Slavery can be examined with mathematical precision. A black slave in 1850 in Mississippi had perhaps >95% of his labor taken from him. The tiny balance would have been spent to feed him, maybe provide a shed to sleep in, and perhaps the occasional visit from the vet when an injury prevented him from working. All the same expenses as a draft horse.
So at what point is he not a slave? When only 80% is taken from him? 65%? 40%?
Try keeping 100% of the fruits of your labor and watch how soon you're inside a shed with bars on it.
The painful truth people want to deny is that we are all slaves owned by our Nation State and we were all born into it, just like the poor bastard in 1850. Only the numbers have changed, not the principle.
"YES! You are right about all those things. That is why we need to get back the Constitution as the Framers originally intended it!" Baby steps. We surely can't go from what we are today to total anarchy over night. The Constitution was meant to be a LIMITED federal government. We would be a far cry away from what it has turned into if we were back there. Anarchy being the final goal. So don't be todisappointed with my response.
I think you mean the Bill of Rights that Jefferson forced Madison to add. Much of the Constitution is horrid including it guaranteed Slavery until at least 1809.
We can agree to disagree. Show me where the Constitution was written with the intent of ignoring the first 13 words of the 2nd amendment. Show me where the Constitution was written to allow taxes on wages. Show me where the Constitution was written to allow the passage of the federal reserve act in 1913. ALL of these things were done OUTSIDE of the intent of the Constitution. Show me where the constitution allows for some ass hat congress man to make a law to tax firearms that they don’t like. Show me where the Constitution allows for how many 432 at last count, different departments? Show me where the Constitution allows for a standing army for years and years. Show me where the Constitution allows for the list is ENDLESS Christopher. If you read the statement by Thomas Jefferson about the Constitution he said The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." You read my Constitution WHAT Constitution? courageouslion.us/p/constitution or The Phantom Constitution courageouslion.us/p/the-phantom-constit… and tell me where we would be if both of those were not so. Having an Anarchist society would be wonderful EXCEPT it will never ever happen because there will always be those who will want to rule and those who will want to kiss their ass. Fact is, The Constitution has no teeth in it so it is nothing but a paper tiger. The TEETH were stolen in 1913 and 1916. https://www.courageouslion.us/p/there-is-a-reason-they-dont-listen
“A regrettably large share of our legal experiences operate not in the shadow of the Constitution and its constraints, but rather in the shadow of explicitly unconstitutional rules, actions, and orders. In the time it takes for improper Executive Orders to be reined in, for illicit administrative decisions to be corrected, and for misinterpretations of constitutional power to be overturned, so much of society’s activity is framed by what we might call the not-Constitution — all those acts of government that are deemed illegal only after they have caused enduring harm. A most troubling aspect of government power is its insistence on pushing past constitutional constraints and operating in a blurry legal wilderness of its own creation while forcing Americans to prove that those power grabs lack legitimacy.”~ J.B. Shurk
Thank you for engaging rather than just unsubbing or yelling at me!! I take your challenge seriously, and will respond with one of my own.
I agree that the Constitution was perverted in these ways.
But what does that matter now? The fact is, it was perverted in these ways. As Spooner said, the Constitution has either authorized its own perversion or it has been powerless to prevent it.
Spooner's logic there is inescapable. One of those two things is clearly true. So then we can say, "Okay, one of us thinks it was powerless to prevent its own perversion, and the other thing that it authorized it." Right. So then what? What do we do? What does it matter which it was?
If it was powerless to prevent its own perversion, why do we cling to a belief that it will be different a second time around?
And how would we even get to this hypothetical second time around? Please wargame it with me…
#1, we have to win such massive political victories that we could do what has never been done in 225 years: wind back the clock. We would need constitutional amendments. Heck, people ON OUR SIDE blocked the closest we've ever come to just one of the dozen or so new amendments we'd need. (Eagle Forum scuttled the balanced budget amendment in the 90s.)
The perversion of the Constitution has been a one-way trip since the beginning. We have never been able to muster nearly enough political power to force a stop to that slide, let alone to wind back the clock. What possible reason could we have to believe now that we would able to muster even a fraction of the power that we would need?
#2, assuming the nearly impossible feat in #1 is somehow accomplished, how could it possibly be maintained? All the political opponents of winding back the clock are still going to be there, doing what they've been doing for the last 225 years. We cannot banish them. Which means that even if we were able to accomplish the nearly impossible, we would have no expectation of being able to maintain it for more than five minutes before those forces would all take it back in the wrong direction again.
And think about those forces. It's not just lefties. It's statists of every flavor. It's Cowards, lazy people. jealous people. It's the power-hungry. The crony capitalists. The people who want something for nothing. The sheep who blindly follow.
