122 Comments

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.“—Lysander Spooner, 150 years ago

Expand full comment
author
Sep 16·edited Sep 16Author

💯 The logic is inescapable.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

The UN is on the verge of passing their Pact of the Future treaty that will force the entire world to become digital slaves. And WHO is right behind them and behind both is gates and his blood soaked money. Apparently no government is fighting this and no democracy will matter. This is all being done with no input from any citizen anywhere and behind the curtain.

Forget about government and all its various levels of slavery. Our very lives are on the line as we consider what government is or isn't. A digital world = death. Fighting this has become priority numero uno for me although trying to do so is like trying to kill the invisible man. Congress is completely complacent and asleep and pretty much worthless.

Expand full comment
author

One way you can tell is the way, for example, Ireland, England, the UK, and Sweden all have the exact same immigration problem, and their public officials all deal with it in roughly the same way. It's centrally orchestrated.

Expand full comment

Which suggests democracy is not at fault. Rather it suggests that democracy is an theatrical illusion.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

“The majoritarianism of democracy elevates the lowest common denominator to a cultural fetish, and wields it as a political weapon.”

Exacerbated when the majority of people are stupid.

Expand full comment
author

Yep. Part of Hoppe's point is that democracy actually makes the stupidity problem even worse than it already is!

Expand full comment

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

As if that’s even possible. I’m reminded of the great Harvey Danger song: “I’ve been around the world and seen that only stupid people are breeding. The cretins cloning and feeding and I don’t even own a TV”

Expand full comment
author

Yeah, when we learn that the average IQ is 100, and then think that that means that half the people are below that–it's truly chilling.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

+25 points for 'ineluctable', a word underused in today's parlance. Excellent writing and arguments, including the admission that the answer lies just beyond our grasp but is an idea whose time has come.

Expand full comment
author

Yay, I now have 25 points for the day!

The answer is elusive, but I will be working toward a possible one in Part II…

Expand full comment
Sep 16·edited Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

"Democracy causes inhumanity. No normal, decent person would ever walk up to another, stick a gun to his ribs and demand money."

But poverty does... Desperation to survive does. And money systems will create poverty for most, and many desperate People...

And money IS an archaic tool...

Money vs. Currency (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/money-vs-currency

Expand full comment

Well said, as always. For that John Adams quote, I ask, how moral is it to sign the Sedition Act and throw those supporting your political opponent in jail? The ink was barely dry on the Bill of Rights in 1798- didn’t take long.

You are so right- we need another way!!! I’m looking forward to the Solution section!

Expand full comment
author

Thanks!

And well said re: the Sedition Act! I have cited that as an example that things went downhill from the start. That there is no "original vision" to return to.

Expand full comment

Good point. But I have talked with too many legal immigrants who have told me of the places they left, noting that America is better and that we Americans have no clue what we don’t know. But, no doubt it ends in dependency, as you (and Plato, Aristotle, Tytler, et al.) noted, and we are pretty much there.

Expand full comment
author

What we have is surely an improvement. Though we have to ask ourselves why.

I think it must be because of the principles that we at work in our founding, the fact that this was a "new" land (with many apologies to the native Indians, of course), and the fact that government stayed out of the way to a greater extent, and for longer.

Expand full comment

I can appreciate all of these critiques but the reality is that it reads like you advocate no other alternative except perhaps hereditary monarchy ? Would like to read a part two if there’s a theory grounded in a Pro-this and not just Anti-that stance. Myself I am a fan of anarchism and kind of every man truly for themselves but willing to make alliances according to their preferences/needs/skills/intellect. Also, though, just because democracy seems to function where a majority can unduly influence the control mechanisms, and the smallest minority is the individual doesn’t mean we should toss the baby out with the bath water in my opinion because there are other minorities - such as those that would run for state office but cannot afford to because of its measley pay and big time commitment, those that are in the government and do not identify with the majority whatever it may be (and you haven’t really defined it). If one critiques democracy too much without pointing out its many beauties and opportunities, that leaves a window open for socialists and communists who seem to be on the same side as democracy by your argument but who are very much not in real and practical terms. Direct democracy has been discussed. Maybe not an oligarchy and gerontocracy disguised as democracy which is what we live in - to say we are ruled by a majority or a minority isn’t entirely accurate because what we are rules by is money and corporations that allow some people two votes (one through the system as-is and another through a vehicle like Citizen’s United and private interest lobbying and campaign support). This is not democracy

Expand full comment
author

All good points.

