Why I Despise Politicians

I figured that as long as I'm on the subject, I might as well pause to explain why I devote so much energy to attacking politics and the people who dabble in them. It's not just the obvious menace that politics represent when detached from the rule of law. It goes deeper than that. Politics are the realm of the lowest common denominator, where the popular/vulgar rather than the righteous carries the day. By the very nature of this business a politician is not a man of quality or character, but rather a second-hander who lacks and/or doubts his ability to achieve excellence on his own steam. As such, he parades himself in front of the public and bosses around the truly excellent people so he can be thought of as excellent. It's a parasitic and pathetic existence, lived through the refracted gaze of others.

The life story of Teddy Roosevelt is an object lesson. Sickly and weak as a boy, Teddy never outgrew his inferiority complex and spent his entire adulthood making a spectacle of himself. His family was aristocratic and admonished him not to enter politics because, as they correctly understood, it was the realm of knaves and fools. He couldn't abide such counsel because he had to prove himself and boss people around; in his own words, he wanted to be "in the governing class." He thoroughly enjoyed his chance as president to wield his "big stick" (a Freudian slip if ever there was one) as well as to attack industry, the courts, and even the concept of spelling (all signifiers of hierarchy and distinction).

Such people do not make America great. They merely perch themselves atop the greatness built by others and claim credit for it.

Republicans Out Themselves (Again) As Amoral Hypocrites

Upon getting shellacked in the elections, Republicans wasted no time in announcing that they must change and adopt a "friendlier" stance on issues such as immigration, abortion, taxes, and spending.  Think for a moment what a disgusting admission of nihilism this is.  It is an admission that power was never a means to an end.  Power was the end.  Principles and the rhetoric surrounding them were mere means. 

It's not as if this was a giant mystery before the elections, but like so many other areas of modern life, even the pretense of legitimacy has been ripped away.

The Downward Spiral Of Addiction

It is both tragic and fascinating to watch an addict destroy himself. It begins with an innocent and fun activity enjoyed by many as a temporary diversion from the trials of life. For the addict, however, the activity beckons like a siren song to escape from a deeper pain, a pain beyond the inconveniences endured with seeming aplomb by everyone else. As the addict shifts course away from the fleet and toward the sharp rocks where the sirens continue to beckon, his friends and acquaintances begin warning him of the impending danger. But this merely increases the addict's pain and the need to escape from it, so he tries to ignore those discordant voices behind him and focuses even more intently on the sweet doom lying ahead. Soon in deep denial, the addict accelerates forward and lashes out at anyone who dares to interfere. If they do not succeed in dissuading him, he crosses a point from which there is virtually no hope of return because the way back is far more painful than the way forward. To look back even for an instant would invite doubt, guilt, and self-hatred, all of which become even more terrifying to contemplate the longer the voyage continues. There is only one way back after that -- catastrophe so great that the way back is finally less painful.

I pause to mention this not only because I've seen it unfold, but also because it is unfolding on a national scale in modern America, a land peopled by addicts who are so deep in denial that they cannot allow themselves to contemplate for an instant the pain and horror that their addiction is causing. Early on it was fun to dabble in The New Deal and The Great Society on the puerile belief that government power could mitigate the effects of poverty and inequality. But those hobbies turned into obsessions that consumed us and destroyed our ability even to generate prosperity, like an emaciated heroin addict who believes that only more of the same crap can make everything right. The election cycle we just witnessed avoided any serious discussion of our unpayable debts, the illegal and endless wars we wage, the invasion of our land from abroad, the omnipresent regulatory state, the destruction of the middle class, or any of the other existential threats we face. No, everything was bathed in a glow of warm optimism and business as usual, with promises that the land of milk and honey can endure forever if we just iron out a few wrinkles. People like me who dare draw attention to the calamity are excoriated, for it is too painful for addicts to hear the truth. 

The only possible cure now is catastrophe, when the way back is less painful than the way forward -- if the individual or the nation can survive.                  