Our numbers are tiny in comparison to the forces arrayed against us, and against our freedom. It does not matter whether the Constitution was >designed< to empower those people or not. It does. It empowers them over us. Their numbers are greater, which means they will always win so long as we exist under a system like this.
The Constitution is like a ratchet. It clicks forward a notch (toward its own perversion), but it is not able to click back. Ever. This is true for ANY republic or democracy.
Clinging to the belief that we can get around these realities is understandable. Most of the people on our side have a great deal invested in that belief. A lifetime of hope, of focus, of activism. Of fervent passion. I get it. I was there myself. Letting go of it caused genuine psychic pain. But we must let go, because we are the only ones who understand true liberty. The cave we are in is filling with water. We are the only ones who have a prayer of understanding that the tide is never going to go out. That we need to brave the long, scary swim away from the familiar. That we have to stop desperately gasping at an ever-diminishing pocket of air.
In the face of all that, the question of whether the Constitution authorized its own perversion or was powerless to prevent it is somewhat moot. Nonetheless, we have some evidence that Hamilton, at very least (and almost certainly Jay, as well) actually intended for it to be perverted and had no intention of trying to honor the general welfare, necessary and proper, etc. clauses. See this debate for more on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeE_s1Gw7X4 (Sorry I cannot point you to a time stamp now. I will at some point, but I do not have time to review it right now.)
"we have to stop desperately gasping at an ever-diminishing pocket of air" Very well put. We need a totally different way of organising ourselves. I've said somewhere, in answer to this question, that the answer is in nature, as it always is.
Correct, real laws are not made by man, but discovered, the same as every other real law which is woven into existence in an inextricable way. Man made law is satanic in that it is an effort to replace the Author of all real laws, the Truth of our existence.
CL the Amendments (1 to 10) you appropriately noted are the Bill of Rights Jefferson fought for through his proxy Madison. Besides these amendments noted and latter amendments giving Blacks and Women the right to vote etc. most all of the good of the Constitution is in the Amendments, especially the first 10 = the Bill of Rights which virtually no other government on earth expressly has, which is why especially governments under the Crown suffered so much with no Second Amendment and Clear Rights and why those Crown Governments such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada were so awful to their citizens during Covid.
Yeah, most of the good is in the Amendments, which were forced on the Federalists by the Anti-Federalists, and which the Federalists felt "weren't necessary." Bah!
Brilliant. It is heartening to me to see what I have indeed known for decades laid out in such a logical and succinct fashion. It truly gives me hope for the future.
Our unwritten constitution in the UK protects the government, not the governed and the oft-cited Magna Carta does nothing more than codify the fact that we have to request our freedoms from a higher authority. We are much further up Slavery Creek without a paddle than our lucky American cousins.
"and the oft-cited Magna Carta does nothing more than codify the fact that we have to request our freedoms from a higher authority."
—Really good point, and well said.
It is reasonable to say that Magna Carta was necessary, not only to (try to) tame King John, but also to mitigate some of the tyranny of continental feudalism and the Norman Yoke. It even makes sense to revere it as a watershed moment in the story of Anglophone and human liberty.
But…………the point you make is so spot on. Its greatest flaw—and the flaw of all the documents that follow in its wake—is that it codifies the presumption that we must go, hat in hand, to government to ask for our freedom. THAT needs to end.
"We are much further up Slavery Creek without a paddle than our lucky American cousins."
—Yes, you are, as are the rest of our Anglophone cousins in Canada and Down Under. But we are slouching our way down that same creek…just a little bit further upstream.
"[Magna Carta's] greatest flaw—and the flaw of all the documents that follow in its wake—is that it codifies the presumption that we must go, hat in hand, to government to ask for our freedom."
I think an exception could be made for the Declaration of Independence, but it stands pretty much alone in a sea of documents which presume the right of governments to run our lives. If the Constitution followed in the spirit of the Declaration, there would be no mention in it of the "crime" of treason.
The Declaration is better. But it still says, "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." That presupposition is a part of the problem. It is rooted in an Enlightenment-era-level understanding of the "solution" to the problem of how best to actuate natural law in human life. They did the best they could, but our thinking has advanced since then.
"presumption that we must go, hat in hand, to government to ask for our freedom."
Then those presumptions, especially the ones pertaining to law (12 codified presumptions!?), must be, when/ if needed, challenged or rebutted. Sadly, even if won the end result will still be a cell.
Don't be too black-pilled on our prospects. There is hope. And if it has to be generational project, with only our grandchildren actually eating of its full fruit, then so be it. We should start now, and do it for them.
