What Is A “Failed State?”

     You’ve heard the term applied to Libya, and perhaps one or two other places. But what does it mean?

     Chris Farrell of Judicial Watch has his own interpretation:

     There is a massive “leadership failure” in the United States Congress and in our government agencies according to Judicial Watch’s Chris Farrell. He is worried we are moving towards a “failed state” because of it. No one will step up in the face of unbelievable corruption, he says.

     Please read the whole thing, especially if your blood pressure is dangerously low and could use a jump-start. I shan’t argue against Farrell’s indictments of federal government corruption. The majority of them are plain as day. But does rampant corruption inside a government render the relevant nation a “failed state?”

     It’s worth more than a little thought.

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     Corruption is pervasive inside many governments. The majority of Latin American nations, if their officials and lesser functionaries were to be denied the “privilege” of bribery, probably couldn’t function at all. Hernando de Soto could tell you all about it. Indeed, such practices are hardly confined to the Western Hemisphere.

     Yet Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and so forth are never described as failed states. Clearly, the term doesn’t apply to corrupt regimes simply because they’re corrupt. What, then, is the distinguishing characteristic?

     Is it a failure to enforce the law? But most nations have many, many laws that go unenforced. The United States of America is one such. Enforcement power is always insufficient to enforce all the laws on the books, because governments enact laws without regard for that consideration. The firearms laws of the U.S. provide an exceptionally compelling case.

     Is it some characteristic of the law itself – some quality that the laws of a failed state must possess (or lack) that’s not present in (or absent from) the laws of other nations? That’s too nebulous to explain why the term has been applied so sparely. The luxuriant proliferation of law in every nation on Earth would reveal the presence (or absence) of any proposed characteristic in at least some of the laws of each nation.

     Here’s an interesting case: Was South Vietnam, just before its conquest by North Vietnam, a failed state? It lacked the will, the power, or both to defend itself against the invasion, which is an important aspect of sovereignty. But at what point would that begin to matter? A number of smaller nations are probably just as ill-prepared to defend themselves against their neighbors, even if those neighbors haven’t troubled them yet.

     No, there’s something else involved...some other characteristic of a nation that qualifies it as a “failed state.” It’s about the nature of the state itself.

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     The defining characteristic of a state is an organization that possesses the pre-immunized privilege of coercion over those within its scope. Note the qualifier pre-immunized. Many non-state organizations can and do use coercive methods to attain their objectives. However, they remain liable to pursuit and penalty under the law, whatever it might be, should the state decide to act against them. Only the agents of the state are granted immunity – i.e., the presumption of lawfulness – for specified uses of coercion.

     Many organizations seek to become immune to punishment for their coercions. That’s one aspect of the dynamic of corruption: such an organization – assuming it can’t or won’t simply overthrow the existing state and take its place – will attempt to acquire such immunity through bribery, blackmail, or exchange of favors.

     A state which can operate under the presumption of immunity for its deeds is a functioning one. Regardless of the laws it promulgates and whether or not it chooses to enforce them, it has not failed. It maintains its defining difference from the other organizations within its jurisdiction. Inversely, a state whose agents and other subunits are routinely punished for their actions by non-state actors is at the very least in danger of failure. A state some of whose subjects have mounted a credible insurrection against it is in the critical stage that precedes failure, though complete failure might yet be averted. Should the insurrection persist despite the state’s attempts to suppress it, the verdict would become definite.

     The failure of a state, like dying, is a process rather than a sharply bounded event. We seldom hear a state called failing, no matter how seriously events have endangered it. Only when the process has run to completion do we speak of that state as having failed.

     Note the difference between a country with a failed state and a country that is itself in a condition of failure. The two conditions are independent of one another. Venezuela, a failed country with an unpleasantly firm state, provides an excellent example.

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     Libya is spoken of as a failed state because the government that asserted itself after the execution of Muammar Qaddafi could not maintain itself against the several Islamic insurrections that arose. The Benghazi atrocity was a clear indication that that government had no practical influence over events. Another state that displays clear indications of failure is that of Lebanon, which has been wracked by insurrections for so long that no one can remember when it was otherwise. The government over Syria, by contrast, appears to be winning against the insurrections mounted against it, though remnants of those movements may persist for some time further.

     The federal government of the U.S. is not a failed state by that criterion. At this time there is no force in existence that threatens the immunity of its agents from punishment. Ruby Ridge and Waco provide clear demonstrations, regardless of our opinion of what happened in those two incidents.

     The unwillingness of high federal officials and agencies of justice to act against blatant criminality does provide reason for a judgment of corruption. What’s lacking is any indication that those officials and agencies will suffer for their nonfeasance. Were that the case, the question would then become: Will the rest of the federal government treat the responsible officials and agencies as liable and punishable? An answer of yes would be most gratifying, but even a clear no would not mark the federal government as a failed state. As I noted above, corruption of that sort is known in many other nations, none of whose governments we would call “failed states.”