The problem with writing a book on the fly is that it does not give people the opportunity to look ahead to see if the questions raised in chapter X are answered in a later chapter.

I promise we will get to solutions. And I recognize that this is currently the "anti-that" phase. I did, in the preface and introduction, note that we would have to go through that phase before we could get to "pro-this." But we will. In fact, I will be providing more of a concrete solution than most. (Whether one likes it or not will be a separate question, but it will definitely be concrete and positive. And I am trying to get there as fast as I can, while still covering all the bases between here and there.

I definitely do not want to leave any doors open for socialists and communists. I assume that that is understand by the fact that everything that I say and believe would be anathema to them. Though I agree that the notion of ending what we currently have does also comport with their plans.

And finally, I get that this is actually an oligarchy of elite families, creepy weirdo billionaires, psychotic ideologues, central banks, corporations, etc. But people still believe that it is supposed to be a democracy. If I critique the oligarchy, some people will think that THAT is the problem, and that uncorrupted democracy is the solution. My job is to see to it that they do not retreat into that comfortable but false delusion.

Expand full comment

I am looking forward to reading more do that last piece of your argument specifically - as I do believe that uncorrupted democracy could very well be the solution. Many people as you say think we live in a democracy and we don’t and yet they profess idealism and praise and loyalty to an idea of democracy. Equipped with more information , and with an overturning of Citizen’s United (if it can be done w Roe v aware it certainly can a decision made much more recently) , democracy in the US could make a swift course correction

Expand full comment
author

Have you read the rest of this fledgling book?

Expand full comment

I have not I am short on funds but I’d be open to reading (even if only to disagree and write a counter argument lol) it for sure

Expand full comment
author

I understand :-) This book is free for those who cannot afford to offer their support. (It's my other book that is behind the paywall.)

The reason I ask is because in the front matter, and throughout this first chapter, I establish that the system we have is fundamentally morally impermissible—even if it is reformed in the ways that you and Sharon suggest.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

Yes, they violate our rights in every single way. What used to be a small pitching in is taking up 80% of our paychecks when you put all the taxes and fees together. And what we get back is them trying to kill us.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

Yep! People got overturning Roe versus Wade would be impossible. Just like some people think that taking out unuseful amendments such as the 19th would be impossible. It’s not These things are gaining momentum and 30% of sheep are just waiting to see the way the wind blows before jumping on board.

Expand full comment
author

But even if we were to fix these things, the system would still be a violation of individual rights. Even the best version of what we have violates rights when it is functioning normally.

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

Yes, a whole different system would be better. It’s not going to be exactly like the old days. But, we can go back to a more normal, useful way of men and women doing what they do best. Instead of having 120 pound woman trying to be a fireman or a muscular guy within intelligence sitting home and making a cake while his wife works outside the home all day. Or even worse, giving men, horrible chemicals and having them “breast-feed“ little babies.. It’s all a disgusting mess.

Expand full comment
author

It is all a disgusting mess.

And the influence of the political left has been very damaging. That is a somewhat separate, though obviously interrelated, issue. And it too is standing in the way of any sort of normality.

Expand full comment

Do you think the 19th is un-useful or are you more like saying as a warning / point that the unlikely is sometimes suddenly very possible/possible ?

Expand full comment

I have been reading on Substack and a lot of people want to do away with the 19th amendment.

In all studies, women believe things much easier than men do. They get fooled easily and go with any trend. This is obviously very dangerous to the country. This has to stop.

Expand full comment

So you support a woman that doesn’t follow that majority trend not being allowed to vote or run for office? I’m so confused

Expand full comment

Apologies for the typos

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

Well, OK I could edit it, but I am a rusher

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

I do voice to text so it’s impossible to be without mistakes

Expand full comment

The problem with anarchy is that alliances build quickly based on power (number of weapons, amount of wealth), those with power tend to like to accumulate more power, and they impose on others (violate other's rights) and the whole thing will quickly devolve to some even worse system. I've never read any good explanations how it can possibly be stable. Hence direct democracy with guardrails to enshrine individualism and personal rights (not what we have) would be better.

