Yes, ultimately politics is always ultimately enforced at the end of a gun. Libertarians are delusional and those who rely on a long-dead "constitution" are delusional. But there is a corruption in the chase for political power that always occurs, too, because the masses are unable to understand nuance, subtlety, or long-term planning, and because the opposition, which isn't ever *entirely* wrong, must be ruthlessly crushed; therefore simple propaganda must be used, which corrupts and distorts the underlying messaging.
But there's not a way out of this conundrum. According to Julian Assange, we aren’t able to sit out of politics. Either we are a participant of history or a victim of it: “I think first it’s necessary to have an understanding that one is either a participant in history or a victim of it, and that there is no other option. It is actually not possible to remove oneself from history, because of the nature of economic…and intellectual interaction. Hence, it is not possible to break oneself off….Because no one wants to be a victim, one must therefore be a participant, and in being a participant, the most important thing to understand is that your behavior affects other people’s behavior, and your courage will inspire actions. On the other hand, a lack of courage will suppress them.”
Lastly, though, consider Ernst Jünger and his idea of an independent "anarch" that stands outside of history. Jünger would ask himself during World War 2 what one could “advise a man, especially a simple man, to do in order to extricate himself from the conformity that is constantly being produced by technology?” In contrast to Carl Schmitt and his push for a totalitarian state, the answer Jünger, an atheist, eventually settled on was: “Only prayer.” For, “In situations that can cause the cleverest of us to fail and the bravest of us to look for avenues of escape, we occasionally see someone who quietly recognizes the right thing to do and does good. You can be sure that is a man who prays.” Ultimately only a recovery of a sense of the transcendent, he decided, could serve as an antidote to nihilistic modernity’s temptations. Without it, “our freedom of will and powers of resistance diminish; the appeal of demonic powers becomes more compelling, and its imperatives more terrible.”
I'm a libertarian. All off the above could have been said by Libertarian luminaries going back to Albert Jay Nock or Lysander Spooner
The Libertarians don't claim political power doesn't come from the barrel of a gun... they're not pacifists. Their belief is if you want to defend your rights you need guns!
Its progressives who have the perverse belief that power and government are merely "the things we do together" and that when the longhouse does it it's not killing
>The Libertarians don't claim political power doesn't come from the barrel of a gun... they're not pacifists. Their belief is if you want to defend your rights you need guns!
In theory. I've definitely encountered self-described libertarians who didn't seem to understand this fact. Of course, even the libertarians who get the need for violence tend to be uncomfortable with the fact that a well-organized army is going to defeat a bunch of lone wolves.
Yes, governments are like criminal enterprises -- sometimes worse. (C.M. Kornbluth's "The Syndic" is a fun read.)
But when looking at any government, one must compare against likely alternatives. Civil war is worse than the current U.S. government. And the historical instances in which government has been replaced with close to nothing involve either an island (Iceland or Ireland), or mass quantities of divine intervention (Israel in the time of the Judges).
Maybe a band of anarcho-idealists could round up enough mercenaries to overthrow a particularly loathsome island government -- say Cuba, but even that is an expensive an risky experiment.
I'd rather focus on incremental, but probable, improvements. Maybe I'm getting old.
The "current" American government isn't a stable thing. It will be quite different in 10 years, as it is quite different from 20 years ago - the rate of change is increasing. If you want to affect that difference, you start now.
We've tried incrementalism since Reagan, it hasn't worked, as even HWB was pushing for the drastic change of the NWO.
The left has a better grasp of incrementalism, of "heads I win, tails you lose". For every small improvement we've gotten since Reagan, the price has been too great.
With the exception of the homeschool movement and packing the courts to win the abortion issue, the Right has mostly neglected the Long Game. I adopted the Fabius Minarchus moniker to emphasize what I write about IS how to the play the Long Game from the smaller government perspective.
Here's a warmup post, a list of things one can do before building a real movement:
But though I have personally given up on anarcho-capitalism in my time, it is worth reminding people what an extreme moral compromise that government is.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell has led to legalized gay marriage, rainbow flags over military bases, anti discrimination laws applied to Christian bakers, and assorted abominations perform to small children in public libraries.
Medical marijuana has led to outright legalization in many states, de facto legalization in other states, and even Fentanyl junkies pooping on the sidewalks. (I'm in favor of pot legalization, by the way. But I also favor the right to shun potheads if one is so inclined.)
