What form of government is the best? Which type of authority best accommodates the nature of man, and his aspirations for advancement, prosperity, and security? These are expansive and brash questions, ventured with some trepidation. As the poet Alexander Pope has said, only a fool would hazard such queries:
For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate’er is best administer’d is best:
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.
[Essay on Man, Epistle III.6]
But as fools, we are not deterred, and will proceed. We take as our starting point one of the most underappreciated works of political theory from the Italian Renaissance, Aurelio Lippo Brandolini’s Republics and Kingdoms Compared. This fascinating treatise, unpublished during the author’s lifetime, was composed sometime between 1492 and 1494, and takes the form of a dialogue between the Hungarian King Mattias Corvinus and a Florentine knight and merchant named Domenico Giugni.
The king, Mattias, begins the discussion by posing this question: which would a man rather live under, a kingdom, or a democratic republic? Domenico, coming as he did from the Florentine republican tradition, at once states his preference for republics. Republics are preferable, he says, for three reasons. First, there is greater liberty in a republic. Citizens of a democracy are “subject to no one, and obey no one,” while their counterparts in a monarchy are subject to the king’s whims. Second, there is greater respect for justice in a republic. Laws are less capricious and more justly enforced; as a consequence, the “arts and disciplines” are more likely to flourish.
Finally, a government composed of the many is more stable than the arbitrary rule by a lone sovereign. Policies can be carried through with greater consistency, over longer periods, and are less subject to the inconstancies of the crown. (I.35).
King Mattias of Hungary
The king methodically rebuts each of these assertions. He beings by noting that the imagined “free voting” of republics is often an illusion. After Giugni’s winded explanation of the hurly-burly of the republican balloting process and its attendant demagoguery, the king notes, with a twinkle in his eye: “I see from what you’ve said that citizens are sometimes forced to say things they don’t want to say, and sometimes to be silent about things they do want to say.” (I.60). In practice, free voting devolves into little more than a sham:
What disease could be greater, what faction more ruinous, than a situation where bad men can hold their opinions with impunity, and good men cannot hold their opinions without suspicion, and when no difference is made between them? The bad ones are permitted to hide their pernicious views, and the good men cannot openly offer their good deeds. What you say is “free voting” is little more than unjust oppression. (I.63).
By similar arguments, Mattias is able to show that citizens of republics are similarly unfree with regards to taxation, the legal system, and in the choice of magistrates. He concludes with this astute observation:
The republic, I can see, is not free but rather serves itself; the better it is administered, the more it is harassed by servitude and unease. Everyone must watch out for the common good; if someone wants to be a good citizen, he cannot at the same time be safe or tranquil. (I.77).
Having disposed of the illusion of democratic elections, Mattias (Brandolini’s mouthpiece) then turns his attention to the administration of laws. It is a mistake, he asserts, to believe that governments of assemblies are superior lawgivers than individual sovereigns. All of the great lawgivers—Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, Minos, and Numa Pompilia, to name a few—were individuals, not legislative bodies; the best guardians of the law are kings, not venal politicians. Being far removed from the laws, kings are better able to judge their efficacy and weigh their import; and only a king can be as swift and severe in taking punitive action when needed.
Domenico, flustered, offers that at least republics have a better record of conducting commerce and industry than kingdoms; they possess a vitality of trade matched by few kingdoms. Not at all, responds Mattias. Commercial relations bring about as much evil as good, perhaps more; trade, he proposes, is overrated. Commerce is fundamentally actuated by the allurements of rapine. In the mouth of the king, Brandolini places an eloquent condemnation of exploration:
What is this insanity, truly, of sailing to the Ethiopian or Indian Oceans to collect gems or pearls? What irrationality is this, wandering the whole world for the sake of gluttony and luxury? Why do you think [the king chides Domenico] that because we don’t do this, we are detracting from the human race? We don’t detract from trade, we don’t despise society, but we are free of the unbridled lust for money. (II.27)
And in any case, did not the great trade revolutions come about through the actions of kings, such as the sovereigns of Portugal, Spain, or England? Domenico protests that the king has misrepresented him, but to no avail.
Domenico saves his best arguments for the assertion that republics offer more longevity and stability than kingdoms; power derived from an assembly will inherently be more stable than that flowing from a royal scepter. Mattias, of course, begs to differ. Factionalism and intrigue, he argues, multiply with the presence of political parties, and a state cannot have more than one leader at once; the supposed “balance of powers” in a republic devolves into a cabal of the most powerful to perpetuate their control over the nation. Rule by the many becomes something akin to “limbs without a head (sine capite membra).” Many men can disagree with themselves, but one man cannot (plures inter se dissentere possunt, unus non potest).
All in all, Brandolini’s little book is a ringing defense of absolutism, despite his pirouetting around the less savory aspects of monarchial rule. It is certainly true that monarchy has been the most common form of government through history; equally true is that it has produced far more regal mediocrities than it has enlightened rulers. History abounds with idiots wearing the diadem and purple. Yet Brandolini manages to say much about the psychological nature of ruler and ruled, as in this incisive aside, relevant to any age:
Citizens who become deficient in their observance of the law and good conduct, gradually accede to the vileness and ruin of the vices, unless they are corrected regularly, and cultivated like fields. (III.72).
“The three strongest things in nature,” we are told, “are wine, a king, and the truth.” (III.83). Yet pinning down the truth is the problem that always frustrates us; it is a moving target that requires an expert huntsman to capture. Democratic republics in Brandolini’s day had only existed historically in the form of small city-states, where factionalism and intrigue could easily paralyze the workings of government. Brandolini makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for democracy as it existed in Florence and the other Italian city-states. Like Machiavelli, he looked hopefully to a strong, centralized government as an antidote to the fratricidal wars of the Italian micro-republics. Democracy in his day had a middling record, and had earned it.
Modern democracy has really only existed since the French and American revolutions of the late 18th century. Ancient Athens, often cited as a model democracy, extended the right to vote only to fifteen percent of its citizens; the remainder were disenfranchised laborers, foreigners, women, or slaves. Democracy is the most difficult form of government because it requires an educated and engaged citizenry. As mouths multiply and education declines, so do democratic freedoms.
Even modern democracy, as found in western Europe and America, seems to be slowly reverting to authoritarian models, under the steady pressure of technological changes and the loss of privacy rights. What has been most surprising is the ease with which these rights and freedoms have been quietly appropriated in recent decades by many supposed “democratic” governments. Many democracies of the West are hardly worthy of the name, as elections increasingly become a pantomime of oligarchs changing their seats at the dinner table, without offering the common citizenry a meaningful seat at that table.
Perhaps the proper focus in the modern era should be on the results produced by governments, rather than on their outward form. What matters is whether governments respect what Hugo Grotius (an early theorist of international law) called “natural law (ius naturale).” Grotius’s landmark 1625 study, The Law of War and Peace, held that every man, by virtue of living in a society, had certain basic and fundamental rights that his government had to respect. As long as these were respected and honored, it mattered little what type of government ruled over him. This was an idea noble in conception, and often ignored in practice.
The idea of the “monarchy”—or as we would modernly say, the authoritarian state—seems to be poised for a revival, assisted by the growth of technology and the apathy of the ruled. With passivity and acquiescence, the citizens of many Western democracies watch these developments, content to gape at their smart phones and frolic in the pleasure-gardens of a consumer culture. Brandolini may have been right after all.
Read More: How To Build A Dynasty
You assume democracy has been living. It cannot die if it never has existed, not in its purest sense anyway.
We never really had democracy…. we have politician gangsters that promised to curtail the power of the king while grabbing even more power instead….
the only reason government controls police, law courts, prisons, military etc. is a bi-product of the monarchy… the hypocrisy of having a human (with a vested interest) in a position of power will only be over come by not having one…. computers can do the balancing far more rationally and logically than any human…..
Free markets and anarchy combined with information technology is the future….. imagine something like twitter and facebook as a social force for voting and analyzing every single detail…. every comment, every forum, every individual all running in realtime… open accounting, no taxes, open invoicing for every service you use on a per use basis… etc… no elections and wait 5 years for chump X to make change you can’t even fucking see with a microscope…. all real time decisions and constant voting and analysis by computer…
the only leader we need today is one who tells us his job is obsolete….
It all comes down to this: Democracy means “people in the power”.. if the majority of your people is composed of retards (e.g. Brazil), then it will suck. The end.
Exactly. We live now in a better democracy then decades ago because governments now are completely feminist, and since the majority of the electorate are women and most women are feminist, it means that the government represents better what most of its voters want. After each election women gain power. After each election men lose power. It’s exactly how women want it.
Since women are retards we get a retarded government. It’s not that politicians are bad, it’s that democracy itself is flawed, or as this picture ironically suggests: http://i.imgbox.com/Zk7thKCX.jpg
I am with you 100% here. I never understood why we are such cheerleaders for democracy.
Say what you want about dictatorship, autocracy, monarchy….when you have a quality monarch or autocrat the system works.
Some years ago I got very interested in Peter the Great and read a lot about how he dragged Russia out of being a backwater peasant shithole to an actual European nation.
That is what we need.
Democracy is representative of the populous and the populous are idiots. As you say, system is working just fine.
What we need is for someone to raise the bar….not for everyone to decide it needs to be as low as possible so everyone can win a trophy for stepping over it.
“Some years ago I got very interested in Peter the Great and read a lot about how he dragged Russia out of being a backwater peasant shithole to an actual European nation.”
Peter “the Great” wasn’t. Catherine wasn’t either. They were “great” just as Ivan “the Terrible” was, awesomely awful (“inspiring fear or terror, dangerous”).
Russia and the world would’ve been stronger and better without them.
Cartoon aside, I respectfully disagree and feel that Peter was a great man and great leader.
“Cartoon aside, I respectfully disagree and feel that Peter was a great man and great leader.”
