We possess unfortunate inclinations, embedded in our psyches by hundreds of years of habituation, toward leaving the most important of all things to the State:
- Police services;
- Community safety;
- Education of the young.
It isn’t just Americans who possess such inclinations. They’re uniform across the First World. As “natural” as they may seem, they are the key assets of tyranny.
Couple those inclinations to another, possibly even more deadly: the desire to believe in political saviors. Politics and our mindless reliance on it is what brought us here. Yet some very smart people can’t get off that track. Here’s an example:
November is coming and what they have sown they shall reap. They have sown failure. They shall reap a House ruled by Kevin McCarthy and a Senate by the murder Turtle and the pain will begin – at least it better. The base is in no mood for hands across the aisle. Time to deal the pain.
Also, it will be fun to see Democrats fall in love with the filibuster again.
The reckoning begins in the House. We must have our vengeance, both to satisfy the reasonable craving for justice on the part of the base and to teach the Democrats that there is a price for crossing us….
Oh, and the January 6th inquisition must not be eliminated. Instead, it must be filled with new members and then investigate the FBI’s participation in the minor fracas, the unconstitutional treatment of the political prisoners, and the unlawful killing of Ashli Babbitt….
But understand that even when we Republicans retake the Congress, things will still be awful for a couple of years.
Kurt Schlichter plainly identifies with the Republican Party. He sees its return to federal majority status as the solution to our ills. But if that were the case, why did that party resist the majority of President Trump’s pro-American initiatives? Why did it compel him to do by executive order what should have been done legislatively? And why did a substantial fraction of Republican officeholders repudiate President Trump and all his works as soon as the Democrats managed to steal the presidency?
Ten GOP Senators voted to convict President Trump and remove him from office – and for what? For an innocent phone call, entirely within both his authority and his responsibilities as president, to his opposite number in the Ukraine! What did they think they were doing?
I trust the point is made.
In the Baseline Essays section there are pieces in which I addressed aspects of our political fixation:
Those “Off the Mishnory Road” essays are steps to understanding the importance of defeating the political mindset – not just the Democrats, but the whole “let the government handle it” mindset that has allowed the worst people in the world to ascend to power over us:
- The political junkie is generally incapable of mere “fun.”
- He has little appreciation for the stoic virtues and is dismissive of masculinity.
- Facts are either weapons with which to advance his Cause, or obstacles to be surmounted.
If we are to escape the habitual resort to politics as our “solution” to “problems,” the political junkie must become a figure of ridicule: impossible to take seriously. Only when the great majority of Americans laugh raucously at the suggestion that certain responsibilities “belong to” the State, or can only be properly discharged by the State, will we have a chance of depoliticizing the Republic.
In this regard, our best weapon is the State’s demonstrated inability to meet any of the responsibilities it’s undertaken these two centuries past. Whether the politicizers’ intentions were good is irrelevant. The mechanism has displayed its inadequacy and cannot be trusted.
Perhaps some Gentle Readers are thinking “he’s advocating a revolution in thought.” You’d be right to think so. The pro-politics / “leave it to the government” mindset that’s dominated Americans’ social and economic thinking for so many decades must be blasted out of the way before substantial progress can be made. There are two mutually-supporting reasons for this:
- The pro-politics mindset is synonymous with the abdication of personal responsibility;
- Until we accept personal responsibility for what we seek, we won’t put our own shoulders to the wheel.
One who believes that public order and cleanliness are the government’s responsibility would be dazed by the suggestion that he ought to take a personal hand in them. One who believes that the relief of severe need is the government’s responsibility would goggle at the idea that he should practice personal charity toward those who need and deserve such help. One who believes that “only the government” can see to the education of American youth would be staggered by the notion that it is profoundly wrong, an immense and absolute moral default for him to leave his children’s minds to government hirelings to shape.
In sober truth, when the subject is the fundamental requirements of a free order, there is no alternative to “doing it yourself.” You cannot leave such things to politically elevated “experts.” The politicians and their handmaidens don’t want you thinking such things. They want you to continue to think of governments as reliable, trustworthy problem solvers. Yet in point of fact governments fatten on the authority and responsibility for “problems.” They never do anything that might reduce them.
Personal responsibility and the acceptance of certain propositions as absolutely true must come first. While “the rest” won’t follow automatically, without those things “the rest” won’t follow at all.
More anon.
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You have read Albert J. Nock’s “Our Enemy The State,” have you not? If not, you certainly should, and quickly.
Heck, email me your mailing address, and I’ll send you a copy.
Author
It has a place of honor in my library, Weet. Nock is one of my heroes.
As a life member of the John Birch Society which has the motto of “Less government, more individual responsibility, and with God’s help, a better world”, I couldn’t agree more!
This brings to mind (1995) an excellent examination of the mindset of every governmental agency. The Myth of “Failed” Policies.
Example provided by Walter Williams at about the same year:
What readers cannot help but garner from Professor Higgs’ thesis fully supports what you’ve written today. Viz: When viewed from the perspective of those running the political process, government policies that any reasonable person would call a failure are nearly always a spectacular success.
Schlichter: “the pain will begin – at least it better”
I don’t hear a lot of “or else ____________” there. Schlichter’s trust in the R.P. at this point is inexplicable.
I think that Col. Schlichter hopes, like so many of us, that the ballot box will indeed be the fix for our problems. He knows, as we do, that the alternative won’t be pleasant. I suspect, however, that no matter who gets into office, even assuming a legitimate election, (not something to assume given the recent past), we will have more of the same.
May the King of Kings and Lord of Lords deliver us!
Even if there is an upcoming widespread electoral disaster for the Democrats (and assuming the various legal tricks and challenges sure to come don’t create enough havoc – I’m thinking in particular about the attempt to have any and all Republicans tarred with the “insurrection” brush and thus disqualified to hold office under the 14th Amendment, blah, blah blah…) are we really going to expect serious…and I mean serious, actions possible as long as Biden is in office? Defund, and I mean 100% defund, cancel, remove, fire everyone in the Department of Education? How about Homeland Security? Maybe just dissolve any armed departments in administratative agencies? (Does the EPA need armed operatives?) Could anything that even begins to take aim at the core of the Deep State be done even with a Republican President and Congress?
even though i would love to see it, i have 0 faith that any semblance of justice is going to be handed out by the rinos that manage to avoid the ccp’s cheating machine