Summary: Now, perhaps too late, the threats to the Republic become clear and can be simply stated. Will this paralyze us with terror, or spark us into action?
“When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.”
— Preface to Philosophy of Rightby G.W.F. Hegel (1820).
by G.W.F. Hegel (1820).
Politics is the key to understanding our peril
“The state is the soul writ large.”
— Plato in The Republic. To understand a people, begin with their politics.
. To understand a people, begin with their politics.Large elements of the American public have adopted politics inimical to the American Republic. They are concentrated in the Left, the Right, and the leaders of the Republican Party. Their combined efforts can destroy it, if not stopped soon.
Leaders of the Democratic Party have been the balanced core of America since Bill Clinton brought them to power. But they are losing control of their Party, as they did the 1970s. If that happens, which seems likely, American politics will become fully dysfunctional. Like a team of horses running wild while the driver drinks and watches TV. We will plunge into a situation much like the last days of the Roman Republic.
The Left awakes and finds the formula for victory
“The worse, the better.”
— One of the most powerful revolutionary insights, ever. Attributed to the Russian revolutionary socialist, Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1928 – 1889).
The Left in the West has often adopted revolutionary goals. Its current incarnation in the US has adopted methods and goals that are revolutionary, but few have explicitly acknowledged this.
For generations, Leftists in the educational system – first at universities, now increasingly in grade schools – have taught that the American project is illegitimate, and has been since the Founding. They focus on its racism, sexism, treatment of native Americans, imperialism, homophobia, and class structure. They project their hatred onto their foes, describing Republicans as seeking genocide, camps for Leftists, etc.
Leftists have fanned the fires most feared by the Founders: factionalism. They have fragmented the American people by race and gender, encouraging hatred among the shards. New goals, such as for reparations, will lead to further alienation and strife.
Leftists have pushed for generations to open the borders to people from very different cultures, often with radically different values. They have combined this advocacy of multiculturalism. The increasingly large numbers overwhelm our ability to assimilate them; their hostility to formal and informal methods of assimilation make it even more difficult (e.g., bilingualism, inevitably leading to a fractured society). The growth of a migrant underclass (more hostile to America with each subsequent generation) becomes another reason to condemn America, and provides both voters and activists.
Terrifying visions of apocalyptic climate change – with little support from the IPCC or major climate agencies – provides fear to supercharges their followers.
Our Plutocrats build a new America
The Republican Party’s leadership has become agents of the 1%, harnessing the Right as a team of useful idiots. When in power, they focus laser-like on tax-cuts for the rich, attacking unions, de-regulating corporations (e.g., allowing mega-mergers, exploitation of employees, and freedom to pollute). Trump is the classic example. He ran as a populist, promising to rein in our mad foreign wars, rebuild America, build a wall, and replace ObamaCare with something better. Instead we got the standard GOP playbook. Bob Dole with exciting tweets.
The Right has rediscovered it Confederate past (love of plutocracy, opposition to the Federal government and individual rights) , and worked to delegitimize the Republic. Taxation is theft. Most of the government’s growth since 1900 is unconstitutional. See “Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule America“ by Sara Robinson at AlterNet. Libertarians say that the very concept of the Republic is illegitimate, assuming Heinlein’s fun story The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Now the game changes, as our plutocrats see our weakness. They have regained the much of the power they held during the Gilded Age, before the reforms of the progressive age and New Deal. Now they lay the foundation to gain even more power. One node of the plutocrats’ power is Silicon Valley, where the 1%’s dreams of power flower undisturbed – as described in this detailed and frightening essay by Corey Pein in the Baffler: “Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon Reich“. He examines the roots of Silicon Valley’s magnates’ belief in their unique fitness to rule America.
“It is clear that {Peter} Thiel sees corporations as the governments of the future and capitalists such as himself as the kings, and it is also clear that this is a shockingly common view in Thiel’s cohort.”
For more about this “Dark Enlightenment” see the articles by Curtis Yarvin (writing as Mencius Moldbug) and Nick Land collected at this website. Intellectuals such as Andrew Sullivan provide a philosophical gloss to the 1%’s lust for power: “Democracies end when they are too democratic” in New York magazine – “And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny.”
“It seems shocking to argue that we need elites in this democratic age – especially with vast inequalities of wealth and elite failures all around us. But we need them precisely to protect this precious democracy from its own destabilizing excesses.”