Recently I've been scratching under the hood of Fascism, corporate-government "perfection" as Mussolini described, and discovered a name I was familiar with, but not in the same lane of thought I first met him. Vilfredo Pareto. I first met his name from history in learning about finance, economic theory, primarily the Pareto Principle, the "80-20 Rule" of distributions:
(preemptive apology for Wiki source, it's controlled narrative, especially controversial subjects, but for quick primer that facilitates deeper research it's a good place to start on more obscure subjects.)
This is a very interesting historical figure. Strong socialist leanings, but he kind of meandered in his philosophical thinking over his lifetime. Mussolini studied under him in 1903 as a young activist. Wiki's presentation is that Pareto grew disillusioned with socialism, other ideas he once championed, including early ideas of fascism, but it's open to interpretation. He unquestionably influenced many contemporaries and theorists since his death.
I was previously aware of his 80-20 work, but that's all. Then while reading Mussolini's biography I saw his name. And discovered he had many ideas about sociology that go to much of what you write about, Christopher. And much of what I read and explore and share. This book is worth a read over:
It is in the Circulation of Elites that he expounds on ideas about revolutions. And how it's the same people in power before and after a revolution. They just change teams. This dovetails into the ideas you write about when you describe the need for an Evolution in order to break the cycle of human organization that keeps the same people in charge no matter what the ideology is called.
Pareto's theory is consistent with the ideas of big political theory influencers like Harold Lasswell and Noam Chomsky. Of note, in Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is this idea:
"You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change."
I believe this is humanity's biggest challenge we face, as well as our biggest opportunity. I believe his work is worthy of greater investigation to those ends.
I am as familiar with the concept of the Pareto distribution as anyone who has listened to hundreds of hours of Jordan Peterson 🤣🤣. In other words, I have a surface knowledge of the concept, but do not know it in depth.
The circulation-of-elites concept makes sense. Also, as you point out, the circulation goes down pretty far into the bureaucracy. The sides change, but the bureaucrats remain!
Lol! I've caught a few of Peterson's presentations. Never a big fan. He's a selective freedom champion. Sometimes he says something that I'm glad is getting wider distribution. But most of the time is vacuous cotton candy, idea vapors that dissolve on your tongue upon contact. Never understood his following.
I didn't know he speaks about Pareto. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know any of Pareto's background I shared besides 80-20. Heck, I didn't before about two weeks ago.
The plantation is still here. The slavers just let out the leash line for awhile so we could play "liberty and justice for all" happily planting, nurturing, growing, meanwhile the state is sowing the fruits of our labors, ever more. And then wham. You are here. Oh...this is still the plantation. Britain still controls the colonies through the central bank. This was never a free country.
Government at anything above the local level is slavery. People in places you've never been, will never get to visit, and who you can't contact, routinely pass laws to take your hard earned wages and spend them however they want. If you refuse to be a slave, they send their extortionist to threaten you. If that doesn't work, they send their gun-toting agents to arrest you and send you to prison.
A bunch of people who contribute nothing to society steal your money, your land, and your future in order to give to people who haven't earned it, won't work for it, and only vote for free stuff.
There is no such thing as free. Somebody had to expend energy to make what the thieves steal.
I have little to comment on this article itself--apart from largely agreeing--but I'm living for the tone in the Distributed Nation. It's almost civilly snarky at times, but that just adds to an emphatic quality in the writing:
"Normies utter the bland platitudes they’ve been trained to utter. Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care ... You see this face? This is my I-don’t-care face."
When You got to the "YES! You are right about all those things. That is why we need to get back the Constitution as the Framers originally intended it!" I was yelling "BINGO!!! So Many say that! They want fewer chains and less whipping from Their masters!!!
I am sharing Your work! It is all I have to pay You with, but it's effort VERY well spent!
I really dislike the very term "government" as the very definition is control and monopoly on violence and intimidation. The governor on a motor is what controls and limits it. Of course being inanimate it has no objection and the purpose is basically to protect the engine from self harm from over revving and abuse. The purpose of our "government" is supposedly to protect us and our rights, as though those who really control it really care. It is not a "government by the people" even if that is what the more noble of the founders intended. It was turned into a rapacious corporation along with every other level of so-called "government" that exists today from federal to my local property owners "association." A voluntary association is one thing, but equipped with the ability to use force to foreclose on someones home and evict them from it means it is just another level of "government." The problem with a monopoly on force and intimidation is the question of who really wields the monopoly power? It isn't "the people" as there is no such thing in the sense that it's usually used. There are a large group of individuals, and even though quite a few of them may share some views and values in a particular area that doesn't mean they can force those who don't to go along any more than a single dictator has the right to do. The use of force or intimidation should only be allowed to enforce what all individuals have in common. Which is why they called it "the common law." What we call our natural rights and nothing more. Thinking there is such a thing as "the people" is like "the government." Like the corporation it is ficticious, it is not a living entity. It does not have a will, it does not think, it does not love, it doesn't have opinions. Those are things that individuals have.