     Missing from all this logic-chopping and word-mincing is any consideration of whether it’s more desirable to have a failed state or a functioning one. It’s a fascinating subject, as it requires us to weigh the value of legal and governmental stability against the importance of punishment for “official” misdeeds and acts of tyranny. However, I prefer to leave that question to the side of me that writes fiction.

The Collapse Of Public Order

     It’s here. In truth, it’s been here since the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of these United States. Last night’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia only make it impossible to ignore.

     I’m not acquainted with Jason Kessler or Richard Spencer. I know very little about the “Alt-Right,” and would not presume to speak for that movement or any of its supporters. Here is what I know:

     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [U.S. Constitution, Amendment I]

     As an integral part of the Constitution, the First Amendment is the supreme law of the land, quite as much as any of the Constitution’s other prescriptions or proscriptions. If there’s any point to having “law enforcement officers” paid out of the public treasury, it’s to have them enforce the law. Yet the Charlottesville Police Department (CPD) refrained from doing anything of the sort. Indeed, in one respect -- i.e., by forcing the “Unite the Right” protestors to move single-file out of Emancipation Park and into the throng of “Antifa” thugs awaiting them – the CPD seemed eager to provoke the violence that occurred last night.

     While I cannot be certain that the “Antifa” thugs who forced violence upon last night’s “Unite the Right” rally were in the pay of the far-left Charlottesville city government, I am certain that the CPD encouraged the mushrooming violence, both by forcing the groups together and by standing by passively as violence erupted. Therefore the CPD is complicit in the death and the injuries that occurred. It should be brought to account for them, but it’s clear from the aftermath that that won’t happen.

     When the supposed “forces of order” do nothing to preserve order – when their actions conduce to violence, bloodshed, and chaos — what are we to think of the “government” over us? What possible good can we rationally expect from this institution that possesses the pre-indemnified privilege to use force in upholding the law, but refrains from doing so?

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     Concerning the above matter and much else, T. L. Davis deposeth and sayeth:

     The USA is a failed state. It was charged at its founding to protect and defend the borders. Fail. It was charged with securing the rule of law. Fail. It was charged with securing the right of the people to be secure in their papers and effects. Fail. It was charged with protecting a citizen’s right to a fair trial, a thing lost in the current judicial system of trumped up charges and plea bargains. Fail. It was charged with requiring the popularly elected House of Representatives with making all legislation, that does not exist where 90% of all new legislation is considered "rules" and "regulations" and is originated and passed in committees of bureaucracies. Fail.

     There is no area in which one might look where the language and intent of the Constitution is honored. This is more than just a problem, it is indicative of a failed political state. That there are those who benefit from this dysfunction is a fact, but it is not indicative of a functioning government. It is a government evolving from its intent to the opposite of its intent. Yes, it functions, but not to its purpose, which is to say if a tire is blown, with a big hole in it, it might still be used as a child's swing, but it no longer functions to its purpose.

     He’s absolutely correct on all counts. The purpose of government in the U.S. was set out by a memorable bit of prose:

     We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

     Those purposes are in agreement at all points with what radio host Gene Burns likes to call “the birth document of the United States of America:”

     We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

     Yet today:

• There are no rights;
• There is no security;
• And there’s damned little happiness.

     T. L. Davis’s assessment of the U.S. as “a failed state” is confirmed. Moreover, it’s the governments we hoped would “effect their Safety and Happiness” that are the culprits. Worse yet, they have enlisted groups such as “Antifa” and “Black Lives Matter” in their efforts.

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     The aim of the High is to remain where they are. -- George Orwell

     It should be clear by now that the members of the political class, at whose whim the “forces of order” really move, are uninterested in anyone’s rights. Their paramount desire is to maintain and (if possible) increase their power over us.

     There can no longer be any justification for faith in the benevolence of the State. It has revealed itself all too clearly as a parasitic organism. It’s grown so large that the health of the host is now in mortal jeopardy. The elevation of a complete outsider to its highest office seems not to have dampened its lusts. Now, by assisting outright thugs and criminals in the suppression of peaceful dissent, the political class has declared war on the private citizenry.

     Do not expect what will follow last night’s evil to be confined to locales far from you. Go armed at all times. Cultivate the sharpest situational awareness possible. At all costs stay out of crowds and places where crowds are predicted. The thugs are everywhere...and the “forces of order” are aligned with them.

     Pray.

"Essential Services"

     The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – H. L. Mencken

     I’m fascinated – in the sense that a horror-movie fan is fascinated by gory slayings – by the phrases governments use to clothe themselves in righteousness and indispensability. You’ve already seen me rant on “compelling government interest,” a phrase that’s been used to legitimize one invasion of our liberty after another. Here’s another: “essential services,” a phrase by which the Omnipotent State means us to assume that the “services” so described are...well...essential. And maybe, just maybe, they might be...but to whom?

