the political will is there to impose them.
Its all worth a shot. I wasn't especially impressed with the proposed solutions. I was very impressed with the thorough explanation of the problem. I think the most promising outcome going forward is just widespread understanding of the problem. More people seeing the problem will result in more people searching for solutions. The Mises Caucus run LP and funding strategies to compete with zuck bucks might over time result in a critical mass of political will.
You are an instinctive Aristotelian, John, in your preference for the golden mean. One can only hope that the best of the American experience can be salvaged from the ruin of the Republic. It remains to be seen if any presently conceivable form of civic nationalism of the kind you believe in remains practical. Concepts of nationality are contestable and I do not pretend that mine are better than yours, but I'll give it a go.
Nations are formed in part by shared ancestry for at least a central, defining, core of the population, but are supplemented by a shared culture or a blend of cultures that has proven itself viable over time. The measure of this viability is the ability to coexist without collective rancour or violence over several generations. Nations are sustained by a degree of shared experience, a set of conditions common to all or nearly all, by shared understandings and at least some mutual sympathy. The expectation of a shared future or a common fate is essential.
The true test of a nation is its ability to survive in the absence of a state. A nation that cannot do that for several generations is no nation, merely a rabble defined by dependency on a political class.
My scepticism about civic nationalism is based on a simple prejudice against Leviathan itself. A nation is always more important than a constitution. A nation cannot exist for the benefit of ideals. Ideals exist in order that nations thrive, that they enable the realisation of their concept of justice. To put it another way, a constitution exists for the convenience and best interests of the people, not the people for the fulfillment of a set of ideas. Civic nationalism makes a nation into a cult. True nations contain cults, may even have an established state cult of one kind or another, but are not constituted as a cult per se.
In writing thus, I am not pleading for blood and soil nationalism or for any Romantic politics. Nationalism was confected in the modern era to manage people in the era of mass politics. That era appears over for good. Perhaps tribalism, the politics of sub-national groups defined by genes and culture, may be the way forward?
The US began as an association of sovereign states. Its future may well be as a federation of nations and tribes united by the constitutional equivalent of a pact of non-belligerency.
I certainly don't disagree with any of that. I'm skeptical that blood-and-soil nationalism can prosper in America, simply because there's no shared blood. That might just mean the union gets disarticulated, going the way of the Austro-Hungarian empire ... and that might be for the best, really.
My point here wasn't to advocate for civic nationalism, exactly. It was more to emphasize a logical correlate of civic nationalism: if you want to do it, you need to be able to expel those who don't hold the creed. In practice I'm not sure that's possible, as it would result in a very large fraction of the population being stripped of citizenship, and almost certainly precipitate a civil war. Then again, civil war may be inevitable in any case.
I get you. My sore point is your reference to 'creed'. A sane polity requires obedience to laws, not dogmas. By way of explanation, I am ultra-Whiggish on this point. One of the best features of English politics for centuries was its allergy to creeds and dogmas and the need for a creed strikes me as inherently creepy and cultish.
The idea of limiting the franchise appeals greatly. There is no need for everyone to vote and it takes a perverse view of humanity to insist that the right to vote goes with being human or that restricting voting rights is a denial of someone's humanity. Rights to vote based on a points system (place of birth, property owned, taxes paid, military service, marital status and age) strikes me as better than subscription to any belief system.
In any case, the right to vote is now awarded by the postal service and the undertakers, so any discussion is purely theoretical.
The Constitution, in any state, isn't precisely a creed - formally, it is the highest law in the land. What I'm proposing is simply amending things such that willfully violating is sanctioned by withdrawal of full citizenship.
Then again, the passion with which red state Americans regard the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is well beyond how people generally feel about a law, and is in practice religious in intensity. I may be mistaken but it's my impression that there was a similar feeling in Antiquity towards the the constitutions of the poleis, Rome included - these were seen as literally divine in origin, bound up with demigod founders, and therefore of a higher and more sacred nature than the regulations governing the postal system.
You're absolutely correct that this is all academic until the current crop of mutants squatting in the halls of power have been turned out.
One of the many reasons to admire Jefferson was his willingness to acknowledge both the right of the people to change the constitution to suit their evolving needs and the value of doing so. He would have been horrified at people making a cult out of anything that he had written.
You are 100% right about the need to withdraw at least some rights from those who express any kind of substantial enmity towards the common good. Without such a mechanism, the only alternative is civil war. Free societies are rightly transactional in their politics, this requires good faith. Those without it are unfit for political participation, let alone holding public office. If constitutions are indeed good for anything, it is fixing a widely shared conception of the common good.
I am inclined to think that Nietzsche was right about the ancient world...we don't understand the Greeks or the Romans. Their world was very different from our own. But is clear that their attitude towards politics altered manty times over antiquity.
The US Supreme Court last week emphasized the federation of "nations" as defined as states in the Constitution. The federal government has a few specified "enumerated powers" and everything else is up to the states. The divisions are demonstrated in almost all court judgements being split decisions. And public approval of those decisions is just as divided. We're hanging on by threads of technicalities that few citizens even understand, but often disapprove. Very unstable.
Exactly! David, we are seeing a careful, deliberate, re-construction of the US along federal lines. Serious players are preparing lifeboats. The evidence for this is to be found in the economy. Texas has opened up a state-owned bullion depository and several states have lifted sales taxes on precious metals while legislating for the use of monetary silver and gold and bullion as media of settlement and exchange. For me, this is proof that the oligarchs are taking the demise of the US dollar as a given and are preparing for it on a state by state basis. The key division is between states with large, unfunded, liabilities and those that can manage. These divisions are red/blue (no surprises there).
The accelerant for the financial craziness to come is the legislation, newly passed, that alters the mandate for the Fed, requiring that they take racial disparities into account in all their activities. This is a guarantee for disaster. Even Lenin and Stalin had a better understanding of finance.
I see a 'Holy Roman Empire' future for the US politically, with a nominal head of state in Washington balanced by regional groupings of autonomous states. Lots of bullshit to misdirect everyone, of course, but it is a sane strategy for a country whose national government is incompetent beyond belief, incapable of reform and unable to generate loyalty, trust or respect and increasingly unable to project or apply force overseas with a prospect for success.
My only disagreement w you is the future end state. The current system simply cannot and will not continue. This economy is headed for collapse along with most of the institutions we've known this far. So, whatever is coming (and I hope it's a highly decentralized federation of some sort), it's unlikely to have DC as anything more than a Disney like tourist attraction.
We are probably closer than you think. Just because they (corporate America and sections of the Deep State) are attempting to reconstruct the system does not mean that they will succeed. Failure is possible, maybe likely. A more federal approach is inevitable, whatever happens. A highly federal system would work best for the people, but they are not the only players by far.
As for collapse per se, I am in two minds. Words like collapse are perhaps too dramatic. Things have certainly already collapsed in a way (Detroit) and America can handle that type of regional collapse and even instrumentalise it. System-wide or nation-wide economic collapse is possible, but there are factors that mitigate against it. The rest of the world has an interest in keeping America alive, albeit weakened and humbled, as long as possible. There is way too much at stake for any sane party (state or multinational firm) to welcome collapse, though if one were imminent you can be certain that there would be insiders placing bets on the futures markets hoping for just such an outcome. At this stage, I'd recommend caution. It helps to think through plausible alternatives to whatever conclusions we have already drawn. We all want a resolution but we are likely to get an uncomfortable and unstable compromise instead, at least for a while.
I really, really did not imagine Canada would take the North American lead on techno-authoritarianism. I thought Trudeau and Freeland would be mocked into oblivion.
Your border guards are some of the most intimidating people I have ever encountered. T&F would wilt like picked flowers in the sun, if such one's as those resisted.
Actually, I found the Canadian border guards quite nice, it was the US border guards that stripseached us, brought in dogs, women, for a more thorough job. All because we didn't have "enough luggage for them" for a 3 day trip to the Canadian Grand Prix. Most of the clothes were in hang up bags behind the seat of the regular cab brand new GMC shorted step side 4WD pick up.
