Precisely! AND, they knew that their constitutional system, should it survive in the short-term, would last - at most - about 75 years (three or four generations). Just imagine how they would respond to today's authoritarian system.
There were different views at the time. Washington warned of the effect of political parties and predicted that IF the people rejected parties the republic would last, and if not, it would not. Other's such as Jefferson seemed to advocate for constant change and was quite clear that "peaceful redress" would only be achievable with the ever present threat of violent overthrow (he said this many ways - you can be suer he would have been "moderated" in 2023). The common theme was that power inherently corrupts and those with power will, eventually, seek nothing but to retain and expand power. Thus the limitations on power designed to distributed and complicate the corruption process. Washington (correctly) asserted that national parties undermined all the limits designed into the system.
Well said. Yes, the truism, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is as ubiquitous as ever. Human nature never changes (or, at least, hasn't yet), and this is the Achilles Heel of how we organize ourselves.
This is the real brilliance behind the organizing of our constitutional representative republic: acknowledgement of this basic trait of humans. The distribution of power. The regulation (control) of the federal government was to come from limiting federal power and providing for regional interests to be represented in congress - the combination of representation that is based solely on region (state) aka the senate balancing the representation proportional to population (house). For the executive, the electoral system is intended also to balance the population vs regional representation. And fundamental to it all is that the federal government as no power to control elections - this power resides in state legislatures.
All of these designed in safeguards are circumvented by national political parties and government control of education (which means party control). Kids are not taught these basics. They are taught that the electoral college is an anachronism (or some other nonsense) and not taught why it exists. Why? so that it can be replaced with federally controlled central "popular" elections.
I think Jefferson was already 'moderated' a few years ago when his statues were torn down. Certainly, quoting his Declaration in a way that implies that it is applicable today is verboten in today's 'woke' world.
Having once been part of a "home owners association", well, it follows the pattern of a government. Once power is obtained, abuse ensues. Call it what you want it ends the same unless we understand the importance of retaining power in the individual.
HOAs are a form of Gov. Yes. You sign the paper that they can control you if you don't follow their rules. Voluntaryism is a set of guidelines people agree to uphold. Folks who go against these principles are not welcome and can be made to leave the group... or, if they commit crimes.. Vigilantism tackles the problem. That is not Government.
I used HOAs as an example of the effect of power. As soon as you use suggest that some people be given power over others the cycle repeats.
I might argue that voluntaryism as you describe is the fundamental principle in Judaism - which provides a set of guidelines people agree to live by, but which no human has the power to compel others. The "laws" include the responsibility to protect each other from harm. But compelling others to believe as we do (proselytizing) is in fact prohibited. Thus I think one can form a strong argument that the concept of a voluntarily shared system of values as a basis for cooperative community can work. IMO key to this is always the free choice to join or leave. However history shows thousands of years of conflict with other systems, showing that this simple idea is not well accepted outside the tribe ;-). In deed it is often seen as a threat to those seeking power.
Other Jews will argue with my interpretation of the laws, but I think my view is well rooted in the Torah and Mitsvah. One of the rules is that we teach our children to read and write, primarily so that they can read the Torah and Mitsvah themselves and figure out what it means to them. This too has been a point of conflict with others for thousands of years (in most cultures literacy was a reserved privilege).
An interesting feature of this kind of system became a center of debate in the 20th century as some questioned the connection between the system of values, guidelines and laws with the divine. The idea that the values, rules and guidelines are of value on their own, even if one does not accept the "origin story": you benefit anyway and you follow the system because it works, which is reason enough. Makes sense - if you choose to believe it is the product of 5000 years of experience rather than provided by a divine source, it still works. I'd argue the ability to realize, and tolerate, this version of faith is one of the most important rules :-).
Government is based on violence or threat of violence. Community agreement is or
should be more in the realm of voluntary cooperation. Big difference. One requires coercion and the other does not. An agreement is a contract of sorts, contracts must be based on two or more parties to voluntarily agree and fulfill the contract as agreed or else amend or dissolve the contract. Contracts do not need to involve government in any way. Hard to imagine while immersed in this slave system! 😅
No. Government does not have to be based on violence or threat of violence. That's just your rule. Penalties for breaching agreements do not have to be violent. There are plenty of other alternatives.
Like many today, you like to redefine words. "Government" has always meant a privileged group of people authorized to use force against others in ways that the general public are not allowed to use. You can create your own language if you want, but don't expect me to use it.
There are common goals that require collective operations. Many we now ascribe to government are not well suited to governments. Probably most. One that starkly stands out IMO is the common defense. At the time of our nations founding, there were many external threats. That number has not diminished. The need to band together and pool resources (and somehow convince the young and fit to defend the rest) is essential. But we've also learned, just as subject to corruption and abuse as any other concentration of power. Thus the need to distribute the defense as well - each citizen armed equally was the reality of the 1700s.
Today too few citizens are mentally prepared to understand the importance of the distributed power structure and the importance of the 9th article of amendment to the United States Constitution.
Actually, adults peacefully interact with each other every day and government is not involved at all. Humans did it before governments were foisted upon us, and we will continue do it after we finally abolish the last tyrant.
"No government" becomes tyranny, every time. "Community agreements" mean nothing without enforcement. In a complex economy, there must be some third party for settling and resolving contracts, or trade would be impossible. No one will enter into a contract if there is no way to enforce the terms. Eventually capital will concentrate to some extent, and the people with the most money (or their progeny) will use the surplus to shape a more favorable governance structure.
That's the thing the laissez-faire crowd doesn't get: *neoliberalism is the inevitable result of free markets.* The elite will eventually discover that their best investment is creating a strong and compliant state to write favorable legislation and enforce their will.
Libertarians and Ancaps are as utopian and ridiculous as communists. Either you abolish all forms of hierarchy, including the state but also money and property rights, or you'll end up with tyranny.
That is what the state wants us to believe. But it is impossible for totalitarianism to exist without the state. Those attempting it would rightly be seen as criminals and dealt with accordingly, instead of re-elected.
In order for capitalism to function at scale a state must exist, at a bare minimum, to enforce contracts. Capitalism cannot happen without contracts unless society is so small that all transactions can be based on personal trust and relationships. The modern world would grind to a halt without them. Without third -party enforcement of these contracts, risk aversion would be extreme, stifling innovation and limiting investment to established players even in the best case scenario. It's unlikely much investment would happen at all.
Even at this minimum, limiting the government solely to contract law and enforcement, it would not be long before surplus capital discovered high yields manipulating and expanding that government to its advantage.
And how did state enforcement of contracts work out for landlords during the lockdowns? Again, you are repeating the propaganda of the state. David Friedman has written quite a bit about this, as did Rothbard and a number of others. There is absolutely nothing that needs doing that the private sector can’t do better and cheaper than the state.
It didn't work out great for landlords but it worked out pretty well for society, not having a mass of homeless people. Better is not an objective term. It depends on your goals. If low cost / efficiency is your goal, then yes, markets are best. And that should be our goal 95% of the time, but there are other times when that's not the best goal, because often cost savings come at the expense of things like resilience, or quality, or dependability, sustainability, or access. When one or more of these things is the goal, then unregulated markets are not ideal.
Consider the outsourcing of American industry. This was great for profits, but not so great for resilience, dependability, or the even distribution of wealth to the middle class. It meant that during COVID we were struggling to find PPE and ventilators on the same crowded international markets as everyone else. It meant the destruction of countless millions of good jobs, and their replacement with low-paying, low-quality service and healthcare jobs. It meant the death of entire towns that used to be supported by manufacturing operations.
The problem is that markets think in quarters, but some challenges and issues move in years and decades.
If David Friedman or Rothbard ignore these realities and blindly insist on a one-size-fits-all solution, they're not serious thinkers. They're ideologues.
Government IS tyranny. The proof is evidenced in natural law. There are thousands of years..if not hundreds of thousands of years of hunter-gathers living without government where communities thrived and did not descend into tyranny. So, no government, by itself doesn't result in tyranny. Will there always be people causing problems and trying to control others...probably. I hope we will evolve to live in harmony on the whole. I am totally on board with abolishing hierarchy, money, property rights.. clearly sources of division & conflict.
I agree, I just think a tyrannical government is inevitable if you allow some humans to gain power over others via money, property rights, etc. Chiefly, I'm arguing against the idea that markets can substitute for governance. Where there are uneven wealth/power distributions, tyranny surely follows.
Not many. But when the Jamestown settlers approached the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to negotiate the first of many treaties they'd later violate, out in western NY where I live, the native people were stunned. "Where are your women," they demanded. In their culture, no such thing could be ratified without three-fourths approval by the women of the clan. They were shocked that these men would make such an important decision without the influence of even a single woman from their community.
Men ruled the clans, but women selected which man would lead, having raised them from birth together and knowing their innermost qualities and faults. They also had sole authority to impeach the leader if he didn't act in the best interests of the clan. I don't want to romanticize them, any system has faults, but systems like this seem to me to be more resistant to tyranny than most.