Thank you. I hope the day comes when more people develop the discernment to understand these truths and distinctions that are so vital to happiness and the human freedom to live and create as the wonderful creations of the Divine Source that they are.
Every time I think about our government, I think about the Bible. And, no, I'm not a religious person. I understand ancient lessons, though.
Samuel warns the people that kings lay heavy burdens on a nation. In fact, the kings (leaders, formal governments) would be so rapacious that eventually the people would cry out to God to save them from the kings (1 Sam. 8:18)
True, the downfall of their people started with replacing a system of righteous judges with a hereditary ruler. Before that there were no lawyers, their judges were not qualified due to having a degree from some corrupt university and knew all the special lingo that was required to defraud the people with words, but had a strong reputation among their community of wisdom, compassion and courage, a real relationship and dedication to truth, justice, what is actually right and loving. Very sad. The lack of the possibility of actual balanced judgment is a lack of the most basic requirement for a just and safe community.
No, although I know the ancient Celts and Druids had a much more decentralized and common law for a moral society of justice and equality. I'd like to learn more about this Brehon system.
Some interesting historical facts well worth considering. Some of them reminded me of a very good fictional story that I once had, I think it was from anarchism.com of a society that was set in Mongolia I believe. There was a very interesting and credible institution of incentives for creating justice and enforcing it that did not require a state, but was based on moral principles whereby people chose their own standard of ethics. If these were seen to demonstrate a belief that it was okay for you to violate natural laws expected by the society, then it was okay for you to be treated the same way you had done to others unless and until you repudiated it and made restitution.
There were market based enforcement businesses that incentivised them to take care of this, and none of their free market justices would hear cases brought by the offenders against these enforcers by the violators if they had not made the required restitution that wasrequired by the injured parties that had brought suit against them. At least as far as I can remember, that was a long time ago. That site no longer seems to be in existence.
Government might have worked for us if it remained the size and scope of a lemonade stand or country farm market. Instead, it has grown to a behemoth the size of Walmart, Amazon and Costco combined. You see the problem? If it's tiny, we can master and control it. Otherwise...
But the problem is that those attracted to government service need no education, smarts or training. It takes anybody especially if you are of certain political persuasions. There is no accountability and little responsibility and who gets fired from government? The losing politicians? No, they just come back as something else. Look at Obummer...last seen in the Black House in January 2017 and he still helps destroy...err, run the country.
The majority still thinks that the government works for them because of all the goodies they get. Since when has the government worked for the citizens? Over 200 years ago would be my guess.
"That is why we need to get back the Constitution as the Framers originally intended it!"
I share your understanding that this sentiment does not reach the heart of the problem. At the same time, "getting back to the Constitution" would rid us of at least 90% of the current government (probably closer to 99%), and would represent huge steps in the right direction. From there, we could hope that knowledge gained from the benefits of shucking the bulk of the government, might translate into the will to rid ourselves of the rest of it.
The famous saying by Lysander Spooner is apropos here: "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."
Slavery can be examined with mathematical precision. A black slave in 1850 in Mississippi had perhaps >95% of his labor taken from him. The tiny balance would have been spent to feed him, maybe provide a shed to sleep in, and perhaps the occasional visit from the vet when an injury prevented him from working. All the same expenses as a draft horse.
So at what point is he not a slave? When only 80% is taken from him? 65%? 40%?
Try keeping 100% of the fruits of your labor and watch how soon you're inside a shed with bars on it.
The painful truth people want to deny is that we are all slaves owned by our Nation State and we were all born into it, just like the poor bastard in 1850. Only the numbers have changed, not the principle.
Right! You have presaged my next couple of installments. It is a difference of degree, not of kind!
"YES! You are right about all those things. That is why we need to get back the Constitution as the Framers originally intended it!" Baby steps. We surely can't go from what we are today to total anarchy over night. The Constitution was meant to be a LIMITED federal government. We would be a far cry away from what it has turned into if we were back there. Anarchy being the final goal. So don't be todisappointed with my response.
Eradicating the 19th amendment would help quite a bit
I think you mean the Bill of Rights that Jefferson forced Madison to add. Much of the Constitution is horrid including it guaranteed Slavery until at least 1809.
Make a list of the horrid parts of the Constitution. Yes, the 2/3 person isn't proper, but it was to them back then.
No time for that but the Slavery and 2/3's is a good place to start.