However, this was 1993. Snuck in the back way in '96, haven't been back since.
But that Trucker Convoy was beautiful to see, much better than anything we Americans have yet managed to put together to oppose the WEF tyranny. I know the Turd-eau regime crushed it, but the protesters held out long enough for everyone to see Turd-eau for the Stalinist he really is. The Truckers' moral victory reminds me of the civil rights marchers in the American South in 1963. Enough people saw it, and it made enough of a lasting impact, that its memory will inspire either future reforms or future uprisings. I just look forward to seeing Turd-eau get his on live television when the revolution comes to Canada.
I hope you're right about that. I'll admit that those weeks were the first time I felt anything approaching hope for, and pride in, my country, in a very long time indeed.
The above link plays for 18 minutes, but describes the five types of "citizenship" aka political statuses on America.
To the wonderful author, all you described is closer than you think. (And in actuality, there are 3 constitutions - these are our contracts as sovereign people with each of the three governments... Federation, Territorial, Municipal).
Watch Bobby Graves, type his name and Part 1 in YouTube, he'll take you through our honest, true history.
If we could all stop trying to reinvent the wheel and being dragged down into the constant war of divide and conquer they have put up on us, we the people could rise up, claim our real birthright status, and start reassembling our lawful, common Law government UnInc, holy crap... All this stuff would change in a heartbeat, swiftly and without violence.
And violence is an alternative, and many of us RED blooded Americans would certainly take out the woke freak show parade of sheeple, the corp government has friends in high places, amongst many are high ranking military and the ability to have the corrupt UN come on our shores and "help" fight an uprising of Patriots... The losses would be astronomical and leave a weakened America exposed to the other global powers.
We would do what we must for freedom, to honor America, and give our children a future free from slavery. But in the interim, it's time to join your respective nation state assembly, become a State National, and if you want to really help, become a State Citizen and let's kick these criminals to the curb.
And John Carter, excellent authoring, I'm not judging your writing, as it is a wonderful concept for sure. Uniting our people who hold the values of our Republic and comprehend the responsibility that goes with standing up for the rights of each other, is what is necessary to put this train back on track.
This said, you have quite a talent and all that you author is very well written and I thoroughly enjoy all that you write. So keep up the good work, always warms my heart to have a fellow Patriot, especially one North of the border who understands what true freedom should be and what it represents (and even more so than half our population, give or take.). And further, there is a parallel system on Canada too. Hit me up an email if you want links and such, happy to find and share them with you.
MaineManJB at protonmail dot com
Love and light and God Bless!
And happy Independence Day to all who celebrate. (I have stopped saying "4th of July" ironic that we allegedly won the war but then use the British way of saying this...sigh.)
I noticed someone asked you if you were Canadian and I knew you were because of other pieces you have written. A better question would have been, why does a Canadian have a better understanding of the U.S. constitution than most of the citizens in this country? Perhaps our friend "The Good Citizen" could jump in on the subject as well, as he is well versed in this area as well and could offer some great insights as well. Great job as usual and will be linking this tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
That is a good question. I hardly pretend to be an expert in American civics. Yet, over years of living in this country, I've found that many Americans I've talked to have little to no understanding of how their political system works. Civics education in this country is profoundly broken..
Then again I can't pretend it's much better in Canada. The simplest answer is the most obvious: it is in the interests of the political class of whatever country for the citizenry to be ignorant of the mechanics of state. This is especially so in 'liberal democracies'. An ignorant populace is much more easily led around by the nose ring.
Gonzalo Lira made a stream months ago discussing these issues. He insisted on the ''melting pot'' policy for the USA's state to work. Do you think is necessary? No doubt a great deal of conflict arises from racial agitators, but I'm not sure dealing with such people would be enough...
I believe Lira is correct. There are two options, really, if you want a stable, harmonious polity. One is to maintain ethnic homogeneity by simply banning immigration. That's more or less the Japanese strategy: immigration isn't banned, but it's made as difficult as possible. The other is to have immigration, but to ensure immigrants are absorbed. In practice the latter amounts to continuous ethnogenesis. The national character won't be as stable, but it will at least be consistent at any given time.
Mass immigration without absorption is how you get tribal warfare. In practice, there's no actual difference between warfare and mass immigration without assimilation, in fact; the historical result is identical in either case.
Thanks for your essay. I think, however, you might be over-complicating things or missing the target. The problems really began in the 60s with race and then sex (sexual revolution, the pill, you go girl, glass ceiling, etc.) . Blacks (and women) cannot so much assimilate as compete and they have huge, childlike egos. What's to be done?, asked the Quaker Nixon. Answered Daniel Patrick Moynihan, benign neglect. Nixon didn't listen and so he began forced busing. Everyone knows this doesn't work but we can't say it. Anyhoo, the lying began and it just gets worse.
So, you have two very aggressive and powerful groups, blacks and feminists, who cannot compete on equal terms against white men; throw in resentful incel men and there you go. Quotas, forced integration and loss of freedom of association, #metoo, insane rage at Trump and all he represents (i.e., unapologetic white men), hysterical worship of black thugs, weird racial pairings in ads and movies, virtual signaling idiots, gay pride and finally transvestites escaping white maleness. Also, at this juncture, out of control non-white immigration. Basically, the hysteria at Putin and Russians in general is an extension of this phenomena, this desire to compete against white men and the crushing fear that they never will, that life is unfair, in an increasingly crass, material world. Women and blacks aren't exactly noted for their soaring spiritual accomplishments now are they? It's always the body with them, and it always will be.
What is to be done is return to the natural order of things, based on merit instead of imagined grievances and identity favoritism. Needing to perform focuses us on more meaningful considerations. Wealthier societies can afford to support unproductive members, but they always need a crisis to remind them that's counterproductive. Just a matter of time.
Ride the tiger and avoid as best as possible the insanity. Eventually, modernism will destroy itself. In fact, thanks to the Russians, it is destroying itself right now.
My own answer is that everyone in the Global Village is an American now. Who is for independence and who isn’t? Today is a good day to think about that.
I know, I know, once upon a time there was such a thing as an American citizen, and when I was a kid we all understood that.
But Joe Biden is subsiding anybody in our Global Village who wants to come in, so let’s get real.
Recite after me: LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
Yes, I know, the guy who wrote that owned slaves.
But I’m writing it on an electronic device made by slaves in China, and you’re reading it on one.
Were Americanism to be converted into something more akin to a religion, indeed there's no reason it should be defined by borders. Although the globalists probably don't have that form of pan-nationalism in mind....
The Declaration of Independence is scripture. Being wary of the outrageous claims of clergy, they refrained from using words like “holy.” But it ends with
> we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
In a Global Village divided by religious and ideological conflict leading to mass murder, perhaps “sacred honor” is the best way to describe the new “religion.@
If Americans simply declared their religion to be Americanism, free speech would be protected as religious ritual, and open carry of firearms as religious dress. It's remarkable no one has thought of this.
The woke literally make common cause with satanists.
My point was more about leveraging existing legal protections for religious expression. They're extremely difficult to get around; while the left would certainly demonize a religious Americanism, they'd have a difficult time of it in the courts.
However you bring up a topic I didn't address: broadening the legal definition of religious freedom. I would certainly support that regarding Americanism.
Very good job delineating the two real options. I vastly prefer the vision of America as an ideology committed to the ideals enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Globalist project is doomed to fail (it is already collapsing), so unless Americans of goodwill conscientiously choose the ideological option, the ethnostate will be the default alternative into which our country will devolve, and it will be brutal and bloody. God help us to see that before it is too late and to instead pursue the ideology of liberty and justice for all, with a commitment to the spirit of Bill of Rights.
The ethnostate and the ideological republic aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Humans are not purely biological; every nation forms around ideals embraced by a people. It's more a question of emphasis.