I imagine more often than not, it will be found that the "smaller and more local the government they more resistant it is to tyranny." And that form of ruling sounds reasonable. I think whenever there are groups of people, some form of structure has to be created to help protect those who are without a voice, my guess is that the smaller the community organization, the less need there is for this. It would be interesting to see the structure of an Amish community, for instance, and how much autonomy they have in their lives.
What part of Western New York do you live? I have relatives that live in Buffalo and Bemus Pt. near Jamestown.
I agree that only small-scale societies can plausibly resist tyranny in the long run. People need to be accountable to each other. Things start to fall apart when heuristics and status replace real social bonds and trust in the social economy.
I don't want to be too specific, but I live near Lake Ontario, and it's great. Cheap land, down-to-earth people doing cool stuff with their land, and lots of fresh water.
I think the idea is every seventy years or so we were supposed to revolt, return to minimal government, and then revolt again once the creep of government became intolerable.
The phenomenon described here-in, by our own Bad Cat, is also well explained in Curtis Yarvin’s “Brief explanation of the Cathedral.” Curtis explains the mechanism of groupthink: “the selective advantage of dominant ideas” and concomitant inability of recessive ideas to compete in any human organization, polity.
It is for the bad cat and Curtis alike - the study of power not of people. And power now firmly resides in the hands of the religious left: “The political Gnosticism of the liberal imperium” as per Professor Patrick Deneen of the Post Liberal substack.
The government is clearly the enemy .
This will need to be addressed before all is lost. The left has much to answer for.
Yes. And I carry a pair of clean, white gloves on my person to be at the ready so I can slap the person who says, "Yes, but WE are the government!" and challenge them to a good, old fashioned duel. The Deep State which protects the Left must go. Until both segments of "the government" are neutralized, it's a constant "wash, rinse, and repeat" hamster wheel that humanity is caught on.
I think the correct nomenclature is "that we are supposed to be the government by and for us." It's obvious we are not. I didn't vote lockdowns, I certainly didn't approve of the vaccine, and I am not onboard with the Ukraine. Give me a list, and I will probably redact more than the government redacts in terms of its own classified documents.
Time is ripe to revisit Zero HP Lovecraft‘s lovely visualisation of Curtis Yarvin‘s famous concept --> twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1305584588014735360 👌 Be sure to glimpse further along the thread 🙂
🗨 If you are on the left: "The problem is that money is influencing politics" or, if you are on the right: "the problem is the vast inefficient bureaucracy". The brilliance of this diagram is that it shows that both fixations are a kind of arrested development.
--
🎶 While The Who’s 1978 studio performance sets the mood right --> youtu.be/UDfAdHBtK_Q
We must accept that hierarchy and centralization are fatal. It was always impossible to sustain the current system because it is based on violence. The key for success is to adopt decentralization in all areas - energy, economy, food production, transport, health, etc. We educate ourselves in principles of natural law. Freedom is an outgrowth of understanding morality and taking right action in accordance with the laws of the universe. Freedom cannot be granted, it must be earned and kept by people who develop & maintain responsibility over themselves. Once this foundation is in place can we create community of responsible individuals in service to humanity.
There is an ancient philosophy and way of living called Ubuntu. It comes out of southern Africa and is based on principles of humanity and preventing conflict through the deep understanding of the interconnection we each have with all others.
Excellent question..I didn't address it in above comment for sake of brevity. Hierarchy found in nature is typically very efficient and supports the processes of life. Man made hierarchical social structures tend to create pyramidal power structures, territorial behavior patterns, loss of collaboration, barriers in communication, imbalances in workload, result in centralization and unnecessary complexity. Hierarchy tends to suppress dissent due to power imbalance. Worst of all..hierarchical organizations tend to continue bad patterns which are not easily identified because critical errors or missing info for decision making may go unnoticed due to bureaucracy, compartmentalization and complexity Consequently hierarchy tends to eventually fail over time..evidenced by the 100 percent failure rates of nation states throughout history, failure of companies and corporations, collapse of social networks and so on. Why is it fatal..because hierarchy fails to create resilience due to lack of independent structures, creates inequity between individuals and largess / complexity leads to inability to recover from internal and external problems over time.
It seems we are in synch as I just wrote a similar piece reflecting on my escape from political tribalism, which I encapsulate thus:
“Shedding my own labels peeled away the cognitive biases that had inhibited my ability to appreciate the perspectives of those outside my in-group, and it helped me see through the lies told to keep my in-group enslaved to an ideology that served the rulers rather than the people.”
I also sketched out my core values, a process I encourage everyone to try as it helped me clarify my inner guiding principles versus those that had been implanted by cultural indoctrination tools such as education and propaganda. These are the five top-level core values I wound up with:
• anti-tyranny | pro-liberty
• anti-fear | pro-courage
• anti-hatred | pro-love
• anti-illusion | pro-reality
• anti-destruction | pro-creation
Here is a Note I wrote on this topic for those who want to read further:
I used to say "Uniparty delenda est!" but I don't think it can be killed anymore.
Now I say, with all credit to my friend Lillia Gajewski, "Elephant and Ass Show" because I don't think we need to kill it. I think it's melting before our very eyes, it's sinking under its own weight. It's untenable. It can't go on because it's senseless.
But sometimes it's fun to watch.
For some, it's Panem et Circenses. To me, just grab some Popcorn and Peach Iced Tea, and watch the flying fur.
All we need to do is withdraw our support per Étienne de La Boétie:
“You can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/covid-is-over-if-you-want-it)
Agree Pi! Yes, the Uniparty is being destroyed. From within. Rapidly.
But I fear the death throes.
And your choice of libation scarcely seems appropriate to toast the end of the world we were fortunate enough to experience in our youth. Surely Balvenie Portwood would better suit the occasion.
I am sorry. I am more into anti cooperation with evil and pro cooperation with good; and intolerance for ... well, things like the mutilation of children and against the sort of open mindedness that allows it to go on....
So as you see... many of the old slogans don't work for me any more.
I think we are still in agreement, but confusion is arising due to different interpretations of the particular terms. You are probably associating “cooperation” with “collectivism,” but if you view the full list of values, you will see I have “anti-collectivism | pro-individualism” under “anti-tyranny | pro-liberty.”
An example of cooperation would be the Canadian trucker protests:
Similarly, when I use “intolerance,” an example would be Wokeism, which is intolerant of opposing viewpoints, so that particular set relates to tolerance of intellectual diversity (what I mean by “open-mindedness”).
I think anti-cheating is covered under “anti-corruption | pro-integrity” and anti-bullying is under “anti–cruelty | pro–kindness.”
I know... it's nitpicking. I am not really in disagreement, I am just not in the mood for slogans that need explaining under the line. And no, anti-bullying is not best described as anti-cruelty pro kindness. Bullying is the abuse of power. And people allow it because they are "pro kindness." It's complicated.
Like I said, not a disagreement. I like your stuff overall. :-)
Haha, no worries, erin. To be clear, these are just what came out of my own process of determining my core values. They’re not slogans or something I’m recommending to anyone else. I’m encouraging people to come up with their own, so it looks like you’ve already started on yours :-)
I totally resonate with all you’ve written, although labels never felt good to me, I did defer a lot to the group I belonged to (best described as “radical left). Interestingly, TODAY I wrote a list of my core values and reflected on to what extent they differ from my pre-pandemic self. This is the list I came up with:
What a beautiful and clarifying list, Gatúbela mexicana! I love everything you included and especially appreciate that it begins with FREEDOM and ends with LOVE!
On the other hand this was the song that was sort of the anthem for all the foolish steps, after 9/11, that We The People allowed by giving our liberties to Uncle Sam.
We traded freedom for safety, as we did with Covid, with much bloodshed and a giant sucking sound of wealth transfer...that cost merely $20 trillion.
It was Duncan Trussell I once heard describe this ongoing, revolving door mess you describe as, ‘It’s like we’ve created a machine to select two apples that we get to choose from millions and millions of apples, except instead of choosing the two best, shiniest, crunchiest apples, it selects the two most rotten, and we have to choose one. There are no others’. Obviously paraphrasing but it’s how it is. The machine is broken and regardless of the quality apples going in, it always spits out the worst two, or at least the most corruptible two. And the cycle goes on. Basically, the system selects those who are most ruthless and self-interested, otherwise they’d never rise to the top of the party. I’m not sure how to fix the machine though, I really don’t. That’s the problem.
Nor do I - though, to my way of thinking, there is something to be said for one whom both wings of the UniParty (U - Pfizer) regarded as such an existential threat that it required a worldwide hoax to promote a bogus vaccine against a largely harmless virus, tanking the US economy, "legally" circumventing the US consitution, and a concerted effort by the Political, and Corporate Classes with the media apparatus providing cover to game the 2020 election in a bloodless coup d'etat to mitigate that threat by removing it from office.
"there is something to be said for one whom *both wings of the UniParty (U - Pfizer) regarded as such an existential threat that it required a worldwide hoax to promote a bogus vaccine"
If being in federal government was boring and relatively pointless, the only people who would do it are the very lazy and the very passionate. The passionate ones tend to be most dangerous, but there are some decent statesmen mixed in.