More Self Realization

What maketh the heart of a Christian heavy?  The fact that he is a pilgrim, and longs for his country.  ~ St. Augustine

I stumbled on this gem not long ago and realized it captures how I've always felt.  Here Augustine refers to a profound sense of alienation, of being in the world but not of it, of inhabiting a place so removed from the ideal.  Christianity strikes me as uniquely profound in this regard because it is concerned far less with getting along in this world than with getting right with the next (ideal) one.  Otherwise stated, that which is falls far below that which should be. Some people lack ideals and, like pigs in slop, feel perfectly at home in the world.  They live a life of sensation and measure good and evil solely by pleasure and pain.  For those of us who have ideals and consider them more important than anything our senses convey, however, the world is a strange and hostile place. This can be somewhat of a curse, as Augustine observed.  But it is also a blessing because our happiness resides within; it cannot be given or taken away by anyone else. 

I Guess I'm The Bad Guy

The chair of the Democratic National Committee attributes the poor showing of Republicans to the fact that they have become too white and too male.  I have no love for Republicans, but as a white male I find this statement fascinating.  Imagine if a prominent white male had proclaimed in 2004 that the Democrats fared poorly that year because they were too brown and too female.  I doubt he would escape swift and severe condemnation, and rightfully so, yet the indictment of white males has been repeated numerous times since the election and provokes merely laughter or nodding approval.

The other day when I ran down a list of just some of the wonders we have given humanity -- Plato's Republic, the Parthenon, the Code of Justinian, the Magna Carta, the Renaissance, Shakespeare, Goethe, the Enlightenment, Mozart, Beethoven, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, abolition of (chattel) slavery, electricity, telephones, airplanes, space exploration, air conditioning, medicine, computers, and every other life-extending and labor-saving miracle modernity has to offer -- it became very difficult for me to understand why so much hatred is directed at us.

But then it hit me.  I recalled that in my own life the people who treated me the worst were always the ones I had treated the best.  We are hated not in spite of the good we do.  We are hated because of it.  Because that is what truly sets us apart.

Now, I'm sure someone will read this and become incensed even though all I have done is defend myself against calumny.  Between angering people or meekly being whipped like a dog, I must choose the former.  And if that makes me the bad guy, so be it.

Vindication

A decade ago I began talking seriously about nullification and secession as realistic -- even peremptory -- measures to rescue what America is meant to be from what it has become. Nobody welcomed such talk at the time.  "Conservatives" worshiped George W. Bush as the second coming, and "liberals" always have despised secession because it allows people to escape from their social experiments.  Despite this, I wrote and self-published books making these arguments, virtually throwing away any future I had in mainstream political discourse.  It was a crossroads, and I chose the path less traveled because I knew that on my deathbed it would make all the difference (yes, Robert Frost inspired me).  I never expected any reward.

Now I have it:  almost 1 million Americans from across all 50 states have petitioned to secede from the United States.  I have no idea whether secession will happen in my lifetime, or ever.  As I've already stated on this blog, I don't think the petition is a good idea because it presupposes that the White House has a say in the matter, which it does not.  But I am vindicated.  Public discourse has accommodated itself to me; I did not have to sell out my principles to accommodate myself to it, and I am on the public record from before all this happened.  The joy I feel at this moment is far sweeter than anything I have ever experienced.  I imagine that abolitionists felt this way upon passage of the 13th Amendment, after they had spent many years apparently wasting their lives as crazed voices in the wilderness.

And best of all, I'm not done yet.  I will keep up the drumbeat on this blog, in everyday life, and perhaps in further books.  I am a student of history and know full well that the system of government we confront today is illegal, immoral, and destructive.  I have said it before, and I will say it again:

Although I once struggled to reconcile this conclusion with my patriotism, I now understand that my patriotism demands nothing less. Our Founders never contemplated, and no duly-considered amendment ever authorized, that the federal government would extend its reach so deeply into our lives or so far across the face of the globe. I am not made an outlaw by refusing to embrace such outlaw behavior. To sit idly by while the federal government routinely desecrates the Constitution and imperils our lives and our posterity would itself be criminal, and it would require me to deny my adherence to the rule of law; my lawyer’s oath to uphold the Constitution; my respect for the truth; and my very nature as a man.