The other thing, of course, is that bloody civil war may well be inevitable, even in the civic nationalist case. Leftists won't take being stripped of suffrage lying down.
True. It probably will be brutal no matter how it goes, although I think an ethnic conflict would be more deadly. Once it becomes clear that Wokeism is a losing cause, a lot of NPC morons will just change their minds and swear they were never really woke to begin with. But if a particular ethnic group gets labeled the enemy, it'll be like Rwanda during the genocide. A living hell. And those goddamn Wokeists insist on playing identity politics to pit every minority against the white majority (or at least the non-elite whites), which for the past several years has pretty much taken it lying down; but if the identity politics continue, it is 100% certain there will be a backlash, and it will be ugly. I pray to God it doesn't go that way, but the Left is gonna keep fucking around and find out. I hate it, because so many good people of color who don't even agree with the woke bullshit would nonetheless suffer for what the wokeists did. I really pray it doesn't go that way, but it's looking terrifyingly likely.
"America" is just a word to denote things associated with the United States, it means nothing really. Enforcement of the founding ideals will not happen because nobody believes in them anymore. If you don't like the result of the ideas, why cling to the ideas?
"The argument goes that a tolerant society can tolerate everything except the intolerant, who would if given free rein destroy tolerance. Therefore, the intolerant cannot be tolerated, and the tolerant are justified in using any and all means to shut down intolerance."
And since they reserve for themselves the exclusive right to define "intolerance," the "tolerate everything" crowd effectively bans all dissent and leaves only their own points-of-view as officially-sanctioned "tolerance." Therein lies the rub... if we were to apply the same standard to liberty or fealty to the Constitution, they would do as they always do, and redefine the terms in question.
The left has already defined "liberty" as requiring strict gun control, restrictions on speech that hurts people's feelings, curbs on "misinformation," confiscatory taxation and redistribution of income, along with Soviet-style rights to housing, food, gainful employment, medical care, and higher education.. and more recently, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and prison-style lockdowns for everyone.
Or, as Orwell put it, "freedom is slavery."
This is the standard MO of the left. They favor free speech, so they say, but they add that "hate" speech has never been protected as part of "free" speech (which, of course, is as incorrect as it is possible for a mere mortal to be). All they have to do is declare that a given thing they don't want to hear is "hate," and bam! It's gone. That's been the excuse of all social media eradicating all viewpoints other than their own... tolerance for all except the intolerant, where they define what is intolerant. It's no different than having a handful of judges look at the Constitution in 1973 and claiming that somehow the right to abortion is in there. It clearly was not... everyone knows it was a "rabbit from a hat," but hey, if SCOTUS says it's in there, and SCOTUS is the final authority on what's in there, then who are we to say it's not?
We on the right mostly want to be left alone. We don't tend to endorse the total-war tactics of the left, where things like massive voter fraud and mass propaganda are just "part of the process." The left will redefine freedom to be slavery to get people into slavery. They will tell us that words don't mean what they clearly do. They have a mindset that denies objective reality and substitutes "the narrative." They can and will claim to adopt every principle we hold dear while twisting the very definitions to bring about the opposite of what the principles were meant to protect.
In other words, if we adopt "liberty to do anything except attempt to curtail liberty," they will (and have already) define the curtailment of liberty as what we do to advance it. They will define their own attempts to curtail liberty as efforts to promote it. Sure, people could figure all this out pretty easily if they would spend a few seconds applying some critical thought, but it is now abundantly clear, via simple observation of this whole COVID debacle, that precious few people have even the slightest bit of ability to think critically about anything. They will believe that being able to say hurtful things is not protected speech, and that banning hurtful things advances freedom (because "freedom from hurt feelings" sounds like a thing), if they are told to. And they will be.
They'd certainly try, but it would be a difficult thing for them to argue, and under the proposed standard they'd risk losing their rights to participate in the political process by the mere act of trying. No one would stop them from continuing to agitate, but without the ability to vote, run for public office, or hold positions in the bureaucracy, their ability to apply a twisted Newspeak standard would be severely curtailed.
I keep trying to write this, but stuff keeps happening to distract me!
The problem I see with this is that the propaganda efforts don't originate with government officials, in a top-down way.
The media (legacy news media and social media) absolutely do function as a fascist-style appendage of the Party, but they don't require orders from any government official to do so. They are all the same group of people... they have the same ideology, and they know the talking points and the things that they want suppressed, without ever having to be told to do anything. If there was ever a figure that was not on board with the Party's agenda, the media would take it upon themselves to destroy the interloper, while the actual Party members in the government remain "clean" by not having to order them to do it. All one need do is observe the way Trump was treated to know that they are doing exactly this.
The corporate propagandists act as the government would have them do, but they do it autonomously, so that any thorny issues about things like Constitutional rights don't get in the way of the Party's agenda. If questioned, the media giants will simply respond that there is no violation of anyone's Constitutional rights, as it is simply private entities acting as they wish to, and that they are in fact practicing their own free expression by promoting their own viewpoint. Any efforts to stop them, they say, would be the actual violation of the right of free expression.
In this way, the Party (whose members completely own the media) can influence or outright dictate the opinions of most members of the populace, without the governmental officials (who would be subject to oath of office) ever having to get involved. Any efforts to rein in the media, to get it to stop acting as the propaganda arm of the Party, will be made to look like efforts to turn the media into a propaganda machine for the other side (that is, ours; the side of liberty).
Ultimately, the question of 'freedom' becomes one of what the individual wishes to be 'free' of. In the classical liberal view, it is government that we want to be free from, to the greatest degree possible. But to many, especially the latest crop of youngsters raised to be perpetual children who merely trade their actual parents for governmental parents at the age of majority (or sometime thereafter), the freedom that is sought is freedom from responsibility, making hard decisions, and having to act like adults (which they have childishly nicknamed "adulting").
For many, having government make all of their decisions, while providing a guaranteed living wage, guaranteed health care, guaranteed housing, guaranteed food, etc., in exchange for that limited agency over their own lives, looks like freedom. To them, it's not an unwelcome intrusion to have government tell them they can't do X or that they must do Y... it relieves them of the burden of having to think for themselves.
This is the kind of person the Party wants us all to be. Ultimately, the goal is not to have us knuckle under and bow to their rule even though we know it's all based on lies (although they are willing to accept that, for now at least). It's to have us never bother to think about whether it is based on lies in the first place. The goal is to have us take the word of government as we would have taken a parental edict when we were small children: Mom says you must wear your slippers to keep your feet warm to keep from catching a cold, so you do it. It doesn't matter that the idea that having cold feet (but not so much so that it is a great discomfort... if it was, the child would act on his own to avoid the unpleasant feeling) spontaneously makes the cold virus appear in your body is nonsense, and that the very name of the disease ("cold") is based on superstition from a time before we knew microorganisms even existed... Mom said "do it," so you do it.
I think civil war is inevitable. We need to be prepared for that and a rebuilding of our culture afterward.
There must be limits on who can vote. I think it should be limited to property owners, business owners, and combat veterans. Too many people without skin in the game are casting votes to set the rules.
Your argument is unassailable, your understanding and knowledge of history and human nature impeccable. Another good read, as always. I learn so much from you and your subscribers and commenters.
Ehret's good. So is Cynthia. They're a bit long-winded at times, and their ambitious scope sometimes takes them onto ground they're obviously not entirely comfortable on, and in which they get some of the details wrong. Nevertheless they're consistently interesting.
True enough, one has to commit to some rather long videos. I owe them for changing my perspective in regards to the shallow US History I was taught every damn year in grade school. Over and over again, the same tiny 250 years of history. Any way I have quibbles too but think they are essential reading/listening.
Yes, it's their historical perspective I find particularly valuable. I don't always fully agree with the slant, but I always learn something interesting.