Expand full comment
author

One of the better explanations is in chapter 12 here: https://ia801508.us.archive.org/14/items/911-material/Pdfs/Democracy%20The%20God%20That%20Failed.pdf

That is not the whole case, of course, but I am not going to start out by suggesting that you read two or three whole books. That was just be rude! 🤣

Expand full comment

That’s not true anarchism, that’s anarchy. Anarchism is a different beast and alliances based on access to things would not in the long-term be beneficial because even those without would find ways to sabotaging the hoarders. True anarchism is collective liberation via understanding. To each according to his need. Hegemony and autocracy doesn’t have a place in true anarchism

Expand full comment

Who is democracy?

You write what causes democracy. But does it really do that?

Let's look at democracy as a program. This program is not isolated. It is a sub-program of surrounding programs.

The environment has programmers who change the democracy program.

Democracy has the problem that NO ONE has built in program protection. Why? I think it is obvious!

In every people's contract it should be written in the first place WHAT the task of the government is and WHERE the limit is.

The programmers of democracy HAVE INTENDED to change the program insidiously.

Democracy, in my opinion, does not cause anything bad.

Back doors of democracy, deliberately built in, cause bad things to come out of democracy. Every piddly contract describes what the scope of the contract is. We have such clever thinkers BUT they have not thought about the scope of a “people's contract”? Unimaginable!

What are the back doors

1. lack of contract scope and hard red line

2. professional politicians, after two terms every politician has to call it a day.

3. professional politicians with multiple affiliations and 1st point. Affiliations with churches, freemasons, NGOs. As professional politicians, they can agree, pursue and enforce issues in the long term. Whoever chooses politicians as a profession can be made vulnerable to blackmail.

4. together with the third point, the media can decide whether a politician's career goes up or down.

5. the infiltration of the judiciary allows professional politicians to undermine democracy. In Germany, politicians are only elected by direct vote. In fact, there are electoral lists. The violation of the law cries out to heaven. The judiciary covers up. Politicians are only supposed to follow their conscience and nothing but their conscience. BUT there are coalition agreements. So the politician must subordinate his conscience to the contract. The politician is in a parliamentary group. Factional coercion applies. Anyone who deviates is thrown out. The breach of the law screams to high heaven. The judiciary covers up.

6) Today, many politicians, at least in Germany, have no professional training or experience and come from WEF Young Global Leader or other NGO Young Global Leader programs.

7. 2000 years ago, communities were strict: big things are decided by everyone, small things by politicians.

8. we actually have three levels with decreasing weight: local, state and federal. Professional politics has worked for 75 years to reverse this completely.

So I ask is democracy causing the problems?

I think not. I think we have been bamboozled.

Democracy has been designed in such a way that it can be merged with dictatorship. Now we have a democratic dictatorship. The advertising brochure says democracy and the technical specifications say dictatorship.

Expand full comment

My 21 natural laws for larger communities (Draft)

Do not harm anyone - the standard for everything. Inside and outside the sovereign community.

Decentralization: community, sub-region, region,

- No higher-level administrations may be above the sovereignty of a community.

- Administration is purely objective, efficient, solution-oriented. Ideologies are excluded

- Churches have no law of their own, jurisprudence

The community is above everything, the highest administrative sovereign

Direct democracy

- Big decisions are made by the community

- Small decisions are made by the administration.

Agreements, formerly called laws, are short, not convoluted, without references and generally understandable

Independence, personal responsibility before any state

Family ties have the highest priority

Social cooperation

- Patents yes, but everyone can use them - the "inventor" gets a fair, small compensation

- No central social insurance by law. A local, regional or supra-regional, voluntary

Upper limit on wealth. No person should have too much power. In addition, in a fair, cooperative system it is not possible for one person to make an incredible amount of money. Practically everyone who is super rich has achieved this by harming others.

Free speech

Free research

Free education

Free monetary system

- No monopoly on money

- No manipulation of interest rates or the money supply

- The money supply can only grow with the creation of value

Free legal system, without foreign legal language and legal formulas

Free energy, i.e. without special taxes

No corporations, companies are limited in size

Protection, care, preservation of the environment

No change or threat to biological life (genetic engineering, nanotechnology, “energetics”, E-field, M-field, torsion fields, etc., techniques that can be used today from sudden death to mass murder.

No industrial food

Secret agreements, secret societies are subject to the maximum penalty

Politics is not a profession, limited in time, for people with the highest ethics and proven sincerity.

Participation in a community, a people, on a voluntary, transparent, contractual basis. Can be terminated at any time.