I am grateful that the remnant of Americans who understand this are speaking out.

Bring It

Well lookie here, some offended souls demand that the growing number of Americans who are petitioning to secede should be stripped of their citizenship and deported.  Please don't throw us in that briar patch; we adore being robbed at gunpoint on a daily basis to support an illicit welfare/warfare state.

In all seriousness, there is little danger that such drastic measures will be taken.  Quite the opposite, as the feds are throwing up more barriers to stop people from escaping, which I mentioned in a previous post.  Maybe soon they'll drop the pretense and borrow some bricks and mortar from Berlin to do the job right.  Trust me, they want us all staying right here in the slaughterhouse so they can feast.  Besides, the feds cannot strip someone of his citizenship without his consent, though I might be reverting to a quaint belief that some scrap of the rule of law still exists.

But let's think for a moment about the twisted nature of those who actually signed this retaliatory petition.  I doubt they have lifted a finger to call for the deportation of illegal aliens swarming across the borders and consuming our resources, yet they demand this against actual citizens merely for exercising free speech.  I have a better idea.  Why don't you all deport yourselves to a nation whose political philosophy is more in line with your own -- Myanmar, perhaps -- and leave America to real Americans who refuse to tolerate tyranny regardless of how popular it is.

It's becoming clear that there's not enough room in this land for both of us.  Many of us believe we should partition the land to go our separate ways.  If that's not in the cards, then the statists among you should heed the words of your hero, Abraham Lincoln, who warned that one side or the other would have to prevail:  "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States."

Those of us who love liberty are willing to fight for it.  Can all of you who despise liberty say the same?  

Anger Around The Web

As expected, a large amount of anger has erupted among the middle class now that its illusion of freedom and justice within the system is shattered. I re-print some of the invectives here not to endorse any particular one, but simply to remind that many of the people who make this country work are enraged or are dropping out, which spells trouble for everyone enamored of the status quo. [Occasional foul language.]

Nope, you are not going to get rid of this crap peacefully. Pinochet 2016 anyone?

It took last night for it to finally sink in, but I have finally reached my John Galt moment. I am disappearing from the voter lists. I will no longer participate in the charade. I will never vote again.

Obama's re-election was an affirmation of the new identity for America in which failure is celebrated over success. Learn from it, and the next time you're inspired to do a little extra to better yourself, or work a little harder, just dial it back. The new America says that kind of thinking is for suckers...and subversives. Buy ammo.

Now is not the time to double-down with Beck and Hannity. Now is the time to begin the resistance. Voting for Bush/McCain/Romney was not the way to resist. Neither will be voting for Rubio or Allen West. Voting is not the answer. The GOP is not going to learn any lesson from Mitt's debacle. It will be more of the same next time around, but with more melanin. Resistance needs to begin in the spiritual realm and in the realm of ideas and morals. We are now emancipated from the Movement. We have been freed. Let us then live in freedom--interior freedom. Let us develop the interior strength to resist. This is where the counter-revolution will begin: within.

Wheee! Down the slippery slope to the third world.

This is what happens when people with no skin in the game are allowed to dictate policy.

It is official there are now more takers than makers in the U.S. it has officially become a socialist country.

Once again, it is clear as the rising sun that in these United States we are two incompatible peoples and we do not share the same understanding of the Rights of Englishmen, or American freedoms, or the proper role of government, and no amount of repeated voting will create agreement. For our mutual safety and happiness, we are and ought to be separate and apart, free to pursue our own vision of prosperity, security, and common welfare.

I told a close friend tonight that I'm honestly just tired of trying. I feel like a decent, middle class existence is completely out of my reach. I told her that I don't think it's worth trying for that any more. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I should keep my eyes open for any opportunities at real wealth, but otherwise I'm ready to just check out. Just scrounge around for part time work and otherwise kick back, relax, read, play games, whatever.