They must be able to speak their anti-American sentiments, this is required. It is already illegal to act on anti-American ideas within America. All we need to do is enforce the law. All of the institutions that push the anti-American agenda benefit from the fed and the petrodollar system. This system is unconstitutional (I argue). If it were to be abolished, I think everyone would be astonished as to how quickly Americans could reassert political control over the USG. The principles are the entire point of being American. Let our enemies sully themselves by calling for anti-American means to justify their anti-American ends. It also makes it very clear cut who has principles. Remember, one of the reasons the dialectic is so effective is because conservative Christians were happy to shroud the Iraq war with allusions to biblical prophecy among other anti-American endeavors in the Bush years that paint an inaccurate straw man. This strategy will work as long as American ideals are demotic within the population. I think we have that now. If we lose that though, all is lost until the whole system comes crashing down. Just my .02, appreciate you writing on this important topic!
Constitutional Republic versus the (unelected) Administrative State. The downfall of the Petrodollar and the Fed Reserve, however, would/will bring about considerable domestic upheaval. So long as you and your family are prepared for the chaos that will follow. But given the daily chaos that many Americans are now facing, in terms of potential criminal violence and economic uncertainty, a purge-like event might seem to some people almost a relief.
I used to live not far from where one person was shot to death in PA on Route 1 for driving slow. Add to that recent incident the two young Subway employees, both women, who were shot over allegedly too much mayo on a sandwich. The individuals committing such acts have opted out not only of the American Republic but of civilized society more generally. Yet on a national scale, through transfer and welfare payments, we continue to subsidize their behavior -- effectively although perhaps not intentionally. How much longer can that continue, particularly if the dollar hegemony ends? Should it even continue?
I might well be wrong , and hope that I am -- but I do not see any peaceful transition back to the Constitutional Republic. As it now stands, the government can continue printing money (31.6 trillion in debt, and rising) and handing it around, but inflation will have its say. Our global competition, likewise. Under such conditions, the domestic civil unrest will only increase. It does look like the USA will face a reckoning.
Indeed. I don't see much potential for a peaceful solution, either. The problems are too intractable.
Consider the essay not so much, how to fix this situation, but, once the dust has settled, how to prevent similar problems in the future.
cut off the supply of unearned income and watch how fast leftists adjust to the new reality and suddenly become open to peaceful solutions. They have the coercive apparatus of the state at their back insulating them from the costs of the violence they advocate. This situation is artificial and vulnerable to rapid paradigm shift. In any case, if violence happens it can be dealt with while adhering to American principles. Such a situation would generate large scale trust coalitions that would quickly deter further aggression on the part of anti-Americans. Or so I speculate. If we can't make it with our principles intact, we can't make it.
The widespread loss of faith is authorities, their loss of legitimacy, indeed primes things for a preference cascade. They're like earthquakes - impossible to predict the when, but one can observe the distribution of building tectonic tensions and guess the where and the how big. When they come, they're abrupt.
Strongly agree that principles have to be maintained. I'm quite aware of the ethnic dimension of nations - but humans are not genetic robots, we require higher things than mere reproduction to give our lives purpose and meaning. That's where I break with the white nationalists. Mere perpetuation for its own sake is spiritually sterile stasis. America is an idea, and a people (or rather, an alliance is peoples). If it is to survive in any meaningful sense, both the peoples and the idea must continue. As it is, both are threatened.
You are perfectly right. There is no peaceful transition. And attempting to force breath into the corpse of constitutional procedure has obvious limitations.
In the real world regimes gain legitimacy and respect from their ability to deliver common goods (prosperity, public safety and order, success in war). Compliance with the written declarations of men who wore wigs and carried muskets several centuries past is an issue for legal students showing off for the benefit of their professors, not a priority with the wider society. The ease and transparency with which the election of 2020 was stolen exposes the cult of the constitution for what it has become: a piece of Palladian decoration for the Potemkin village of post-democratic America.
Were the Administrative state to make a few of the right gestures to public opinion, it would extend its life for another half-generation, more than long enough to fortify constituencies of regime-support in key places. I don't see them doing that, the regime is intoxicated by the political success of its own incompetence and bad faith, but dissenters are putting themselves at risk by focusing too much on constitutional thought.
The connection between the economy, family structure and the reproductive well-being of both sexes will determine the future more completely than any law or constitutional arrangement ever could. Winning the constitutional game is one thing, securing the future another.
You write: "In the real world regimes gain legitimacy and respect from their ability to deliver common goods (prosperity, public safety and order, success in war)." The challenge is do so for more than one generation, and more than one special interest group or even majority population. If like me you believe that principles might matter then history also matters. If like me you believe that something like human nature exists, and people are not infinitely malleable or programmable, then the debate over principles and what history might teach us is not merely academic. I do agree with you that the only reality test that matters is reality itself. But I think pragmatism without historical context can quickly become self-serving delusion and expediency.
My problem with the current administrative state: we have no examples from history -- from reality -- of it working, as being sustainable. Of it being anything but a bureaucracy ultimately in the service of tyranny : or totalitarianism, if my old-fashioned words are part of the problem here.
You write: "Winning the constitutional game is one thing, securing the future another." Agreed. But securing the future at least implies you have a vision of it. A plan for action. And what both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, despite their considerable differences, would understand as a social contract. A buy-in, with mutual responsibilities. The challenge of articulating and sharing that is not one to be taken lightly, or dismissed as belonging solely to the era of men with wigs.
I'd like to hear more about your understanding both of securing the future, and what that future might look like. As I have nieces and nephews ranging from grade school to high school to graduate school, this is not -- let me say -- an "academic" issue for me. If the average life expectancy applies to me, I have about two more decades. But they might -- and certainly their children should -- see this century to an end. What sort of American century will it be for them?
I thank you for your provocative and thoughtful reply. All best.
The coming American century will see the US attempting to stabilise itself by developing a new social contract. A multiracial form of fascism (the integration of public and private power) is more likely than anything else. Whether this is accomplished through a decentralised, neo-federalist, approach applied across a range of jurisdictions or a centralising one will make a difference, but I am not certain how significant this difference might be. And any viable form of fascism will camouflage itself very carefully.
The future is determined by resources, energy and family structures from within and success in war and the ability to resist, or manage, population movements from outside. Resource-wise the US has substantial reserves of resources, but not enough for the kind of widespread mass prosperity people would like. Energy will be a big problem...there are vast problems within the much neglected nuclear industry. As far as families, the single-earner male-led family unit is now reserved mostly for the well-off. This will continue to transform the US for the next several generations. The effects will be felt on the ethnic composition of the nation and also the content of its various class-based cultures. A caste system is certain.
Biopolitically, the US corporations and oligarchs have no interest in the posterity of the many, who are replaceable. Key constituencies benefit from the disruption or de-prioritisation of traditional family structures (employers, feminists, civil society), while others benefit from the mismanagement of fertility on a mass scale. This fortifies the elite’s interest in sponsoring anything hostile to inherited social and cultural norms (feminism, gender fluidity, LGBTQI). These constituencies cannot be voted out of existence and their influence can barely be contained by the most vigorous political efforts.
The permanence of a sub-proletariat (by definition either involuntarily unmarried or unable to support stable families) reduces pressures for higher wages, facilitates further mass immigration and disrupts the transmission of unchosen or inherited attachments. Both the sub-proletariat and the voluntarily infertile understand intuitively that they have no personal or familial stake in the posterity of the country and, hence, have a diminished interest in maintaining any commitment to its future.
As for wars, the US cannot win them against any industrialised peer. The US can apply ground forces to some effect in Latin America and the Caribbean, but US air-power is now limited in key parts of Eurasia. The navy can expect to lose against China (red team beats blue at the Rand all the time). Migration pressures will intensify as the population of sub-Saharan Africa swells by more than a billion.
In short, things look grim. As for securing the future, I'll have to think a lot more about that. It all depends whose future needs to be secured.
All of this depends on the managerial class maintaining control of the money supply, no?
