We Should All Be Concerned

These past four weeks have seen vast torrents of hand-wringing, almost all by the so-called "left" over the actions that the Trump administration are taking, much of it the gutting and elimination of various agencies such as the ironically named Department of Education.

Most surprising there is that the lefties are absolutely correct, apparently completely by accident.  They are manifesting the right reactions for what I believe to be utterly mistaken reasons, but that is neither here nor there with respect to my purposes in this passage.  Anti-social media a abuzz with all manner of dire warnings, and right that it should be.

You are right to be concerned - we should all be. However, there is nothing special here in that regard alone. EVERYTHING "government" does should be of our concern. It is precisely the lack of concern that has landed us where we now sit, marinating to our nostrils in the political feces of the open pit septic tank to which American politics has devolved piecemeal since at least the end of the Civil War.

Because we are so deeply degenerated in political terms, the "system" so broken, we cannot rely on normal means for making the desperately needed corrections precisely because said broken system cannot be trusted in the vein of normal operation.  Were we, for example, to trust Congress to investigate itself, what epsilon of hope could any rational and honest man expect to hold that just outcomes would result?

Therefore, we have a choice before us. 

Door #1: do nothing for the sake of formal compliance to that system's normal and accepted procedures to be respected and observed under conditions that include virtuous men discharging their sworn duties to the Public Trust or,

Door #2: take extraordinary measures.

The former changes nothing and basically guarantees the doom of everything Americans claim to hold dear. Even the lunatics of the left will lose all, regardless whether they acknowledge that fact. 

The latter, on the other hand, carries enormous risks due to the exact fact that they step outside the metes and bounds of an otherwise well thought out system of checks and balances that works sufficiently well when those so entrusted conduct the business of governance with good faith and competence. It must be made clear and placed front and center the fact that those risks are part of the price we pay for our past sins of having placed blind trust in men who have been so obviously unworthy of it. We must perforce bear those risks if there is to be any hope whatsoever of reclaiming our liberties, reigning in "government", and keep public servants in the shortest possible leashes, ever reminding them of their places as servants of the trust in which they have been so graciously vested by us.  Otherwise, refer back to Door #1.

At this point we can act or we can fold. I prefer action and behind Door #2 there are two more, Doors A and B. Behind A is Trump's way.  Behind Door B, we start shooting. Trump's way avoids the tragedies of a blood-soaked civil war, the courageous genius of his strategy lying largely in the fact that his actions still manage to work well within the limits of the so-called "system", albeit in extraordinary terms.  Door B just gets tons of people killed and reduces us as a people to savagery to whom nobody wants to fall victime.

I therefore choose Door A. We can always shoot later if the necessity arises.

As things stand at the moment, Team Trump is America's best hope for at least some measure of recovery from the raw tyranny that has crept up on us since 1865 and until recently had been at full and roughshod gallop.  But they are not enough.  We, the people of America, need to undergo a sea-change in the way we view our places in the scheme of political things.  We need to see a better way of living, a way of intolerance of even the most trivial sorts of petty tyranny, and to punish with grim cruelty those who violate their oaths of good faith and competent service.  Neither malefactors nor bumblers and dunderheads are to be tolerated in any measure or manner whatsoever.  They must be excised and made to regret with great bitterness their errors an malfeasances, and it must be made very public as reminders to all who dare so much as even approach Patrick Henry's Alter of Liberty, that on pain of pain severe do they do so and that no taint to that sacred edifice of Freedom shall ever be met with anything less than harsh consequence.

Recall the quip, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."  I would amend it to refer to "governance" rather than non-existent "government".  We are the governors, primarily of ourselves, but in the cases where individuals fail to do so, we must govern them at least for a time.  This requires much of us, especially in civic awareness and in an attitude of being sentinels in guard of everything we hold dear as civilized human beings.  Until we become the governors, watching over not only our own best interests, but those of all our fellows, we shall remain subject to the whim and caprice of scoundrels and others unworthy of the liberties and blessings of a free land.  YOU are the governor of your own life, but must also stand sentry over those into whose hands you have entrusted the limited and regretfully necessary functions of the "state".

We have been raped and raked over the coals by crooks and criminals.  The time is here to put all tyranny to the long deep sleep of eternity, to rise as people flush with the self-respect of the Freeman who brooks no insult to his liberty.

Learn what is right between men, embrace and love it.  Make it the heart of who you are as a human being and see its sacred nature in yourself and in all others.  Stand tall in the pride of having been blessed with a free nature and be prepared to give everything you own for its sake, for without your liberty, you have nothing worthy of life.

And if you don't know enough of what is right, then I will recommend you start here.