See my reply to your note: https://substack.com/@courageouslion/note/c-67658901
:-)
We can agree to disagree. Show me where the Constitution was written with the intent of ignoring the first 13 words of the 2nd amendment. Show me where the Constitution was written to allow taxes on wages. Show me where the Constitution was written to allow the passage of the federal reserve act in 1913. ALL of these things were done OUTSIDE of the intent of the Constitution. Show me where the constitution allows for some ass hat congress man to make a law to tax firearms that they don’t like. Show me where the Constitution allows for how many 432 at last count, different departments? Show me where the Constitution allows for a standing army for years and years. Show me where the Constitution allows for the list is ENDLESS Christopher. If you read the statement by Thomas Jefferson about the Constitution he said The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." You read my Constitution WHAT Constitution? courageouslion.us/p/constitution or The Phantom Constitution courageouslion.us/p/the-phantom-constit… and tell me where we would be if both of those were not so. Having an Anarchist society would be wonderful EXCEPT it will never ever happen because there will always be those who will want to rule and those who will want to kiss their ass. Fact is, The Constitution has no teeth in it so it is nothing but a paper tiger. The TEETH were stolen in 1913 and 1916. https://www.courageouslion.us/p/there-is-a-reason-they-dont-listen
“A regrettably large share of our legal experiences operate not in the shadow of the Constitution and its constraints, but rather in the shadow of explicitly unconstitutional rules, actions, and orders. In the time it takes for improper Executive Orders to be reined in, for illicit administrative decisions to be corrected, and for misinterpretations of constitutional power to be overturned, so much of society’s activity is framed by what we might call the not-Constitution — all those acts of government that are deemed illegal only after they have caused enduring harm. A most troubling aspect of government power is its insistence on pushing past constitutional constraints and operating in a blurry legal wilderness of its own creation while forcing Americans to prove that those power grabs lack legitimacy.”~ J.B. Shurk
Thank you for engaging rather than just unsubbing or yelling at me!! I take your challenge seriously, and will respond with one of my own.
I agree that the Constitution was perverted in these ways.
But what does that matter now? The fact is, it was perverted in these ways. As Spooner said, the Constitution has either authorized its own perversion or it has been powerless to prevent it.
Spooner's logic there is inescapable. One of those two things is clearly true. So then we can say, "Okay, one of us thinks it was powerless to prevent its own perversion, and the other thing that it authorized it." Right. So then what? What do we do? What does it matter which it was?
If it was powerless to prevent its own perversion, why do we cling to a belief that it will be different a second time around?
And how would we even get to this hypothetical second time around? Please wargame it with me…
#1, we have to win such massive political victories that we could do what has never been done in 225 years: wind back the clock. We would need constitutional amendments. Heck, people ON OUR SIDE blocked the closest we've ever come to just one of the dozen or so new amendments we'd need. (Eagle Forum scuttled the balanced budget amendment in the 90s.)
The perversion of the Constitution has been a one-way trip since the beginning. We have never been able to muster nearly enough political power to force a stop to that slide, let alone to wind back the clock. What possible reason could we have to believe now that we would able to muster even a fraction of the power that we would need?
#2, assuming the nearly impossible feat in #1 is somehow accomplished, how could it possibly be maintained? All the political opponents of winding back the clock are still going to be there, doing what they've been doing for the last 225 years. We cannot banish them. Which means that even if we were able to accomplish the nearly impossible, we would have no expectation of being able to maintain it for more than five minutes before those forces would all take it back in the wrong direction again.
And think about those forces. It's not just lefties. It's statists of every flavor. It's Cowards, lazy people. jealous people. It's the power-hungry. The crony capitalists. The people who want something for nothing. The sheep who blindly follow.
Our numbers are tiny in comparison to the forces arrayed against us, and against our freedom. It does not matter whether the Constitution was >designed< to empower those people or not. It does. It empowers them over us. Their numbers are greater, which means they will always win so long as we exist under a system like this.
The Constitution is like a ratchet. It clicks forward a notch (toward its own perversion), but it is not able to click back. Ever. This is true for ANY republic or democracy.
Clinging to the belief that we can get around these realities is understandable. Most of the people on our side have a great deal invested in that belief. A lifetime of hope, of focus, of activism. Of fervent passion. I get it. I was there myself. Letting go of it caused genuine psychic pain. But we must let go, because we are the only ones who understand true liberty. The cave we are in is filling with water. We are the only ones who have a prayer of understanding that the tide is never going to go out. That we need to brave the long, scary swim away from the familiar. That we have to stop desperately gasping at an ever-diminishing pocket of air.