YOU GOT IT IN ONE. Finance is the key. Money and debt. Washington's great strength is finance, also its greatest potential weakness. Few people realise anything of the historic significance of what Biden is doing.
The sanctions applied to Russia undermine traditional contract and property law. They annihilate the foundations of liberal modernity or classical liberal politics and return the West to pre-modern standards of arbitrary governance.
Liberal politics only became viable in the first place in the British Isles during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. When the Dutch authorities refused to finance any campaign for the English throne William of Orange got an unsecured commercial loan to finance his army. Following his victory Parliament voted the new King the funds required to repay his personal obligations. The willingness of William of Orange to honour debts that he could have repudiated very easily created the trust in, and respect for, government necessary for the establishment of the Bank of England, the national debt, fiat currency and the eventual emergence of modern finance.
Confidence in the inviolability of property remains the essential basis of both political freedom and global finance. By contrast, the sanctions of the Biden Administration and other Western governments against Russia make such confidence impossible. Disregarding the property rights of individual Russians across the West (without any pretense of due process) and seizing the financial reserves of the Russian government restores pre-modern standards of illiberal governance. Property is now once again merely a gift from the sovereign. On a practical level, they are attempting to set up a constructed default by Russia on the bond market, with incalculable implications for the financial markets.
The managerial class is returning us to Stuart England. A very dumb move, IMHO. The struggle between Russia and China etc and Washington will possibly be determined by which set of currencies attract confidence and which ones don't. The euro is now fixed into a subordinate position re the dollar, which buys Washington time. We live in the most interesting of times.
The constitution might just be paper, but it is paper that our ideological enemies are required to pay lip service to. This makes it useful at outlining the hypocrisy of anti-Americans. Additionally, it is the law, and so there is potentially a path back to sanity using it as a framework. I think discarding it would benefit our ideological enemies at our expense.
You are substantially right, but I'd counsel caution. The constitution shapes expectations. Ordinary people have an unshakeable belief that government belongs to them, that their active and sincere consent provides the government with its legitimacy. The Declaration of Independence (separate from the constitution per se) expresses that brilliantly. You are 100% right about the law being the path back to sanity. If SCOTUS continues to dismantle the shoddy legal thinking of the Warren era this may be an effective means of reaching a constructive solution. I will wait till they make a decision on affirmative action before finalising my thinking on the value of the courts.
The danger is that courts are not a deus ex machina politically and are never a substitute for an alert, suitably mobilized, citizenry with legitimately high expectations. People who go to court seek vindication, affirmation, approval from on high. They are petitioners, not citizens. Politics is not about affirmation, but power and citizenship is not about being a good guy but about sharing in the decisions. I am sceptical about the political value of getting people to be patient...legal processes are a great way to drain energy from popular movements. Beyond brilliant at misdirection.
Gratuitous lawsuits are not the answer to anything -- except enriching lawyers and clogging the system. But I'd still be careful in saying "People who go to court seek vindication, affirmation, approval from on high. They are petitioners, not citizens. " Both the right to having a hearing in court and the right to have a trial have been hard-earned. Both are also checks against state and corporate tyranny, albeit highly imperfect ones.
You're obviously a learned individual. I would encourage you to review the history of Habeas corpus. I do agree with the generic point that "lawfare" is not the answer. But under no circumstances do I think we should voluntarily forfeit our rights under law in the hopes that a popular uprising will reset the game. You're not calling for that . But your rhetoric leans into it.
What is going on right now with the January 6th prisoners requires much more public attention. But it also requires that our established legal procedures are followed, and our political leaders held accountable. What is going on here in part is a failure of due process. I do not think we improve the situation by abandoning the concept of or a commitment to due process.
All best!
The problem with the legal process is that the powers that be consider themselves above it. The problem that creates for them in the long run is what happens when people conclude that the legal process doesn't work. The ruling class is under the mistaken impression that the legal process is there to protect us from them; they don't seem to realize that goes both ways. To quote Rorsach, they think we're locked in here with them....
Under no circumstances should anyone ever forfeit their rights and the likelihood of a successful uprising right now is zero. The USA is in uncharted waters. Those who want regime change can expect to live in a political grey zone in which increasingly illegitimate authorities, incompetent at anything except plunder and keeping formal opposition severely constrained, remain in power indefinitely. It is vital to ensure that people keep their eyes on the courts - public attention is a powerful force in its own right. It is a force the regime cannot control and to which it must make concessions. Public expectations of due process can, if the circumstances are right, constrain the authorities. They would have crucified Rittenhouse if they could, but they could not because of the publicity so the judge, the prosecution and the defence cooperated to let Rittenhouse off. [I say this because the judge and prosecutors were over-acting, while the defence did not call key witnesses who could have raised awkward questions about the role of the agents provocateurs at work in the riot/protest that night]
The most effective resistance will likely come from the states, under pressure to meet the needs of businesses under threat from Washington. One day, perhaps sooner than you think, someone will organise a miniature Colour Revolution at a state or county level.
I am very cautious on this front, and I think we have a powerful ally to disseminate this exact message in the new and improved libertarian party. Familiarity with the works of Mises and Rothbard will go far to explain the inherent limitations of the state, and this is the main strategic objectives of the Mises Caucus in running a LP presidential candidate. I agree regarding the declaration of independence, and this being a core document that articulates what being American is all about is why I think a focus on Americanism can help us build an effective political coalition to reverse the trends that you articulate so well in your other comment. Regarding courts I share Robert Barnes realpolitik conception of the law. Since he has adopted a public profile he has become increasingly influential with respect to how to engage productively in legal processes. I am optimistic that the ideas he promulgates will assume greater influence in counteracting the misdirection you speak of over time.
This is turning into quite a thread and subthreads. Well done, Dr. Grant Smith, for getting this Barsoom party started. My thanks as well to our host, John Carter, and to Phillip for his challenging, informed, and cogent comments. A better discussion here than I had at any point in graduate school. All best!
I'm sure a reckoning will be faced, but I'm not so sure it will necessarily be violent. Just difficult times adjusting to economic reality. The effects of the fed are far reaching, but just to give one powerful example of something I don't think is sustainable, the current system where students incur upwards of 6 figures in debt for the privilege of being indoctrinated must end. It is an affront to nature that this has continued for so long, and the market always exerts itself in the long run. I know you're all too familiar with the problem that I speak of, I just came across this video which I think is the best introductory overview of the situation in academia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hybqg81n-M
I watched that. It's indeed a good overview of the problems, but while he's got a few plausible solutions overall I'm skeptical the political will is there to impose them.
Its all worth a shot. I wasn't especially impressed with the proposed solutions. I was very impressed with the thorough explanation of the problem. I think the most promising outcome going forward is just widespread understanding of the problem. More people seeing the problem will result in more people searching for solutions. The Mises Caucus run LP and funding strategies to compete with zuck bucks might over time result in a critical mass of political will.
You are an instinctive Aristotelian, John, in your preference for the golden mean. One can only hope that the best of the American experience can be salvaged from the ruin of the Republic. It remains to be seen if any presently conceivable form of civic nationalism of the kind you believe in remains practical. Concepts of nationality are contestable and I do not pretend that mine are better than yours, but I'll give it a go.
Nations are formed in part by shared ancestry for at least a central, defining, core of the population, but are supplemented by a shared culture or a blend of cultures that has proven itself viable over time. The measure of this viability is the ability to coexist without collective rancour or violence over several generations. Nations are sustained by a degree of shared experience, a set of conditions common to all or nearly all, by shared understandings and at least some mutual sympathy. The expectation of a shared future or a common fate is essential.
The true test of a nation is its ability to survive in the absence of a state. A nation that cannot do that for several generations is no nation, merely a rabble defined by dependency on a political class.
