Alice Smith’s comparison that stimulated yesterday’s piece was a clever one. It illuminated a particularly absurd fallacy, which made it useful for an old crank who needed something to write about. But equally important comparisons are being made, silently and invisibly, all the time. It’s worth bringing a couple of them out into the light and torturing them until they talk.
As it happens, I’ve been trying to lose weight these past few months. The diet gurus will tell you that the great enemy of any weight-loss attempt is hunger. The dieter must be ready to cope with it, for a sudden surge of it can derail his intentions. Ironically, that requires that he keep his house full of foods of all kinds.
The comparison the dieter must never make is between eating something and eating nothing. When hunger strikes with full force, not eating is nearly impossible. Insisting on it transforms his effort from a campaign of self-improvement to an exercise in self-denial. Most of us are not capable of denying ourselves for a long stretch of time. So the comparison must be among edible alternatives: the pickle versus the cream pie.
Now, that’s a fairly clear and straightforward sort of problem. In that regard it contrasts sharply with the next one, which arises biennially and bedevils well-meaning American voters at each occurrence: Which of these useless lying parasites should I prefer to his opponent?
A lot has been thought and said about this problem. Nearly all of it has been misguided. For there are comparisons to be made that They Who Pour The Very Best Butter over the gears and cams of our society don’t want us even to think about, much less contemplate seriously.
The comparison of real interest, of course, is this one:
To no one at all?
Politicians and those who gain from their machinations are terrified of that comparison. It threatens their whole game. So they palm the card and pray that no one will notice that we’re playing with a deck of fifty-one.
After a long enough period, the political class becomes blind to the possibility that We the Sorely Tried might dispense with them. They forget that there are alternatives of any kind. This is the way it’s done, this is the way it’s always been done, this is the way it must be done… The progression is so smooth as to be unconscious.
In 2015, an alternative arose with compelling force. It blindsided the political elite so completely that they had no idea how to defend against it. And so, in the quadrennial elections of 2016, we got a real choice for the first time in many decades. The hubris of those who derided the candidacy of Donald Trump was made plain in endless video clips. No one has asked them since then whether they might have been a bit presumptuous.
Many in the Right are disappointed with the Trump presidencies. It’s understandable, though most of the reasons lie outside the Administration. And the political Establishment is trying its best to capitalize on that disappointment. Establishmentarians are hoping for a return to their preferred state of undisturbed kleptocracy. If they play their hand well enough, they might just get it, and woe betide these United States thereafter.
But that only raises the comparison I’d like to see Americans making in large numbers: the one that asks How about None of the Above is Acceptable?
I don’t know of any electoral district, however small, that has None of the Above on its ballots for any office. But isn’t that the most important of all options? The one that asks “Can you do without this office and the powers it exercises for a couple of years?”
The very idea terrifies the political professional, from the power-hungry bloviators on their stumps all the way down to the street-level campaigners who go door-to-door trawling for votes. Politics is their life, their love, and their living. They could never do without it. Therefore it becomes imperative that they persuade us that we cannot do without them.
‘[Sauron] supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind.’
Perhaps we who understand and love freedom can reorient the national conversation to include that unspeakable comparison. Suggest it to others dismayed by the status quo, instead of merely denouncing the latest elected thief or hawking the dubious virtues of some aspiring power-seeker. Both are likely to betray us. It would only be the umpteenth time.
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