In America even plutocrats need a legal justification to build a tyranny. Eric Posner (Prof Law, U Chicago; bio here) and Adrian Vermeule (Prof Law, Harvard) have obliged, with a book explaining that the Republic has died, and they are OK with that: Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic. You can download the first chapter at Amazon. Summary: it’s necessary, it’s inevitable, it’s necessary, it’s inevitable. Here is Posner’s summary (from the Volokh Conspiracy) …
The book argues that the Madisonian system of separation of powers has eroded beyond recognition and been replaced with a system of executive primacy (which others have called the “imperial presidency”) in which Congress and the courts play only a marginal role. Most scholars who have recognized this development have called for a return to the Madisonian system, but we believe that the rise of the executive has resulted from a recognition among political elites that only a powerful executive can address the economic and security challenges of modern times.
The first casualty of their collision
“… the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
— George Washington’s First Inaugural Address (1789).
The Founders put their faith in the American people to run and defend the Republic. There is nobody else. No second line of defense. No winged saviors from the sky, no superheroes to protect us. The political machinery bequeathed us by the Founders remains rusted but decisive, needing only our work to set it in motion. Here are scores of ideas about how to begin. But let us resolve that, should we decided to remain passive and apathetic, let’s not whine about the outcome. Lie still and think of the America-that-once-was.
“Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Dr. Franklin ‘What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’ ‘A republic, if you can keep it’ replied the Doctor.”
— Entry of 18 September 1787 in the Papers of Dr. James McHenry on the Federal Convention of 1887 (signed the Constitution, our 3rd Secretary of War, and namesake of Fort McHenry).
Other posts in this series
- Important: A 4th of July reminder that America is ours to keep – or to lose!
- Fear the rise of political violence in America. We can still stop it.
- America abandons the ideals that made us great.
- Visions of America if the Left wins.
- The Left goes full open borders, changing America forever.
- The key insight: the Left hates America and will destroy it.
- The Democrats will own America. Their past will sink them.
Please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter. See my recommended books and films at Amazon.
Let’s learn from other’s tragedies.
Political Violence in the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933:
Fight for the Streets and Fear of Civil War.
By Dirk Schumann.
It can happen here. From the publisher …
“The Prussian province of Saxony – where the Communist uprising of March 1921 took place and two Combat Leagues were founded – is widely recognized as a politically important region in this period of German history. Using a case study of this socially diverse province, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of political violence in Weimar Germany with particular emphasis on the political culture from which it emerged. It refutes both the claim that the Bolshevik revolution was the prime cause of violence, and the argument that the First World War’s all-encompassing “brutalization” doomed post-1918 German political life from the very beginning.
“The study thus contributes to a view of the Weimar Republic as a state in severe crisis but with alternatives to the Nazi takeover.”
“Democrat party leaders the balanced core.”
What you talkin about Willis? Trump is the result of this so called balanced core. If it had not been for a Republican Congress in the 90s ol cigar abusing Billary would have pushed through all kinds of lefty crap.
The left is engaging in asymmetric warfare against the U.S. – immigration. Eventually THESE PEOPLE will turn on their leaders and the ones who identify as male will be standing there with their you know what in their hand. The three nimrods in the current Congress are just the start.
Gute,
(1) “What you talkin about Willis?”
Who or what is “Willis”?
(2) “If it had not been for a Republican Congress in the 90s ol cigar abusing Billary would have pushed through all kinds of lefty crap.”
The Democrats had a large majority in both houses of the 103rd Congress (1993-95). Esp in the golden first year of Bill Clinton’s administration, when president push through much of their program.
(3) “The left is engaging in asymmetric warfare against the U.S.”
War! What a big word! Everything these days is war. War on poverty, on cancer, on terror, on racism, on every bitty thing. Talk with someone who has experienced one day of war to see what nonsense that is.
The Silicon Reich – that is a superb description.
Also, “Talk with someone who has experienced one day of war to see what nonsense that is.” Thanks for mentioning that. I always cringe when, similarly, people say athletes are warriors.
They have fragmented the American people by race and gender, encouraging hatred among the shards. New goals, such as for reparations, will lead to further alienation and strife.
Hasn’t America always had a problem with race? When was there unity? Do you think that America owes reparations because of slavery and Jim Crow? Would ignoring the harm done to black Americans make things better somehow?
JD,
“Hasn’t America always had a problem with race?”
Few things in history are binary. History is largely change in magnitudes of basic behaviors of people. Race relations are not perfectly wonderful (as in most versions of Christian & Muslim Heaven) or terrible. Race relations hit their nadir at some point in the anti-bellum era. Starting with WWII we began the the long journey back. I don’t have the survey data, but I suspect most indicators reached an apogee during the 1990s. Now Leftists have worked hard to poisons race relations, and are reaping their evil fruit.
“Do you think that America owes reparations because of slavery and Jim Crow?”
The last slaves died long ago, as did slavers. In the US the government does not reward or punish people based on who their their ancestors were. Should we tax only the people whose ancestors owned slaves for reparations, or people in states in which slavery was legal.