My scepticism about civic nationalism is based on a simple prejudice against Leviathan itself. A nation is always more important than a constitution. A nation cannot exist for the benefit of ideals. Ideals exist in order that nations thrive, that they enable the realisation of their concept of justice. To put it another way, a constitution exists for the convenience and best interests of the people, not the people for the fulfillment of a set of ideas. Civic nationalism makes a nation into a cult. True nations contain cults, may even have an established state cult of one kind or another, but are not constituted as a cult per se.
In writing thus, I am not pleading for blood and soil nationalism or for any Romantic politics. Nationalism was confected in the modern era to manage people in the era of mass politics. That era appears over for good. Perhaps tribalism, the politics of sub-national groups defined by genes and culture, may be the way forward?
The US began as an association of sovereign states. Its future may well be as a federation of nations and tribes united by the constitutional equivalent of a pact of non-belligerency.
I certainly don't disagree with any of that. I'm skeptical that blood-and-soil nationalism can prosper in America, simply because there's no shared blood. That might just mean the union gets disarticulated, going the way of the Austro-Hungarian empire ... and that might be for the best, really.
My point here wasn't to advocate for civic nationalism, exactly. It was more to emphasize a logical correlate of civic nationalism: if you want to do it, you need to be able to expel those who don't hold the creed. In practice I'm not sure that's possible, as it would result in a very large fraction of the population being stripped of citizenship, and almost certainly precipitate a civil war. Then again, civil war may be inevitable in any case.
I get you. My sore point is your reference to 'creed'. A sane polity requires obedience to laws, not dogmas. By way of explanation, I am ultra-Whiggish on this point. One of the best features of English politics for centuries was its allergy to creeds and dogmas and the need for a creed strikes me as inherently creepy and cultish.
The idea of limiting the franchise appeals greatly. There is no need for everyone to vote and it takes a perverse view of humanity to insist that the right to vote goes with being human or that restricting voting rights is a denial of someone's humanity. Rights to vote based on a points system (place of birth, property owned, taxes paid, military service, marital status and age) strikes me as better than subscription to any belief system.
In any case, the right to vote is now awarded by the postal service and the undertakers, so any discussion is purely theoretical.
The Constitution, in any state, isn't precisely a creed - formally, it is the highest law in the land. What I'm proposing is simply amending things such that willfully violating is sanctioned by withdrawal of full citizenship.
Then again, the passion with which red state Americans regard the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is well beyond how people generally feel about a law, and is in practice religious in intensity. I may be mistaken but it's my impression that there was a similar feeling in Antiquity towards the the constitutions of the poleis, Rome included - these were seen as literally divine in origin, bound up with demigod founders, and therefore of a higher and more sacred nature than the regulations governing the postal system.
You're absolutely correct that this is all academic until the current crop of mutants squatting in the halls of power have been turned out.
One of the many reasons to admire Jefferson was his willingness to acknowledge both the right of the people to change the constitution to suit their evolving needs and the value of doing so. He would have been horrified at people making a cult out of anything that he had written.
You are 100% right about the need to withdraw at least some rights from those who express any kind of substantial enmity towards the common good. Without such a mechanism, the only alternative is civil war. Free societies are rightly transactional in their politics, this requires good faith. Those without it are unfit for political participation, let alone holding public office. If constitutions are indeed good for anything, it is fixing a widely shared conception of the common good.
I am inclined to think that Nietzsche was right about the ancient world...we don't understand the Greeks or the Romans. Their world was very different from our own. But is clear that their attitude towards politics altered manty times over antiquity.
The US Supreme Court last week emphasized the federation of "nations" as defined as states in the Constitution. The federal government has a few specified "enumerated powers" and everything else is up to the states. The divisions are demonstrated in almost all court judgements being split decisions. And public approval of those decisions is just as divided. We're hanging on by threads of technicalities that few citizens even understand, but often disapprove. Very unstable.
Exactly! David, we are seeing a careful, deliberate, re-construction of the US along federal lines. Serious players are preparing lifeboats. The evidence for this is to be found in the economy. Texas has opened up a state-owned bullion depository and several states have lifted sales taxes on precious metals while legislating for the use of monetary silver and gold and bullion as media of settlement and exchange. For me, this is proof that the oligarchs are taking the demise of the US dollar as a given and are preparing for it on a state by state basis. The key division is between states with large, unfunded, liabilities and those that can manage. These divisions are red/blue (no surprises there).
The accelerant for the financial craziness to come is the legislation, newly passed, that alters the mandate for the Fed, requiring that they take racial disparities into account in all their activities. This is a guarantee for disaster. Even Lenin and Stalin had a better understanding of finance.
I see a 'Holy Roman Empire' future for the US politically, with a nominal head of state in Washington balanced by regional groupings of autonomous states. Lots of bullshit to misdirect everyone, of course, but it is a sane strategy for a country whose national government is incompetent beyond belief, incapable of reform and unable to generate loyalty, trust or respect and increasingly unable to project or apply force overseas with a prospect for success.
My only disagreement w you is the future end state. The current system simply cannot and will not continue. This economy is headed for collapse along with most of the institutions we've known this far. So, whatever is coming (and I hope it's a highly decentralized federation of some sort), it's unlikely to have DC as anything more than a Disney like tourist attraction.
We are probably closer than you think. Just because they (corporate America and sections of the Deep State) are attempting to reconstruct the system does not mean that they will succeed. Failure is possible, maybe likely. A more federal approach is inevitable, whatever happens. A highly federal system would work best for the people, but they are not the only players by far.
As for collapse per se, I am in two minds. Words like collapse are perhaps too dramatic. Things have certainly already collapsed in a way (Detroit) and America can handle that type of regional collapse and even instrumentalise it. System-wide or nation-wide economic collapse is possible, but there are factors that mitigate against it. The rest of the world has an interest in keeping America alive, albeit weakened and humbled, as long as possible. There is way too much at stake for any sane party (state or multinational firm) to welcome collapse, though if one were imminent you can be certain that there would be insiders placing bets on the futures markets hoping for just such an outcome. At this stage, I'd recommend caution. It helps to think through plausible alternatives to whatever conclusions we have already drawn. We all want a resolution but we are likely to get an uncomfortable and unstable compromise instead, at least for a while.
Are you Canadian? That is my impression. I have been finding of late, some of the best writing about America comes from people who are not American.
I appreciate your ideas. My intention is to take this sort of thinking and expand on it in my new substack. Thank you for your inspiration.
Yep, I'm Canadian, more's the pity.
I really, really did not imagine Canada would take the North American lead on techno-authoritarianism. I thought Trudeau and Freeland would be mocked into oblivion.
Ha. Nope. Canadians are far too polite to put up much resistance. Peace, order, and good government - and the 'good' part is negotiable.
Your border guards are some of the most intimidating people I have ever encountered. T&F would wilt like picked flowers in the sun, if such one's as those resisted.
Canadian border guards are infamous jerks. Sadly, they're generally quite enthusiastic about taking orders.
Actually, I found the Canadian border guards quite nice, it was the US border guards that stripseached us, brought in dogs, women, for a more thorough job. All because we didn't have "enough luggage for them" for a 3 day trip to the Canadian Grand Prix. Most of the clothes were in hang up bags behind the seat of the regular cab brand new GMC shorted step side 4WD pick up.
However, this was 1993. Snuck in the back way in '96, haven't been back since.
But that Trucker Convoy was beautiful to see, much better than anything we Americans have yet managed to put together to oppose the WEF tyranny. I know the Turd-eau regime crushed it, but the protesters held out long enough for everyone to see Turd-eau for the Stalinist he really is. The Truckers' moral victory reminds me of the civil rights marchers in the American South in 1963. Enough people saw it, and it made enough of a lasting impact, that its memory will inspire either future reforms or future uprisings. I just look forward to seeing Turd-eau get his on live television when the revolution comes to Canada.
I hope you're right about that. I'll admit that those weeks were the first time I felt anything approaching hope for, and pride in, my country, in a very long time indeed.