The fact that we're playing for *all the marbles* now means that the people who cheat are going to beat the ones who play it straight at every juncture, and the competition machine - as you observe - selects the two most rotten apples in the whole world. It's inescapable. Add in the fact that a bunch of outsiders are willing to cheat, too, not always illegally, but at least in really bad faith, and even the rotten apples don't have to cheat. They just have to align with outsiders who will.
And the incentive for cheating is power. Mostly power comes from money, but not all of it.
Where government *must* exist, decentralize it and shallow the pool of power. Where it doesn't *need* to exist, existentially, eliminate it. The argument for which functions go in which pile is an entertaining and valid one, but it comes after we get rid of the massive, deep pool of power sitting in DC today. Until then, I don't care whether you're libertarian or anarchist - you're with me.
i think the answer is probably "yes but" in that there tends to be a bit of a honeymoon period when useful things can be done and in this case, those things involve "taking the us federal bureaucracy, closing it down, and selling it's offices for condos."
rendering government much less powerful and eliminate the "permanent state" would greatly limit the damage that bad leaders can do and at the same times makes government posting less attractive to power seekers.
the only way to remove corruption from government is to take power away from government.
Eric Gordon quoted from '1984' upthread, and in the quoted part is the key to your question:
"...they never had the courage to recognize their own motives..."
It doesn't prevent an authoritarian from trying for power, that's not the meaning of O'Brien's words. It simply means be honestly aware of your own motives: Gnothi Seauton.
You must dare to stare into the Abyss that is yourself, face whatever dwells at its bottom and accept that that too is part of you, and alway will be.
Without acknowledging the Beast within, no one can ever hope to keep it leashed.
All of this is why the only meaningful reform is radical limitation on government powers. Unfortunately, the Bill of Rights has became a sort of permission slip to do anything that isn't prohibited by it, when the intent was for the Constitution to enumerate entirely the powers of the federal government.
Instead of meaningful reform, we can't even get Congress to abolish FISA court surveillance or rein in the tiniest part of the secret police... I mean FBI abuses of power.
The rules limiting government power function as taboos. The first person to violate a taboo is punished roundly, like Caesar, but by the time the second person violates the taboo it is normal and accepted. The habits of a constitutional nation of limited government power are ever more rapidly disintegrating. The young can't even conceive that there should be a limit on the government's duty to censor 'hate speech' or 'disinformation.'
I doubt we will be able to persuade people to advocate for change until they have personally and directly experienced worse abuses of power.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
As I recall, the term moral majority referred to everyday people with moderate views (mostly conservative but the term was inclusive to cross political lines) most of whom didn’t follow, and had enough sense not to send money to, television shills such as Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Pat Robertson. It did become a label used by liberals to slur people without trying to understand them, however. Further, Evangelical Christians, a narrower category that didn’t represent all Christians, never were “in power” per se as President or Majority leaders, that I recall, though they had influence as a strong voting block.
early on, yes, just as "the progressive movement" did.
but it got captured and dominated by an extreme wing. just as the progressive movement has been.
both started with good ideas but turned into nasty, oppressive, suppressive groups once they had power and control of cultural institutions.
i think the groups of the original "moral majority" fell apart and defected because the movement got wrecked and moved away from them.
it's the same cycle we see on the left now.
bizarrely, both seem to want to ban the teaching of evolution, the right to push creationism and the left to dent the idea of biological sex and call it a "social construct."
i suspect there is a sort of lesson there about parties in power disliking the idea of bottoms up emergent systems. it seems to crop up again and again all over the world.
May 1, 2023·edited May 1, 2023Liked by el gato malo
The dynamic described here seems to be extreme wings co-opting a popular movement and then disfiguring and repurposing the semantics whilst keeping the same name, such that it takes time for members of that original population to realize their ideas are no longer represented by the new beast (and some may not come to realize). I suppose there are always power hungry people willing to subvert a good thing for their own purposes and rise due to their wiles. For me it’s more about these types of people - would Machavellis be a good word? - who infest all groups, rather than a system per se. Is there a system that can manage them which is also congruent with freedom and liberty? What kind of system can be designed to expose them for what they are? Perhaps that’s the role of a Free Press in a Constitutional Republic.
it takes that which was once needful and laudable and subverts it. movements tend to sweep to power for good reasons but those reasons get hijacked by the fact of having attained power which brings a very different group with very different aims to the fore.
i don't think this can be managed with "a system" once you have granted the state this much power. the only real way to prevent it it to vest the primacy of power in the inalienable rights of the individual and delimit the state to small, ennumerated power.
this was the genius of the original american system. "a republic if you can keep it..."
we have not done a great job of keeping it. but we could take it back.
i have some specific, concrete ideas on this i keep meaning to lay out and doubtless will one of these days
I for one would be interested in hearing those concrete ideas. It’s seems to me after attending RFKJR’s speech that he may share similar sentiment that we haven’t kept it well.
It seems tropish to blame the MSM but when they transform into entertainment and then transform again into a fascist arm of government, it seems they have forgotten their remit, and thereby have earned the moniker enemy of the people. It is painfully obvious how necessary a free press is to the healthy function of a (limited) government. The founders are rolling over. Perhaps a new free press is needed that performs according to the original vision. If only we as a people could turn off MSM and throw our support to a new free press. We must blame ourselves for feeding the MSM and not rejecting it (the broader ‘ourselves’, not those of us endeavoring on substack).
"The dynamic described here seems to be extreme wings co-opting a popular movement and then disfiguring and repurposing the semantics whilst keeping the same name"
This is described by Burge's Axiom:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kil it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respsect.
I was a young voter during the rise (and eventual fall, if you can say that it fell or just stumbled into insignificance) of the moral majority. I honestly don't see a clear connection between what the MM did and how they did it with the currently leftist hegemony of the Donkey Dudes. Yes, like all large organizations, the people in who ran it favored power over everything else. In my POV its the only way gain power in big organizations. The results are predictable.
But the MM did not wield power like the Leftists currently do. First, even though the leadership (Fallwell) was a right looney, the Christian Right as it was called, endorsed candidates and pushed their agenda, just like the labor unions and other large organizations did at the time. They were one of many "affinity" voting block organizations. There were some who were burning books and others were protesting what they saw as the moral failings of leaders and institutions. And "Foulwell" was the master of hot mic outrages that I think were mostly on purpose. Under the first amendment this is all fair game. The MM did not manage (they probably desired it) to co-opt govt funded agencies etc. There wasn't a MM caucus in the congress. They had, at their peak, 4-6 MM members and received donations from 2MM. Not small, but hardly the reach of AFLCIO members (roughly 20MM, at the time, all of whom where donating_whether they wanted to or not)
What the Christian right did do is scare the bejeezus out of the entrenched leftist, and their pachyderm uniparty co-conspirators. These uni-partists didn't want their own values up for discussion. So they spent a lot of time (including cartoonists) making it seem like the Christian Right (which they embodied as the MM) was this huge overbearing organization that wanted to take away your freedoms, shoot you in the back etc. I am totally unaware, and can't find credible sources for "blacklists" and that sort of thing. I'm willing to be schooled for sure. Just don't see the receipts.
Finally, I think you were referring to the disgusting Jim Bakker. Jim and Tammy Bakker were both hardly human and worthy of our derision. But neither of them were a significant part (if they were ever involved at all) in the MM, that would have taken too much time away from prostitutes, besides, the PTL network they ran competed with Fallwell.
After Fallwell left the leadership of the MM, he purchased Bakker's financially troubled "ministry" and then bankrupted it. Not sure if he was more interested in getting it out of the competition or really tried to save it. But that is the only connection of which I'm aware. To be clear, most of the "leaders" of the MM did not pass muster for me to think well of them.
Gato, I disagree. Maybe they FELT like they were near extinction, when objectively it was just that they didn't hold ALL the levers of power. (Boo-hoo!)
I was very politically active in the 1980s. At the time, Democrats had a majority in the U.S. House and held most state governorships. Plus of course they had the usual assortment of dominant perches in the culture ("news" media, entertainment, arts). And then they hounded and harassed a Republican president for seeking a way to support anti-Communists in Nicaragua.
Gary Trudeau (what is it with people named "Trudeau"?) may have felt his comrades were going extinct, but that's a function of the fact that finally, at long last, they were facing effective competition and could no longer rule unchallenged.
The Tao of dynamic balance is the way, as best we can achieve it. There is no “good” static state-it’s always that shining city on the hill that ends up demanding a foundation of skulls “just this once, cuz we’re the good guys and we’re different.”
This is what was meant by “keeping” the Republic; you cannot turn your back on power. It requires constant challenge from whichever angle reveals its weakness and shows the naked emperor.
And that’s exhausting for ordinary people trying to keep food on the table, so it falls to a dedicated few, who then succumb to the siren song, and the wheel turns.
I’ve come to see that this is both inevitable and okay, and constitutes Michael Malice’s White Pill-never give up hope because the wheel is always spinning, *as long as we keep spinning it.*
"This is what was meant by “keeping” the Republic; you cannot turn your back on power. It requires constant challenge from whichever angle reveals its weakness and shows the naked emperor."