     It’s a subject worthy of a few CPU cycles, if you have any to spare on a Sunday morning.

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     “Gentlemen, you see that in the anarchy in which we live, society manages much as before. Take care, if our disputes last too long, that the people will come to think they can just as easily do without us.” – Bejamin Franklin, to the other delegates to the Constitutional Convention

     It’s been noted, here and elsewhere, that during the “government shutdowns” we’ve all been instructed to fear, approximately 85% of all federal workers are still at work...whatever “at work” might mean to a federal “worker”...and 100% of all federal “workers” are guaranteed to receive their full salaries, including for the duration of the “shutdown,” when the “shutdown” is over. In other words, the “shutdown penalizes the government and its drones only to the extent of a brief delay in paying 15% of the federal workforce. Everything else about the Carriage of State, with the possible exception of payments to holders of federal debt instruments, rattles on as it had before the “shutdown.”

     Doesn’t sound too fearsome, does it? Why, you may ask, doesn’t the “shutdown,” which has been painted in such garish colors, actually shut something down? The answer is always “essential services.”

     There’s a notable lack of specificity about those “essential services.” That’s probably because so few Americans would agree with the list of nuisances and make-work tasks bundled under that heading. So it’s worth asking explicitly: what “services” does the federal government provide that a majority of Americans would agree to classify as “essential?”

     National defense? Well, yes, I think we could get majority concurrence on that one. But what others? The Postal Service is autonomous today. The interstate highway system pretty much “serves” us without need for human supervision, despite the occasional pothole. Would anyone much care whether the alphabet agencies were furloughed in their entirety? How about the staffs of our elected federal legislators? Surely the 535 elected nostrum-spouters in the Capitol could go without their regularly scheduled tongue baths for a few days without soiling their diapers, no?

     Not according to Washington’s definition of “essential.” In Washingtonese, it appears to mean “whatever we choose to do, regardless of whether it benefits anyone but ourselves.”

     There’s a moral in there, somewhere.

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     An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public. – Charles Talleyrand

     At this point in the deterioration of the American Constitutional order, there’s an irrefutable case that the federal government is a lethal parasite upon the American people. Subtract the military and the border patrol, and what’s left that any private citizen, not an employee of the federal government itself, really values? Granted that there are millions of pensioners and layabouts who really like their monthly checks, but were the federal apparatus uprooted and cast into the flames, would they need them? Consider in this light the enormous increase in the cost of living imposed on us by the federal government: first in our tax burden, and after that through regulation, inflation, and the federal protection of coercively maintained unions. Isn’t it probable that even the millions of retirees who subsist on Social Security alone would find other means?

     A Man From Mars, looking disinterestedly at the federal government, would immediately conclude that “it’s got to go.” Not only is it a parasitic organism; it commits some horrendous crimes. I’m not talking about the A-Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ponder the murders of Randy Weaver’s wife and son, or the massacre of the Branch Davidians at Waco. Try to find a justification for them.

     The redefinition by Washington of “essential” is essential only to Washington itself. With only the two exceptions already noted, every service private Americans genuinely value is provided by a lower level of government, usually a municipality or county. Yet we’ve been taught – quite successfully – to fear a “government shutdown” above condemnation to Hell. But that’s rather convenient for those who value their ability to mulct us for their personal benefit and the benefit of their cronies, isn’t it?

     Apologies, Gentle Reader. I got up on “the wrong side of the bed” this morning. It doesn’t much help that my driveway is a shambles, that my lawn has been ruined by the same people who ruined my driveway, that my hands hurt as if they’d been smashed by a closing car door, or that Rufus has just drooled all over my only clean pair of jeans. I’m sure I’ll be better soon. Tomorrow, perhaps.

The Problem Of Irrelevant Perspectives

     Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely – John Edward Emmerich Dalberg, a.k.a. Lord Acton

     The central problem of all political systems is the perverse distribution of decision-making authority. No matter what scheme is attempted – direct-democratic, federal, parliamentary, oligarchic, autocratic – authority will always come to rest with persons who, for whatever reason, won’t have to bear the consequences of their decisions.

     The great Robert Townsend, author of Further Up the Organization, was adamant that decision-making authority belongs with those to whom it will mean the most: i.e., those who would bear the consequences of the decision. A worker needs tools? Very well: give him a budget and let him select them. A supervisor needs another subordinate? Very well: Let him do the interviewing and hiring, and since his other subordinates will have to work with the new hire, encourage him to seek their input. It’s an entirely reasonable approach, and yet virtually no company actually uses it. Concerning political systems, the thing is quite literally impossible.

