What a great article! I only have one concept to add that people often miss. We think of the state and of government as entities, as real things, that benevolently or malevolently act upon us. In reality, they are only concepts on paper. It is people that make decisions that actually exists. Those decisions of groups of people that we often collectively call the state are based on processes and policies created by only a few that are followed by the rest lower in the hierarchy. We are indoctrinated to believe the propaganda that the President and his cabinet and all of the legislators together create those laws. However, the vast majority of processes are created as dictated by thousands of political appointees who run the departments and agencies. In addition, legislators don't mutually decide anything. Those who rule the political parties pick the committees, the chairpersons, and decide what bills will be heard and how their seats will vote through the majority leaders in each chamber. Therefore, the few people who run the political parties and the few people who control them by various means, including funding of candidates in the money election long before the general election, are really "the state" and our rulers.
Deposed rulers are simply replaced by new rulers with equivalent or greater power. Our founding fathers were the Minor British aristocracy that replaced the British Parliament aristocracy in the ruling of America after the revolution. And they solidified that with the Constitution.
For these reasons (and a few others), I believe that the political parties and those who rule them are the root cause of our political issues. Any solution that does not solve the root cause is insufficient. These same political and economic elites, referred to as the power elite, control major corporations and industries as well.
Given this power structure, my thoughts are finally gelling regarding my fear of anarchy. At best, it feels like it would simply replace government processes with private corporate processes. Who would control those In a major way? My guess would be the same people who control them now along with their influence on the government through the political parties.
To be clear, I don't see it as a conspiracy. I see it as the ultra wealthy power class maintaining their wealth and control as they always have. It is class warfare. They have different beliefs and ideologies but in the end, they unite around protecting their wealth and position and making more off of "the market" who happens to be the citizens who pay taxes and suffer the inflation, the indirect taxation, resulting from uncontrolled spending.
The idea that we would have a choice of who to buy from In a state of anarchy seems naive. They give us a choice now between two political parties presented through propaganda as opposites for marketing positioning purposes. I'm beginning to wonder what would actually change, if anything. Would we simply replace governments with global corporations? It's already happening in the business world. That's why national elites have become global elites.
A new system, or lack thereof, to be effective and to benefit the people must change the processes, the rules, and those who make them, to benefit and protect the people. If not, then it will not be an advantage. And it must continue to do so in the future regardless of the issues. That is the real challenge. And then the further challenge is to develop a realistic plan that people will follow to perform the conversion. Without both of those, nothing will ever change.
To that end, I have found this discussion and the others by Mr. Cook and others on this platform to be very helpful in comparing and considering options. Bravo! Combined with everyone's comments, they're great examples of collective intelligence, creating a comprehensive understanding of the issue beyond the ability of an individual.
“ Our founding fathers were the Minor British aristocracy that replaced the British Parliament aristocracy in the ruling of America after the revolution. And they solidified that with the Constitution.”
—There was a time when I would have heard this and thought it was heresy. I am glad I know better now.
The left want more government. The right want less government.
Almost all of the apparent complexity'/complicatedness of the left-right difference is the result of distortions, mislabeling, and misrepresentations done intentionally by the left. E.g.
FDR reversing the meaning of 'liberal' in a speech in 1946, and the leftist mass media going along with the change.
Leftists intentionally mislabeling statist movements of National Socialism and fascism as being "right"
Leftists switching the red-blue to blue-red in 1980 so that that TV graphics wouldn't show the Democrats as being red, i.e. akin to communists.
The leftist Uniparty RINOs falsely calling themselves part of the right.
The left-right difference is supremely simple. It has existed since the first kings emerged in Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago. It has never changed. It is nothing more or less than the difference between two kinds of people and it always has been. The left want more government. The right want less government. There's really no more to say, except to repeat oneself, as I am doing.
"...the same political parties which now agitate the US. have existed thro’ all time... as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. and in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural, as well as to civil history. they denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals."
