Alternatives

Mike Hendrix has an important piece at Cold Fury this morning. He leads off by quoting an insightful bit of Mark Steyn:

Because the formal, visible state has been neutered by political correctness, the dark, furtive shadow state has to expand massively to make, in secret, the judgment calls that can no longer be made in public. That’s not an arrangement that is likely to end well.

...and expands on it as follows:

I would quibble with Mark’s distinction between the “visible” state and the “shadow” one; seems to me what has really happened is not that the “visible” state has been neutered with political correctness, but that it has neutered US. It has hounded us into submission to an ideal of helpless cowardice; trained us to be suspicious and fearful of any notion of self-defense and strength, on every possible level from individual to national; taught us that to question its unsubtle PC edicts on “diversity” and such will bring consequences most dire, and that even harboring thoughts of resistance or insubordination is the mark of a degenerate, criminally actionable as a “hate crime”; and now seeks to cow us permanently with open displays of its limitless power, lawlessness, and will to subjugate us (remember, the IRS’s harassment of dissidents was “exposed” by Lois Lerner herself, with a question she planted for that specific purpose).

To recast Steyn’s argument, then: the formal, visible state has neutered us with political correctness to abet the rise of the dark, furtive shadow state, so that both may then expand massively and rule us more expediently, efficiently, and completely–at which point, the gloves of the shadow state will finally come off for good....

Corruption on this Grand National scale is indivisible from power on the same scale: they go together like beans and cornbread (as straight and true an analogy now as it was when Louis Jordan sang it). That corruption will metastasize; that power will be used. Which makes it all the more bitterly hilarious when the architects of that power complain about any “unintended” consequences of their industriousness....

They are not going to go away merely because we’re “outraged”–and even at that, better than half of us aren’t even bothered at all. We will not save the Shire by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo. It’s doubtful that we’ll save it at all, and far more likely that we’ll all be slaving away for Sharkey and Wormtongue in one of their vile sweatshops soon enough–built on a fruitful, goodly land that was once owned by us, but has now been stolen and desecrated by them.

Only one thing is missing from Mike's analysis: something I've explored both here at Liberty's Torch and in a fictional setting.

---

Wealth and freedom severed from their rightful owner draw looters and thieves, as a body severed from life draws vultures and flies. ["John Galt," Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics as if Freedom Mattered]

The American model of governance rests on a foundation of ideas:

1. Lockean natural rights inherent in the individual;
2. Social Contract theory (a.k.a. "the consent of the governed");
3. The use of power balanced against power to achieve overall limitation of government.

Ideas #1 and #2 synergize in an involute manner. If we recognize individuals' rights but insist that there is to be government -- i.e., an institution pre-indemnified for its uses of force against those within its jurisdiction -- then the individuals subject to that jurisdiction must agree to be coerced in certain contractually specified ways. Idea #3 -- the separation of powers (a.k.a. "checks and balances") -- was the Founding Fathers' scheme for keeping government within its Constitutional boundaries.

Note what has become of those ideas -- that is, of the overall allegiance to them among Americans:

1. Perhaps half of us genuinely believe that individuals possess inherent rights of the Lockean variety.
2. Those who seek power over us regard our "social contract" -- the Constitution -- solely as an impediment...and their supporters and well-wishers have no problem with that.
3. The three branches of government have coalesced into a single mechanism for the extension and application of State power. In this regard, they buttress and are buttressed by a vast unelected bureaucracy that wields the supposedly "separated" executive, legislative, and judicial powers as a single rod for our backs.

Thus, we face a situation in which perhaps half the country consciously disavows America's founding ideas in their entirety...and the other half is continuously induced to "make exceptions" here and their to suit their personal interests or preferences.

I am of the opinion that our ideological deterioration was inevitable.

Ideas have consequences, but they cannot and do not defend themselves. The more abstract -- depersonalized -- an idea, the more vulnerable it is to attacks from ideas with greater personal appeal. Subsidies and legal privileges will always find supporters among those at whom they're aimed. That's why aspiring tyrants always seek out "the unfortunate" and "the oppressed" to champion...and why the New Deal succeeded in brushing aside so much of our Constitutional framework.

In this connection, it is important to remember than only about a tenth of the population of Revolution-era America actively supported the aims of the Revolution. Perhaps a tenth was equally ardent for reconciliation with the British Crown. The rest mainly kept their heads down and accepted what was given them.

---

The corruption of an institution with coercive powers proceeds from those powers. Therefore, once an institution is granted coercive power of any sort, its corruption is guaranteed. It might be difficult to establish a time frame for its deterioration. The early stages of its corruption might be debatable. But the conclusion of the process is written in the nature of Man.

The heart of the matter is simple:

Power over others is most attractive to those who desire it over all other things.