     In a quasi-parliamentary system such as ours, legislative authority rests with legislators (surprise, surprise) most of whom can exempt themselves from the consequences of their enactments. Their principal considerations are electoral: How would this affect my prospects in the upcoming election? Among those, the most prominent ones are the special interests who purport to command substantial funds and blocs of votes. Those who captain the special interests are often wealthy enough, influential enough, or both to avert the consequences of the legislation they lobby for. Then there’s the rest of us, who have virtually no recourse when our tax rates rise, our medical insurance is perverted, or our neighborhoods are flooded with Third Worlders who have no interest in assimilating to American norms and standards of conduct.

     To the legislator, our perspectives on such things are nearly irrelevant. If asked, we would express the same view of his perspective...but we have little capability for changing the distribution of decision making power.

     So it is, and so it will always be.

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     It is said the ancient Greeks used a simple method to stop the multiplication of "laws." Perhaps we should try it on our Congress. Anyone wishing to propose a new law had to do so while standing on a platform with a rope around his neck. If the law was passed, the rope was removed. If the law was voted down, the platform was removed. – “John Galt,” Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics As If Freedom Mattered, First Edition.

     The problem is insoluble. Even the mechanism suggested in the semi-facetious quote above would fail. Only in the complete absence of government is it completely absent...but as I’ve written before, anarchy is as unstable as government. Every anarchy eventually births a State, through the same process that gives rise to the problem of irrelevant perspectives: delegation.

     Let there be an anarchic society that enacts a law in some fashion. Let it be one upon which every decent person would agree: perhaps a law against murder. Very well: we outlaw murder, fix a punishment for it, and deem ourselves done and well done. The problem is that we aren’t:

• Who is to decide when a murder might have been committed?
• Who is to pursue the alleged murderer?
• Who is to determine whether he will be punished?
• Who is to arrange for and carry out the punishment?

     The impulse to delegate each of those functions is irresistible. Though we might insist that the authority actually inheres in the law itself – the de jure authority certainly does – we have granted the de facto authority to particular persons. Those persons have acquired, willy-nilly on our part, an automatic and irremediable discretion over their realms of authority.

     Perhaps our delegates will exercise their authority responsibly for a time. But all men are mortal, all men grow weary, and so in the fullness of time they will be replaced. By whom? Who is likely to want those authorities? Among them, who is most likely to succeed in acquiring them?

     I’ve written about this before. So has Friedrich Hayek, most particularly in the chapter “Why The Worst Get On Top.”

     Strain as we might, over six millennia of recorded history we’ve found no escape route. The impulse to delegate the arduous and unpleasant tasks attached to any law whatsoever has never been successfully resisted. The dynamic that takes over at that point is inexorable. It’s why I maintain that just as every government eventually decays to an unsustainable absolutism and collapses, every anarchism eventually gives birth to a government.

     God grant that I’m wrong...but I don’t think I am.

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     In the Foreword to Freedom’s Fury, I wrote:

     I shan’t attempt to deceive or misdirect you: I’m horrified by politics and all its fruits. I consider the use of coercive force against innocent men the greatest of all the evils we know. But I try, most sincerely, to be realistic about the world around us. In that world, peopled by men such as ourselves, anarchism—the complete abjuration and avoidance of the State—is unstable. In time, it will always give way to politics. Hammer it to the earth as many times as you may, you will never succeed in killing it permanently. The State will rise again.

     However, as we’ve learned to our sorrow these past few centuries, the State is unstable, too. It always deteriorates and falls, though not always swiftly. What follows it varies from place to place and era to era.

     As one who passionately loves freedom, I’ve striven to understand the processes involved, and to unearth a path to a stable free society. I’ve failed to find one.

     I haven’t ceased to look. Nor will I say a priori that one cannot be found. But the central problem is the process of delegation, which embeds the automatic production of perverse incentives via the creation of irrelevant perspectives. Averting the delegation of authority and responsibility is the key...but who has proposed a way to do that?

     I yield the floor to my Gentle Readers.

Parallels That Instruct

     First, some relevant music to set the appropriate atmosphere:

     The lyric, one of ELP’s more apocalyptic ones:

Just a step cried the sad man
Take a look down at the madman
Theatre kings on silver wings
Fly beyond reason
From the flight of the seagull
Come the spread claws of the eagle
Only fear breaks the silence
As we all kneel pray for guidance

Tread the road cross the abyss
Take a look down at the madness
On the streets of the city
Only spectres still have pity
Patient queues for the gallows
Sing the praises of the hallowed
Our machines feed the furnace
If they take us they will burn us

Will you still know who you are
When you come to who you are

When the flames have their season
Will you hold to your reason
Loaded down with your talents
Can you still keep your balance
Can you live on a knife-edge

     Let that sink in for a moment before proceeding.

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     It might strike you that this is a strange time of year to be discoursing on anarchism, but the mood is upon me, and I’ve resolved to follow where it leads.