I guess there isn't anything to do but move to a red state and try to keep it as red as possible at the local/state level and hope you can keep an influx of immigrants and fleeing liberals from other crashing states away.

What we're seeing here is normal. It has happened many times before. It's the late-stage, large-scale invasion of a decadent wealthy empire by barbarians seeking better lives who don't understand what made the system work in the first place. It happens to every empire in time, and it is fascinating to watch it take place in real time. It's not the end of the world, it's simply part of the societal life cycle. Unfortunately, the violent part lies ahead.

I was 100% convinced Romney would win, and I've been certain of it for more than a year -- even when almost everyone was saying Obama would be re-elected. Phfft, never! Part of the lingering shock would have to be realization that I don't understand the country I'm living in. At all. Only a smouldering 3rd world dungheap could re-elect someone like this...

I know exactly how you feel. The sense of alienation is profound. There are a lot of people in this country who are no longer represented in any way by the government that is supposed to protect them and their interests. I really think it's over. Unfortunately, there's nowhere else to go. It's not just the US that's over, it's the West in general.

But degenerate, financially profligate American cities need other people’s money to remain on life support. The culture wars were lost long ago, but if the right wants to go down with a fight it needs to starve the beast and keep every penny it can out of the public sector. Every penny.

The US is toast as no Republican (unless left of center) and definitely no Conservative will ever hold the Presidency again. The visual yesterday and some of the commentary in major news outlets gleefully acknowledging the death of the "lily white" GOP was beyond sickening.

The November 6 outcome only confirms that the Welfare/Warfare state has entered its death spiral. Nothing will stop it. Survival should be the focus.

There is no escape for the Republic this time.

This shouldn't simply be about the South anymore; all the people of the states of the union who still give a rip about what's left of the ordered liberty of our ancestors, from South Carolina to Montana, ought to be blazing hot. Let this flawed paradigm of an increasingly despotic and tyrannical consolidated union (Thank you, General Lee!) go into the dustbin of history.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

I feel like we are living in Rome, circa AD 300 or 350, perhaps even as late as 450. We have to be prepared to rebuild AFTER the massive collapse. I just hope we survive the martial law which will be a part of the transition.

The white union working classes in the Rust Belt, those mythologized, illiterate assholes wearing windbreakers in Chevy truck ads who get teary-eyed when Bob Segar or "The Boss" bellows noise pollution their way, voted for the Sugar Daddy who bailed-out their precious auto industry and promised more union power. Had Reagan destroyed the unions as thoroughly as Thatcher did in Britain, we would have a much healthier politics today. Indeed, a creature like Obama would not have been possible in the first place. Southerners GET IT; northern working class people somehow don't. The whites of Flint, Youngstown, Cleveland and Pittsburgh are nothing but white welfare queens. They live in their own plantation, where anything with a "D" next to it is good and true. Stupid proles voted themselves into a gulag. Hope they rot in it.

We are now Occupied America. An alien philosophy, ideology rules us.

We're headed for an openly one-party system. Soon enough there won't be an alternative and we'll be just another banana republic.

I have voted for the last Republican I believe I ever will. Just signed on to the Texas Nationalist Movement. Losing (until a tipping point is reached) my vote will be for libertarian policies and secession from a corrupt, over-reaching, very large and well financed federal government.

To the typical Obama-voting Ameritard, freedom means someone else pays for her existence from Head Start to Medicare and Social Security and all the birth control in between.

GAME OVER!--Someone shut out the lights on the way out I don't want to see the Zombies before they gorge on my over worked, over taxed body. I will rest peacefully knowing they will eat their own when they've robbed, raped & pillaged everyone else -- WELCOME TO THE NEW SOMALIA!

Step one: Ignore the government and its various institutions the best you can and stop waving its silly little flag. In other words, mentally secede. Step two: Think locally, act locally. If you must, focus on local politics first. Focus on the village, township or county level.