And as always I will add that what we need is Amendment 28, that there remain no possible ambiguity as to where things stand between us and those in whom we vest provisional trust:

https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/.../amendment-xxix...

Here's to hope for a brighter day, and as always please accept my best wishes.

What Is Anarchism?

 There seem to be a great number of conflicting notions of what defines "anarchism". Sadly, the term now carries such massive baggage that it is really become an almost useless instrument for conveying a sound and rational idea. Consider the "anarchists" whose work helped precipitate the onset of the Great War (world war 1). In other quarters there are those who call themselves "anarchist" who are nothing but relabeled communists. Ugh... the horror. Some few years ago I coined "autodiathism" in an attempt to separate what I would like to term "true anarchism" or "pure anarchism" from all those other mangled and rotten notions upon which the label has been plastered over the past century and then some. "Autodiathism" from the Greek for "self determination", the idea there being the freedom to chart one's own path for his life, free from outside interferences, all else equal and in accord with the Principles of Proper Human Relations.

Put succinctly, anarchism is freedom. It is proper freedom in the context of living amid your fellow human beings. Were you the only person left on earth, you would be free to do whatever you pleased, including lighting off a strategic nuke in lower Manhattan, if it pleased you because the only human being effected by your actions would be you. There would be nobody else to feel the effects of any choice you made, nor would there be anyone to call you to account for your actions. Therefore, you would be perfectly free within the limitations that physical reality places on all of us. But you're not alone in this world.

Living among and amid your fellows changes things, if only slightly, such that you become obliged to fulfill an obligation not to violate the equal claims of others... that is, if you hold an expectation of having YOUR rights respected, and I know of nobody who repudiates such claims for themselves. Proper human relations founds centrally and primarily on not acting hypocritically. Want love? Be loving. Want respect? Be respectful... and so on down the list of wishes and wants common to all men. This is the essence of the Principles of Proper Human Relations. Live. Let live. Do no unjust harm. What you want for yourself in terms of your most basic claims, you are behooved to grant and respect for those around you. This is nothing other or less than the Golden Rule itself, and it is perfect as is. There is no other Law of Nature that men need adopt for themselves both literally as individually, and abstractly as societies. It is complete, correct, and clear.

It this that defines anarchism at its heart, it is my definition of "autodiathism". But that's the normative side of the coin. The positive side involves putting such norms into actual practice, which in turn primarily and most significantly involves dealing with those who fail to observe the requirements of those norms. No "government" ("anarchy") does not mean no governance. In an ideal anarchic world, people govern themselves properly in accord with the Principles of Proper Human Relations, thereby obviating any need for third-party governance of any given individual or group thereof.

We do not, however, live in that world and likely never shall, though one can always hope and men can always strive toward that ideal. Therefore, when an individual fails to properly govern himself, and the reasons for such failure are irrelevant, he must then be governed by others until such time as he returns to self-possession and has made whole anyone to whom he has brought injury. Until then, people hold every authority to do what is necessary to ensure that such people are called to account for their transgressions in violation of the Principles of Proper Human Relations, and to further ensure that they are rendered incapable of committing further harms until such time as they are deemed again fit to be released to the company of their fellow humans.

When people govern themselves properly, the world becomes a far happier, healthier, and more prosperous place. When they fail, it becomes necessary that they be governed by others lest they run further amok in violation of their fellow brethren.

Our grand failing as a species lies in the fact that we have allowed things to run this far off the lines of propriety. Equally, it is our fault that we have failed to bring the mean man to proper understandings of what it means to live properly among his fellows. Some of this failing can be excused as matters of ignorance or the presence of mistaken ideas. But some of it is by all means rooted in the corruption of individuals occupying positions of power who, by virtue of their villainy endeavored to ensure that "the people" remained in states of gross ignorance and material poverty such that their susceptibility to criminal corruption would be cultivated and grown, rather than mitigated, thereby superficially convincing the world of the need for that power structure to remain in place, lest the world fall into chaos. It's the Hegelian Dialectic at work as it has been for thousands of years: create a threat real or imagined, present the solution and yourself as the only one capable of delivery, and take over. And it works every time like a charm.

Get a critical mass of humanity on the same page and this problem would likely disappear in near totality, whatever remnants that would exist being easily and readily absorbed and addressed by the greater body of humanity such that the harms that plague us today would be all but eliminated.

Until then, the world as we know it goes on diminishing and disparaging all that is good between men.

We can do it, but as things currently appear, we will choose otherwise because most people cannot see the forest for the trees. It's a tough position in which we find ourselves. Only time will tell whether we will come to choose more wisely.

Mors Tyrannis, and as always please accept my best wishes.