I sure wish we could fit this on a bumper sticker because people need to think about this every day.
Wilson (and wife arguably) was a nasty piece of work. My Great Grandmother (born and raised in Western Iowa) spoke German at home, school and church until the age of 13, and then it all ended. She was still alive when I was in my teens. I asked her why it so suddently stopped and even in her 80s she wouldn't come out and say why. I did the math in my head and then some reading and realized it was during that very dark period of our history.
When some of what's yours isn't yours anymore, you've lost the entire plot on property rights and *insert slippery slope here* it's only a matter of time before All of Your Property Belongs To Us. Signed, The Collective
Yeah agree for most part. Sort of wanted to learn and have it "documented".
Only difference I see today is you don't need the pony express or radio to accomplish the same thing at orders of magnitude higher velocity and interconnection. And perhaps a tighter vice.
On a lighter note about the 80's "moral majority" you pointed out:
Good to reflect. Perhaps that suggests sanity might return. I watched the Tea Party get destroyed even as a few got elected but they had no leader. The MAGA effort seems a rework of the Tea Party as Trump used the same forces. So a leader emerged flawed as he may be. All efforts arise to destroy MAGA using the same tactics and even some of the same rhetoric. That demonization might succeed as before, so the same public desires will be suppressed again, only to arise again. Hope is eternal.
I think the concern is how much power is controlled by the federal and state governments. It would seem that the bureaucratic state is so much larger than it was in the past and therefore the power and desire to maintain control is so much higher. But the flow of information is so much harder to control now as well. I hope that this cycle of authoritarianism is ebbing, but I’m worried that the stability of the cycle might have been broken. Covid just shows that something has gone off the rails.
its not just the governments, they work hand in hand with the corporations. If you "fix" the government but leave the corporations alone we'll be right back where we started.
The bailouts piss me just slightly below 20 years in Afghanistan and covid.
What I thinking about is limiting corporations veil back to a "charter" with the state as was initially intended. They have found ways to circumvent that...in a multitude of ways
As we go diving into NetZero policies, both sides are gonna get *real loud* for a while, and then we'll find out who is right and who is dead, so to speak.
The internet is a powerful tool, and both sides have it. Which makes it such an obvious tactical move to try to remove the other side from access to it. I don't think it's possible, but they got close with Covid. We shall see...
The argument of this essay is largely correct in terms of general tendencies, but it smacks of trying to establish oneself as superior to the fray in a way that annihilates both history and responsibility. It trivializes the current moment by saying, "Ho hum. This is just the same as it has ever been, and whatever crimes are being committed would be committed equally by the offenders' opponents, if they were in power."
It is true that there is the incentive to silence one's opponents when one has a hard-won, tenuous grasp on awesome power. It is not true that all factions are equal in their tendency to succumb to that temptation. Whatever petty corruption certain televangelists may have engaged in to their own and their followers' shame, there was nothing in the 1980s backswing against 1960s and '70s "liberalism" to compare with the ravenous power-grabbing and openly-demanded censorship of the wokist and vax-covidian fanatics today. Nor was there by the Trump administration, only a few years ago.
It matters where we tie the knot of our virtue. If we stand openly for liberty, fair play, and honorable conduct, then our friends and enemies will rightly denounce us as hypocrites should we betray these values, and we will lose power accordingly. Factions that call for "safety" or "justice", or the stamping out of human nature in the form of racism, inequality, misinformation, or smut, are capable, with no inconsistency in their standards, of any atrocity.
"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." -- Frank Herbert (Dune)
2000 years ago one penned “There is nothing new under the sun”. Man hasn’t changed.. starting of with great ideals they are compromised through time. All fall as the vision is tarnished and lost as it is passed to the next generation. At each passing more is lost and cannot be regained
Correction. Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes 1:19 about 950 BC. So that's 3000 yrs. ago. Lest the reader attribute that to a New Testament author. The sentiment stands, however.
I disagree. The tendencies you outline certainly do exist, and they affect everyone. But they do not affect everyone equally, not by a long shot. And I believe it is safe to say that those more susceptible to these tendencies are not randomly (equally) distributed between the parties.
One way people can be sorted is to say there are two kinds of people: Type A, those who wake up in the morning concerned about themselves, their own, and matters in "their own backyard," and Type B, those who wake up worrying about everyone else, and how to control everyone else. Another description of the same two groups would be those who just want to be left alone, and those who are activists, who are all about others, and controlling the behavior of those others. All others, without limit. One of these two groups is LOT more about power, and susceptible to it's temptations, than the other.
One of our parties can aptly be described as the party of government. It is naturally (literally so) heavily populated by Type B individuals. It seems you have entirely overlooked this difference.
As to everyone being equally affected by power, I give you George Washington. At the time he left the office of President, he held more power in this country than anyone then or since, and was being asked - begged, even - to stay on. He could have been King. He famously walked away.
There are such people, and there are a lot more of them in one party than the other. That would be the party with more Type A and fewer Type B individuals.
Recent empirical evidence is provided by the differing reactions to the covid insanity in the Red and Blue states. There was clearly less abuse of power and more freedom in the Red states, was there not? There is a difference in the parties.
We have ignored the fundemental brilliance and the warnings from our Founders.
Two words "Limited Government".
They knew.
Precisely! AND, they knew that their constitutional system, should it survive in the short-term, would last - at most - about 75 years (three or four generations). Just imagine how they would respond to today's authoritarian system.
They'd put fresh flints in the locks of their rifles.
There were different views at the time. Washington warned of the effect of political parties and predicted that IF the people rejected parties the republic would last, and if not, it would not. Other's such as Jefferson seemed to advocate for constant change and was quite clear that "peaceful redress" would only be achievable with the ever present threat of violent overthrow (he said this many ways - you can be suer he would have been "moderated" in 2023). The common theme was that power inherently corrupts and those with power will, eventually, seek nothing but to retain and expand power. Thus the limitations on power designed to distributed and complicate the corruption process. Washington (correctly) asserted that national parties undermined all the limits designed into the system.
Well said. Yes, the truism, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is as ubiquitous as ever. Human nature never changes (or, at least, hasn't yet), and this is the Achilles Heel of how we organize ourselves.
This is the real brilliance behind the organizing of our constitutional representative republic: acknowledgement of this basic trait of humans. The distribution of power. The regulation (control) of the federal government was to come from limiting federal power and providing for regional interests to be represented in congress - the combination of representation that is based solely on region (state) aka the senate balancing the representation proportional to population (house). For the executive, the electoral system is intended also to balance the population vs regional representation. And fundamental to it all is that the federal government as no power to control elections - this power resides in state legislatures.
All of these designed in safeguards are circumvented by national political parties and government control of education (which means party control). Kids are not taught these basics. They are taught that the electoral college is an anachronism (or some other nonsense) and not taught why it exists. Why? so that it can be replaced with federally controlled central "popular" elections.
I think Jefferson was already 'moderated' a few years ago when his statues were torn down. Certainly, quoting his Declaration in a way that implies that it is applicable today is verboten in today's 'woke' world.
"Those dead old white guys who invented this country knew what they were talking about"
- Charlton Heston
I prefer no government.
Yes . A limited government is the seed for a totaltalitarian state.
We need agreements between us to operate as neighbours. We require some government.
No. We need Community Agreements. Did you not comprehend the article you just read? NO SYSTEM of Gov will ever result in Freedom.
Having once been part of a "home owners association", well, it follows the pattern of a government. Once power is obtained, abuse ensues. Call it what you want it ends the same unless we understand the importance of retaining power in the individual.
HOAs are a form of Gov. Yes. You sign the paper that they can control you if you don't follow their rules. Voluntaryism is a set of guidelines people agree to uphold. Folks who go against these principles are not welcome and can be made to leave the group... or, if they commit crimes.. Vigilantism tackles the problem. That is not Government.
I used HOAs as an example of the effect of power. As soon as you use suggest that some people be given power over others the cycle repeats.
I might argue that voluntaryism as you describe is the fundamental principle in Judaism - which provides a set of guidelines people agree to live by, but which no human has the power to compel others. The "laws" include the responsibility to protect each other from harm. But compelling others to believe as we do (proselytizing) is in fact prohibited. Thus I think one can form a strong argument that the concept of a voluntarily shared system of values as a basis for cooperative community can work. IMO key to this is always the free choice to join or leave. However history shows thousands of years of conflict with other systems, showing that this simple idea is not well accepted outside the tribe ;-). In deed it is often seen as a threat to those seeking power.
Other Jews will argue with my interpretation of the laws, but I think my view is well rooted in the Torah and Mitsvah. One of the rules is that we teach our children to read and write, primarily so that they can read the Torah and Mitsvah themselves and figure out what it means to them. This too has been a point of conflict with others for thousands of years (in most cultures literacy was a reserved privilege).
An interesting feature of this kind of system became a center of debate in the 20th century as some questioned the connection between the system of values, guidelines and laws with the divine. The idea that the values, rules and guidelines are of value on their own, even if one does not accept the "origin story": you benefit anyway and you follow the system because it works, which is reason enough. Makes sense - if you choose to believe it is the product of 5000 years of experience rather than provided by a divine source, it still works. I'd argue the ability to realize, and tolerate, this version of faith is one of the most important rules :-).