Of course you do, you’ve been taught that by Western historians who think how great Peter was because he “dragged Russia out of being a backwater peasant shithole to an actual European nation.”
The damage he did to the Russian Church, to Russian culture and self-confidence and identity more than cancel out everything else he did. He’s more to blame for the fall of the Russian empire and the Soviet Revolution of 1917 than even Marx and Lenin.
Russia isn’t the backwater, it never was, Russia is the Third Rome, it is epitome of civilization and manhood (as every Western invader has discovered). Obama and the USA seem intent on learning this lesson one more time (probably final). Here let me show you some of the current Russian popular culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIAUjsrPD7Q
Everyone thinks they’re the Third Rome. I’ll grant to you that Russia hasn’t been infected with the PC bullshit we have in the West. However, there’s nothing special about Russian men, per se. Many of their historic military successes had more to do with their distance and isolation from the West, and their infamously shitty winter weather. That’s not to say Russian men never fought bravely, but to claim Russian men are the greatest without acknowledging some obvious natural advantages they’ve had throughout history is a bit disingenuous.
“Everyone thinks they’re the Third Rome.”
The difference, we believe it (not to mention have the historical background to claim it). Americans (especially those hostile to Orthodoxy and Russia) hate themselves, children are taught to hate themselves, their flag, their country, their culture, often their race, their history, their own heterosexuality and masculinity. Russian children wrestle bears while the President of the USA rides a girl bike with a girly helmet:
America is fat, dominated by women and sodomites, socialist and bankrupt. American patriots like Snowden have to run to Russia for shelter from your own police state.
Here’s a Russian band singing around the time Obama was backing the genocidal cannibalistic “freedom fighters” in Syria against Assad, aiding and funding in wiping entire villages of Orthodox Syrian Christians:
[Americans] you’re only garbage, you’re the system’s slave, you don’t believe me, just go make a wave…
Fight your way out of Hell, till Babylon [USA/NATO] is gone, and nothing else remains…
Our mortal foe: Babylon of our Era [Mystery Babylon]…
Just look at what we’ve found, THEY ARE AFRAID OF US, AND EVERYTHING WE WANT TO CHANGE [your petrodollar empire of debt. Wanting to peacefully trade in our other currencies, and stockpile gold]
set the old world ablaze, we didn’t need it, all it did was take our lives away…
there’s nothing left to lose except our bonds and bars and minds they’ve trapped in chains
In Russian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbuGHo5ufao
“Pain.. more pain… you must embrace the pain” repeated over and over. Why? Because even though the Orthodox have always just wanted quiet lives, God constantly blesses us with more suffering to purify us so we never become what America is today. We don’t seek it. But, God lets fools [Napoleon, Hitler, etc] have the desires their sinful hearts and come against us.
If you don’t get the references to Babylon. Here it is:
http://biblehub.com/kjvs/revelation/18.htm
This why Putin has an approval rating of +90% currently:
The second big difference is the rage and determination which are expressed by Russians of all walks of life. The most often heard sentence now is “Русские не сдаются” (Russians don’t surrender). Russians find it amazing and absolutely crazy that the western “leaders” have apparently convinced themselves that the Russians will “blink” and let Obama scare them into not standing up for the Donbass. The mood is “if you really want a fight, then we will give you one”.
Nice screed. You’re clearly patriotic, and proud of your country. Nothing wrong with that, but arrogance isn’t a virtue. You changed the subject to America and Obama, when we weren’t even talking about America. Guess you didn’t have any objection to weather playing a vital role in many historic Russian victories.
“Guess you didn’t have any objection to weather playing a vital role in many Russian victories.”
Of course not. (I highly suggest reading the entire article linked, and excerpted from, below)
Peculiarities of Russian National Character:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2015/01/peculiarities-of-russian-national.html
Another Russian adaptation for dealing with invaders is to rely on the Russian climate to do the job. A standard way of ridding a Russian village house of vermin is simply to not heat it; a few days at 40 below or better and the cockroaches, bedbugs, lice, nits, weevils, mice, rats are all dead. It works with invaders too. Russia is the world’s most northern country. Canada is far north, but most of its population is spread along its southern border, and it has no major cities above the Arctic Circle, while Russia has two. Life in Russia in some ways resembles life in outer space or on the open ocean: impossible without life support. The Russian winter is simply not survivable without cooperation from the locals, and so all they have to do to wipe out an invader is withhold cooperation. And if you think that an invader can secure cooperation by shooting a few locals to scare the rest, see above under “Taking offense.”
Ok, a couple of things here. Not all of them are disagreements either. I don’t understand how you can talk about Russia as the Third Rome and say how wonderful it was while, with the other hand, disparaging the great Tsars that made it that way. Unless, of course, you are talking about post revolution Russia…which I don’t think you are because while we do have some disagreements here, you don’t strike me as a moron.
Secondly, shitting on the church, be it orthodox, roman catholic, muzzie, hebrew….whatever…is ALWAYS a good thing and a sign that a nation is evolving.
Identity needs to be changed over centuries. Peter wanted a Navy. He learned to build ships and created a Navy. Peter wanted modern medicine, he took the court on the road and learned from the best doctors in Paris….one anecdote, possibly true possibly apocryphal, has one of Peter’s people getting squeamish during an autopsy. He forced the man to eat the body. He refused to allow old superstitions get in the way of progress.
Even with regard to style…those beards weren’t cutting it. Ok, you may say it was a strike against some kind of cultural identity. Maybe you are right. But the man believed in progress and he wasn’t going to let someone like, say, Nancy Pelosi tell him he couldn’t behead people for disobeying.
Oh yeah, and when I say Peter Beheaded people….it wasn’t just telling people to behead other people…he took an axe and did it himself. This was a man who wasn’t afraid of hard work, public opinion or getting his hands dirty.
I think you are right about Russia (not USSR, but the Russia built by the Tsars) in terms of being the next Rome. In art and literature and warfare they were on the top of the heap. They never had the philosophers or scientists to contend with countries like Germany and England…but that was coming…and mostly thanks to revolutionaries like Peter.
Maybe a middle way? Maybe the Octoberists had it right…monarchy working with a parliament so that there was a check on absolute power in case in fell into the wrong hands. I don’t know. I do know that the bulshivicks pretty much destroyed any progress that Russia had made over the past several hundred years and put it into the dark ages…where it still lingers.
If the boys down at Fontanka 16 would have stemmed the tide of left wing terrorism you might have a strong Russia today…one with a powerful autocratic family ruling though a parliamentary system which made sure they didn’t rape the peasants or go bat shit crazy.
That definition of dictator is kinda funny. I decided to learn about fascism since everyone in the USA vehemently hates fascism, despite being completely unable to define it. Fascism was actually referred to as “the middle way,” and was supposed to be a compromise between Capitalism and Communism. It was not a well-defined philosophy like that of Communism. It was rather ad hoc. For that reason there were many different forms; the Italian form of fascism being a lot different than the German form, for example.
The American form is to have big government and the big corporations so entwined that it is difficult to tell the difference between the two on any given day. Just look at what happens with the secretary of the treasury. The banks make sure their man has that job no matter who holds the presidency. Director of the FCC? He came from one of the telecom giants, guess what sort of legislation and regulation he favors. If the position is actually important, the person in it will come from the board of a major industry corporation and go right back to it, with a nice bonus, at the end of their term.
Unfortunately fascism is still socialist in its economics.
I think I’m in the minority here, as I just don’t get why people get so upset about bankers, etc. running shit behind the scenes. Find me a government, ever, that has not been run by elites. Money and power attract each other.
During WWII, the United States government took almost complete control of the country and every relevant area of the economy. Resources were rationed, propaganda was created, suspicious looking foreigners were locked up, and the entire nation was turned into one big war machine. It became a fascist state.
Except that those dictators are always sociopathic tyrants.
This, in a nutshell, explains how a community organizer has become the leader of the most powerful country in the world.
He’s never been in the military, planned a war, run a business of any kind and would likely run a mall kiosk out of business. Yet, he was voted into office, not once but twice.
Is there any other form of government where this level of ineptitude is not only tolerated but accepted?
you are right in essence. However, even if the US is the most powerful country in the world (maybe?) POTUS isn’t anywhere near being the leader….no more than the queen of england. I wish we could all just drop the whole scenario of presidential power.
Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review and a US Senator. You may not agree with his policies but he’s no idiot. And before you get your panties in a knot, I’d say that about Bush (senior, not junior), Clinton, and Reagan as well.
I’m not a conservative, so I could care less about Bush or Reagan. I have no particular animus for Obama but he was a Senator for barely two years. You must be pretty naïve to believe he wasn’t fast-tracked.
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
-Winston Churchill
This is an excellent political article. While most strong men do not wish to be ruled over by anyone, given the choice, a strong, just monarchy is preferable to an authoritarian “democratic” state.
A monarch is typically groomed from birth for leadership, taught about his country, its history, its people, and how it is important to make decisions for the long term good of all. Popularity or public opinion has little influence on his decisions, and kings were especially fearful of things like the 15 year war America has going on in the mid east, as kings would have to use up the kingdom’s gold and treasure, and kill its workers, in order to fight a military campaign, which must have significant rewards and chances for success.
Today it becomes harder to compare monarchy versus democracy, as there are few powerful monarchies remaining, and many of these are simply oil dictatorships with a line of succession (although they are clearly far preferable to the “freedom” we see in places like Iraq).
However, living in the west, it is quite a stretch to feel that one is “subject to no one and obeys no one”. While it may be true that there is no single identity that one serves, it can be even more oppressive to serve the nameless powerful leviathan state. Liberties in most western democracies are no greater than the alternative, and are headed in a direction of being far worse. I would also say one of the weaknesses of “democracy” is its inconsistency. This is pervasive in almost every aspect of our government, but consider the following story where a typical curious child is scaring educators:
>>I came across an article on the state of the US public school system this morning. A 9 year old boy was suspended because his teacher was afraid of the statements he was making about his Lord of The Rings “ring of power” and how it had the ability to make one disappear. He has previously been suspended for referring to a black classmate as a black classmate, and for bringing an educational book which had an illustration of a pregnant woman, which was deemed too controverstial for the student body.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-boy-suspended-bringing-ring-power-school-article-1.2099103
“A monarch is typically groomed from birth for leadership, taught about
his country, its history, its people, and how it is important to make
decisions for the long term good of all.”