Lord Acton said that "Power tends to corrupt." A friend of mine was even more cynical: "Power attracts the corruptible." And the corrupt and corruptible are most adroit at forcing out those who don't share their orientation and their aims.

In the distribution of human characteristics, the love of power correlates quite negatively with altruism, charity, moral scruple, and respect for others. You will seldom find a Mao, a Hitler, or a Stalin who sincerely believes in individuals' right to be left alone...or, for that matter, in "the greatest good of the greatest number." Yet those are exactly the sort of men who will pursue political power most determinedly, and who are therefore most likely to acquire it. Friedrich Hayek wrote incisively about the process in The Road To Serfdom, specifically in the chapter titled "Why The Worst Get On Top."

The most important aspect of this progression is the utter absence of any countervailing influence, once a government has been created and legitimized.

---

If every government is, by the nature of government, doomed to be corrupted into an instrument of tyranny, the naive and credulous will leap to an unsustainable conclusion:

Abolish Government Now And Forever!

If only. The problem lies in the nature of anarchism, which by the nature of Man is just as unstable as government.

An anarchic setting will be stable only as long as it experiences no perturbations exploitable by men who desire power over others. As soon as one arises, the would-be wielders of political power will leap into action:

1. They will magnify the situation rhetorically into a "crisis" that demands "firm leadership."
2. They will put forth a "program" for the redress of the "crisis."
3. They will denigrate or demonize dissenters, inducing a division within the community.
4. When they've acquired sufficient backing, they will use the power of the mob -- the original form of "democracy" -- to coerce the dissenters into compliance.
5. A precedent having been established, the extension of political power into new areas of life merely awaits a fresh "crisis" to provide a pretext...and it's easy to create a "crisis" by the use of power already established.

This process will be resisted at first, for just as there will always be men who seek power, freedom will always have its defenders. There might be several sallies at the creation of a State before one finally "takes." But there is no limit to the number of sallies the power-seekers can make. Once they've succeeded in creating a State, its growth is guaranteed by the dynamics of power itself.

Anarchy gives birth to the State as a mother might bear a deformed child: reluctantly, with much lamentation, but according to laws of nature that know nothing of our sorrows and regrets.

---

Revolutions, as long and bitter experience reveals, are apt to take their color from the regime they overthrow. -- Richard Tawney

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny; they have only shifted it to another shoulder. -- George Bernard Shaw

Politics, as hopeful men practice it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance. The American colonists, when they got rid of the Potsdam tyrant, believed fondly that they were getting rid of oppressive taxes forever and setting up complete liberty. They found almost instantly that taxes were higher than ever, and before many years they were writhing under the Alien and Sedition Acts. -- H. L. Mencken

Those who have seized power, even for the noblest of motives soon persuade themselves that there are good reasons for not relinquishing it. This is particularly likely to happen if they believe themselves to represent some immensely important cause. They will feel that their opponents are ignorant and perverse; before long they will come to hate them...The important thing is to keep their power, not to use it as a means to an eventual paradise. And so what were means become ends, and the original ends are forgotten except on Sundays. -- Bertrand Russell

It's exceedingly rare for the collapse of a State to result in an enduring anarchy. In by far the most common case, the old State is replaced by a new State...and not necessarily, or enduringly, a better one by any freedom-oriented measure.

He who desires freedom and suffers oppression can dream about a libertarian revolution, but if he's a realist, he must allow that revolution is much less than likely to serve the ends of freedom. If he "plays the odds," he will look for a better alternative: a path forward that has better prospects for freeing him and his like-minded fellows in an enduring fashion. There was a time in human history when such an alternative was at hand: a land frontier.

The first European colonists came to North America for freedom and economic opportunity. The crowned heads of Europe attempted to control them and their enterprises from afar, with consequences we all know well. After the colonists had won free of their former masters and had cultured a homegrown State, the westward frontier, to which the willing and energetic could repair and where the powers of the State could not reach, provided a freedom-laden alternative. That alternative also helped to restrain the ambitions of the Eastern power-mongers: too tight a grip would accelerate the westward movement, with consequent loss of revenues and de facto power.

But there is no longer a land frontier on this planet. For the moment, other planets are both out of reach and unsuited to human habitation. He who seeks freedom has nowhere to run, unless it be Antarctica or the open sea.

---

Apologies for so depressing a screed, Gentle Reader. I don't like its thrust any better than you. But it's my honest conviction that we have no alternative superior to a desperate attempt to re-constrain our own governments...an attempt more likely than not to prove futile.

The shreds of individual freedom Americans retain are unraveling as we speak.
Our posterity will wear shackles heavier than any we've known.
There's little hope in revolution and nowhere to flee.
If there is hope, it lies outside politics.
Forget the "proles."
Pray.