As for Jim Crow, it ended roughly 53 years ago. where does the game of reparations to people harmed by laws end? Also, what will be the effects on race relations?
What about slavery by Native Americans? They kept each other as slaves, and later sold other Native Americans as slaves to the Europeans. Lots of reparations owed.
Also, what about other nations. Arabs were the major slave traders in Africa. What about the Africans who capture Africans and sold them to slavers?
What about non-African slaves? “Slave” is a Middle English shortening of Old French “esclave,” from the medieval Latin “sclava” – meaning Slavonic – aka captive. The Slavonic peoples enslaved by conquest in the 9th century. What do Italians owe to the Greeks and almost everybody else in the Mediterranean, and the Greeks owe to lots of folks in the eastern Med.
What about reparations by women to men? Almost all the soldiers killed, crippled, or captured were men. Those evil laws – esp the draft laws – deserve reparations. Almost all the workers seriously injured or killed are men. Not from laws, but clearly oppression by society (aka disparate impact).
Let’s stop America for a decade to total who owes what to who. No need to worry about what happens afterwards. The resulting omnipresent hatred will have wrecked us.
In the US the government does not reward or punish people based on who their their ancestors were. Should we tax only the people whose ancestors owned slaves for reparations, or people in states in which slavery was legal.
As for Jim Crow, it ended roughly 53 years ago. where does the game of reparations to people harmed by laws end? Also, what will be the effects on race relations?
The US government has in fact rewarded and punished people based on who their ancestors were. Jim Crow, redlining and exclusion from New Deal programs and GI Bill benefits were exactly that.White and black Americans are still experiencing the affects of those policies.
Paying reparations to black people is not punishment. It is Americans taking responsibility for their government’s actions. We all pay for things that we didn’t choose and don’t directly benefit from. For example people who don’t live in a flood zone pay taxes that contribute to disaster relief for those who do. We pay for bank bailouts, the Iraq war and other expensive mistakes made by the people we chose to govern us.
Other nations, 9th century slavery, men choosing dangerous jobs etc are irrelevant to America’s obligations to the descendants of American slaves. I can’t predict the affect of reparations on race relations, but I suspect that many white Americans will be angry and hostile. This is how they have behaved in the past when black Americans demanded justice and fair treatment. Perhaps they will march in the street with torches, burn black churches and commit hate crimes in even larger numbers than they do currently.
“Lots of people will be mad” wasn’t a good reason for black Americans not to demand civil rights and isn’t a good reason not to demand reparations.
JD,
You are welcome to make the payment of your choice. Should the US Government choose to use its police power to extract such payment, there will be hell to pay. But I’m sure that no matter how horrific the consequence, the Left will respond as it does to all its failed social engineering: “it’s not our fault.”
As I have written, if unchecked you folks will continue your social engineering until the Republic collapses. It might not take long. On the other hand, it is a gain that you folks have shown your true colors.
Should the US Government choose to use its police power to extract such payment, there will be hell to pay.
All taxes are collected with the threat of police power. Without that threat most people wouldn’t pay.
I suspect that some white Americans would be enraged by having to pay reparations but that most will do the right thing albeit reluctantly.
Japanese Americans received reparations for internment camps and Jewish Americans, who weren’t harmed as a result of US government policy, received them for the holocaust all without “hell to pay”. Why should black Americans not be made whole?
Probably because they are still alive?
Also, it’s not the right thing. How would you even begin to calculate this? FM stated here: https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/10/17/america-system-privilege/ that according to a genetics test he is 1/4 west african. Should he get the full amount or a quarter?
I don’t want your handouts. Frankly the idea that you think we need them is insulting. If you really want to help us, stop supporting policies that destroy our families.
Rando,
That’s a powerful point. I was considering this policy in terms of its logic, ethics, and effects. I hadn’t even considered in terms of my own benefit. I could get reparations instead of paying them. Hmmmmm …
“I don’t want your handouts. Frankly the idea that you think we need them is insulting. If you really want to help us, stop supporting policies that destroy our families.”
I can’t say it better than that.
How about Hispanics? Shouldn’t they also get “reparations”? How about Native Americans? Or the descendants of immigrants who had to endure indentured servitude? Everyone’s a victim!
The President of Mexico sent a letter to the Spanish government and the King, demanding an apology for La Conquista. The Spaniards wisely told him to go pound sand, knowing that had Spain apologized that demands for reparations would have followed.
Go ahead, Dems, make reparations part of your platform. You won’t like how the next elections turn out.
Frank,
This is a common leftist play. Ask for something (X). When people ask why this won’t also justify Y and Z, indignantly reply “of course not.” Immediately after X is granted, demand Y.