Monarchy is best, but not so much dynastic monarchies (“divine rights of kings” as developed in the Latin west. Mid-late Russia was unfortunately too influenced by this loyalty to a bloodline.). A dynasty loses the “Mandate of Heaven” (the Chinese concept of this was close to that of the Byzantine empire) when it is too weak, too corrupt, and not acting in the interests of the nation and the Orthodox faith. Then a Putin should overthrow them and take the throne.
The trick is how to accomplish this transition with minimal or no bloodshed.
We need a Tsar again . . .
Good piece, however succession and civil war are the main problems of monarchy.
Yes. Monarchy’s wars of succession have caused nearly as much damage as the factionalism of republics. Maybe the better approach is not to look at the “form” of the government, but at the conditions it produces.
“Yes. Monarchy’s wars of succession have caused nearly as much damage as the factionalism of republics. Maybe the better approach is not to look at the ‘form’ of the government, but at the conditions it produces.”
Can you cite an example of a war of succession that did anything near the damage of the American Civil War, the Social Wars (90-88 BC) of Rome, or Caesar vs. Pompey at the end of the Republic?
This is true; however, considering a good monarch could easily rule from say, age 20 to age 70, or 50 years, look at the wars the USA has been involved in in a 50 year period:
1950-53 Korean War
1958 Lebanon War
1959-1973 Vietnam War
1961 Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion
1965-1966 Occupation of Dominican Republic
1982-1984 Lebanon War
1983 Grenada Invasion
1989-1990 Panama Invasion
1990-1991 Iraq War
1992-1995 Somali War
1994 Haitian Invasion
1994-1995 Bosnian War
1998-1999 Kosovo War
2001 Afghanistan Invasion
2002 Yemen Invasion
2003 Iraq War
Then there’s the stuff going on in Syria, Libya, Pakistan since then. That’s a shitload of wars in 50 years. The stupid thing is NONE of those countries pose any threat to America, or even affect America that much in any way. Would even a despotic warlike monarchy / war of succession have been worse than this? No form of government is perfect, but democracy seems demonstrably worse.
At least if there *was* a civil war of succession, the parties involved would be fighting for their own futures instead of spilling blood and treasure for any of the above wasted efforts.
In 1267 Thomas Aquinas came to the same conclusion in his work “De regno ad regem Cypri”. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/DeRegno.htm
Mattias was probably familiar with this writing. He is still revered as one of the best rulers of Hungary.
Thank you for this!
Aristocracy of benevolent quality aristocrats.
But since there’s no guarantee of benevolence I would suggest something I call the Toptenocracy: A democracy where the top 10% of citizens can vote. And by “Top 10%” I mean the top 10% of those who pass certain tests, e.g. knowledge tests, number of children, taxes paid etc. The top 10% of citizens.
If you don’t want any testing, then simply allow only men > 35 years to vote. That comes pretty close to a Toptenocracy.
http://i.imgbox.com/WUhjeYZu.jpg
Problem with that is that it vests power in the test makers.
Best government is least government, across the board. Not atomism, where government encourages personal license and then picks up the tab for social costs, rather a hard individualism recognizing of BOTH liberties AND personal responsibilities.
Hence the Top 10% and not “those who PASS the test”.
Indeed. Hence the most important points of any constitution should be:
1. Free speech
2. Balanced budget
That guarantees that the government won’t get too strong. However, that does prevent hostile governments from invading you. Hence you still need some type of government which is well led and strong. Therefore I suggested the Toptenocracy.
Free speech hasn’t stopped what is happening now, and a balanced budget is good however it would simply be used as a vehicle to extort even more money from us.
Top ten who pass are still determined by the content of the test, thus, my objection stands.
But it slowed it down.
And? Would still be the top 10%. So even if you would ask questions like “How many bubbles are in foam?”, only the brightest top 10% would pass.
It would not, because the top 10% would neither want to be taxed to death, nor would be foolish enough to vote for such a system.
Just do top 10 by IQ, determined by Raven’s progressive matrices.
Go attend a few MENSA meetings and let me know how much you would enjoy a group comprised of snarky intelligent narcissists running your life. Those “brightest top 10%” types traditionally are absolutltely immune to self criticism and are almost autistically naive. They also tend to hold the common man in horrible contempt and would think nothing of instituting all kinds of horrors for him to live under.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Voting should be heavily restricted, and I am rather fond of the original U.S. Setup, personally. But you can not put the toothpaste back in the tube. Debates these days about civil government are akin to the pin head dancing angel discussions of centuries past. At present you can either fly below government radar as much as possible, or you get to be a chump. There are no winners.
No, MENSA type tests are would only be PART of the filtering bouquet, if at all. You can make all kinds of tests, e.g. How much welfare do you get, how much taxes do you pay, do you have children, are you working for the government etc. I am talking about the top 10% of citizens, not the top 10% IQ champs or “MENSA people only”.
You could even exclude IQ tests and go by some other parameters. The main points being
1. that you take the best (hence the top 10%)
2. that the tests can’t be too exclusive (hence the 10%, increase it to 20% if you like).
There would be the possibility that much of the same politicians would worm their way back into power. The problem with these people is not a lack of intelligence, the problem is lack of Will, vision and belief.
No matter what words you write down on paper, greedy people seeking power will always find ways to avoid, obfuscate, and reinterpret them. Corruption is as inherent to man as respiration. The “tweak the system” approach will not work at this point. The system is mangled beyond repair.
In the future, I can see some sort of logic-based AI system administering such a system, but if run by people, Ghost is absolutely correct–the creation of the test would skew the results.
Look at who American society holds up today as its top ten? Not just government but throughout society. The list might go something like this (taken from google top internet searches and who I see in the media constantly):
1) Obama (mediocre corporate leader, editor of the executive kill list, oversees torture and health insurance firm profitability)
2) Mitt Romney (mediocre corporate leader and hedge fund financial rapist)
3) Madonna (professional slut with mediocre singing voice)
4) Beyoncé (sells some shitty songs)
5) Kim Kardashian (being self absorbed and having a gross ass)
6) Paul Walker (dead mediocre actor)
7) Miley Cyrus (twerking, looking and sounding like a boy)
8) Bill Gates (invented some mediocre overpriced software that he shoved down peoples throat with a monopoly)
9) LeBron James (can throw a ball into a hoop with high accuracy)
10) Oprah Winfrey (I can’t explain)
Now, even if one could design a test that would exclude all of the above and include people like Neil De Grasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Elon Musk, etc. keep in mind that the above would be pissed off at losing their power and influence and would never let that happen.
“Monarchy can easily be debunked, but watch the faces, mark well the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach—men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.” — C. S. Lewis
correct.
I’m a simpleton. I’m fine with anyone who pays taxes and is not receiving welfare/food stamps/etc voting. It’s not perfect, but it works for me in my mind.
It’s a very simple test, and it only lets people who have skin in the game have a say in how things are run. The main problem now is way too many people who contribute nothing get a say in how things are run.
Start with that simple change and see how it works.
One of Sarah Palin’s talking points is OPM (Other People’s Money). It’s addictive.
They have something similar to that in France. The “best and brightest” are scooped up to attend their “National School of Administration”. What has happened is that they are now led by a bunch of out of touch aristocrats that insulated themselves from any repercussions of their actions.
All you need to know about democracy is this:
Think of the worst people you know. From the Jesus Freak Bible Thumper where everything has to be “of the Lord” to the Self Destruct Atheist where nothing can be anywhere near the Lord. From the stuff shirt conservative to the super tolerant leftist. From the oil-rug socialists in Brighton Beach to the bread-snatching Kochian elites tooling around in private jets.
They can all do one thing: they can vote.
Imagine if you will that you have a fancy car. And driving along, someone sees it and thinks “Who does he think he is with that fancy car and all that money?”.
They might rob you, a carjacking perhaps.
OR
They can vote for a politician with the same ideas, a politician who raises your taxes. Now, it’s not as much the appearance of robbery as an armed carjacking. But if you refuse to pay taxes, after the letters and garnishments, if you reach the “bar the door” stage (if you still have one to bar) there WILL be guns pointed at you.
And hence, the carjackers have not put themselves at risk to rob you – they may get bigger checks though. They hid in a voting booth with zero personal risk and robbed you.
And that’s what democracy is: hiding in a voting booth and committing robbery and murder with zero personal consequences.
I know people will say “well it was not always like this” and yes that’s true. But when you have a country like the United States, it’s only a matter of time before the sweaty palmed lick lipping breed find out a “way” and that way was the hijacking of everything EXCEPT the government first, and then sitting back and letting the hordes of brainless fucktards to their bidding without even knowing it.
So the only way to be safe from people is to not let them hide in voting booths and extend their stupidity into a state. A king, the name of whom is known by everybody, has more at stake than some mouth-breather hiding in a booth. The real oligarchs (who never went away) know this. That’s why they took over the other systems to create more mouth breathers and control what they think.
The proof is all around us: The United States has become EVERYTHING that we were told democracy was supposed to prevent.
this is not democracy… this is socialism….
and how did that work out in Stalin’s Russia ?
The same way it’s currently working out in the Middle East: Terribly.
I’m not disagreeing with you at all, just putting it into context. Democracy is Socialism by virtue of the fact that the former will inevitably descend into the latter. Thus we should dispense with any “No true democracy” arguments. Democracy is mob rule, which is why the founders never meant for America to be a “Democracy.”