I will not be of any political class or derivative or description. If one is true to themselves, they need only see that identifying with any political class or type surrenders your ability to think freely and for yourself. If I call myself conservative, now I have limited my being to that of a conservative however it is defined. The same if I call myself a liberal (may I be struck down by lightening) in which you are again limited. If anything I am an anarchist but only in that I abhor all government in which there is the master-slave equation and that eliminates all of them.
In trying to build a "new" form of government you can never get away from its treachery and debasement of the individual. Decentralization must first start in the mind. Where it goes from there is still unknown.
It’s tough, though, because categorization is a basic aspect of human cognition. We need it to make sense of the world, but we don’t want it to get the better of us. Balancing act.
What a monumental endeavor, Christopher! I'm reluctant to say anything because I feel it would be like someone dropping into two pages of my 10-yrs of research book and commenting on something I might have covered on pp 172. But because I'm assuming there's a wide berth of goodwill between us, I will splash down.
My principles are to start by defining the question, define any terms within it, and say why it matters. My third paradigm designation is because I've found it restrictive to put things into one-dimensional space on a continuum, or even two on a grid. It's seemed to me that they're trying to push us into opposition.
For instance, I've started only using the term ZioNazis to make it clear that they've always been one and the same. Int'l Zionists wanted to drive Jews to migrate and populate Palestine, and used force and camps to displace and train them for harsh desert conditions. However Bolshevik Communism was a ploy by the same people. So they're really not two ends of the spectrum.
The third paradigm, which you and I share, is decentralized small scale sovereignty. If a commonwealth, in my terminology, decided to run itself by a needs-based system like communism (in principle), I don't think it would work very well but they'd experience the consequences and sort it out. Likewise for fascism, which I'd define like Mussolini did as private-public partnerships (that give the benefit to the private and leave the risk to the public).
Size matters more than style. IMO. Thanks for this thought provoking work, I look forward to new parts of it.
What a great article! I only have one concept to add that people often miss. We think of the state and of government as entities, as real things, that benevolently or malevolently act upon us. In reality, they are only concepts on paper. It is people that make decisions that actually exists. Those decisions of groups of people that we often collectively call the state are based on processes and policies created by only a few that are followed by the rest lower in the hierarchy. We are indoctrinated to believe the propaganda that the President and his cabinet and all of the legislators together create those laws. However, the vast majority of processes are created as dictated by thousands of political appointees who run the departments and agencies. In addition, legislators don't mutually decide anything. Those who rule the political parties pick the committees, the chairpersons, and decide what bills will be heard and how their seats will vote through the majority leaders in each chamber. Therefore, the few people who run the political parties and the few people who control them by various means, including funding of candidates in the money election long before the general election, are really "the state" and our rulers.
Deposed rulers are simply replaced by new rulers with equivalent or greater power. Our founding fathers were the Minor British aristocracy that replaced the British Parliament aristocracy in the ruling of America after the revolution. And they solidified that with the Constitution.
For these reasons (and a few others), I believe that the political parties and those who rule them are the root cause of our political issues. Any solution that does not solve the root cause is insufficient. These same political and economic elites, referred to as the power elite, control major corporations and industries as well.
Given this power structure, my thoughts are finally gelling regarding my fear of anarchy. At best, it feels like it would simply replace government processes with private corporate processes. Who would control those In a major way? My guess would be the same people who control them now along with their influence on the government through the political parties.
To be clear, I don't see it as a conspiracy. I see it as the ultra wealthy power class maintaining their wealth and control as they always have. It is class warfare. They have different beliefs and ideologies but in the end, they unite around protecting their wealth and position and making more off of "the market" who happens to be the citizens who pay taxes and suffer the inflation, the indirect taxation, resulting from uncontrolled spending.
The idea that we would have a choice of who to buy from In a state of anarchy seems naive. They give us a choice now between two political parties presented through propaganda as opposites for marketing positioning purposes. I'm beginning to wonder what would actually change, if anything. Would we simply replace governments with global corporations? It's already happening in the business world. That's why national elites have become global elites.