If we have agreements we have government. What part of that do you not comprehend.?
Government is based on violence or threat of violence. Community agreement is or
should be more in the realm of voluntary cooperation. Big difference. One requires coercion and the other does not. An agreement is a contract of sorts, contracts must be based on two or more parties to voluntarily agree and fulfill the contract as agreed or else amend or dissolve the contract. Contracts do not need to involve government in any way. Hard to imagine while immersed in this slave system! 😅
No. Government does not have to be based on violence or threat of violence. That's just your rule. Penalties for breaching agreements do not have to be violent. There are plenty of other alternatives.
Like many today, you like to redefine words. "Government" has always meant a privileged group of people authorized to use force against others in ways that the general public are not allowed to use. You can create your own language if you want, but don't expect me to use it.
Balderdash.
I do not comprehend your logical fallacy.
No doubt. No logical fallacy, but your comprehension is a flailing mess.
There are common goals that require collective operations. Many we now ascribe to government are not well suited to governments. Probably most. One that starkly stands out IMO is the common defense. At the time of our nations founding, there were many external threats. That number has not diminished. The need to band together and pool resources (and somehow convince the young and fit to defend the rest) is essential. But we've also learned, just as subject to corruption and abuse as any other concentration of power. Thus the need to distribute the defense as well - each citizen armed equally was the reality of the 1700s.
Today too few citizens are mentally prepared to understand the importance of the distributed power structure and the importance of the 9th article of amendment to the United States Constitution.
Actually, adults peacefully interact with each other every day and government is not involved at all. Humans did it before governments were foisted upon us, and we will continue do it after we finally abolish the last tyrant.
You may, I do not.
"No government" becomes tyranny, every time. "Community agreements" mean nothing without enforcement. In a complex economy, there must be some third party for settling and resolving contracts, or trade would be impossible. No one will enter into a contract if there is no way to enforce the terms. Eventually capital will concentrate to some extent, and the people with the most money (or their progeny) will use the surplus to shape a more favorable governance structure.
That's the thing the laissez-faire crowd doesn't get: *neoliberalism is the inevitable result of free markets.* The elite will eventually discover that their best investment is creating a strong and compliant state to write favorable legislation and enforce their will.
Libertarians and Ancaps are as utopian and ridiculous as communists. Either you abolish all forms of hierarchy, including the state but also money and property rights, or you'll end up with tyranny.
That is what the state wants us to believe. But it is impossible for totalitarianism to exist without the state. Those attempting it would rightly be seen as criminals and dealt with accordingly, instead of re-elected.
In order for capitalism to function at scale a state must exist, at a bare minimum, to enforce contracts. Capitalism cannot happen without contracts unless society is so small that all transactions can be based on personal trust and relationships. The modern world would grind to a halt without them. Without third -party enforcement of these contracts, risk aversion would be extreme, stifling innovation and limiting investment to established players even in the best case scenario. It's unlikely much investment would happen at all.
Even at this minimum, limiting the government solely to contract law and enforcement, it would not be long before surplus capital discovered high yields manipulating and expanding that government to its advantage.
And how did state enforcement of contracts work out for landlords during the lockdowns? Again, you are repeating the propaganda of the state. David Friedman has written quite a bit about this, as did Rothbard and a number of others. There is absolutely nothing that needs doing that the private sector can’t do better and cheaper than the state.
It didn't work out great for landlords but it worked out pretty well for society, not having a mass of homeless people. Better is not an objective term. It depends on your goals. If low cost / efficiency is your goal, then yes, markets are best. And that should be our goal 95% of the time, but there are other times when that's not the best goal, because often cost savings come at the expense of things like resilience, or quality, or dependability, sustainability, or access. When one or more of these things is the goal, then unregulated markets are not ideal.
Consider the outsourcing of American industry. This was great for profits, but not so great for resilience, dependability, or the even distribution of wealth to the middle class. It meant that during COVID we were struggling to find PPE and ventilators on the same crowded international markets as everyone else. It meant the destruction of countless millions of good jobs, and their replacement with low-paying, low-quality service and healthcare jobs. It meant the death of entire towns that used to be supported by manufacturing operations.
The problem is that markets think in quarters, but some challenges and issues move in years and decades.
If David Friedman or Rothbard ignore these realities and blindly insist on a one-size-fits-all solution, they're not serious thinkers. They're ideologues.
Government IS tyranny. The proof is evidenced in natural law. There are thousands of years..if not hundreds of thousands of years of hunter-gathers living without government where communities thrived and did not descend into tyranny. So, no government, by itself doesn't result in tyranny. Will there always be people causing problems and trying to control others...probably. I hope we will evolve to live in harmony on the whole. I am totally on board with abolishing hierarchy, money, property rights.. clearly sources of division & conflict.
I agree, I just think a tyrannical government is inevitable if you allow some humans to gain power over others via money, property rights, etc. Chiefly, I'm arguing against the idea that markets can substitute for governance. Where there are uneven wealth/power distributions, tyranny surely follows.
Has there ever been a form of government or no government that doesn't lead to tyranny?
Not many. But when the Jamestown settlers approached the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to negotiate the first of many treaties they'd later violate, out in western NY where I live, the native people were stunned. "Where are your women," they demanded. In their culture, no such thing could be ratified without three-fourths approval by the women of the clan. They were shocked that these men would make such an important decision without the influence of even a single woman from their community.
Men ruled the clans, but women selected which man would lead, having raised them from birth together and knowing their innermost qualities and faults. They also had sole authority to impeach the leader if he didn't act in the best interests of the clan. I don't want to romanticize them, any system has faults, but systems like this seem to me to be more resistant to tyranny than most.
https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/HaudenosauneeGuide.pdf
https://www.oneidaindiannation.com/inspiring-womens-rights-haudenosaunee-life-stimulates-historical-movement/
I imagine more often than not, it will be found that the "smaller and more local the government they more resistant it is to tyranny." And that form of ruling sounds reasonable. I think whenever there are groups of people, some form of structure has to be created to help protect those who are without a voice, my guess is that the smaller the community organization, the less need there is for this. It would be interesting to see the structure of an Amish community, for instance, and how much autonomy they have in their lives.
What part of Western New York do you live? I have relatives that live in Buffalo and Bemus Pt. near Jamestown.
I agree that only small-scale societies can plausibly resist tyranny in the long run. People need to be accountable to each other. Things start to fall apart when heuristics and status replace real social bonds and trust in the social economy.
I don't want to be too specific, but I live near Lake Ontario, and it's great. Cheap land, down-to-earth people doing cool stuff with their land, and lots of fresh water.
I think the idea is every seventy years or so we were supposed to revolt, return to minimal government, and then revolt again once the creep of government became intolerable.
What a bloody future Jefferson believed in.
The government is clearly the enemy.
The phenomenon described here-in, by our own Bad Cat, is also well explained in Curtis Yarvin’s “Brief explanation of the Cathedral.” Curtis explains the mechanism of groupthink: “the selective advantage of dominant ideas” and concomitant inability of recessive ideas to compete in any human organization, polity.
It is for the bad cat and Curtis alike - the study of power not of people. And power now firmly resides in the hands of the religious left: “The political Gnosticism of the liberal imperium” as per Professor Patrick Deneen of the Post Liberal substack.
The government is clearly the enemy .
This will need to be addressed before all is lost. The left has much to answer for.
Yes. And I carry a pair of clean, white gloves on my person to be at the ready so I can slap the person who says, "Yes, but WE are the government!" and challenge them to a good, old fashioned duel. The Deep State which protects the Left must go. Until both segments of "the government" are neutralized, it's a constant "wash, rinse, and repeat" hamster wheel that humanity is caught on.
You gave me a good laugh.
*searches for White Gloves on Amazon*
I think the correct nomenclature is "that we are supposed to be the government by and for us." It's obvious we are not. I didn't vote lockdowns, I certainly didn't approve of the vaccine, and I am not onboard with the Ukraine. Give me a list, and I will probably redact more than the government redacts in terms of its own classified documents.
Time is ripe to revisit Zero HP Lovecraft‘s lovely visualisation of Curtis Yarvin‘s famous concept --> twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1305584588014735360 👌 Be sure to glimpse further along the thread 🙂
🗨 If you are on the left: "The problem is that money is influencing politics" or, if you are on the right: "the problem is the vast inefficient bureaucracy". The brilliance of this diagram is that it shows that both fixations are a kind of arrested development.
--
🎶 While The Who’s 1978 studio performance sets the mood right --> youtu.be/UDfAdHBtK_Q
Ah, the oxymoron posing as a principle.
And it’s too late to turn this around. What does one do now?
We must accept that hierarchy and centralization are fatal. It was always impossible to sustain the current system because it is based on violence. The key for success is to adopt decentralization in all areas - energy, economy, food production, transport, health, etc. We educate ourselves in principles of natural law. Freedom is an outgrowth of understanding morality and taking right action in accordance with the laws of the universe. Freedom cannot be granted, it must be earned and kept by people who develop & maintain responsibility over themselves. Once this foundation is in place can we create community of responsible individuals in service to humanity.