In fact, at one point, Prince Henry of Prussia was suggested as a candidate for King of the United States. Which should also tell you how little faith the founders had in Democracy.
Democracy IS socialism. And it always runs and hides from the question “where does 51 percent of the people get to tell the other 49 percent how to live?”
Yet this republic still managed to become democracy. And even the brilliantly penned constitution was not able to hold it back.
Anon:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
Benjamin Franklin:
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
One thing the constitution clinging conservatives never accept is that by virtue of it failing it ended up being a useless document for statecraft.
What Republic ever remained a republic in the long run? Before the vigilance to ensue its success starts to wane and the inevitable decline that results?
The Republic of Venice lasted over a millennium and most monarchies last three times as long. Now ask yourself: How long has the longest Democracy, lasted?
Excuse my ignorance but how long did it actually last?
And I am intrigued by the fact that venice survived as a republic without devolving into democracy for so long. Why hasn’t the US last as long as a republic?
Doesn’t the Bill of Rights protect you from that?
One of the things I liked most about the treatise was how King Mattias anticipated how political correctness in a “democracy” would eventually force people to say and do things that are antithetical to their best interests:
“I see from what you’ve said that citizens are sometimes forced to say things they don’t want to say, and sometimes to be silent about things they do want to say.” (I.60).
Quintus, have you read “Democracy, the God that Died?”
No, I have not. Is it good?
Democracy: The God that Failed by Hoppe is a must read. Also Mike Anissimov released a short e-book on this topic last week but I have not read it yet.
Quintus, it is one of those few books that I have read that have completely changed my thinking. Hoppe makes some similar arguments to the protagonist above but much more convincing and in greater detail. Any critic of democracy must read that book.
Bob, I think that there has never actually been a democracy anywhere. Democracy is, and always has been, a fallacy. There really has never been a government by the people.
This is the reality of democracy versus the fantasy. The average voter believes that they are living in a democracy when in fact democracy is an illusory construct created by the hidden rulers who make the decisions on who does what to whom. This is your Matrix.
Correct – time for a pint. What’s your local? Be there in 38 hours.
The Red Lion. Be there with bells on.
This reminds me of a quote from Jefferson Davis: “Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.”
And that isn’t the case in a monarchy? Even relatively liberal England made it a practice to burn some of its best men alive for not submitting to the official religion!
So what is the alternative?
To let the ruling classes have absolute control?
Who would be the philosopher kings?
All the world is force.
If you want a genocide, are you going to get the sweet little old ladies and housewives and teenagers to do it? No. But you can get them, through fear and propaganda, to vote in a regime that can pull it off. Some might even be given a uniform but no real “hard job” that makes them reconsider.
And when it’s being done to people they don’t like, they won’t do a thing to stop it.
Now imagine if the target of the genocide fights back to such an extent that the “sweet harmless people” have a rifle and uniform thrust at them (by a burned out cop or soldier) and told “you want those people rounded up, YOU DO IT”.
What do you think would happen?
That which you wonder if there is no alternative, is all the murder without the involvement.
Because NOW the SJW, the “sweet little old harmless people” will have to go into harm’s way and if they want the undesirables gone, they will have to trade bullets. They can’t. They won’t.
Under a tyrant king, EVERYBODY would know they were under a tyrant king. I have been to countries where they are “not as free” as Americans are. You know what? Everybody had more freedom. Because everybody knew they were screwed, and because everybody was a scofflaw because of it.
Compare that the America with your neighbor will turn you in if you build a garden shed without a permit.
I’d rather have “no freedom” where everybody knows it and disengages from the state instead of fake freedom where everybody thinks they are free while they rat on each other and then engage mental gymnastics to justify it.
Here’s an exercise for you, then you will have your answer:
1. Imagine you are in a land controlled by a tyrant king. You know the king’s name, you know what his minions look like. Everybody else does. Everybody else hates the king, and looks out for the loyalists and avoids them, even if not openly, ostracizes them.
2. Now imagine there is no tyrant king. But who around you supports the democratic tyranny? They all hid in voting booths. Who are the loyalists? Is your neighbor amongst those who voted to send you to war? To take your guns? To tax you more? Who amongst any crowd of people are the blacked little souls that voted for the very shit that could wreck your life? You don’t know who they are, what they look like. You can guess all day though, and look for patterns of course (Prius, Latte, Obama sticker, etc.)
You don’t even have to imagine, just look at what happened in Iraq post-Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Once Saddam Hussein was deposed, we were stunned to discover that…Saddam Hussein was not the only bad guy in Iraq! We then discovered that Saddam was the lesser of two evils and how Iraq is populated with Shiites and Sunnis, many of whom were (gasp!) also bad guys. Who knew?!
To hang everyone of them from the lampposts and naturally a new elite would emerge.
Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
English my dear Helmuth.
(Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His)
Its basically: Kill em all and let god sort em out.
Bingo. When in doubt…
The US is already run by a ‘ruling class’. Most western countries already are. Everywhere else around the world definitely is.
There has always been a ruling class and always will be. Problems arise when you have a bunch of useless wankers as your ruling class, as we do now, in most of the West. Democracy tends to favor useless wankers, who’ll promote all sorts of nonsense, such as ”free” stuff and other short term policies, as they need to appeal to the masses in order to get into power. Having a system based on the whims of women and Joe Six Pack is going to eventually run any nation into the ground.
A new ruling class would have to be created in tandem with a militaristic cult of the state. Crucially, members would have to be permanently debarred from the corrupting decadence of materialism.
Like what you have in the US?
The US has a militaristic streak, but the military is subordinate to the politicians, who themselves are in the pockets of the wealthy.
Really, what I’m thinking of is a variation of the caste system in Plato’s Republic. The military would be a meritocratic (non-inheritable) caste with its own hierarchy. The lowest ranks would maintain security and enforce laws. Middle ranks would oversee vital functions of various geographical-political units, such as provinces or districts. The highest ranks would have the greatest political power and would be tasked with maintaining the strength of the nation.
Most importantly, the military must be prohibited from the corrupting excesses of materialism.
I actually see it slightly differently. The politicians are merely the performing clowns to provide the illusion of choice. The power is held in the hands of private individuals of which certain government agencies, such as the CIA, are their agents. The CIA are not controlled by politicians but rather by these individuals. In the US you have an “actual” government that is not answerable to the people or their elected representatives. The US military is essentially employed by this actual government to do their bidding when all else fails.
That’s the point. Either way it fucks up.
With the current system, problems are inherently embedded and the only thing that gets people to wake up is economics and losing their job.
With Kings as quintus mentioned in the article it’s not exactly tickety boo either. There have been more idiot Kings than righteous ones. The idea that intrigue would be less in the court of a king versus an early city state is laughable. They’re both pretty comparable to one another.
How many people are like cincinnatus?
To have to take absolute imperial rule twice to save an empire and not only that, twice to relinquish it back to the people?
No most dictators go like mugabe, gaddafi, and so on
I disagree about there being more idiot kings than righteous ones. You just, naturally, hear more about the bad ones.
The alternative is for us to have no government whatsoever.
Aye. Or as I see it, no hierarchical government. Of course we’d still organize ourselves according to rules, the difference being that we’d have the ability to choose what rules to live under without having to sell the house and give up our citizenship.
As long as “taxes” are voluntary I’d have no problem with that.
Sure, no doubt. And in real life we call such an arrangement “fee for service” and attribute it to the free market. Which is how whatever form of advanced social construct we invent in the future should accord itself. Currently we have a high tech world which became high tech because for about a 100 year period they saw a glimpse of a world without tyranny and capitalized on it. Unfortunately the old ways of the tyrant never left us, ergo, we still insist on funding our affairs through violence and theft (taxes).
Eventually we’ll grow out of this, the optimist in me hopes.
The alternative is to have a graduated voting system, where the votes of those who pay in count more than the votes of the leechers.
Or you can have a democracy where the welfare class is penalized, by making their votes carry less weight.
Disagree. The power would then go to the ones currently pressing for such an evolution to happen : banks, big firms, merchants. And they will govern too. With private soldiers, private polices…
That’s the situation we have now…😉
Have a democracy where the leeching class vote counts for less.
If the ruling class really cares about the people and they are also directly exposed to the wrath of the people (as in getting publicly executed and such) should they abuse their power, why not ? Have you ever wonder why Western politicians love to preach about human right ? It’s to protect their own should the sh*t hit the fan! How many Western politicians have been executed in modern times ?
That is already the reality, Democracy is just a window dressing, the people we Democratically elect live like kings are wealthier than kings, enjoy privileges that we ordinary folks can only dream of each day. The only difference is that a new puppet in a suit comes in every 4 or 8 years but its the same old shit. American democracy has been scaled back considerably these past 15 years.
Spot on! Cannot up-vote this enough.
Basically what we have is a bunch of pussies (govt figures) who have hood winked all the mouth breathers into arming a bunch of white knights to do their bidding (eg robbery).
The govt. in America is no different than a spoiled/entitled land whale parasite woman (and all of the zero logic hamstering that goes with it), who wants her alimony at any cost and will manipulate any and all to get her way.
The idea behind “democracy” is the right for people to have some say on the government that rules over them. I think the big problem with the USA is that it’s just too fucking large and diverse. The USA was never meant to be ONE giant country. It’s a union of independent countries known as “states.” If the states were given more sovereignty, then we’d have 50 different forms of government in competition with each other to attract the best citizens. Some might be more Socialist, some might be more libertarian, and others more Bible-Thumpy. That’s OK, as long as the people of that state agree to that government. If you don’t like your state’s government, then move to a state that better fits your style!
Instead, what we have is an attempt by socialists to force a one-size-fits-all interpretation of incremental Marxism on all 50 states, and this is the source of all the political division in the USA. Ultimately, if the Marxists don’t drop their strategy to run America like an Empire based in Washington DC, it will lead to further political deterioration. I’d prefer to see states given more autonomy, and the federal gov drastically shrunk. I think this would make everyone (except the imperial Marxists) happy. Otherwise, it will sooner or later lead to secession. Of course, perhaps a political crisis is what the Marxists want?