We are kept purposefully ignorant of our real history and the truth about many things.
https://ugetube.com/watch/the-5-citizens-chart-the-georgia-assembly-coordinator-niko_h36vnievfZn8lTR.html
The above link plays for 18 minutes, but describes the five types of "citizenship" aka political statuses on America.
To the wonderful author, all you described is closer than you think. (And in actuality, there are 3 constitutions - these are our contracts as sovereign people with each of the three governments... Federation, Territorial, Municipal).
Watch Bobby Graves, type his name and Part 1 in YouTube, he'll take you through our honest, true history.
If we could all stop trying to reinvent the wheel and being dragged down into the constant war of divide and conquer they have put up on us, we the people could rise up, claim our real birthright status, and start reassembling our lawful, common Law government UnInc, holy crap... All this stuff would change in a heartbeat, swiftly and without violence.
And violence is an alternative, and many of us RED blooded Americans would certainly take out the woke freak show parade of sheeple, the corp government has friends in high places, amongst many are high ranking military and the ability to have the corrupt UN come on our shores and "help" fight an uprising of Patriots... The losses would be astronomical and leave a weakened America exposed to the other global powers.
We would do what we must for freedom, to honor America, and give our children a future free from slavery. But in the interim, it's time to join your respective nation state assembly, become a State National, and if you want to really help, become a State Citizen and let's kick these criminals to the curb.
And John Carter, excellent authoring, I'm not judging your writing, as it is a wonderful concept for sure. Uniting our people who hold the values of our Republic and comprehend the responsibility that goes with standing up for the rights of each other, is what is necessary to put this train back on track.
This said, you have quite a talent and all that you author is very well written and I thoroughly enjoy all that you write. So keep up the good work, always warms my heart to have a fellow Patriot, especially one North of the border who understands what true freedom should be and what it represents (and even more so than half our population, give or take.). And further, there is a parallel system on Canada too. Hit me up an email if you want links and such, happy to find and share them with you.
MaineManJB at protonmail dot com
Love and light and God Bless!
And happy Independence Day to all who celebrate. (I have stopped saying "4th of July" ironic that we allegedly won the war but then use the British way of saying this...sigh.)
John on Maine
I noticed someone asked you if you were Canadian and I knew you were because of other pieces you have written. A better question would have been, why does a Canadian have a better understanding of the U.S. constitution than most of the citizens in this country? Perhaps our friend "The Good Citizen" could jump in on the subject as well, as he is well versed in this area as well and could offer some great insights as well. Great job as usual and will be linking this tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
That is a good question. I hardly pretend to be an expert in American civics. Yet, over years of living in this country, I've found that many Americans I've talked to have little to no understanding of how their political system works. Civics education in this country is profoundly broken..
Then again I can't pretend it's much better in Canada. The simplest answer is the most obvious: it is in the interests of the political class of whatever country for the citizenry to be ignorant of the mechanics of state. This is especially so in 'liberal democracies'. An ignorant populace is much more easily led around by the nose ring.
Gonzalo Lira made a stream months ago discussing these issues. He insisted on the ''melting pot'' policy for the USA's state to work. Do you think is necessary? No doubt a great deal of conflict arises from racial agitators, but I'm not sure dealing with such people would be enough...
I believe Lira is correct. There are two options, really, if you want a stable, harmonious polity. One is to maintain ethnic homogeneity by simply banning immigration. That's more or less the Japanese strategy: immigration isn't banned, but it's made as difficult as possible. The other is to have immigration, but to ensure immigrants are absorbed. In practice the latter amounts to continuous ethnogenesis. The national character won't be as stable, but it will at least be consistent at any given time.
Mass immigration without absorption is how you get tribal warfare. In practice, there's no actual difference between warfare and mass immigration without assimilation, in fact; the historical result is identical in either case.
Thanks for your essay. I think, however, you might be over-complicating things or missing the target. The problems really began in the 60s with race and then sex (sexual revolution, the pill, you go girl, glass ceiling, etc.) . Blacks (and women) cannot so much assimilate as compete and they have huge, childlike egos. What's to be done?, asked the Quaker Nixon. Answered Daniel Patrick Moynihan, benign neglect. Nixon didn't listen and so he began forced busing. Everyone knows this doesn't work but we can't say it. Anyhoo, the lying began and it just gets worse.
So, you have two very aggressive and powerful groups, blacks and feminists, who cannot compete on equal terms against white men; throw in resentful incel men and there you go. Quotas, forced integration and loss of freedom of association, #metoo, insane rage at Trump and all he represents (i.e., unapologetic white men), hysterical worship of black thugs, weird racial pairings in ads and movies, virtual signaling idiots, gay pride and finally transvestites escaping white maleness. Also, at this juncture, out of control non-white immigration. Basically, the hysteria at Putin and Russians in general is an extension of this phenomena, this desire to compete against white men and the crushing fear that they never will, that life is unfair, in an increasingly crass, material world. Women and blacks aren't exactly noted for their soaring spiritual accomplishments now are they? It's always the body with them, and it always will be.
Don't disagree, and fully aware of the race issue, but as you say - what is to be done?
What is to be done is return to the natural order of things, based on merit instead of imagined grievances and identity favoritism. Needing to perform focuses us on more meaningful considerations. Wealthier societies can afford to support unproductive members, but they always need a crisis to remind them that's counterproductive. Just a matter of time.
Ride the tiger and avoid as best as possible the insanity. Eventually, modernism will destroy itself. In fact, thanks to the Russians, it is destroying itself right now.
A superb question for Independence Day.
My own answer is that everyone in the Global Village is an American now. Who is for independence and who isn’t? Today is a good day to think about that.
I know, I know, once upon a time there was such a thing as an American citizen, and when I was a kid we all understood that.
But Joe Biden is subsiding anybody in our Global Village who wants to come in, so let’s get real.
Recite after me: LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
Yes, I know, the guy who wrote that owned slaves.
But I’m writing it on an electronic device made by slaves in China, and you’re reading it on one.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Were Americanism to be converted into something more akin to a religion, indeed there's no reason it should be defined by borders. Although the globalists probably don't have that form of pan-nationalism in mind....
The Declaration of Independence is scripture. Being wary of the outrageous claims of clergy, they refrained from using words like “holy.” But it ends with
> we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
In a Global Village divided by religious and ideological conflict leading to mass murder, perhaps “sacred honor” is the best way to describe the new “religion.@
If Americans simply declared their religion to be Americanism, free speech would be protected as religious ritual, and open carry of firearms as religious dress. It's remarkable no one has thought of this.
The Woke Inquisition is not very friendly to religion these days except for their own.
They certainly would equate Americanism with Satanism. After all, their partners for peace in Iran call the USA the Great Satan.
The woke literally make common cause with satanists.
My point was more about leveraging existing legal protections for religious expression. They're extremely difficult to get around; while the left would certainly demonize a religious Americanism, they'd have a difficult time of it in the courts.
I actually wrote a Substack piece about religion:
https://doublesquids.substack.com/p/machine-learning-religion
However you bring up a topic I didn't address: broadening the legal definition of religious freedom. I would certainly support that regarding Americanism.
in/out dynamics are essential to identity formation, yes. good read, thanks.
Glad you liked it.
Very good job delineating the two real options. I vastly prefer the vision of America as an ideology committed to the ideals enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Globalist project is doomed to fail (it is already collapsing), so unless Americans of goodwill conscientiously choose the ideological option, the ethnostate will be the default alternative into which our country will devolve, and it will be brutal and bloody. God help us to see that before it is too late and to instead pursue the ideology of liberty and justice for all, with a commitment to the spirit of Bill of Rights.
Thank you so much for your excellent writing!
The ethnostate and the ideological republic aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Humans are not purely biological; every nation forms around ideals embraced by a people. It's more a question of emphasis.
The other thing, of course, is that bloody civil war may well be inevitable, even in the civic nationalist case. Leftists won't take being stripped of suffrage lying down.