No secret services

Expand full comment
author

Thank you for taking the time to share that. Very interesting.

As a believer in the nonaggression principle, there are several notions in there with which I cannot concur. But there are quite a few others, of course, with which I do concur.

Expand full comment
author
Sep 24·edited Sep 24Author

I do not fundamentally disagree with the points you are making here (except one, which I will explain).

Yes, there are forces that have perverted what exists.

Yes, a clear contract would improve things.

But…

You happened to make this comment in one of my consequentialist critiques of democracy. But my core critique is rights-based. (If you read back over the last six or so installments, you will find the rest.)

But even if you were to “fix” democratic systems in all these ways (and I am sure you and other intelligent people could think of more improvements still), it still would not fix the core problem: democracy is non consensual. Your contract would limit the areas of nonconsensual activity, but it would not eliminate them. Others may not be able to vote to murder you, but they could still vote to steal from you. They could still vote for things to be done to you to which you did not explicitly consent.

And that makes democracy fundamentally morally impermissible, even when it is functioning at its “best.”

(I will be writing more about this today.)

Expand full comment
Sep 24·edited Sep 24Liked by Christopher Cook

"..., it still would not fix the core problem: democracy is non consensual. Your contract would limit the areas of nonconsensual activity, but it would not eliminate them. Others may not be able to vote to murder you, but they could still vote to steal from you."

I'm on a different page, didn't write that:

All artficial law has to replaced with a unique natural law: "Do not harm anybody would be one". So murder, stealing and much more are included as common sense.

I have 21 unique "laws" but that would be to much for that thread

You write democary kills moral. As above, in my model, moral is a natural law. BUT always limited to what a government should do: Power, Streets, Water, Waste for example. The rest is free of choice as along as you don't harm anybody intentionally.

In contrast governments are telling us how to speak, eat, ...

Expand full comment
author

Right, so it sounds like you are a natural-law minarchist (allowing a very small government) and I am a natural law anarchist (replacing nonconsensual government with market agencies providing security, justice, and infrastructure). So we are not far apart at all.

I would be happy to hear/read your 21 “laws.”

Expand full comment
Sep 24·edited Sep 24Liked by Christopher Cook

Yes, not to far away.

What triggered me is to see Democary as the reason for our situation. Whilst I dig for the root causes that let Democray fail.

My view starts with the smallest level of a community, a family. But it also applies to a piece of forest. You can see the cooperation. Cooperation between trees and fungi, between trees themselves.

Taking that as a basis, I think the model of a natural community can be scaled up.

What works on a small scale also works on a large scale.

From a government perspective, that also means that a city is at a more detailed level with the highest level of sovereignty, a federal state only does a little more than is needed as an umbrella, the state has very few tasks as an umbrella for everyone.

Life is very different on the sea compared to the mountains or in the desert compared to the Arctic. A central government perverts everything. That is what artificial entities like the EU and the UN pursue and the result is nothing but rubbish. All that results is stagnation and costs.

Nature has other plants at sea versus desert, mountain, etc. . Challenges are different everywhere.

Expand full comment
author

Right there with you on the nature stuff, and decentralization. For sure! But please (if you can) see my post from today. Voting still has a fundamental flaw…

Expand full comment

Yes, voting is complete scarp

10% can decide for 90% being another backdoor they kept open!

Do you believe they had been that stupid?

Expand full comment

In the region of Germany today we had small states. There were 300 sovereign "states". Everything worked. It was a competition and cooperation and specialization in the challenges of a region.

It was ridiculed so much that Bismarck and his people managed to establish the first state in 1871.

Of course, I cannot hide the fact that almost all of them were monarchies. But there were even small villages that had the status of free villages. In them the people were also free and not serfs.

And of course an invisible government hovered over everything, the Vatican Church. The Vatican Church had taken over the government from the Roman Empire 1400 years earlier...

Expand full comment
author

The German states were proving that decentralization works better! So naturally, the statists and centralizers had to destroy it. And for what? To wage bigger wars? Sick.

Expand full comment

Freedom to apply one’s talent, education and hard work for profit is what drives capitalism and created this modern world. (My BSME and 5 houses were very good investments.)

Fear mongering, Trump deranged, talking heads don’t spew their inflammatory rhetoric because it makes them poorer.

It should.