     Courtesy of Western Rifle Shooters, we have the following “What If” found on Twitter:

     It’s worth a moment of your time, and a bit of emphasis:

How shall we distinguish, whether morally or practically, a State from an ascendant gang with a spatiotemporal preponderance of force?

     Go ahead; I fully understand your need for more coffee. I’ll wait here.

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     In the Foreword to this novel, I wrote:

     The States of Earth exist in an anarchic relation to one another. Each has its own regional code of law, which might differ markedly from all the others. Despite several thrusts at the matter over the centuries, there is no “super-State” to enforce a uniform code of law over them all. More, they view one another as competitors in many different areas; their populations and institutions are often in sharp economic competition with one another. Thus, they are often at odds. They resolve important disputes among them through negotiation or warfare.

     Yet individuals manage to move among them with a fair degree of facility and (usually) little risk. Cross-border trade is commonplace, in some places torrential. Though wars are frequent, they seldom result in major alterations to the overall political pattern. The uber-anarchy of Terrestrial society exhibits more stability than one would expect from two hundred well armed, quarrelsome States, each of which perpetually schemes at snatching some advantage at another’s expense.

     I hold that the “archies-within-anarchy” structure of the world posited above is indisputable. There is no “super-State;” the UN, being unable to impose its will on a dissenting or divergent State, does not qualify. But being a believer in the ancient maxim “As above, so below,” I’m not about to stop there.

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     Quite by coincidence, on this very date in the Year of Our Lord 2013, I wrote the following:

     Whatever our chosen tactics, we must always keep in mind the "so far, so good" nature of all things: the inevitability of failure, change, and subsequent developments. Governments cannot legislate that pattern away. O'Brien's vision of "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever" is as fallacious as the dream of a perfect freedom eternally unchallenged by the envious and the power-mongers who exploit their unholy desires.

     The moral should be clear. Regardless of your preferences in countermeasures, whenever you look at any institution the Left has succeeded in perverting, say to yourself:

"And this, too, shall pass away."

     Your task is to keep fighting -- and to survive.

     I haven’t written many things that I regard as imperative beyond all possibility of refutation, but that’s one of them. Keep moving. Survive. What’s going on around you is relevant to your decisions and actions only as it pertains to what you must do to survive. And as a perfect (and perfectly ironic) capper to the matter, I must add this: Eventually, you’ll fail.

     The mature know this. No one lives forever. The final triumph belongs to Time, which I sometimes imagine was God’s device for averting boredom. But just as no one lives forever, no thing lasts forever, no matter how carefully contrived or maintained.

     If I may be allowed yet another quotation from myself:

     For example, let's imagine that I own a sailboat -- I don't, having no interest in water recreations -- and that I've named it the NEWF, after my late, beloved, exceedingly moist Newfoundland Bruno. The good ship NEWF can be viewed:

• Holistically, as a unitary entity with a clearly designed-in function and an associated identity, or:
• Reductionistically, as an assemblage of anonymous (I hope) wooden, steel, rope, and canvas parts.

     When its function as a sailboat is being exercised, its holistic, functional identity is clearly the one of immediate interest. Yet if I were to shipwreck myself upon some lonely island -- perhaps Staten, with its forbidding landfills, or Fire, with its natives'...disturbing fleshly practices -- NEWF's reductionistic characteristics would come to the fore, as I made use of its planks for firewood and its sails for blankets. Many would claim that in that second case, there no longer is a good ship NEWF, merely a pile of useful, unnamed items.

     Here's the ultimate poser about identity: Imagine that, in the quite ordinary course of maintenance, I were to remove one of NEWF's deck planks and replace it with another -- but instead of discarding the removed plank, I laid it aside. Imagine further that, over the years, I pulled up and replaced (but did not discard) still more planks, until a decade hence, I had replaced every component built into the original boat with an identical substitute. Would it still be the good ship NEWF?

     Because we associate identity with continuity in function, we look at an institution as identical to itself over time despite “detail changes” to such things as personnel, location, particular operations, and other internal aspects. This applies to States quite as well as to any other corporate entity.

     As an illustration of that observation, let’s continue one more paragraph into the above-cited screed:

     I'll take you a step further: Imagine that I'd saved all the replaced components, and out of sheer philosophical whimsy built a boat from them that was identical to the original. The replaced components, torn one by one from the original structure, have now been reassembled into...the original structure! But...but...the "original" -- the one that now contains no component built into the NEWF at its moment of christening -- is sitting over there, at that dock! Which one is the good ship NEWF?

     Dizzy yet? The application to States “should be obvious,” but that’s a phrase two of whose three words I try not to use. Conceive of it this way: At this time, the Obama Administration is, for all practical purposes, the State that governs the U.S. However, as of the coming January 21, that will no longer be the case according to our Constitution. But what if every single component of the federal executive branch as it stands today were to “re-assemble” somewhere after 1/21/2017 and assert that it’s still the government of the United States?