There are reasons why today's Left goes apoplectic over any setbacks. Wind the clock back a mere ten years and you are an Evil Right Wing Extremist.
Those are changes the system favors, the whole boiling frogs analogy. They had to go slow or risk freaking out middle America. And with pot legalisation, the majority of the population has been in favor of it for fifty years, yet I doubt it'll be federally legalized in the next twenty. Any conservative changes can always be reversed after the next "election."
For some good examples of how government and mafia are the same phenomenon:
- In more remote parts of Columbia, the government does not build schools, hospitals, or roads. The drug cartel does. They get the approval of the people because they are providing real services. They have become a real government there.
- In Russia, if you don't pay your business's taxes, armed government agents in ski masks simply steal your inventory. They are indistinguishable from ordinary robbers, except that the police won't even try to stop them.
- In America, pharmaceutical companies dictate government policy, mandating their product and exempting themselves from the mass death caused by it. They have in effect become the government.
Perhaps I have not read enough of Your work and You have explained this elsewhere, but You start off with, "Every regime of Sovereignty..." What is a "regime of Sovereignty?" I am sovereign, and Others who have withdrawn consent from the psychopathic legal/governmental system, are sovereigns, too.
I'm not sure I agree with the general assumption here, i.e. -- any political order is by definition a kind of mafia. Do we mean "all governments", within the capitalist form of production , or, quite literally, "any political order"? On the other hand, what the heck "every régime if sovereignty" means? I can, actually, and I will, dive deeper in your notions. I just need to free a bit of time, hopefully during the weekend.
I'm sure, however, that there are some important directions scetched here, so -- thank you for the read.
Yes, ultimately politics is always ultimately enforced at the end of a gun. Libertarians are delusional and those who rely on a long-dead "constitution" are delusional. But there is a corruption in the chase for political power that always occurs, too, because the masses are unable to understand nuance, subtlety, or long-term planning, and because the opposition, which isn't ever *entirely* wrong, must be ruthlessly crushed; therefore simple propaganda must be used, which corrupts and distorts the underlying messaging.
But there's not a way out of this conundrum. According to Julian Assange, we aren’t able to sit out of politics. Either we are a participant of history or a victim of it: “I think first it’s necessary to have an understanding that one is either a participant in history or a victim of it, and that there is no other option. It is actually not possible to remove oneself from history, because of the nature of economic…and intellectual interaction. Hence, it is not possible to break oneself off….Because no one wants to be a victim, one must therefore be a participant, and in being a participant, the most important thing to understand is that your behavior affects other people’s behavior, and your courage will inspire actions. On the other hand, a lack of courage will suppress them.”
Lastly, though, consider Ernst Jünger and his idea of an independent "anarch" that stands outside of history. Jünger would ask himself during World War 2 what one could “advise a man, especially a simple man, to do in order to extricate himself from the conformity that is constantly being produced by technology?” In contrast to Carl Schmitt and his push for a totalitarian state, the answer Jünger, an atheist, eventually settled on was: “Only prayer.” For, “In situations that can cause the cleverest of us to fail and the bravest of us to look for avenues of escape, we occasionally see someone who quietly recognizes the right thing to do and does good. You can be sure that is a man who prays.” Ultimately only a recovery of a sense of the transcendent, he decided, could serve as an antidote to nihilistic modernity’s temptations. Without it, “our freedom of will and powers of resistance diminish; the appeal of demonic powers becomes more compelling, and its imperatives more terrible.”
I'm a libertarian. All off the above could have been said by Libertarian luminaries going back to Albert Jay Nock or Lysander Spooner
The Libertarians don't claim political power doesn't come from the barrel of a gun... they're not pacifists. Their belief is if you want to defend your rights you need guns!
Its progressives who have the perverse belief that power and government are merely "the things we do together" and that when the longhouse does it it's not killing
>The Libertarians don't claim political power doesn't come from the barrel of a gun... they're not pacifists. Their belief is if you want to defend your rights you need guns!
In theory. I've definitely encountered self-described libertarians who didn't seem to understand this fact. Of course, even the libertarians who get the need for violence tend to be uncomfortable with the fact that a well-organized army is going to defeat a bunch of lone wolves.