The lying, fact free, race baiting, science illiterate, fake news MSM and their pretentious talking heads were so humiliated by Trump’s democratic 2016 win they poisoned the 2020 electorate with fake climate crisis, fake scam-demic and fake racism deposing Trump in an anti-democratic media coup de tat.

Fool us once, shame on you.

Fool us twice, shame on us.

Democracy is mob rule by a majority of the clueless manipulated by the lying, fact free, science illiterate, race baiting, fake news MSM and pretentious talking heads.

The ballot says ship all blacks of African descent back to Africa & 51% of the electorate that shows up says “Yes.” then that will be done.

The ballot says anyone caught drunk driving will be dragged to the shoulder, shot in the head and left for scavengers & 51% of the electorate that shows up says “Yes.” then that will be done. (I would.)

The ballot says round up all Jews, seize their property and send them to camps in Utah & 51% of the electorate that shows up says “Yes.” then that will be done.

That’s why the US is a constitutional republic of laws not mindless democratic bigots & tools.

Even the Greeks knew better.

Expand full comment
author

I am frustrated by the same things you are. And yes, the arithmocracy and direct democracy that you describe (and that the Founders feared) are extra problematic.

But as I have been very carefully laying out for weeks, even the American system of indirect democracy (constitutional republic) is fundamentally problematic.

Expand full comment

So does socialism. Rob the poor to give to the rich is pretty much the most cowardly piece of crap system ever. And democracy is the escalator.

Expand full comment
author

Right there with ya, Sky!

Expand full comment

Intro to an old TV series

"Democracy is a very bad form of government . . . . "

Expand full comment
author

I had to look it up. That’s going way back!

Expand full comment
Sep 17Liked by Christopher Cook

Glad you threw on the P.S.

Expand full comment
author

I write these fast. Sometimes I do not word things perfectly the first time around!

Expand full comment
Sep 17Liked by Christopher Cook

So do lack of curiosity, intractability, and lack of mental stability.

Expand full comment
author

Sure. And other things.

Expand full comment
Sep 17Liked by Christopher Cook

Right.

Expand full comment
founding
Sep 17Liked by Christopher Cook

Explosive and Brilliant Christopher!

Expand full comment
author

💥 Thanks, Albert.

Expand full comment

"The said truth, however, is that the system is what degraded our morality in the first place." I agree that our system has enabled this, but I don't blame democracy. It has been unelected globalists, people running corporations and other large businesses and members of secret societies and degenerate fringe cults/religions who have degraded society's morality in the first place. It was seemingly a carefully thought out plan running for more than a hundred years now. It has involved gradual nudging of society's accepted moral boundaries through pop culture and mass media little by little each generation and pitting one generation against the next to encourage the progression of the moral decline. The grand purpose of which seems to be in fact to push us away from democracy and individualism and back to a kind of globalist techo fascistic fuedalism.

Besides, the majority of the world (including the West) hasn't ever really had a reasonable approximation of democracy ever anyway so we can hardly blame 'democracy'. The closest country is probably Switzerland where they can directly vote on changes to laws and propose them, although even their system could be improved to better represent all people.

And of course, what better alternative would you propose? Personally I would propose even more democracy. More direct, more representative, end the entrenched buracratic class, dilute the power of special interest groups (i.e. two party politics), let all voices be heard.

You are correct that democracy works best when the populace are a moral and intelligent people though.

Expand full comment
author

You are of course correct about the things you say in your first paragraph. There are many forces at work whose goal is to a) degrade us and b) (further) enslave us. (I have edited to the piece to avoid giving the impression that I am saying that democracy is the >only< force that has degraded our character; thank you.)

I think you are correct about the 100-year timeline at least. That puts it right around Gramsci/the Western Marxists. Though it is possible, as some contend, that the plan goes back much further.

I would also agree that some forms of democracy are better/worse. But my point is different from that. I am saying that even the best variant is still morally impermissible because it violates the content of the individual. If you look back through this chapter, you will see a lot on that topic.

As far as the solution—that is coming in Part II, which I am scrambling to get to as quickly as I can. In general, though, I am a market anarchist: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/four-definitions-word-anarchy

Expand full comment
Sep 16Liked by Christopher Cook

We can expand your criticisms of Democracy to include the dysfunction that occurs when a highly coordinated ideologically captured media brainwashes the voters. The perpetrators of the brainwashing promote war, debt, and dependencies hostile to individuals.

Expand full comment
author

💯 They are part of the larger ecosystem of the state.

Expand full comment