     Clearly there are only two possible outcomes to such a development: raucous laughter and civil war. Hope for the former.

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     A free man is one who acknowledges no temporal master. To the free man, the State, whatever adaptations he must make in light of its impingement on his existence, is merely a sometimes-unavoidable inconvenience. For he is aware that This, too, shall pass away. It might have a successor. That successor might be immediate or long delayed. Its policies might be identical to those before it or wholly different from them. All that truly matters to the free man is the nature and magnitude of the attendant inconvenience.

     For these reasons I propose that the question asked by the image above must be answered “Yes, that’s exactly what it is.”

     Serve no master but God.
     Exhort those around you to do likewise.
     And above all else, Keep moving. Survive.

Learning The Limits

     Despite my own libertarian inclinations, I frequently find myself at odds with persons who regard libertarianism as the be-all and end-all of sociopolitical thought. You see, I’ve been there. From my own experiences, I can tell you why the philosophy has gained so little traction among other Americans.

     Here’s a typical case of the sort that elicits my disdain:

     “Conservatism” is Limp Dicked and Useless

     What is “conservatism,” exactly?

     I was one once – and I can’t tell you. Not coherently, anyhow. Which got to bothering me when I was a “conservative.” Which is probably why I no longer am a “conservative.” I like a philosophy that has defined, defensible principles.

     Like Libertarianism.

     Conservatism, on the other hand, is intellectually transgendered – a confused mishmash of conflicting urges.

     Read the rest if you like, but having done so myself, I can assure you that the insulting tone of the above is a reliable indication of what you would find.

     Eric Peters is apparently unconcerned with persuasion. If the recent election season has reminded us of anything, it would be that insulting your opponent’s allegiants won’t earn you their favor. But there’s more to the problem of the contemptuous libertarian purist than that. In particular, there’s this: the “pure” libertarian lacks a sense for the bounds around libertarianism’s application.

     Where they apply, libertarian principles are wholesome and constructive; outside those bounds, they’re utterly destructive.

     In a long essay on this subject, I wrote:

     Many conservatives find themselves at odds with the official positions of the Republican Party on one or more important points. Yet most of those persons would not be comfortable with "pure" libertarianism, and for good reasons. It's too wholesale. It attempts to answer every question, to be all things to all men. And it fails to recognize where it ceases to provide palatable answers.

     Please don't mistake me. I think the libertarian political philosophy, where applicable, is a very good one. It's more accurate in its assessment of human nature and its controlling influences, and leads to better societies and better economic results, than any other political concept ever advanced. But the "where applicable" part is very important; in fact, it's the most important part of this paragraph, as it explains in near-totality the "conservative-libertarian schism."

     Where would the libertarian postulates of individual rights and individual responsibilities fail to apply? Three generic places:

1. Where the atoms that interact are not individuals, but collectivities;
2. Where the "individual" under discussion is incapable, either from innate incapacity or from injury, of understanding rights and responsibilities;
3. Where rights clash in an absolute and irreconcilable way.

     Important specific topics that fall within these categories are:

1. National defense and foreign dealings;
2. The protection and restraint of the immature and the mentally diseased;
3. Abortion.

     Ponder the above for a moment while I fetch more coffee.

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     The position of Mankind de novo would appear Stateless, and indeed it was so. The State is an invention of men, not something created by God that awaited Man’s emergence. In his tome The State, Franz Oppenheimer describes the proto-States that became the embryo of what we endure today. Those proto-States were marauding raiders that ceased to maraud, and settled in place to mulct communities they had already conquered. A great movie well known to Americans, The Magnificent Seven, illustrates an early stage of this process.

     A community so conquered became the de facto property of its conquerors. That imbued the conquering band with a sense of what we would call responsibility for its property: the need to maintain it, which of course includes an obligation to defend it when it’s attacked. Thus, a sense of allegiance could be fostered between conquered and conquerors: “Yes, it’s irritating that we must tithe to them, but all the same, they do protect us from the robbers over the hill.”

     The salient point here is that the State arises naturally from human evil and rapacity. It persists – when it persists – because the rulers learn a sense of obligation to the ruled, and the ruled come to appreciate “what we get for our money.” Unless and until the distribution of human characteristics should be abolished – and in that regard, I refer you to C. S. Lewis’s the Abolition of Man, – particularly Chapter 3 – there will be no doing-away with the dynamic that produces the State.

     (For those interested in fictional depictions of the emergence of States, I can do no better than to refer you to these works. You might find them unpersuasive, but I can do no better.)

     From the moment States are formed, men are compelled to interact, at least some of the time, as collectives. Quod erat demonstrandum.