Here, here. A more EU approach where each of the states was like a small nation state, with shared currency and citizenship rules, etc. is a grand idea. Then those ignorant “America, love it or leave it” types would have a point. I would love to have a choice of 50 different lifestyles and governance choices. However, what we have now is very similar throughout all 50 states and you are not even allowed to freely leave without continuing to pay Uncle Sam every April 15, no matter where on earth you live.
Thanks, but I can’t take credit for this “grand idea.” It’s how the USA was original envisioned! This big federal gov crap didn’t appear until the 20th century. Note US states are roughly the size of European countries. It’s not a coincidence.
It already started when president Lincoln fought a bloody war to prevent the southern states from seceeding.
From that point on the government become the leviathan it is today.
Agreed; however, if we went with the weaker federal government in the “Articles of Confederation” which was the law of the land from 1776 to 1789, we would not be this far down the dark path today. Ever notice how public schools will teach all kinds of unimportant BS about American history such as “which general fought at the Battle of Tippecanoe” or “which presidents had beards” but they completely ignore the period of 1776 – 1789, a period of 13 years where the nation was free from British rule, but had a completely different form of government. George Washington didn’t become president until 1789. I have to plead ignorance on much of what happened then, as well.
That is true. The Civil War completely changed the relationship between the states. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says a state cannot leave the Union. To say a state cannot is tyranny. This begs the question, is the USA an alliance of states, or an Empire based out of DC? Shit got a lot worse in the 20th century.
Interesting history there.
Why stop at a choice of 50?
Because it beats 0?
I had in mind going the other way.
Understood, was just giving the option I suspect he’d have given. At the place we’re at right now we basically have 0 options no matter where we live, even if we live in other countries. Would be nice to easily opt out of things in ways we cannot today. Of course I’m preaching to the choir here.
Clearly an empire, especially after the nullification in practice of the 9th and 10th Amendments. There is some resurrection going on now with those, but we have very long fight ahead of us.
You may be thinking more along the lines of Switzerland. The EU is not a “federal” system. It’s imperial, through and through.
Yep the real oligarchs have crowned a new “king” instead of the old – the mass media that they use to control the opinions and knowledge of the rest of the unthinking populace. We are at this stage of sure.
You have pointed out indirectly, what I was going to get at. People use the government to give financial and emotional spankings the other people in society that they hate.
And by people, I mean minorities (sorrynotsorry to minorities reading this).
Our country is full of antisocial, antagonistic people groups. The founders knew that slavery would be a massive problem. They had no solution.
Because there is no solution in a democracy. We need absolute rule.
Might find it interesting to note that communist Cambodia during the reign of Pol Pot called itself ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ – Kampuchea being Cambodia for the uninitiated. It certainly was not ‘Democratic’ in the correct term of the word.
Pretty much every form of government has some group that is going to lose and democracy is no different than any other form of government. Some forms of government are more blatantly repressive than others. Here in America we talk freedom, but we imprison more people than anyone else on the planet, we put down countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia for oppressing their people but we in America are not much better and many people here fall through the cracks all the time.
I
The difference between a democracy and a monarchy/dictatorship is that in a democracy, one has to ‘vote’ before receiving orders from the government. In a monarchy/dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.
Some may dismiss this as a flippant or humorous comment, but think of all the time wasted on voting, the news coverage, the tv commercials, the controlled “debates”, the distracting “scandals”, the fake posturing of Democrat vs Republican and we go through at least 24 months of it every 4 years. It’s such a wasted effort. For something you will do about a dozen times before you die.
Things that stick around and appeal to people tend to fill a need, whether or not we consciously understand it.
A lengthier and ubiquitous election cycle has the appearance of people being more involved in politics. But maybe it’s just an attempt at legitimization. It’s a sheeple’s way of feeling like they weren’t totally taken for a ride when the latest election empowers shit candidates who keep fucking things up.
That’s a good point. Maybe your Seattle Seahawks didn’t win the national championship, but at least you got to watch them have a good season with many victories and got to do a lot of cheering for them, making you feel rewarded for your emotional investment.
So long as I have weapons and the ability to defend myself, I could really care less, and would probably prefer a king to a Congress. In truth, it would be much better for everyone if the mouth-breathing masses were not allowed a say in matters where they are completely ignorant and have no skin in the game, yet a blank check in front of them to write as they wish. And, if it comes down to my weapons, it is easier to kill one tyrant than an entire chamber full of them.
the basic premise of socialist democracy is to bribe the underclass to shut up and leave the power class in place…. everyone in the middle bites it….. until there is no middle and the lower class gets bloated and restless and starts a revolution…. or the power class starts a war to distract from the real issues at large….
either way you end up with a war, civil or otherwise….. especially once you allow socialist governments to issue debt and put them in bed with the bankers…. war = more debt which bankers love…… large government is a great customer if you are handling their debt…. but in reality the govt. has no place issuing debt, since they are effectively spending the tax revenues of a future president…. if the govt AND people want to spend more money, then taxes have to be raised…. it’s that simple….. Govt. borrowing strip mines the economy on behalf of the bankers and lenders….. and lately no one wants to buy Govt. debt, so the central bankers are buying it themselves….
then whole thing goes bust……. which is coming in a minute…. there is a possibility that is being done on purpose to install a global currency and microchipping of the population…. no microchip – no money….
then perhaps aliens will land to harvest us all, i can’t see much other reason for wanting so much power over everyone and creating a giant prison planet…… on a pure human scale the whole thing will collapse… so it’s either engineered for a reason, or it’s just plain human folly….
In feminist Sweden, it’s already “no chip, no job”.
Office puts chips under staff’s skin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31042477
just like the bank card and smart phone… first it’s for geeks, then it’s optional and then you can’t do jack without it….
Exactly! They way they trick people into the matrix is ingenious.
Wow is this for real?
My ass I’m putting a fucking barcode chip literally in my hand.
You guys watch… this is going to be the fashion trend of the future… Just like fat bitches who get 10 billion upvotes for having a vagina. Soon you’re going to need a government issued clearance to get under a girls panties… To have a fucking erection.
If things continue down this path I’m leaving this place… More technology and surveillance does not by definition equal better.
These idiots can deal with their gradual indoctrination techno reality.
Go play robot if you want but some of us are going to fold and leave the table.
Yep, just like companies have decided, with the help of government’s benevolent “permission” that they can force you to not smoke in your own home, or force you to get a vaccination, all as terms of employment. The slippery slope is clear on this one, they can basically do anything now as “conditions of employment” and, if the trends go global, means a roundabout denial of basically all of your rights at whim.
Not chipped? No job. Anywhere. Even McD’s requires it now.
Smoke on your own time? No job. Anywhere. Even McD’s requires it now.
Own a gun? No job. Anywhere. Even McD’s requires home disarmament now as a condition of employment.
Homeschool? No job. Etc.
I find this truly disturbing Ghost.
This kind of technology could spiral out of control.
If they set up sensors around the city they could easily know where you are, where you’ve been, etc.
Then they could start marketing to you specifically based on your recorded consumer behaviour etc.
Fucked up man….
Our only recourse is to become business owners and provide our employees, and ourselves, with an out that other companies do not provide. I know of nobody who approves of the ham handed “at home” demands companies are starting to make of employees in their off time.
How can I not do jack without a smart phone? Don’t own one, have never owned one, will never own one (voluntarily). I still get everywhere I want to go, I spend money as I wish, and my social life is humming. I’m missing the whole “no jack” part.
Strong willed men have historically desired small government whereas “strong and independent” women desire the very opposite.
It will take a dictator to fix the mess Europe and America are in, whether you like it or not.
democracy really is a marxist principle. The idea of giving many unequal people an equal say in choosing who runs a country is just counter-logical and counter nature. Some people are better fitted to run the affairs of the country than others and I’m not talking about the jew elitist rich.
You might say “well, if people don’t get a chance to vote for their leaders, then their interests are not represented.” Well, there are other ways of representing and addressing the interests of all people other than with democracy.
In an irrelevant side note: in the US and Canada, we really don’t have democracy anyway because it’s a two-party system and they’re both aligned with the political elite… so, it’s bullshit anyway.
I think electing other people to set policy of a country is worse than the populous voting on actual issues. that would take out the majority of the corruption.
if we were allowed to vote on ALL the issues of state, instead of the politicians doing it, we would actually get what we want. do you think if the public had the opportunity to vote on the american “patriot act,” do you think it would have passed? Of course not. it’s an abhorrent bill that is in violation of civil rights and gives the authority of the government to assassinate american citizens without trial or punishment. screw the politicians. the roman empire was really a pinnacle of success of people running a nation.
“As mouths multiply and education declines, so do democratic freedoms.” Thank you Quintus for putting the state of many “democracies” into one sentence.
The EU is a collection of such democracies into a larger state run from Brussels. Originally set up to enhance trade between member countries it has now made in roads into each country’s politics and laws. As a citizen of a member state our laws and constitution given to us by the fathers of this state are being eroded by edicts from the EU.
How has an institution set up to enhance trade erupted into a super state? Power and greed among bureaucrats and politicians. Its not looking good for the future. I find myself hoping for war with Russia, and loosing……
“Citizens who become deficient in their observance of the law and good
conduct, gradually accede to the vileness and ruin of the vices, unless
they are corrected regularly, and cultivated like fields. (III.72).”
This
quote perfectly describes the current leaders of the political class at
this moment, especially those on the Left. The law and good conduct is
something that does not apply to them and they flaunt it to the
mass.They attack their enemies for lack of good contact and breaking
laws that would not be trivial to them.
The US was never envision as democratic republic. The foundering fathers
knew the fickleness and greed of human nature. They knew that
democracies will product the tyranny of the majority upon minority and
vice verse, to whom ever control ballot boxes. The fathers implemented
the US Constitution as the iron bound rules in which the government must
abide or the people will get the tar and feather ready for the ruling
classes.