True. It probably will be brutal no matter how it goes, although I think an ethnic conflict would be more deadly. Once it becomes clear that Wokeism is a losing cause, a lot of NPC morons will just change their minds and swear they were never really woke to begin with. But if a particular ethnic group gets labeled the enemy, it'll be like Rwanda during the genocide. A living hell. And those goddamn Wokeists insist on playing identity politics to pit every minority against the white majority (or at least the non-elite whites), which for the past several years has pretty much taken it lying down; but if the identity politics continue, it is 100% certain there will be a backlash, and it will be ugly. I pray to God it doesn't go that way, but the Left is gonna keep fucking around and find out. I hate it, because so many good people of color who don't even agree with the woke bullshit would nonetheless suffer for what the wokeists did. I really pray it doesn't go that way, but it's looking terrifyingly likely.
"America" is just a word to denote things associated with the United States, it means nothing really. Enforcement of the founding ideals will not happen because nobody believes in them anymore. If you don't like the result of the ideas, why cling to the ideas?
"The argument goes that a tolerant society can tolerate everything except the intolerant, who would if given free rein destroy tolerance. Therefore, the intolerant cannot be tolerated, and the tolerant are justified in using any and all means to shut down intolerance."
And since they reserve for themselves the exclusive right to define "intolerance," the "tolerate everything" crowd effectively bans all dissent and leaves only their own points-of-view as officially-sanctioned "tolerance." Therein lies the rub... if we were to apply the same standard to liberty or fealty to the Constitution, they would do as they always do, and redefine the terms in question.
The left has already defined "liberty" as requiring strict gun control, restrictions on speech that hurts people's feelings, curbs on "misinformation," confiscatory taxation and redistribution of income, along with Soviet-style rights to housing, food, gainful employment, medical care, and higher education.. and more recently, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and prison-style lockdowns for everyone.
Or, as Orwell put it, "freedom is slavery."
This is the standard MO of the left. They favor free speech, so they say, but they add that "hate" speech has never been protected as part of "free" speech (which, of course, is as incorrect as it is possible for a mere mortal to be). All they have to do is declare that a given thing they don't want to hear is "hate," and bam! It's gone. That's been the excuse of all social media eradicating all viewpoints other than their own... tolerance for all except the intolerant, where they define what is intolerant. It's no different than having a handful of judges look at the Constitution in 1973 and claiming that somehow the right to abortion is in there. It clearly was not... everyone knows it was a "rabbit from a hat," but hey, if SCOTUS says it's in there, and SCOTUS is the final authority on what's in there, then who are we to say it's not?
We on the right mostly want to be left alone. We don't tend to endorse the total-war tactics of the left, where things like massive voter fraud and mass propaganda are just "part of the process." The left will redefine freedom to be slavery to get people into slavery. They will tell us that words don't mean what they clearly do. They have a mindset that denies objective reality and substitutes "the narrative." They can and will claim to adopt every principle we hold dear while twisting the very definitions to bring about the opposite of what the principles were meant to protect.
In other words, if we adopt "liberty to do anything except attempt to curtail liberty," they will (and have already) define the curtailment of liberty as what we do to advance it. They will define their own attempts to curtail liberty as efforts to promote it. Sure, people could figure all this out pretty easily if they would spend a few seconds applying some critical thought, but it is now abundantly clear, via simple observation of this whole COVID debacle, that precious few people have even the slightest bit of ability to think critically about anything. They will believe that being able to say hurtful things is not protected speech, and that banning hurtful things advances freedom (because "freedom from hurt feelings" sounds like a thing), if they are told to. And they will be.
They'd certainly try, but it would be a difficult thing for them to argue, and under the proposed standard they'd risk losing their rights to participate in the political process by the mere act of trying. No one would stop them from continuing to agitate, but without the ability to vote, run for public office, or hold positions in the bureaucracy, their ability to apply a twisted Newspeak standard would be severely curtailed.
I keep trying to write this, but stuff keeps happening to distract me!
The problem I see with this is that the propaganda efforts don't originate with government officials, in a top-down way.
The media (legacy news media and social media) absolutely do function as a fascist-style appendage of the Party, but they don't require orders from any government official to do so. They are all the same group of people... they have the same ideology, and they know the talking points and the things that they want suppressed, without ever having to be told to do anything. If there was ever a figure that was not on board with the Party's agenda, the media would take it upon themselves to destroy the interloper, while the actual Party members in the government remain "clean" by not having to order them to do it. All one need do is observe the way Trump was treated to know that they are doing exactly this.
The corporate propagandists act as the government would have them do, but they do it autonomously, so that any thorny issues about things like Constitutional rights don't get in the way of the Party's agenda. If questioned, the media giants will simply respond that there is no violation of anyone's Constitutional rights, as it is simply private entities acting as they wish to, and that they are in fact practicing their own free expression by promoting their own viewpoint. Any efforts to stop them, they say, would be the actual violation of the right of free expression.
In this way, the Party (whose members completely own the media) can influence or outright dictate the opinions of most members of the populace, without the governmental officials (who would be subject to oath of office) ever having to get involved. Any efforts to rein in the media, to get it to stop acting as the propaganda arm of the Party, will be made to look like efforts to turn the media into a propaganda machine for the other side (that is, ours; the side of liberty).
Ultimately, the question of 'freedom' becomes one of what the individual wishes to be 'free' of. In the classical liberal view, it is government that we want to be free from, to the greatest degree possible. But to many, especially the latest crop of youngsters raised to be perpetual children who merely trade their actual parents for governmental parents at the age of majority (or sometime thereafter), the freedom that is sought is freedom from responsibility, making hard decisions, and having to act like adults (which they have childishly nicknamed "adulting").
For many, having government make all of their decisions, while providing a guaranteed living wage, guaranteed health care, guaranteed housing, guaranteed food, etc., in exchange for that limited agency over their own lives, looks like freedom. To them, it's not an unwelcome intrusion to have government tell them they can't do X or that they must do Y... it relieves them of the burden of having to think for themselves.
This is the kind of person the Party wants us all to be. Ultimately, the goal is not to have us knuckle under and bow to their rule even though we know it's all based on lies (although they are willing to accept that, for now at least). It's to have us never bother to think about whether it is based on lies in the first place. The goal is to have us take the word of government as we would have taken a parental edict when we were small children: Mom says you must wear your slippers to keep your feet warm to keep from catching a cold, so you do it. It doesn't matter that the idea that having cold feet (but not so much so that it is a great discomfort... if it was, the child would act on his own to avoid the unpleasant feeling) spontaneously makes the cold virus appear in your body is nonsense, and that the very name of the disease ("cold") is based on superstition from a time before we knew microorganisms even existed... Mom said "do it," so you do it.
Spot on.
I think civil war is inevitable. We need to be prepared for that and a rebuilding of our culture afterward.
There must be limits on who can vote. I think it should be limited to property owners, business owners, and combat veterans. Too many people without skin in the game are casting votes to set the rules.
The Starship Troopers Republic has a lot of recommend it.
Your argument is unassailable, your understanding and knowledge of history and human nature impeccable. Another good read, as always. I learn so much from you and your subscribers and commenters.
Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung (Canadians of course). Book one of three:
https://www.amazon.com/Clash-Two-Americas-Unfinished-Symphony/dp/B099TQL46D
Here's one of their pieces on Canada: https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/why-canadas-origin-story-is-a-hoax
Ehret's good. So is Cynthia. They're a bit long-winded at times, and their ambitious scope sometimes takes them onto ground they're obviously not entirely comfortable on, and in which they get some of the details wrong. Nevertheless they're consistently interesting.
True enough, one has to commit to some rather long videos. I owe them for changing my perspective in regards to the shallow US History I was taught every damn year in grade school. Over and over again, the same tiny 250 years of history. Any way I have quibbles too but think they are essential reading/listening.
Yes, it's their historical perspective I find particularly valuable. I don't always fully agree with the slant, but I always learn something interesting.
Really thoughtful piece…thank you.