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     “Freedom is a tenable objective for responsible individuals only. We do not believe in freedom for children or madmen." – Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

     I trust that no one will dispute that there have been, are, and will always be persons who cannot look after themselves or protect their own interests. Some are cognitively or intellectually deficient. Some are insane. And some are infants, whether inside or outside the womb. The survival of such individuals depends in great measure on restraining them from harming themselves, which is inconsistent with a full measure of individual freedom. This is a point that cannot be debated; one must accept it or dismiss it. The “pure” libertarian tends to dismiss it...but as with the existence of the evil and rapacious, the generative phenomenon is not something whose elimination our species can confidently anticipate.

     Granted that there are difficult problems here, especially the questions of “who shall decide” and on what grounds. That doesn’t make them vanish as we might hope of such inconveniences.

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     Finally for this morning, there are clashes between seemingly unchallengeable possessors of rights. The most vivid one occurs between an unborn baby and the mother who contemplates abortion. Either both individuals possess a right to life – i.e., a right not to be killed – or neither does. There is no deontological difference between the two. That argues powerfully in favor of the prohibition of abortion and some variety of official enforcement of laws against it, at least in those cases where no invasion of privacy is required to garner the evidence that an unborn child has been aborted.

     There may be other clashes that must be resolved in favor of one side over the other – ethical theorists call these “lifeboat cases” – but one is all we need to drive the point home.

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     To sum up: There is a good case that governments – States – will always exist, and that in some situations at least they perform useful services of which their subjects approve. There is no case whatsoever that the characteristics and circumstances that produce States can somehow be obviated.

     It follows that for “pure” libertarians to vend insults at those of us who see things a bit differently – and for context, I was once the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of New York – is unjustified, wholly apart from the inutility of such behavior. Perhaps Eric Peters and those who think like him should ponder that awhile.

“We Can Use This!”

     Just in case you’ve been living in a tree in the jungles of Malaysia this past decade: Dr. Michael Mann, he of the “hockey stick” approach to that greatest of chimeras of contemporary policy disputes, “anthropogenic global warming,” is pursuing a defamation suit against columnist Mark Steyn that has now been dragged out for four years and shows no signs of approaching resolution. In yesterday’s emission, Steyn tells us of the most recent developments:

     Notwithstanding that it's the most consequential free-speech case in half-a-century (as the ACLU, NBC, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune et al recognized in their amicus brief), in the DC courts it just sits there, with no discovery and no trial date. As today's Daily Caller headline has it:

     Mark Steyn's Case Against Climategate Scientist Is Taking So Long A Key Witness Died

     Technically it's the Climategate Scientist's case against me, but let's not get hung up on details (and I do have a counter-suit against the litigious Dr Mann). Michael Bastasch reports:

     Lawyers representing conservative political commentator Mark Steyn have asked the D.C. Superior Court to expedite his case against climate scientist Michael Mann, mentioning a key witness died waiting for the trial to go to court.

     "Something needed to be done to jumpstart this case, a case that threatens the most fundamental First Amendment freedoms," Dan Kornstein, Steyn's lawyer, said in a statement.

     The mills of justice sure do grind slowly, don’t they?

     Now, it’s clear that Steyn, who’s already expended over a million dollars in his defense, wants this over with. He says later in the linked column, that “I hope that Mann, who purports to want his day in court, will support me in attempting to hasten it.” But to me that’s not at all clear...nor is Mann the only party to this controversy who might want to see it dragged out to the horizon.

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     Government is inherently a device for limiting the freedom of private persons and their voluntary associations. Some such limitations (e.g., laws against violence and fraud) are praiseworthy, but most, in my entirely un-humble opinion, are not. But the natural dynamic of government is to grow ever larger, absorbing ever more of its subjects’ freedom and wealth, until the resulting situation collapses of its own weight, a process we’re currently witnessing in Venezuela. That dynamic causes a government to favor anything it can use in service to its growth.

     Australian jewel Joanne Nova opines that Mann’s case will be guaranteed defeat as soon as discovery is allowed to proceed:

     The process is the punishment. Agents of the Big-government Blob have access to a bottomless pit of lawyers. They can not only afford endless trials, for them it’s an advantage. Drag it out, wear opponents down, exhaust their coffers. And while the case is ever-pending and never-ending it’s already a win for the accuser — silencing critics, and endorsing celebrity “victim-status”. When the defendants witnesses are older and wiser, there’s another dark advantage too — vale Bob Carter.

     What they cannot afford though is discovery.

     So they can’t afford to sue a guy like Mark Steyn.

     Nova and Steyn are agreed that at the bottom, the issue is freedom of speech:

     While Mann would suffer, at least in reputation, from losing, that result would also put the quietus to attempts by the Left, including the Obama Administration and its allegiants at the state level, to silence those who are skeptical about “anthropogenic global warming.” (In case you were wondering, I’m one such.)