What the Founding Fathers did not envision is the creation of
the political left as we see it today, undermining the education and
culture in this country. Its is the left that see the US Constitution as living document that can be change at the whim their desires. As many people come to this country for the free hand me out and vote Democrat, the further the decline this country will far. As immigrant to US in earlier 90’s, it hurts to see how far we have fallen as culture in the short span of tme.
If they really wanted to constrain government they would have left the Articles of Confederation in place. The Constitution was actually a vast expansion of government power over the Articles. It eliminated many of the competitive forces between the states and replaced them with empty words on parchment. The “founders” by this time were mostly concerned that they didn’t have enough power. Only a few principled ones refused to sign or attend the proceedings. Their legacies are now largely footnotes in history. History has proven them correct however as was once said that particular document is a failure as it “has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.”
Fantastic insight. The AOC were perfect for small governance, and “failed” because of how the country was founded, which was unfettered all out warfare which led to a need for massive repayment of debt, which the AOC did not provide an effective means of collection. Had the AOC been founded in a peacefully established nation (good luck with that, hasn’t happened yet) then the huge debt would not have been present and thus, the AOC could have worked for a while without encumbrance. Coming right off the heels of war however it simply could not. But then, small government *must* mean that you’re not out bashing in people’s skulls and shooting them in war, so the contradiction is plane on its face.
The floundering fathers are a joke. The US treat them as perfect men, that their constitution was perfect and infallible, and yet it’s descendents of right and left (with the left taking more precedence for the destruction this century) have bit by bit destroyed the country and other countries through their various alterations of laws. And one has to ask, why did they alter it? Because there were systematic weaknesses in place that were not accounted for.
The number one being greed and human irrationality. Any government or king exists to do one thing now, to perpetuate itself.
To increase its reach and power over time, to drag it’s claws into everyone’s business and take power from the men of the house and replace it to the monarchy or to the state.
Roosh seemed to think that the failure of nationalism was because the nation had failed it’s men, and in return why would men want to want to prop up the nation?
While that may be true that did not take into account the ability for corporatism and unrestricted trade (as a consequence of capital flow) to prop up things that were detrimental to the nation but favourable to one’s personal profit line.
These vast post government behemoths and entities don’t care if the nation in destroyed so long as they get their profits. It’s why companies started going hard and heavy marketing random useless shit to women in the 60s. Planned obsolescence to sell more useless shit because men weren’t buying as much as the Corps wanted.
Corporations fostered and facilitated this greed that made women greedy in other aspects too.
To fund their new desires (women are simple folk, the TV told them to buy some random shit and they had a desire fostered within them to go for it) they would of course need more income. Because mens wages did not adequately cover their womenfolks new desires for excess. So what happens next? We want to work too, we want worker rights bla bla bla
And it’s not just in providing the roots of destruction to the nuclear family that corporations have played an interest in. Similarly in capital flight as well.
If a bunch of guys can in China or India at the absolute most corrupt excesses of capitalism produces products that can then be (largely protectionist free) be sold within the US or UK for basically nothing, why would companies want to keep their workforce in the UK or US?
Their biggest expense is the labour force so, destruction of the home nation doesn’t even bother them or enter their minds.
This was further solidified with bureaucratic and law bloat that lead to companies being able to be ‘human’ on paper.
There was no one irreplaceable at the top to guide, to cajole, to reward or punish to make corporations have atleast some level of consideration for the demographic and societal destructions their shameless overpursuit of wealth had done to the nation.
To adapt and paraphrase quintus in the article, the modern corporation has no head and many limbs. It is eternally self serving. And what it serves is not even for the person who founded it, but itself.
That is why corporation law is weak. Because once you get rid of the human in the process of business pursuit you will have the profit incentive at the expense of everything, even favourable things like keeping jobs at home, (meaning less entry of foreign workers both legal and illegal), boosting domestic industry and keeping the family nuclear.
Unfettered Globalisation is a poison that hooks up every blood stream to each other, so a weakness in one system ripples and is felt by all.
To end I would like to say I am not offering any solutions besides that an individual level. Maximise your capital and minimise your spend. That might mean earning in dollars and living in baht. It might mean a whole slew of things. The nation is fucked, because of the political left yes, and also because of corporations complicity at spreading just about any message for the sake of profit.
Retire all government employees. Hire a CEO with full control over budget, policy, and personnel to run the government. Have him hired/fired/answerable to a Board of Directors such as 50 State Governors.
I’m a little hesitant to apply the capitalist economic model to governance, but consider how ridiculous it would be if a corporation elected its leader instead of hiring / appointing a CEO who is seen as the best and most highly qualified for the position. Regardless of the problems with capitalism and the out of control CEO / worker pay balance which has ballooned recently, it would be absurd to see companies led by a popularly elected leader. Yet, somehow, this is natural and normal for the political world.
I have to desagree with this article. Democracy itself is not to blame; the problem is what democracy turned into: a populist-socialist-demagogical regime with a huge government in charge.
It always turns into that though. It is like saying that (insert name: exotic animal) isn’t dangerous as a pet. Look at how cute they are when they are small.
Good point, but I still think democracy is the lesser evil.
US is going bankrupt with 51% of the people voting for free lunch paid for by 49%.
Make military service and ownership of land as a requirement for voting rights and that will solve some of the current problems.
Most people are followers, like a herd, with one or more leader that know were to go, a few guards that protects the followers (the mass), who protect the offspring.
Democracy destroyed that natural order.
I am grateful for the article, Quintus, great insights; the idea that “the proper focus in the modern era should be on the results produced by governments, rather than on their outward form” is brilliant and says a lot about how narcissism infiltrated even the political system where nurturing a good image is more important than implementing anything worthwhile.
Sad to see no one here really gets it. ALL governments, since the dawn of time, have been oligarchies. They are in actuality the most successful mafia in any given geographic area. How they style themselves and the minor trappings are simply marketing techniques designed to feign legitimacy. The latest scam in a long line of scams is the belief that voting somehow equals legitimacy. It does not. No single person on earth has the natural right to control another, so long as that person is not harming them. Voting is an inherent evil. On top of that, none of you who have ever voted have altered the outcome of an election. The rulers continue to do what they want. No minor tweaks to the system are going to change that fact. Government is an out of control bronze-age psychological experiment.
Not sure I could agree that ‘voting is an inherent evil’ but leaving that aside I think you’re right about democracy being about how oligarchies style themselves and “marketing techniques designed to feign legitimacy”
As always this is a thought-provoking article, but unless something major changes in our culture one of the main results that any government has to produce is legitimacy – and today there is a particular kind of legitimacy that needs to be demonstrated, and one that accounts for why women now dominate political affairs – and that it is everything has to seem to be – and note the emphasis is on ‘seem’ – to be consensual. It doesn’t matter that only 1% of a superelite make all the real decisions as long as the semblance of consensual political activity continues. Politics today is the manipulation of legitimacy and consent, and that is both the reason why democracy fails – because it is ultimately not about the exercise of choice, but the appearance of choice – and why one can’t just conjure a new system to replace it: where would legitimacy come from outside of a system of government that exhibited the outwards signs of democracy, of consensus based politics?
Ultimately though, there are situations which can challenge a situation like this. If democracy can be shown to be fundamentally deceptive in its form, and to be failing to do what it claims to do, that is permit government by the people, then you can challenge it on that basis, although the problem here is that a lot of people are saying that democracy sucks per se ……. one cannot challenge the system from without only from within. What needs to be demonstrated is that democracy is failing on its own terms: that it is deception, manipulation and falsehood.
Grotius and natural law, one can certainly critique the system on the basis of natural law. During the French Wars of religion (as far as I can remember) one legal theorist produced a pamphlet called “Vindicae Contra Tyrranos” (or something like that) which argued as far I can recall that tyrants could be overthrown where natural rights were being fundamentally violated however after Rousseau (and particularly the French Revolution) such things became a question of a “social contract”. To cut a long story short, as men, whether we are living in a republic or within a democracy, I am not sure how well a case we can make that the current situation violates any kind of natural rights, however the argument probably could be made that many of today’s progressive innovations, specifically those which have a disenfranchising effect, may have the effect of violating the social contract upon which ‘we enter into society’. For a start I’d say increasingly many of the fundamental (self-)interests of men as men are being violated, and that that is a form of effective alienation, disenfranchisement, breach of contract, call it what you will.
Only very successful state marketing propaganda can convince someone living in the modern Western world that their natural rights are not being violated. When every single action you take is either taxed, regulated, licensed, controlled, or restricted, yet for you yourself to engage in any of these behaviours is considered a great offense, you are essentially a free range slave.
The illegitimacy can be proven quite easily. If everything the government currently does was made voluntary, almost no one would participate in any of it. No one would pay voluntary taxes, and if state schools were so great, why is attendance mandatory under threat of imprisonment, and paying for them mandatory under threat of imprisonment and asset seizure? When was the last time you had such a great idea that you had to hold people at gunpoint to get them to agree? It is only because people are under duress that they do so. Every arbitrary action is backed by the threat of violence.
This ties in with the statement I made about voting being inherently evil. If 9 out of 10 residents on your block met and agreed to take 10% of your income this year for improvements to the block, would they have the right to do so? Of course not. Yet if those same 9 residents (or even fewer in modern society) accomplish the same action through by voting in an agreeable town councilor, or appealing to one already voted in, this would be considered “government at work.” Voting is essentially theft and coercion by proxy, inserting a middleman to do your dirty work. Now on the scale of things, an individual voting may not be akin to robbing a liquor store, but it is still a poisonous, entitlement mindset that, sad to say, the vast majority of the population believes in.