I fully agree. See my recent comment.
Oxymorons aside, maybe the overarching conundrum is that humanity is depending upon humans to save humanity from humans.
What we need is a new philosophy realizing that no matter what our best intentions are, there inevitably will be those that exploit them.
There is an ancient philosophy and way of living called Ubuntu. It comes out of southern Africa and is based on principles of humanity and preventing conflict through the deep understanding of the interconnection we each have with all others.
https://www.ttbook.org/interview/i-am-because-we-are-african-philosophy-ubuntu
How is hierarchy fatal?
Excellent question..I didn't address it in above comment for sake of brevity. Hierarchy found in nature is typically very efficient and supports the processes of life. Man made hierarchical social structures tend to create pyramidal power structures, territorial behavior patterns, loss of collaboration, barriers in communication, imbalances in workload, result in centralization and unnecessary complexity. Hierarchy tends to suppress dissent due to power imbalance. Worst of all..hierarchical organizations tend to continue bad patterns which are not easily identified because critical errors or missing info for decision making may go unnoticed due to bureaucracy, compartmentalization and complexity Consequently hierarchy tends to eventually fail over time..evidenced by the 100 percent failure rates of nation states throughout history, failure of companies and corporations, collapse of social networks and so on. Why is it fatal..because hierarchy fails to create resilience due to lack of independent structures, creates inequity between individuals and largess / complexity leads to inability to recover from internal and external problems over time.
"The more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself..."
Thomas Paine, "Chapter I. Of Society and Civilisation", The Rights of Man (1791)
“it’s the coke vs pepsi selection of ‘who’s going to be doing the suppression and rapacious taking this time?’”
This analogy is more appropriate than you may realize as BlackRock and Vanguard basically own both Pepsi and Coke and create the illusion of competition—just like they do with their two parties! (https://organicconsumers.org/who-owns-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/)
It seems we are in synch as I just wrote a similar piece reflecting on my escape from political tribalism, which I encapsulate thus:
“Shedding my own labels peeled away the cognitive biases that had inhibited my ability to appreciate the perspectives of those outside my in-group, and it helped me see through the lies told to keep my in-group enslaved to an ideology that served the rulers rather than the people.”
• “My Two-Year Stackiversary: Lattice of Coincidence + The Courage to Face the Truth” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/my-two-year-stackiversary-lattice)
I also sketched out my core values, a process I encourage everyone to try as it helped me clarify my inner guiding principles versus those that had been implanted by cultural indoctrination tools such as education and propaganda. These are the five top-level core values I wound up with:
• anti-tyranny | pro-liberty
• anti-fear | pro-courage
• anti-hatred | pro-love
• anti-illusion | pro-reality
• anti-destruction | pro-creation
Here is a Note I wrote on this topic for those who want to read further:
• https://substack.com/profile/1727692-sherman-alexie/note/c-15370018
I used to say "Uniparty delenda est!" but I don't think it can be killed anymore.
Now I say, with all credit to my friend Lillia Gajewski, "Elephant and Ass Show" because I don't think we need to kill it. I think it's melting before our very eyes, it's sinking under its own weight. It's untenable. It can't go on because it's senseless.
But sometimes it's fun to watch.
For some, it's Panem et Circenses. To me, just grab some Popcorn and Peach Iced Tea, and watch the flying fur.
All we need to do is withdraw our support per Étienne de La Boétie:
“You can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/covid-is-over-if-you-want-it)
“The Politics of Obedience” is a great read.
Yes! It’s part of the curriculum for my 12-step recovery program for menticide :-)
• “Letter to the Menticided: A 12-Step Recovery Program” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-the-menticided-a-12-step)
I think the belief is from their perspective that the old system will fail to be supplanted by authoritarianism.
Or a kinder authoritarian than the last one.
Here's Lillia's Substack post "The Elephant and Ass Show:
https://lilliagajewski.substack.com/p/the-elephant-and-ass-show
Agree Pi! Yes, the Uniparty is being destroyed. From within. Rapidly.
But I fear the death throes.
And your choice of libation scarcely seems appropriate to toast the end of the world we were fortunate enough to experience in our youth. Surely Balvenie Portwood would better suit the occasion.
I'm a Bourbon Man - Jefferson's has been the recent go-to.
The Peach Tea is for Lil.
*waves* Hi, Lil!
The hate / love duality has been profaned. Destruction is necessary, once in a while.
I'll just go with:
anti tyranny, pro-freedom
anti fear pro courage,
and anti illusion pro reality.
Thanks.
The subsets I list under each core value help illuminate the meaning. The hate/love section includes:
anti-war | pro-peace
anti-divisiveness | pro-cooperation
anti-envy | pro-gratitude
anti-intolerance | pro–open-mindedness
anti-nihilism | pro–sober optimism
anti–cruelty | pro–kindness
anti-bitterness | pro-joy
anti-destruction | pro-creativity
Anti-Em Anti-Em, we're not in Kansas anymore.
I am sorry. I am more into anti cooperation with evil and pro cooperation with good; and intolerance for ... well, things like the mutilation of children and against the sort of open mindedness that allows it to go on....
So as you see... many of the old slogans don't work for me any more.
I would add, though.... hm...
anti-lies pro truth
anti cheating and bullying pro fair play
I think we are still in agreement, but confusion is arising due to different interpretations of the particular terms. You are probably associating “cooperation” with “collectivism,” but if you view the full list of values, you will see I have “anti-collectivism | pro-individualism” under “anti-tyranny | pro-liberty.”
An example of cooperation would be the Canadian trucker protests:
• “Profiles in Courage: The Canadian Truckers” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage-the-canadian)
An example of divisiveness, by contrast, would be what the propagandists do:
• “A Primer for the Propagandized: Fear Is the Mind-Killer” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/a-primer-for-the-propagandized)
Similarly, when I use “intolerance,” an example would be Wokeism, which is intolerant of opposing viewpoints, so that particular set relates to tolerance of intellectual diversity (what I mean by “open-mindedness”).
I think anti-cheating is covered under “anti-corruption | pro-integrity” and anti-bullying is under “anti–cruelty | pro–kindness.”
I know... it's nitpicking. I am not really in disagreement, I am just not in the mood for slogans that need explaining under the line. And no, anti-bullying is not best described as anti-cruelty pro kindness. Bullying is the abuse of power. And people allow it because they are "pro kindness." It's complicated.
Like I said, not a disagreement. I like your stuff overall. :-)
Haha, no worries, erin. To be clear, these are just what came out of my own process of determining my core values. They’re not slogans or something I’m recommending to anyone else. I’m encouraging people to come up with their own, so it looks like you’ve already started on yours :-)
Those are some values I can live with❤️
I totally resonate with all you’ve written, although labels never felt good to me, I did defer a lot to the group I belonged to (best described as “radical left). Interestingly, TODAY I wrote a list of my core values and reflected on to what extent they differ from my pre-pandemic self. This is the list I came up with:
My values and what I stand for:
FREEDOM
Liberty
Dignity
Respect
Kindness
Fun
Family
LOVE
What a beautiful and clarifying list, Gatúbela mexicana! I love everything you included and especially appreciate that it begins with FREEDOM and ends with LOVE!
Nailed it. Pete Townsend today : "we will get fooled again".
Irony:
On the other hand this was the song that was sort of the anthem for all the foolish steps, after 9/11, that We The People allowed by giving our liberties to Uncle Sam.
We traded freedom for safety, as we did with Covid, with much bloodshed and a giant sucking sound of wealth transfer...that cost merely $20 trillion.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ya60b
It makes me so angry, Ryan.
OMG. Don't get me started!...;)
Dear Government. I'm going to have a serious talk with you if I ever find anyone to talk to.
Which bureaucrat do I talk to so I can lobby for not having to take my shoes off at the airport?
From shoes to surveillance....they'll take it all.
When exactly can we expect to get those liberties we relinquished back?
You know the answer, brother. We’ll NEVER get them back.
I'm completely at a loss to find a direct quote but the saying goes:
"The Liberty Ratchet only tightens in One Direction"
That's not verbatim. Don't quote me.
"and the one-way ratchet of perm-gov dominion over them and us alike will click ever tighter."
Note to self: Read entire article prior to commenting.
The Bad Cat's probably already covered any base I can think of.
*jots on flyleaf of noggin for future reference*
Like
Oh man. In order to remove the absurd iniquity of removing my fgn shoes:
I put myself "in the system" with the TSA "trusted traveler" category...
I am now an approved human, until I ain't. All the Threeletters now have me dead to rights. Chant with me now:
O-wahhh
T- ghooo
Zy-ammm
<a little boy scout joke>
I'll just drive to FL next time.
Exactly!
Plus being barked at by TSA agents with IQ's of 85.
Check this out. I promise you will lyao (4 minutes):
https://youtu.be/ysGGVNIG4nE
You neglected to put "safety" in quotes RG.
Boy, that's the truth.