In the face of all that, the question of whether the Constitution authorized its own perversion or was powerless to prevent it is somewhat moot. Nonetheless, we have some evidence that Hamilton, at very least (and almost certainly Jay, as well) actually intended for it to be perverted and had no intention of trying to honor the general welfare, necessary and proper, etc. clauses. See this debate for more on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeE_s1Gw7X4 (Sorry I cannot point you to a time stamp now. I will at some point, but I do not have time to review it right now.)
"we have to stop desperately gasping at an ever-diminishing pocket of air" Very well put. We need a totally different way of organising ourselves. I've said somewhere, in answer to this question, that the answer is in nature, as it always is.
Absolutely in nature! Natural law is woven into the fabric of everything. Manmade law is a stain upon that fabric.
Correct, real laws are not made by man, but discovered, the same as every other real law which is woven into existence in an inextricable way. Man made law is satanic in that it is an effort to replace the Author of all real laws, the Truth of our existence.
"The perversion of the Constitution has been a one-way trip since the beginning." TRUE. And that is because it is a paper tiger.
CL the Amendments (1 to 10) you appropriately noted are the Bill of Rights Jefferson fought for through his proxy Madison. Besides these amendments noted and latter amendments giving Blacks and Women the right to vote etc. most all of the good of the Constitution is in the Amendments, especially the first 10 = the Bill of Rights which virtually no other government on earth expressly has, which is why especially governments under the Crown suffered so much with no Second Amendment and Clear Rights and why those Crown Governments such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada were so awful to their citizens during Covid.
Yeah, most of the good is in the Amendments, which were forced on the Federalists by the Anti-Federalists, and which the Federalists felt "weren't necessary." Bah!
I agree with most of what you say CL.
Brilliant. It is heartening to me to see what I have indeed known for decades laid out in such a logical and succinct fashion. It truly gives me hope for the future.
Thank you for being there for so long, and for being here, and for all your support and kindness.
Our unwritten constitution in the UK protects the government, not the governed and the oft-cited Magna Carta does nothing more than codify the fact that we have to request our freedoms from a higher authority. We are much further up Slavery Creek without a paddle than our lucky American cousins.
"and the oft-cited Magna Carta does nothing more than codify the fact that we have to request our freedoms from a higher authority."
—Really good point, and well said.
It is reasonable to say that Magna Carta was necessary, not only to (try to) tame King John, but also to mitigate some of the tyranny of continental feudalism and the Norman Yoke. It even makes sense to revere it as a watershed moment in the story of Anglophone and human liberty.
But…………the point you make is so spot on. Its greatest flaw—and the flaw of all the documents that follow in its wake—is that it codifies the presumption that we must go, hat in hand, to government to ask for our freedom. THAT needs to end.
"We are much further up Slavery Creek without a paddle than our lucky American cousins."
—Yes, you are, as are the rest of our Anglophone cousins in Canada and Down Under. But we are slouching our way down that same creek…just a little bit further upstream.
"[Magna Carta's] greatest flaw—and the flaw of all the documents that follow in its wake—is that it codifies the presumption that we must go, hat in hand, to government to ask for our freedom."
I think an exception could be made for the Declaration of Independence, but it stands pretty much alone in a sea of documents which presume the right of governments to run our lives. If the Constitution followed in the spirit of the Declaration, there would be no mention in it of the "crime" of treason.
The Declaration is better. But it still says, "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." That presupposition is a part of the problem. It is rooted in an Enlightenment-era-level understanding of the "solution" to the problem of how best to actuate natural law in human life. They did the best they could, but our thinking has advanced since then.
The con-JOB-stitution is the casket in which the Declaration was buried.
"presumption that we must go, hat in hand, to government to ask for our freedom."
Then those presumptions, especially the ones pertaining to law (12 codified presumptions!?), must be, when/ if needed, challenged or rebutted. Sadly, even if won the end result will still be a cell.
Don't be too black-pilled on our prospects. There is hope. And if it has to be generational project, with only our grandchildren actually eating of its full fruit, then so be it. We should start now, and do it for them.
whole heartedly agree, convid woke a lot of 'statists' up which is a cracking start.
'It' has to be determination as hope equals desperation!
Anything but doom and despair. If we give in to those, we have lost.
Recently I've been scratching under the hood of Fascism, corporate-government "perfection" as Mussolini described, and discovered a name I was familiar with, but not in the same lane of thought I first met him. Vilfredo Pareto. I first met his name from history in learning about finance, economic theory, primarily the Pareto Principle, the "80-20 Rule" of distributions:
(preemptive apology for Wiki source, it's controlled narrative, especially controversial subjects, but for quick primer that facilitates deeper research it's a good place to start on more obscure subjects.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
He's also known for his theories on optimization, the Pareto Optimal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency
This is a very interesting historical figure. Strong socialist leanings, but he kind of meandered in his philosophical thinking over his lifetime. Mussolini studied under him in 1903 as a young activist. Wiki's presentation is that Pareto grew disillusioned with socialism, other ideas he once championed, including early ideas of fascism, but it's open to interpretation. He unquestionably influenced many contemporaries and theorists since his death.