“It is only because people are under duress that they do so. Every arbitrary action is backed by the threat of violence./ This ties in with the statement I made about voting being inherently evil”
Yes, of course. Extreme voluntarism, for example anarcho-communism (spain ’37) or even anarcho-libertarianism I suppose (what’s it called – sea…something?) has never really got off the ground. If the alternative is a benevolent / enlightened despot (a monarchy) then you would still have the legitimacy issue, as rights that had been won would have to be ‘lost’ – I don’t see how you could just return to some system based upon natural and / or divine right, which means you have to have a new form of social contract i.e. the old one is dissolved on account of some fundamental breach to be re-made or re-constituted on some altered or approved basis – this would be the case even if it were absolute despot (a tyrant like Stalin still needed legitimacy). The flat scenario is quite a good comparison: I nearly bought a flat a while back, where I would have had to pay a fixed proportion of the service charges for the communal building. It turned out the developer / owner had gone on bust with massive debts (c.f. trillions of national debt) and there were only about two existing owner occupiers – meaning I would have had limited voting rights on account of my lease, but that the managing agent / developer might have need to increase the service charges massively. I would be bind by his decision, and / or the majority position of the other lessees, on account of having signed the initial agreement / contract. Living in a democracy is similar to that – there is an implied social contract that you have automatically entered into (whether you like it or not) and yes, it is enforced where necessary through state-coercion, however the state is theoretically able to do that to the extent that it argue that it is fulfilling its side of the social contract – i.e. carrying out effective governement on some kind of agreed or contracted basis. That’s why I say if you want to make fundamental systemic or even contractual change, you have to demonstrate some effective breach in contract. My feeling is that there something like a breach of contract in this particular sense involved in a) the deceptive & manipulative nature of how democracy is now being conducted (i.e. the form of democracy is respected, while its spirit is violated) and b) on account of that deceit men as a group are having their vital interests (that are arguably enshrined in the social contract – in US you at least have a constitution) breached in a fundamental way. This is why I would say even if you don’t really believe in democracy you may still need to argue any case for restitution on the basis of democratic principles.
The social contract argument would only be valid if you could opt-out of both government “services” and the force that accompanies your every action. In the modern world, this is not the case. There is not a speck on land on this miserable rock that is not controlled by a criminal gang calling itself a government. You are born onto a specific landmass and subject to any and all arbitrary rules set within. Even when you each the age of majority you need significant wealth and connections to change your ruling gang, and there is no place you can go to not be subject to one.
The real estate argument you provided is not a parallel at all. In that case, you had the choice as to whether to accept the agreement or not. You have the ability to sell and leave even if you do. It is an entirely voluntary interaction. If you still believe in the social contract, call some government offices and tell them you’re not paying because you feel they’re not keeping their end of the bargain, see how far it gets you.
the social contract argument was an attempt by Rousseau and those after him to explain how the will of the people could legitimise a state. With Rousseau the idea took on a majoritarian colour, as implied in the general will of the people. That idea is still awkwardly central to countries with parliamentary or republican democracy. What that means is that one lone individual would have a real hard time ‘opting out’ of taxes etc (although they could emigrate out of the system to another one) but if larger numbers of people become alienated (largely a hegelian / marxist concept) and feel that the social contract based is being violated because it no longer serves ‘the people’, the majority etc, then you have a problem. In UK you have these types of arguments with UKIP vs Europe (a violation not only of national sovereignty but also of the majority will of the people). Its never really been a legal argument for opting out but is a moral argument that relates directly to the issue of legitimacy. Ultimately my point isn’t to say this is a good, a valid, or legitimate system, but that demonstrating the insufficiency of the current system on terms recognizable within political philosophy is probably the most effective way of challenging ‘the system’. If all men believed that a supposedly democratic system was failing them that would break the system (in some way), but if you say ‘democracy sucks’ and refuse to play any more, then you will come against the full force of the state & the state will get you. The issue is tactics as well as the ideal form of government
“ALL governments, since the dawn of time, have been oligarchies.”
I get it…
Preselected politicians, bought by the lobbyists and the commercial class throw themselves at the masses, spin their policies in a way that convinces the herd that these policies are enforced for their benefit and not for politicians and the businesses and foreign policy lobbyists that promise them cushy jobs after their political careers end as long as the subverters get what they want. And what do these snakes want? War for oil companies, weapons manufacturers and Israeli and Saudi lobbyists. Mass migration for the business interests that want to drive down wages and expand the consumer base (you can’t sell an illiterate goat herder from Somalia goodies while he lives in a tin hut. You have to import him and his 17 children for that.)
Quintus, I point you to “Democracy The God That Failed,” by Hans Hermann Hoppe.
Democratic elections are nothing more than crude popularity contests. There is no
special reason to assume that popular elections are able to select
effective governments or set beneficial government policies. In fact,
there is much evidence to the contrary. Asking the average man and
woman, with no experience of or knowledge in government, to select
government officials and national policies makes no sense. It is like
asking someone whose only experience is cooking eggs to cook a
five-course gourmet meal from scratch. When it comes to art and music,
thinkers intuitively realize that the most popular works are the most
trivial and idiotic, but when it comes to politics, the uninformed
opinions of the masses are placed on a pedestal. The reason for this
inconsistent view of a sort of Democratic pseudo-religion that has been
in place in the Anglosphere since around 1848
A Democratic government is not accountable for anything. Because
Democratic leaders shuffle around every 4-8 years, no one has the
incentive to consider time frames longer than until the next election.
They have what is called a high time preference. Since democratic
politicians are not personally liable for government debts, they have
every incentive to overspend, causing deep deficit spending. No
Democratic government has an incentive to improve things in the long
term, only making themselves look good in the short term. Their
specialty is kicking the can.
“Democracy and the public right to vote guarantee that no one other than
the sycophants of the people will rise to power – and people never
clamour for anything other than bread and circuses, regardless of the
costs and consequences.”
– Pentti Linkola
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance”
HL Mencken.
Exactly this. The lack of accountability in Democratic regimes ensures that leaders can essentially do whatever they want without having to consider the rammifications or consequences of their actions. If a King fucks up, he simply cannot step down or defer the blame to someone else. The peasantry will automatically know that the guy who dwells in the giant castle on top of the hill is responsible for problems caused by mismanagement. In other words, the sword of Damocles always hangs over the head of a monarch.
I also remember hearing someone talk about how Monarchism is an organic and natural form of governance that subconsciously appeals to people more than theyd like to admit. This is even evident in brainless dolts like feminists. We use the term princess complex but where does that come from? Why are people so hooked on shows like Game of Thrones?
The only issue I would have with a monarchy is that it wouldent guarantee good leaders. After all, a king whos first in the line of succession might be good but his son or heir might be a total degenerate ala King Joffrey.
Really interesting article by the way. I was surprised that a site called Return of “Kings” took this long to delve into dark enlightenment territory.
“Why are people so hooked on shows like Game of Thrones?”
The answer is that the power struggles are so realistic. Whereas modern political dramas are hampered by being forced to pretend that elected leaders aren’t ordering the deaths of opponents like Breitbart, Michael Hastings, etc.
“The only issue I would have with a monarchy is that it wouldent guarantee good leaders. After all, a king whos first in the line of succession might be good but his son or heir might be a total degenerate ala King Joffrey.”
That’s fine, just the excuse an ambitious and capable man needs to kill the king and take the throne. “The king is dead, all hail the king.” And, if the new guy doesn’t work out, then repeat until you arrive at Putin.
One way to get around that problem is to have a non-hereditary monarchy in which the successor is elected by a group of subordinates.
This creates the possibility of intrigue and plotting, and so these subordinates would have to, like the king, be given a secure position of power contrived to deny them the spoils of the abuse of that power.
An example of this is the Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church. When the Pope dies, the cardinals choose among themselves to appoint the next Pope. These cardinals already have power, but are above the corrupting influence of money, and so cannot be bought. (Hopefully they don’t lust for money, but even if they do, Catholics expect them not to, and would be disgusted if a cardinal were caught living in decadence. Cardinals are too high-profile).
Don’t know about Hastings, but Andy Breitbart had quite a nose for “nose”, or so the rumors go. Even conservative shock-jock Anthony Cumia, who partied with Brietbart, hinted as much. Ask potential Celtics great Len Bias about what that stuff can do to your ticker. On second thought, don’t ask. He can’t hear you.
You can’t talk about this without mentioning Mencius Moldbug!
http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/moldbugs-gentle-introduction/
Democracy is only a good short-term solution. Eventually we get to the point where a majority of people votes to deprive a minority of people of rights and money.
Then it all goes to hell.
Democracy works. About the only truth Obama has spoken in six years is that he is an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the energies and demands of his constituency. The collective power of Team Woman decides everything of import in the U.S. They rule, albeit often using male proxies. This is what democracy promises, and delivers: self-obsessed Groupist Totalitarianism, validated by the votes of the Almighty People.
History shows over and over that the Almighty People are completely unable to rule over themselves. . . much less over each other. It also shows that the Almighty People are 100 percent convinced that they ARE capable of ruling over themselves, and baby are they eager to rule over everybody else too. Right down to the words we are allowed to say, and the thoughts we are allowed to think.
Democracy easily propagandizes, and incentivizes, the most base and selfish urges of the Almighty People, who then validate a collective figure (Obama etc.) to justify their greed, power-seeking, vengeance and malevolence. It’s the perfect system of enslavement, guaranteeing the eventual destruction of masculinity, which as an individual phenomenon is fundamentally in opposition to collectivist thug-rule.
Cheers.
I agree, sadly. I used to think that “democracy is the worst form of government, except compared to all others.” Now I think its only one of many equally bad ways.
Heinlein was a great man and a great writer, but remember… he earnestly believed that women would prove to be better combat pilots than men. This simply proves that he is human and can have errors in judgement too.