Equal rights for Gay – overturning laws against them, prohibiting discrimination. Then right to marry. Then rights for transgendered, with substantial changes (bathrooms, allowing kids to “transition” using drugs and surgery, prohibit “wrong pronoun use.” We can only guess at what comes next. But we know there will be further demands.
JD,
I suspect that you have zero fu**ing clue regards the rage and outright hostility this reparations scam evokes, at least among whites that haven’t traded in their dignity for scraps at the victim of society table. I could write a short novel of invective and curses towards you and that race hustling con man Al Sharpton, but I’ll settle for a simple go to hell.
The right thing? To prostrate myself before an imagined guilt? I spit on white guilt, and I spit on your reparations. Why don’t I just give the next black man I see a thousand dollars for every slave that I, or my father, or my grandfather owned. We’re all proud hard-working white men, surely we bear some responsibility for something that happened a century and a half ago? Oh wait, my entire family didn’t even arrived in america until the 1880’s, or are descendants from the Mayflower pioneers, so I guess little johnny will have to go without!
Should I, as an ethnic german, give reparations to the Italians for the sack of Rome? Or the Jews? While we’re talking about reparations, I want MY reparations for the Rodney King riots that destroyed a good portion of LA, and reparations for Baltimore and Detroit that have been turned into trash-strewn concrete jungles roamed by packs of savages playing the knockout game.
Cities aren’t cheap, and I figured that since some black people did rioting, they should all pay. At least that’s the idea of equality, except SOME people are more equal than others. Black americans can do just fine on their own without more of MY money, they are human beings, they are adults, they are free men with the same problems, struggles, talents, and gifts as the rest of us. I curse you and all the rest of you race hustlers trying to make a buck out of something that was killed and buried more than a century ago.
Hi Larry,
I disagree with many points here. I would not say that centrist Democrats were the “balanced core of America.” They were, perhaps, the “balanced core” of people that went through the liberal indoctrination of better colleges and living in large coastal cities. The “balanced core” of the people living in between is the white working class, more-or-less churchgoing.
The Founders never thought that “democracy” alone was sufficient. They saw that the track record of democracies throughout history was nasty, brutish and short. Thus, they wanted to temper “democracy” with a dose of “aristocracy.” This took the form of the Senate, which, until the 17th Amendment of 1913, was chosen by appointment by the States. It was assumed, by the Founders, that Senators would be “aristocrats,” at the time a large landowner, but in any case a wealthy person. This is the pattern for appointed positions today. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, for example, is normally an “aristocrat.” “Aristocrats” were expected to take the position of business owners vs. employees, and to have an extensive education in history and government, as did the landowning aristocrats of that time including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. This pattern matched that of Ancient Rome, whose success (during the Roman Republic) was often attributed to its excellent constitution. “Aristocrats” in those days typically had much time for study, unlike any businessman today, and also often came from a family of aristocrats, which built up a knowledge of civilization, culture, history and government over a period of generations including public service by many family members. The Kennedys are the nearest modern equivalent.
From Wikipedia, the constitution of the Roman Republic was made up of:
The Assemblies [House of Representatives], composed of the people, which served as the supreme repository of political power and had the authority to elect magistrates, accept or reject laws, administer justice, and declare war or peace;
The Senate [Senate], which advised the magistrates and the state, acting primarily not on legal authority per se, but rather with its influence, and
The magistrates [executive branch], elected by the people to govern the Republic in their name, holding religious, military, and judicial powers, along with the right to preside over and call upon the assemblies.
A similar pattern was found in the British House of Commons, House of Lords, and of course the King (executive). This produced the most successful country in the world in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for the United States. The House of Lords in time fell into irrelevance; this process coincided with the decline of the British Empire, along with the British economy and British influence in general after 1914.
Thus, we can see that we have abandoned the influence of the “aristocrats” in the Senate, but this has been made up for somewhat by the greater influence of “aristocrats” in the Executive, and the influence of big business as a whole upon Congress.
With that said, I am afraid that today’s wealthy “aristocrats” don’t have the education of Jefferson and Washington, or even that of Benjamin Franklin who educated himself while working as a tradesman. The common pattern of these billionaire types that think they have something to say is that they are woefully uneducated; they apparently have nearly no education at all, outside of their fields of vocational expertise. This is true of the graduates of better colleges generally, even academics; but, they are not as influential. Mostly, they repeat some propaganda they heard elsewhere, tweaked slightly to produce an impression of “original thinking;” this they may have learned from writing undergraduate papers.
The Founders were great geniuses. Only after we have broken all the bonds that they set for us, have we discovered why they were established in the first place — all of which they could forsee. The Seventeenth Amendment should be repealed, along with the Sixteenth.
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