I was previously aware of his 80-20 work, but that's all. Then while reading Mussolini's biography I saw his name. And discovered he had many ideas about sociology that go to much of what you write about, Christopher. And much of what I read and explore and share. This book is worth a read over:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_and_Society
Which includes his ideas about Social Cycle theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cycle_theory
And also brings home his ideas about the Circulation of Elites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites
It is in the Circulation of Elites that he expounds on ideas about revolutions. And how it's the same people in power before and after a revolution. They just change teams. This dovetails into the ideas you write about when you describe the need for an Evolution in order to break the cycle of human organization that keeps the same people in charge no matter what the ideology is called.
Pareto's theory is consistent with the ideas of big political theory influencers like Harold Lasswell and Noam Chomsky. Of note, in Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is this idea:
https://chomsky.info/19890315/
"You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change."
I believe this is humanity's biggest challenge we face, as well as our biggest opportunity. I believe his work is worthy of greater investigation to those ends.
This is good stuff!
I am as familiar with the concept of the Pareto distribution as anyone who has listened to hundreds of hours of Jordan Peterson 🤣🤣. In other words, I have a surface knowledge of the concept, but do not know it in depth.
The circulation-of-elites concept makes sense. Also, as you point out, the circulation goes down pretty far into the bureaucracy. The sides change, but the bureaucrats remain!
Lol! I've caught a few of Peterson's presentations. Never a big fan. He's a selective freedom champion. Sometimes he says something that I'm glad is getting wider distribution. But most of the time is vacuous cotton candy, idea vapors that dissolve on your tongue upon contact. Never understood his following.
I didn't know he speaks about Pareto. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know any of Pareto's background I shared besides 80-20. Heck, I didn't before about two weeks ago.
'Government IS slavery. Is now, always has been, always will be.'
- Mark Passio
Yeppers. It is liberating to finally understand this.
For sure. First time I heard him say it, it just hit like a Mack Truck
Yes. And one of the wheels of that truck, for me, was labelled—How did I not see this before?
Yea I know exactly what ya mean. Once ya see, its so obvious
The plantation is still here. The slavers just let out the leash line for awhile so we could play "liberty and justice for all" happily planting, nurturing, growing, meanwhile the state is sowing the fruits of our labors, ever more. And then wham. You are here. Oh...this is still the plantation. Britain still controls the colonies through the central bank. This was never a free country.
Time for evolution.
Time to grow up lovies.
Yes. Please, people, stop holding us back.
Government at anything above the local level is slavery. People in places you've never been, will never get to visit, and who you can't contact, routinely pass laws to take your hard earned wages and spend them however they want. If you refuse to be a slave, they send their extortionist to threaten you. If that doesn't work, they send their gun-toting agents to arrest you and send you to prison.
A bunch of people who contribute nothing to society steal your money, your land, and your future in order to give to people who haven't earned it, won't work for it, and only vote for free stuff.
There is no such thing as free. Somebody had to expend energy to make what the thieves steal.
Yes to all of that. But can't a local government also be tyrannical?
It can be, but I can march up to my local government official and kick his ass if I need to.
I can't very well travel to DC and do the same thing.
Yes, it is an improvement. It would be an improvement.
Though I would still prefer market anarchism and fully consensual systems.
I feel like a slave. The government takes more than half of our earnings when you added it all up. I’ve been saying I’m a slave for a long time.
I will reinforce those very points today.
I have little to comment on this article itself--apart from largely agreeing--but I'm living for the tone in the Distributed Nation. It's almost civilly snarky at times, but that just adds to an emphatic quality in the writing:
"Normies utter the bland platitudes they’ve been trained to utter. Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care ... You see this face? This is my I-don’t-care face."
Gold.
I have decided not to bottle up the passion I feel on the subject. I am pleased that you share that passion.
When You got to the "YES! You are right about all those things. That is why we need to get back the Constitution as the Framers originally intended it!" I was yelling "BINGO!!! So Many say that! They want fewer chains and less whipping from Their masters!!!
I am sharing Your work! It is all I have to pay You with, but it's effort VERY well spent!
Thank you in every way, Amaterasu!