To be fair at least he had decent scientific reasoning to hold that view. Women do have better hand-eye coordination, so it’s not terribly off base to use that to project forward “Planes require very little physical exertion, but rely a lot on hand eye coordination, ergo, maybe women will turn out better at piloting than men”. Of course he didn’t consider other factors I suspect, but at least his mistake was innocent enough given the assumption.
well, the problem is that EVERY physical metric by which women approach or exceed men is almost instantly rendered moot in the face of any emotional stress. That’s why women make terrible surgeons, despite having superior manual dexterity.
There’s also reaction speed to think about… being able to play a better game of ‘operation’ does not mean you are better at playing twitch video games, as proven again and again.
It was, to be sure, an honest error… but an error which he COULD have avoided with a bit of rational thought, by looking at the histories of women in actual combat roles in history
Democracy is a mere carrot and stick metaphor. Politicans just dangle something in front of the majority and then the majority votes for. Nowadays Politicans have instilled a fanatical drive for equality of every kind, gender, income, racial, and “marriage” as if it was achievable or desirable.
I remember a political behavior class in 1972 where the professor said that the ability of voters to genuinely influence policy through the mechanism of elections was overrated. The single biggest advantage of democracy (or at least of elections) was that people were more inclined to accept the results; fewer wars of dynastic succession. But the large universal-suffrage democracies are probably unstable and will likely self-destruct eventually. A Romanian I met told me that the best governed Romania ever was was by King Michael, the last Hohenzollern. I personally think that a federal system with representative government and decisions made at the lowest level possible, coupled with a racially homogeneous population (e.g., Swizerland) is probably the best, at least for Western Europeans. Other cultures and peoples might well be better off with some form of more authoritarian government.
Liberalism, along with islamic terror are the biggest threats to civilization right now
You guys might want to read Machiavelli “The Discourses” before making judgements about monarchies being better than republics. Machiavelli discusses both in considerable detail and concludes that republics, despite their many flaws, are generally better than monarchies or empires.
republics are not democracies.
They just inevitably become one.
Fair enough.
heh, full on red pill neoreactionary article. Nicely played.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
A Democracy is just a society that is winding it’s way from freedom, probably only possible for as long as you can maintain a limited republic to a tyranny. That tyranny may take the form of a dictatorship of some sort or a monarchy of some sort. It happens, because, as already noted, people realize they can vote themselves money from the federal treasury, or worse, politicians realize they can gain power by dispersing money from the treasury. Once this consolidation starts happening, power becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, until ultimately it becomes concentrated in the hands of one person. This person is almost always a sociopath, charismatic and charming in public and brutal in private. They may have an “inner circle” but that circle knows that they must truly fear and obey the one in charge.
I suppose a benevolent tyranny is possible. I think that it would require that man accept rule by angels, and nothing less.
Another example: The Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth was very powerful during this time. Their Congress, or Sejm….a times prevented any legislation from moving forward unless all members of the Sejm voted in the affirmative. Liberum Veto. It didnt happen all of the time but when it was instituted it paralyzed their Government….and were partitioned in the 18th Century to 3 different powers.
The future of the USA.
I remember when it was a huge laugh just to see.. look! A black president! lol
But this movie is so true in so many ways. The “Ow my Balls” reminds me of the ass obsession discussed here in recent articles.
Governments that control money creation will always collapse due to currency collapse. Return to sound money–gold or bitcoins
I am a long-time monarchist. My country needs a Tsar again.
Just finished reading the article Quintus.
Thought provoking and well written.
Cheers.
Americans are taught from grade school that democracy is the bestest form of government and that, before democracy, kings were going around being jerks and oppressing people all the time.
History is written by the victors.
Oh you should see what’s taught in French schools.
It’s like France was born in 1789.
Democracies in which all share equal voting rights are indeed the equivalent of two wolves and a sheep deciding on the lunch menu and it is this dynamic which leads to long term deterioration in their social and economic health. However, rather than
reflect upon a straight choice between that and forms of monarchy we could also
consider another option – that of the enhanced democracy. The problem with one
vote per citizen is that it leads, inevitably, to populist policy. Jam today, at the expense of the future. A democratic system which fosters a more strategic perspective is needed and this is best accomplished by giving a more powerful say to those who have made the most constructive investment in their society’s health. I don’t mean money, but good citizenship.
In his book “In the Wet”, which was published in 1953, Nevil Shute postulated something called multiple voting whereby citizens earned the right to additional votes
over and above their universally-entitled single vote. Such multiple votes would be rewards for accomplishments agreed by both left and right as being good citizenship. For example, not claiming benefits for a certain number of years, raising two children to adulthood, military service, charity work and so on. This went up to a maximum of seven votes, with the seventh being an honour awarded by the Crown. (The story is mostly set in Australia, Canada and England). The idea was to reward those who put the most in with a greater voice and thus minimize the influence of political demagogues.
In a twist which is eminently suitable to this discussion, multiple voting – already established in more enlightened parts of the book’s world – is imposed upon a failing, chaotic and deeply red British government by the Crown when the exasperated monarch appoints a Governor General to take charge of the United Kingdom.
The book is a story of reincarnation, sci-fi and political speculation and, having been
written in the early 50s, it’s wonderfully incorrect. The nickname of the
central character’s racially-mixed reincarnated self is “Nigger”. So, don’t
expect to find many copies around.
Brilliant article quintus and I liked in a way that you present the arguments but not a conclusion.
At the heart of every woman and every man lie two things.
For a woman, it is to be ruled by a benevolent dictator. Both in the home and in the government. This is also why the popularity of very masculine yet absolutely authoritarian leaders like putin remains.
For a man, it is to be ruled by no one but himself. Not women, not the government but just his own principles values and ethics. He may decide to follow a nation or leader for a time because of his support for them and their personal vision, but it is always self chosen and never a better idea to him than governing ones own self.
The primary problem with communism and it’s attraction ideologically to a certain kind of Man (for example the very hard dictators of Russia throughout the 20th century) is that it purports to offer strength and the people at the higher rungs insist that the people at the lower rungs will be treated just the same.
This is a human impossibility. Everyone should have equality of opportunity but everyone does not have equality of ability. Some people are harsher, crueller and play the game better. And rightly or wrongly they are rewarded for their efforts.
King Mattias was a legendary king, we have a lot of folklore about him being just and wise. Hungary reached its peak during his reign, it was all downhill from there.
he was, yet next door was Vlad the Impaler. Just imagine the above dialogue on government with Vlad Dracul instead of Mathias. Podebrady on the bohemian side is interesting too
Aye, but Vlad was actually quite popular in his country in no small part because of how he dealt with external threats. His domestic policies on other hand left a lot to be desired, heh, but it’s no secret that even today he is seen as a great leader over there.
he does seem to be something of a nationalist hero over there. Re. domestic politics – I guess its what the Romanians think of as ‘tough love’!
The royalist movement is still alive in France, Quintus (Action Française).
You should come do conferences with them ;-).
Are they really? Seems like not so bad of an idea.
Do you speak French ?
Here’s their website.
http://www.actionfrancaise.net/craf/
I don’t know if you’ve read Charles Maurras, but he was the founder of Action Française in the early 1900s.
You can see him losing a fencing duel on this video :
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
Once the mob discovers they can vote themselves other peoples money, democracy inevitably destroys the entire society as those who work and earn a living are increasingly taxed – forced by threat of violence (jail, penalties) to hand over their money to those of the mob voters who did not earn it.
Sound familiar? Because this is exactly what is happening today in the USA.
I’ve seen a chart tracking the number of nations who have a democracy over time , and surprisingly it is a steady march forward. I think the sad reality is that stability and wealth = feminism. This is probably why the latins have the most consistently sexy women, they almost always have instability and poverty(no coincidence the worst latin women usually come from the most stable countries there-chile, panama for example).
You wouldn’t leave the actions of a heart surgery up to a popular vote. How is government any different? Death to democracy, aka, “mob rule where no one can be accountable for their actions and all of the ‘leaders’ are career politicians who pander to the lowest common denominator”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo
Here’s a good discussion on the future of liberal democracy:
Big Minds on the Future of Democracies
I used to believe in democracy when I was young and naive, but now that I see how low modern civilisation has devolved, I know better. In any homogenous crowd of people, the lowest common denominator rules. So unless the crowd is made up of a bunch of philosopher poets, you can pretty much count on the 7 deadly sins having free reign. Democratic governments are a mirror of the people they represent, this was known as far back as the time of plato. He had it right when placing aristocracy above democracy on his list of regimes.
EASY FIX.
If you receive net benefits from the government, your vote counts for less than those who pay into the system.
You’re on welfare? Your vote is worth half.
You’re on food stamps? Vote counts for half.
Etc.
Said it once, encountered it, and I’ll say it again. In order for a democratic republic to function it must shun undesirables from the booths.
Universal suffrage is a recipe for authoritarianism and idiocracy and it is what we are seeing now.
Definitely one of the best article so far explaining what a ‘true democracy’ is. This is a must read to anyone, since it exposes how the word ‘democracy’ has been abused to represent ‘western-style representative republic’. What matters most is the result of the governance, not the form of government. The better (as related to people’s welfare) the result of the governance is, the more democratic a country is.
To perform surgery you need to be a doctor. To drive you need a license. To install electrical wiring you need to be certified.
Voting? Just make it until you are 18.
Does make any sense? Yeah, sure 😉
As some people have said before, all kind of governments in the history of mankind are variations of oligarchy in reality.
Some oligarchies are relatively ‘better’ than the others for a period of time but it doesn’t guarantee them from not becoming ‘worse’ in the future.
The relatively ‘better’ oligarchies are those who keep adapting themselves to the changing times as compared to the ‘worse’ ones, being unable to keep themselves updated.
The ‘better’ oligarchies are more ‘democratic’ than their ‘worse’ counterparts. ‘Democracy’ is a measurement of government, it’s not a form of government.
Indeed. So I don’t see why you would want a world without governments.
Men need strong leaders (kings) or the parasites will rull.
Singapore is the modern-day version of what is being advocated here.