I said before the only way constitutional America survives is through secession or some sort or mass violence. Most probably a combination of both.

People throughout the South have been talking secession since Wednesday morning...there is a petition on whitehouse.gov to let Louisiana secede...local officials in Texas are saying that Texas can do better on its own...

They will declare war upon us and blame us for the war if we try to defend ourselves. It isn't as if they have not done so before. The insatiable maw of statism requires huge numbers of serfs. This is why socialists always insist that everyone must be part of their utopian vision, even if participation is compelled at gunpoint: institutionalized slavery requires slaves. . . . A time for choosing approaches.

I am very much in favor of secession.

Ukraine could not have unilaterially seceded from the USSR. But when Ukraine, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the others all decided to go at more or less the same time, even the long arm of Moscow was too weak to hold them by force. A governors' meeting in some secure venue is called for. We can secede -- and succeed -- if we act as one. "Spirit of 1989."

Excellent Article

On how modern spectator sports -- especially football -- are designed to make men feel alive again, if only for a few moments.  As I've written here before, modern spectator sports (along with many other mindless pleasure-seeking activities) are panem et circenses to keep us fat, dumb, and happy.  It's no wonder the state invests so much money and energy into making sure that these artificial spectacles are as grandiose as possible.  Enjoying them is one thing, but I truly pity the men who invest their passions in them, kind of like greyhounds chasing a stuffed animal in circles until they break a leg, and are euthanized. 

Nice Start, Louisiana

If this story is to be believed, a group of Louisiana citizens has petitioned the Obama administration to depart the United States.  I applaud them for thinking outside the box, and after all, why shouldn't they be able to leave if Puerto Rico is trying to join?  But they're still doing it wrong by meekly asking for permission.  That presupposes that the administration has a right to deny permission, which it does not.  The constitutional compact is already breached to the core, thus it is no longer binding and we may all go our merry way.  If someone tries to stop you, exercise your right of self-defense, just as the people who founded this country did.

EDIT:

Congratulations to these Texans who are also refusing to treat the Union as a suicide pact.  Let us hope they grow a little more spine as well.    

And It's Obama

Thank goodness.  All you spiritual descendants of the people who founded this country can't lie to yourselves anymore: America as you know it is gone, at least as a nation comprehending the fifty states.  The majority of the people now inhabiting this land do not value bedrock principles such as individual liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, or the rule of law, but rather worship the boundless "good" that Leviathan can do for them at the expense of their freedom and dignity. I'm sure you will light up the Internet with fire and brimstone in the coming weeks over the Faustian bargain your countrymen have struck, so get it out of your system as I did years ago and focus coolly on the solution, which is to preserve America in every way but through the corridors of federal power.  Turn your attention to your state, the sovereign unit preceding the federal compact, and never ask for federal permission to do what needs doing.

El Cazador

En la tierra roja, cerca de un manantial famoso por sus aves,

Se esconde el de habla rusa y apellido zeta, la última letra.

Entre petirrojos, oropéndolas, faisanes y alondras, caza furtivamente

A presa herida, perdida y confundida.

Cuando la capta, siente orgullo en vez de vergüenza,

Y aunque abandona a su compañera.

No es soldado, ni héroe, ni esposo, ni hombre,

Sino cobarde.

En una época justa ya estaría muerto. ¿Pero quién sabe?

Acaso el cazador se convierta en el cazado

Y el destino por fin lo reclame.

Here's To An Obama Victory

Because it will help radicalize a large chunk of the middle class who see him as evil incarnate.  Now, I certainly don't believe he is evil incarnate; our problems are far more profound and systemic than a single president, who in truth is merely a figurehead for the ruling class and can't defy them in any meaningful way (lest he be assassinated by a "lone nut").  I wrote two books excoriating the modern federal government when George W. Bush was president, so I'm not about to say that Romney would be any better.