🙏🏻 🤗 💜 🤗 🙏🏻
I really dislike the very term "government" as the very definition is control and monopoly on violence and intimidation. The governor on a motor is what controls and limits it. Of course being inanimate it has no objection and the purpose is basically to protect the engine from self harm from over revving and abuse. The purpose of our "government" is supposedly to protect us and our rights, as though those who really control it really care. It is not a "government by the people" even if that is what the more noble of the founders intended. It was turned into a rapacious corporation along with every other level of so-called "government" that exists today from federal to my local property owners "association." A voluntary association is one thing, but equipped with the ability to use force to foreclose on someones home and evict them from it means it is just another level of "government." The problem with a monopoly on force and intimidation is the question of who really wields the monopoly power? It isn't "the people" as there is no such thing in the sense that it's usually used. There are a large group of individuals, and even though quite a few of them may share some views and values in a particular area that doesn't mean they can force those who don't to go along any more than a single dictator has the right to do. The use of force or intimidation should only be allowed to enforce what all individuals have in common. Which is why they called it "the common law." What we call our natural rights and nothing more. Thinking there is such a thing as "the people" is like "the government." Like the corporation it is ficticious, it is not a living entity. It does not have a will, it does not think, it does not love, it doesn't have opinions. Those are things that individuals have.
well said in every regard.
Thank you. I hope the day comes when more people develop the discernment to understand these truths and distinctions that are so vital to happiness and the human freedom to live and create as the wonderful creations of the Divine Source that they are.
Or at very least, just allow those of us who do get it to escape!
at least!
Every time I think about our government, I think about the Bible. And, no, I'm not a religious person. I understand ancient lessons, though.
Samuel warns the people that kings lay heavy burdens on a nation. In fact, the kings (leaders, formal governments) would be so rapacious that eventually the people would cry out to God to save them from the kings (1 Sam. 8:18)
True, the downfall of their people started with replacing a system of righteous judges with a hereditary ruler. Before that there were no lawyers, their judges were not qualified due to having a degree from some corrupt university and knew all the special lingo that was required to defraud the people with words, but had a strong reputation among their community of wisdom, compassion and courage, a real relationship and dedication to truth, justice, what is actually right and loving. Very sad. The lack of the possibility of actual balanced judgment is a lack of the most basic requirement for a just and safe community.
Have you read about the Brehon system in ancient Ireland?
No, although I know the ancient Celts and Druids had a much more decentralized and common law for a moral society of justice and equality. I'd like to learn more about this Brehon system.
A couple of links in here…
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/building-island-3-historical-examples-anarchism
Some interesting historical facts well worth considering. Some of them reminded me of a very good fictional story that I once had, I think it was from anarchism.com of a society that was set in Mongolia I believe. There was a very interesting and credible institution of incentives for creating justice and enforcing it that did not require a state, but was based on moral principles whereby people chose their own standard of ethics. If these were seen to demonstrate a belief that it was okay for you to violate natural laws expected by the society, then it was okay for you to be treated the same way you had done to others unless and until you repudiated it and made restitution.
There were market based enforcement businesses that incentivised them to take care of this, and none of their free market justices would hear cases brought by the offenders against these enforcers by the violators if they had not made the required restitution that wasrequired by the injured parties that had brought suit against them. At least as far as I can remember, that was a long time ago. That site no longer seems to be in existence.
Fiction is a great way of illustrating concepts. Do you read any (so-called) libertarian sci-fi?
Thank you.
Government might have worked for us if it remained the size and scope of a lemonade stand or country farm market. Instead, it has grown to a behemoth the size of Walmart, Amazon and Costco combined. You see the problem? If it's tiny, we can master and control it. Otherwise...
But the problem is that those attracted to government service need no education, smarts or training. It takes anybody especially if you are of certain political persuasions. There is no accountability and little responsibility and who gets fired from government? The losing politicians? No, they just come back as something else. Look at Obummer...last seen in the Black House in January 2017 and he still helps destroy...err, run the country.
The majority still thinks that the government works for them because of all the goodies they get. Since when has the government worked for the citizens? Over 200 years ago would be my guess.
Yep yep and yep.
And even if it were the size of a lemonade stand, it will always grow to the size of Amazon. It's inevitable.
I think you are still accepting the premise that some have the right to call themselves our "government", however.
😂😂😂 love the title and subtitle combination!!!
Thanks :-)
"That is why we need to get back the Constitution as the Framers originally intended it!"
I share your understanding that this sentiment does not reach the heart of the problem. At the same time, "getting back to the Constitution" would rid us of at least 90% of the current government (probably closer to 99%), and would represent huge steps in the right direction. From there, we could hope that knowledge gained from the benefits of shucking the bulk of the government, might translate into the will to rid ourselves of the rest of it.
The famous saying by Lysander Spooner is apropos here: "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."
I think my reply to Courageous Lion (https://substack.com/@courageouslion/note/c-67658901) will largely suffice as a reply to this as well.
I hear you, for sure. But I cannot agree.