Yes, governments are like criminal enterprises -- sometimes worse. (C.M. Kornbluth's "The Syndic" is a fun read.)
But when looking at any government, one must compare against likely alternatives. Civil war is worse than the current U.S. government. And the historical instances in which government has been replaced with close to nothing involve either an island (Iceland or Ireland), or mass quantities of divine intervention (Israel in the time of the Judges).
Maybe a band of anarcho-idealists could round up enough mercenaries to overthrow a particularly loathsome island government -- say Cuba, but even that is an expensive an risky experiment.
I'd rather focus on incremental, but probable, improvements. Maybe I'm getting old.
Bullies don’t like retaliation
So to you Americans: keep your guns
The "current" American government isn't a stable thing. It will be quite different in 10 years, as it is quite different from 20 years ago - the rate of change is increasing. If you want to affect that difference, you start now.
We've tried incrementalism since Reagan, it hasn't worked, as even HWB was pushing for the drastic change of the NWO.
The left has a better grasp of incrementalism, of "heads I win, tails you lose". For every small improvement we've gotten since Reagan, the price has been too great.
Wish I had a solution.
With the exception of the homeschool movement and packing the courts to win the abortion issue, the Right has mostly neglected the Long Game. I adopted the Fabius Minarchus moniker to emphasize what I write about IS how to the play the Long Game from the smaller government perspective.
Here's a warmup post, a list of things one can do before building a real movement:
https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/yes-you-can-do-this-at-home
But though I have personally given up on anarcho-capitalism in my time, it is worth reminding people what an extreme moral compromise that government is.
System is set up so that incremental changes are rendered moot.
Strongly disagree! Slopes are slippery.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell has led to legalized gay marriage, rainbow flags over military bases, anti discrimination laws applied to Christian bakers, and assorted abominations perform to small children in public libraries.
Medical marijuana has led to outright legalization in many states, de facto legalization in other states, and even Fentanyl junkies pooping on the sidewalks. (I'm in favor of pot legalization, by the way. But I also favor the right to shun potheads if one is so inclined.)
There are reasons why today's Left goes apoplectic over any setbacks. Wind the clock back a mere ten years and you are an Evil Right Wing Extremist.
Those are changes the system favors, the whole boiling frogs analogy. They had to go slow or risk freaking out middle America. And with pot legalisation, the majority of the population has been in favor of it for fifty years, yet I doubt it'll be federally legalized in the next twenty. Any conservative changes can always be reversed after the next "election."
For some good examples of how government and mafia are the same phenomenon:
- In more remote parts of Columbia, the government does not build schools, hospitals, or roads. The drug cartel does. They get the approval of the people because they are providing real services. They have become a real government there.
- In Russia, if you don't pay your business's taxes, armed government agents in ski masks simply steal your inventory. They are indistinguishable from ordinary robbers, except that the police won't even try to stop them.
- In America, pharmaceutical companies dictate government policy, mandating their product and exempting themselves from the mass death caused by it. They have in effect become the government.
When does the revolution begin?;)
Perhaps I have not read enough of Your work and You have explained this elsewhere, but You start off with, "Every regime of Sovereignty..." What is a "regime of Sovereignty?" I am sovereign, and Others who have withdrawn consent from the psychopathic legal/governmental system, are sovereigns, too.
We Ethical Sovereigns – The Society Of Ethical Sovereigns (SOES) (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/we-ethical-sovereigns-the-society
I disagree.
If you pay the Mafia "protection money" and someone else comes and fucks with you, you might actually *get* protection.
When you pay the IRS, you're just paying the assholes to come fuck with you even more.
Heinlein had it it right when he described humans as a place where
"The Big Monkey Rules". ..... It's always been that way.
Human nature is constant.
I'm not sure I agree with the general assumption here, i.e. -- any political order is by definition a kind of mafia. Do we mean "all governments", within the capitalist form of production , or, quite literally, "any political order"? On the other hand, what the heck "every régime if sovereignty" means? I can, actually, and I will, dive deeper in your notions. I just need to free a bit of time, hopefully during the weekend.
I'm sure, however, that there are some important directions scetched here, so -- thank you for the read.
> Do we mean "all governments", within the capitalist form of production , or, quite literally, "any political order"?
Yes, he means all governments. If anything governments within the capitalist form of production are the least mafia like.
Wow!
I like your writing! Always hard-hitting and relevant!