A new system, or lack thereof, to be effective and to benefit the people must change the processes, the rules, and those who make them, to benefit and protect the people. If not, then it will not be an advantage. And it must continue to do so in the future regardless of the issues. That is the real challenge. And then the further challenge is to develop a realistic plan that people will follow to perform the conversion. Without both of those, nothing will ever change.
To that end, I have found this discussion and the others by Mr. Cook and others on this platform to be very helpful in comparing and considering options. Bravo! Combined with everyone's comments, they're great examples of collective intelligence, creating a comprehensive understanding of the issue beyond the ability of an individual.
“ Our founding fathers were the Minor British aristocracy that replaced the British Parliament aristocracy in the ruling of America after the revolution. And they solidified that with the Constitution.”
—There was a time when I would have heard this and thought it was heresy. I am glad I know better now.
This was beautifully laid out thank you christopher
Thank you for reading!
Enjoyed the chapter. Looking forward to whats next. Great quote from Rand. Its been a long time since I read her.
Thanks! Next installment Wednesday.
And yeah, Rand was brilliant. Ridiculously arrogant at times, but brilliant!
The left want more government. The right want less government.
Almost all of the apparent complexity'/complicatedness of the left-right difference is the result of distortions, mislabeling, and misrepresentations done intentionally by the left. E.g.
FDR reversing the meaning of 'liberal' in a speech in 1946, and the leftist mass media going along with the change.
Leftists intentionally mislabeling statist movements of National Socialism and fascism as being "right"
Leftists switching the red-blue to blue-red in 1980 so that that TV graphics wouldn't show the Democrats as being red, i.e. akin to communists.
The leftist Uniparty RINOs falsely calling themselves part of the right.
And so on.
Yes, my book ends up covering a lot of these things.
The left-right difference is supremely simple. It has existed since the first kings emerged in Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago. It has never changed. It is nothing more or less than the difference between two kinds of people and it always has been. The left want more government. The right want less government. There's really no more to say, except to repeat oneself, as I am doing.
"...the same political parties which now agitate the US. have existed thro’ all time... as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. and in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural, as well as to civil history. they denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (1813)
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-0206
I think you will really like the rest of my book 😉
I will not be of any political class or derivative or description. If one is true to themselves, they need only see that identifying with any political class or type surrenders your ability to think freely and for yourself. If I call myself conservative, now I have limited my being to that of a conservative however it is defined. The same if I call myself a liberal (may I be struck down by lightening) in which you are again limited. If anything I am an anarchist but only in that I abhor all government in which there is the master-slave equation and that eliminates all of them.
In trying to build a "new" form of government you can never get away from its treachery and debasement of the individual. Decentralization must first start in the mind. Where it goes from there is still unknown.
Well said and I generally agree.
It’s tough, though, because categorization is a basic aspect of human cognition. We need it to make sense of the world, but we don’t want it to get the better of us. Balancing act.
What a monumental endeavor, Christopher! I'm reluctant to say anything because I feel it would be like someone dropping into two pages of my 10-yrs of research book and commenting on something I might have covered on pp 172. But because I'm assuming there's a wide berth of goodwill between us, I will splash down.
My principles are to start by defining the question, define any terms within it, and say why it matters. My third paradigm designation is because I've found it restrictive to put things into one-dimensional space on a continuum, or even two on a grid. It's seemed to me that they're trying to push us into opposition.
For instance, I've started only using the term ZioNazis to make it clear that they've always been one and the same. Int'l Zionists wanted to drive Jews to migrate and populate Palestine, and used force and camps to displace and train them for harsh desert conditions. However Bolshevik Communism was a ploy by the same people. So they're really not two ends of the spectrum.
The third paradigm, which you and I share, is decentralized small scale sovereignty. If a commonwealth, in my terminology, decided to run itself by a needs-based system like communism (in principle), I don't think it would work very well but they'd experience the consequences and sort it out. Likewise for fascism, which I'd define like Mussolini did as private-public partnerships (that give the benefit to the private and leave the risk to the public).
Size matters more than style. IMO. Thanks for this thought provoking work, I look forward to new parts of it.
More to come. I will be interested to hear what you think as it moves forward.