But in politics perception is reality, and an Obama victory would go a long way toward making the middle class perceive that there is no hope of salvation at the ballot box (which there really isn't anyway, but I've long since given up hope that people will believe the right thing for the right reason).  Revolutions are made by the middle class.  If the middle class perceives that its vote is powerless, that its blood, sweat, and tears are held hostage by the whims of dope smokers, promiscuous college students demanding free birth control, illegal aliens, mindless celebrities, ex-cons, and other such people, then the middle class is far more likely to look away from Washington and understand -- at long last -- that salvation lies close to home.

A Romney victory would be disastrous because the middle class would perceive -- completely incorrectly -- that it has staved off a socialist coup and rescued American life for the time being.  We will continue to drown in debt, punish excellence to reward mediocrity, invade and "liberate" other countries, imprison more people than anywhere else on Earth, and generally succumb to tyranny because a once-restive middle class will have grown docile in its delusions.  The silver lining to a Romney victory is short-term entertainment value:  watching people such as Barbra Streisand, Chris Matthews, Bill Maher, and every other sanctimonious supporter of Obama lose it would be a lot of fun.  Who says I'm not an optimist?

Random Reflections

Why is it that people who believe mankind is purely the product of natural selection are often the same people who regard anything manmade as unnatural or as an interference with nature?  Seems to me that if mankind is the product of nature, everything mankind does is natural by definition.

In a similar vein, why is it that people who fiercely subscribe to evolution are the same people who insist that economic activity must be heavily regulated to avoid the "law of the jungle"?  If the law of the jungle is so wonderful for the jungle, why isn't it wonderful for us? 

I often hear complaints that men are reluctant to make a commitment to a serious relationship, which is certainly true.  What I don't hear is that women are every bit as reluctant to keep a commitment to a serious relationship, such as when it becomes "boring" or somebody more interesting shows up.  Men's weakness is on the front end, while women's weakness is on the back end.

 

It's amazing the number of people who tell me they have a burning desire to learn Spanish, and who pay me to tutor them, but can't summon the energy to review anything we've done or expand their vocabulary between classes.  Unfortunately for the modern cult of the consumer, learning another language is not something you can just buy off the shelf -- you have to work for it.  

Of the tens and even hundreds of thousands of years humans have dwelt the Earth and barely eked out a daily existence, only in the past century or so have we enjoyed the use of electricity, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, televisions, computers, air conditioning, mass manufacturing, reliable birth control, and the wonders of advanced medicine.  Add to that the luck of being born in the First World, and you must conclude that you are one of the luckiest SOBs who ever lived. 

In a similar vein, why am I me?  Why is my consciousness attached to this body rather than somebody else's?  Did I used to be somebody else but just forgot about it?  Will I be somebody else in the future and forget about who I am now?  

I used to fear death until I realized that I've already been dead, specifically before I was born (i.e., I did not exist).

What is it with people who fetishize their pets, especially the people who say their pet's love is more genuine or profound because it is "unconditional"?  This is precisely what makes a pet's love less profound -- the fact that you don't have to earn it, not in any real sense, and that the pet can't ever question or challenge you.  No wonder relationships are falling apart today; people expect love to be on tap like a wellspring of good feelings, no questions asked. 

It's bizarre that the nicer you are in general, the angrier people get when you stop being nice for merely an instant.  People who act like jerks all the time get far less grief and far more respect. 

If there is a food that I hate but somebody else likes, do we taste it the same way?  I don't see how anyone can like the taste of broccoli, for example.  The taste we are experiencing must be different, or the other person must be crazy. 

Do we all see colors the same way?  What if the color I see as red is completely different from the color you see as red, but it just so happens we were brought up calling that different-looking color by the same name?

I was swimming laps the other day when I saw that somebody had left the shower by the pool running at high temperature.  Other people walked right by it without appearing to notice.  This went on for several minutes until I couldn't take it anymore, so I stopped swimming, got out of the pool, and turned it off.  The people's nonchalance reflected a self-centeredness that intensely bothered me, but at least that powered me through the remainder of my workout.