It was Duncan Trussell I once heard describe this ongoing, revolving door mess you describe as, ‘It’s like we’ve created a machine to select two apples that we get to choose from millions and millions of apples, except instead of choosing the two best, shiniest, crunchiest apples, it selects the two most rotten, and we have to choose one. There are no others’. Obviously paraphrasing but it’s how it is. The machine is broken and regardless of the quality apples going in, it always spits out the worst two, or at least the most corruptible two. And the cycle goes on. Basically, the system selects those who are most ruthless and self-interested, otherwise they’d never rise to the top of the party. I’m not sure how to fix the machine though, I really don’t. That’s the problem.
Nor do I - though, to my way of thinking, there is something to be said for one whom both wings of the UniParty (U - Pfizer) regarded as such an existential threat that it required a worldwide hoax to promote a bogus vaccine against a largely harmless virus, tanking the US economy, "legally" circumventing the US consitution, and a concerted effort by the Political, and Corporate Classes with the media apparatus providing cover to game the 2020 election in a bloodless coup d'etat to mitigate that threat by removing it from office.
"there is something to be said for one whom *both wings of the UniParty (U - Pfizer) regarded as such an existential threat that it required a worldwide hoax to promote a bogus vaccine"
Pam from The Office says No Difference.
https://imgflip.com/i/7k4gjq
Take away the power.
If being in federal government was boring and relatively pointless, the only people who would do it are the very lazy and the very passionate. The passionate ones tend to be most dangerous, but there are some decent statesmen mixed in.
The fact that we're playing for *all the marbles* now means that the people who cheat are going to beat the ones who play it straight at every juncture, and the competition machine - as you observe - selects the two most rotten apples in the whole world. It's inescapable. Add in the fact that a bunch of outsiders are willing to cheat, too, not always illegally, but at least in really bad faith, and even the rotten apples don't have to cheat. They just have to align with outsiders who will.
And the incentive for cheating is power. Mostly power comes from money, but not all of it.
Where government *must* exist, decentralize it and shallow the pool of power. Where it doesn't *need* to exist, existentially, eliminate it. The argument for which functions go in which pile is an entertaining and valid one, but it comes after we get rid of the massive, deep pool of power sitting in DC today. Until then, I don't care whether you're libertarian or anarchist - you're with me.
It can’t be fixed
Great post!
What I am worried about is, once "we" take over the government, will "we" also turn authoritarian and nasty? The answer is "probably yes"
i think the answer is probably "yes but" in that there tends to be a bit of a honeymoon period when useful things can be done and in this case, those things involve "taking the us federal bureaucracy, closing it down, and selling it's offices for condos."
rendering government much less powerful and eliminate the "permanent state" would greatly limit the damage that bad leaders can do and at the same times makes government posting less attractive to power seekers.
the only way to remove corruption from government is to take power away from government.
Amen!
Eric Gordon quoted from '1984' upthread, and in the quoted part is the key to your question:
"...they never had the courage to recognize their own motives..."
It doesn't prevent an authoritarian from trying for power, that's not the meaning of O'Brien's words. It simply means be honestly aware of your own motives: Gnothi Seauton.
You must dare to stare into the Abyss that is yourself, face whatever dwells at its bottom and accept that that too is part of you, and alway will be.
Without acknowledging the Beast within, no one can ever hope to keep it leashed.
Anyone who's ever had even the least power over a subordinate has felt how quickly that little enjoyment of it grows.
See "Trump"
All of this is why the only meaningful reform is radical limitation on government powers. Unfortunately, the Bill of Rights has became a sort of permission slip to do anything that isn't prohibited by it, when the intent was for the Constitution to enumerate entirely the powers of the federal government.
Instead of meaningful reform, we can't even get Congress to abolish FISA court surveillance or rein in the tiniest part of the secret police... I mean FBI abuses of power.
The rules limiting government power function as taboos. The first person to violate a taboo is punished roundly, like Caesar, but by the time the second person violates the taboo it is normal and accepted. The habits of a constitutional nation of limited government power are ever more rapidly disintegrating. The young can't even conceive that there should be a limit on the government's duty to censor 'hate speech' or 'disinformation.'
I doubt we will be able to persuade people to advocate for change until they have personally and directly experienced worse abuses of power.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
George Orwell, 1984
As I recall, the term moral majority referred to everyday people with moderate views (mostly conservative but the term was inclusive to cross political lines) most of whom didn’t follow, and had enough sense not to send money to, television shills such as Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Pat Robertson. It did become a label used by liberals to slur people without trying to understand them, however. Further, Evangelical Christians, a narrower category that didn’t represent all Christians, never were “in power” per se as President or Majority leaders, that I recall, though they had influence as a strong voting block.
early on, yes, just as "the progressive movement" did.
but it got captured and dominated by an extreme wing. just as the progressive movement has been.
both started with good ideas but turned into nasty, oppressive, suppressive groups once they had power and control of cultural institutions.
i think the groups of the original "moral majority" fell apart and defected because the movement got wrecked and moved away from them.
it's the same cycle we see on the left now.
bizarrely, both seem to want to ban the teaching of evolution, the right to push creationism and the left to dent the idea of biological sex and call it a "social construct."
i suspect there is a sort of lesson there about parties in power disliking the idea of bottoms up emergent systems. it seems to crop up again and again all over the world.
The dynamic described here seems to be extreme wings co-opting a popular movement and then disfiguring and repurposing the semantics whilst keeping the same name, such that it takes time for members of that original population to realize their ideas are no longer represented by the new beast (and some may not come to realize). I suppose there are always power hungry people willing to subvert a good thing for their own purposes and rise due to their wiles. For me it’s more about these types of people - would Machavellis be a good word? - who infest all groups, rather than a system per se. Is there a system that can manage them which is also congruent with freedom and liberty? What kind of system can be designed to expose them for what they are? Perhaps that’s the role of a Free Press in a Constitutional Republic.
this seems very much to be the case.
it takes that which was once needful and laudable and subverts it. movements tend to sweep to power for good reasons but those reasons get hijacked by the fact of having attained power which brings a very different group with very different aims to the fore.
i don't think this can be managed with "a system" once you have granted the state this much power. the only real way to prevent it it to vest the primacy of power in the inalienable rights of the individual and delimit the state to small, ennumerated power.
this was the genius of the original american system. "a republic if you can keep it..."
we have not done a great job of keeping it. but we could take it back.
i have some specific, concrete ideas on this i keep meaning to lay out and doubtless will one of these days
I for one would be interested in hearing those concrete ideas. It’s seems to me after attending RFKJR’s speech that he may share similar sentiment that we haven’t kept it well.
It seems tropish to blame the MSM but when they transform into entertainment and then transform again into a fascist arm of government, it seems they have forgotten their remit, and thereby have earned the moniker enemy of the people. It is painfully obvious how necessary a free press is to the healthy function of a (limited) government. The founders are rolling over. Perhaps a new free press is needed that performs according to the original vision. If only we as a people could turn off MSM and throw our support to a new free press. We must blame ourselves for feeding the MSM and not rejecting it (the broader ‘ourselves’, not those of us endeavoring on substack).
sooner is better (she said with a wink and a smile..)
"The dynamic described here seems to be extreme wings co-opting a popular movement and then disfiguring and repurposing the semantics whilst keeping the same name"
This is described by Burge's Axiom:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kil it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respsect.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/664089892599631872?lang=en
https://biblehub.com/matthew/7-15.htm
Quite precisely. Yes.
I was a young voter during the rise (and eventual fall, if you can say that it fell or just stumbled into insignificance) of the moral majority. I honestly don't see a clear connection between what the MM did and how they did it with the currently leftist hegemony of the Donkey Dudes. Yes, like all large organizations, the people in who ran it favored power over everything else. In my POV its the only way gain power in big organizations. The results are predictable.
But the MM did not wield power like the Leftists currently do. First, even though the leadership (Fallwell) was a right looney, the Christian Right as it was called, endorsed candidates and pushed their agenda, just like the labor unions and other large organizations did at the time. They were one of many "affinity" voting block organizations. There were some who were burning books and others were protesting what they saw as the moral failings of leaders and institutions. And "Foulwell" was the master of hot mic outrages that I think were mostly on purpose. Under the first amendment this is all fair game. The MM did not manage (they probably desired it) to co-opt govt funded agencies etc. There wasn't a MM caucus in the congress. They had, at their peak, 4-6 MM members and received donations from 2MM. Not small, but hardly the reach of AFLCIO members (roughly 20MM, at the time, all of whom where donating_whether they wanted to or not)
What the Christian right did do is scare the bejeezus out of the entrenched leftist, and their pachyderm uniparty co-conspirators. These uni-partists didn't want their own values up for discussion. So they spent a lot of time (including cartoonists) making it seem like the Christian Right (which they embodied as the MM) was this huge overbearing organization that wanted to take away your freedoms, shoot you in the back etc. I am totally unaware, and can't find credible sources for "blacklists" and that sort of thing. I'm willing to be schooled for sure. Just don't see the receipts.