     “Anthropogenic global warming” is the most promising rationale for taking totalitarian control of national economies the Left has ever happened upon. Acceptance of the thesis would justify the absolute regimentation of all human activity. Nothing anyone anywhere does for any reason would be immune to State control. Thus it appears likely to me that it’s not just Mann who favors the indefinite protraction of the delays in this case.

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     Cui bono? asked the great Marcus Tullius Cicero. Who benefits? It’s a question that must be asked about every proposal in public policy, especially in these times when governments no longer respect Constitutional bounds.

     Some proposals would allow for transfers of wealth to favored insiders. Sometimes – often, really – the “favored insider” is government itself. Some proposals would assist the government in limiting its subjects’ ability to resist its arrogations of power. Some proposals would permit it to squelch expressions of dissent, atomizing potential resistance and rendering it harmless to the masters of the State.

     The protraction of Mann v. Steyn is so plainly a delaying tactic intended to preserve the fiction of “anthropogenic global warming” against adverse evidence and commentary, and thus to sustain the Left’s best rationale for regimenting the American economy, that I’m surprised no one else has seen the connection. Who has asked where Mann’s funding is coming from? Who has asked about the motivations for the D.C. court’s interminable stays and delays? Who has asked whether there might be a wee bit of influence from the Department of Justice in the mix? And given that all governments and all politicians want to see their powers expanded to the horizon and their positions rendered immune from all consequences, who would happily guarantee that a Republican Administration would act in any other manner?

     Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that no one’s out to get you. – Old maxim

The Beauty of Excellence and Voluntarism

Drawing by the author, done in art school from a live model, c.1979

Greetings rebels to King George and curious others...

 

What is it that brings tears of Joy to your eyes? Is it finding out you bought a winning lottery ticket? Hearing a favorite piece of movie music? Reading about a pivotal moment in history?

It happened to me once again last night, while watching an ad on YouTube - for a Volvo truck, of all things - and today I decided to figure out why.

Not surprisingly I’d searched for that particular Volvo original short after watching something else: the so-called Chuck Norris parody of Jean Claude Van Damme’s truck stunt. The computer created Chuck-short featured a retro Ken-doll Norris, of course in a cowboy hat. His beard looked sprayed-on and his face was as smooth as a 15-year-old’s. Yes, it was laugh out loud clever.

Then I tracked down the Van Damme ad (linked above). And was mesmerized. And teared up, like I said.

And now, a day later, I’m absolutely convinced that it hasn’t been seen by 62 million people. Nope, I’m betting it’s more like 6.2 - 12.4 million and like me, they’ve watched it five-to-ten times each.

Mesmerized - from the opening seconds onwards - by the haunting music of Enya…

Held by the still appealing though undeniably weathered face and poignant voice-over from Van Damme…

Amazed by this one man’s steely calm and still-unflagging athleticism…and lastly…

Wowed by the sheer beauty of the rising sun gleaming off the twin Volvo machines which so ably co-star with a real-life action hero. For what courage it must take to attempt such a stunt!

So…to the more subtle difference between the Chuck Norris parody and this original, and what I believe makes the former a video that elicits a chuckle and a grin and Van Damme’s one that earns a joyful tearing up and a lasting inward glow.

Aside from the fact the Norris video is fake, it is dependent on a show of State Force, albeit force wrapped not in the proverbial velvet-glove, rather wrapped in Christmas lights and pretty signal flares. Sure “Norris” also straddles two mighty machines, which for all I know could be held aloft by Volvo engines. But these machines are war birds of some sort, painted grey or grey-blue (and is it just me or does the one whose nose we see look to be smiling?). The planes and the soldier-heroes this video’s splitting stunt man singlehandedly holds aloft are State-trained, then retained, and finally, dispatched by the State for one purpose only: to do harm to someone or something it has deemed its enemy. In other words, They Live to Destroy. Not only that, but they do all this by means of stolen property, tax-dollars taken at gunpoint, albeit implied-gunpoint, by your friends and mine, the I.R.S.

Now consider the real ad.

Think of how that one-minute and seventeen-seconds came to be and think of what it embodies.

It’s actually very simple. There were no threats, no real or implied force; just a boat load of FREE CHOICES. Men freely choosing to develop excellent skills…and then businesses bringing those skilled men together with the raw-materials upon which they could apply their skills.

Together voluntarily, cooperatively, Volvo and Van Damme worked to create an excellent synergistic Physical-plus-Performance “product.” Volvo engineers voluntarily traded their time to design and refine the machines Van Damme was then carried atop; Van Damme himself voluntarily used his physical being; traded his time to train hard - not merely for this stunt, but to maintain his fitness over all these years - and then he voluntarily got up and stood on those magnificent truck’s mirrors, and was driven flawlessly - backwards and timed to perfection - into the sunrise.

Freedom to create Excellence. What could be more beautiful or more joyful?

Until next time, Keep Rebelling and keep creating, in whatever medium YOUR talents and skills are most excellently utilized!