Finally, I think you were referring to the disgusting Jim Bakker. Jim and Tammy Bakker were both hardly human and worthy of our derision. But neither of them were a significant part (if they were ever involved at all) in the MM, that would have taken too much time away from prostitutes, besides, the PTL network they ran competed with Fallwell.
After Fallwell left the leadership of the MM, he purchased Bakker's financially troubled "ministry" and then bankrupted it. Not sure if he was more interested in getting it out of the competition or really tried to save it. But that is the only connection of which I'm aware. To be clear, most of the "leaders" of the MM did not pass muster for me to think well of them.
Didn’t Falwell start the MM?
I’m recalling a colloquial use of the phrase rather than the political entity.
Correct. And Doonesbury is hardly a member of the moral majority. LOL
i think perhaps you misunderstood the article.
gary treudeau was a left leaning progressive. my point was that even he knew they had been near extincted.
Gato, I disagree. Maybe they FELT like they were near extinction, when objectively it was just that they didn't hold ALL the levers of power. (Boo-hoo!)
I was very politically active in the 1980s. At the time, Democrats had a majority in the U.S. House and held most state governorships. Plus of course they had the usual assortment of dominant perches in the culture ("news" media, entertainment, arts). And then they hounded and harassed a Republican president for seeking a way to support anti-Communists in Nicaragua.
Gary Trudeau (what is it with people named "Trudeau"?) may have felt his comrades were going extinct, but that's a function of the fact that finally, at long last, they were facing effective competition and could no longer rule unchallenged.
Not to get too hung up on the minutiae, but wasn't that comic from "Bloom County" by Berkely Breathed?
https://coffee-for-two.com/2017/08/22/laughing-matters-bloom-county-hunting-wild-liberals/
Thanks!
upon re-reading it, i can see how the language was unclear. i cleaned it up.
The Tao of dynamic balance is the way, as best we can achieve it. There is no “good” static state-it’s always that shining city on the hill that ends up demanding a foundation of skulls “just this once, cuz we’re the good guys and we’re different.”
This is what was meant by “keeping” the Republic; you cannot turn your back on power. It requires constant challenge from whichever angle reveals its weakness and shows the naked emperor.
And that’s exhausting for ordinary people trying to keep food on the table, so it falls to a dedicated few, who then succumb to the siren song, and the wheel turns.
I’ve come to see that this is both inevitable and okay, and constitutes Michael Malice’s White Pill-never give up hope because the wheel is always spinning, *as long as we keep spinning it.*
"This is what was meant by “keeping” the Republic; you cannot turn your back on power. It requires constant challenge from whichever angle reveals its weakness and shows the naked emperor."
I sure wish we could fit this on a bumper sticker because people need to think about this every day.
Ditto that;)
As Taibbi’s partner/friend Walter Kirn put it recently: I’m against whomever is in power.
Excellent article, but I have a serious question:
Has the US ever experienced this level of hegemony?
I think you know where I'm going with this.
one could argue it did under wilson and fdr.
NRA, blue eagle, sedition acts, loyalty oaths for kids, encouraging them to snitch on parents. it was very much a fascist moment.
perhaps also under lincoln.
he shut down any press that opposed him, cancelled rights wholesale, eliminated federalism, and arrested whole legislatures to stop them from voting.
i think we're getting out to the nasty end of the pendulum, but i think we've probably seen worse before.
Wilson (and wife arguably) was a nasty piece of work. My Great Grandmother (born and raised in Western Iowa) spoke German at home, school and church until the age of 13, and then it all ended. She was still alive when I was in my teens. I asked her why it so suddently stopped and even in her 80s she wouldn't come out and say why. I did the math in my head and then some reading and realized it was during that very dark period of our history.
A human female who grew up speaking German in rural Iowa told similar stories from that time.
This is one serious inflection point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
When some of what's yours isn't yours anymore, you've lost the entire plot on property rights and *insert slippery slope here* it's only a matter of time before All of Your Property Belongs To Us. Signed, The Collective
Yeah agree for most part. Sort of wanted to learn and have it "documented".
Only difference I see today is you don't need the pony express or radio to accomplish the same thing at orders of magnitude higher velocity and interconnection. And perhaps a tighter vice.
On a lighter note about the 80's "moral majority" you pointed out:
https://youtu.be/PZra6-32Oks
Good to reflect. Perhaps that suggests sanity might return. I watched the Tea Party get destroyed even as a few got elected but they had no leader. The MAGA effort seems a rework of the Tea Party as Trump used the same forces. So a leader emerged flawed as he may be. All efforts arise to destroy MAGA using the same tactics and even some of the same rhetoric. That demonization might succeed as before, so the same public desires will be suppressed again, only to arise again. Hope is eternal.
I think the concern is how much power is controlled by the federal and state governments. It would seem that the bureaucratic state is so much larger than it was in the past and therefore the power and desire to maintain control is so much higher. But the flow of information is so much harder to control now as well. I hope that this cycle of authoritarianism is ebbing, but I’m worried that the stability of the cycle might have been broken. Covid just shows that something has gone off the rails.
Yeah and it's not just the US. it's basically all of Western civilization
its not just the governments, they work hand in hand with the corporations. If you "fix" the government but leave the corporations alone we'll be right back where we started.
100%.
It's a question to what degree and to what end, in my mind, with corporations
Well that is an easy one, let the market decide. No more bailouts.
The bailouts piss me just slightly below 20 years in Afghanistan and covid.
What I thinking about is limiting corporations veil back to a "charter" with the state as was initially intended. They have found ways to circumvent that...in a multitude of ways
Maybe we shouldn't give them so much power
*holds chin between thumb and forefinger in thoughtful pose*
As we go diving into NetZero policies, both sides are gonna get *real loud* for a while, and then we'll find out who is right and who is dead, so to speak.
The internet is a powerful tool, and both sides have it. Which makes it such an obvious tactical move to try to remove the other side from access to it. I don't think it's possible, but they got close with Covid. We shall see...
The argument of this essay is largely correct in terms of general tendencies, but it smacks of trying to establish oneself as superior to the fray in a way that annihilates both history and responsibility. It trivializes the current moment by saying, "Ho hum. This is just the same as it has ever been, and whatever crimes are being committed would be committed equally by the offenders' opponents, if they were in power."
It is true that there is the incentive to silence one's opponents when one has a hard-won, tenuous grasp on awesome power. It is not true that all factions are equal in their tendency to succumb to that temptation. Whatever petty corruption certain televangelists may have engaged in to their own and their followers' shame, there was nothing in the 1980s backswing against 1960s and '70s "liberalism" to compare with the ravenous power-grabbing and openly-demanded censorship of the wokist and vax-covidian fanatics today. Nor was there by the Trump administration, only a few years ago.
It matters where we tie the knot of our virtue. If we stand openly for liberty, fair play, and honorable conduct, then our friends and enemies will rightly denounce us as hypocrites should we betray these values, and we will lose power accordingly. Factions that call for "safety" or "justice", or the stamping out of human nature in the form of racism, inequality, misinformation, or smut, are capable, with no inconsistency in their standards, of any atrocity.
It's increasingly clear that our host comes from generational wealth, and thus has a very skewed idea of what life means.
"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." -- Frank Herbert (Dune)
OMGosh I forgot about this! I read the Dune books ages ago.
So true! And thanks for the happy reminder😊🌻
2000 years ago one penned “There is nothing new under the sun”. Man hasn’t changed.. starting of with great ideals they are compromised through time. All fall as the vision is tarnished and lost as it is passed to the next generation. At each passing more is lost and cannot be regained
Correction. Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes 1:19 about 950 BC. So that's 3000 yrs. ago. Lest the reader attribute that to a New Testament author. The sentiment stands, however.
"History doesn't repeat but it often rhymes."
- Mark Twain. Or That Clemens Guy. One of them.
Amen. Power is intoxicating, and whoever obtains it becomes fixated on keeping it. The ruling party is where all the sociopaths converge.
I disagree. The tendencies you outline certainly do exist, and they affect everyone. But they do not affect everyone equally, not by a long shot. And I believe it is safe to say that those more susceptible to these tendencies are not randomly (equally) distributed between the parties.
One way people can be sorted is to say there are two kinds of people: Type A, those who wake up in the morning concerned about themselves, their own, and matters in "their own backyard," and Type B, those who wake up worrying about everyone else, and how to control everyone else. Another description of the same two groups would be those who just want to be left alone, and those who are activists, who are all about others, and controlling the behavior of those others. All others, without limit. One of these two groups is LOT more about power, and susceptible to it's temptations, than the other.
One of our parties can aptly be described as the party of government. It is naturally (literally so) heavily populated by Type B individuals. It seems you have entirely overlooked this difference.
As to everyone being equally affected by power, I give you George Washington. At the time he left the office of President, he held more power in this country than anyone then or since, and was being asked - begged, even - to stay on. He could have been King. He famously walked away.
There are such people, and there are a lot more of them in one party than the other. That would be the party with more Type A and fewer Type B individuals.
Recent empirical evidence is provided by the differing reactions to the covid insanity in the Red and Blue states. There was clearly less abuse of power and more freedom in the Red states, was there not? There is a difference in the parties.