The Unique Product

     States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude and their decay. – Walter S. Landor

     Incentives and disincentives determine everything.

     Yes, I know that’s too strong a statement. But to put it that way makes it memorable, a mantra for the armchair analyst. He can chant it as he strives to understand some process that at first looks baffling.

     Franz Oppenheimer divided human action in pursuit of a goal into two categories: the economic means, which is characterized by production and peaceful trade; and the political means, whose determinant is the use of coercion: i.e., force and intimidation. For most of the past century, the economic means has steadily if grudgingly given way to the political means. This deserves to be studied far more deeply than it has been to date, for the political means is inherently parasitic. It does not produce; rather, it feeds on the production of others.

     The organization of the political means is the institution we call the State.

     The specifics of how States originate have varied across the millennia, but the conditions required for its persistence have always been what they are today: It must possess both the tolerance, however grudging, of the subject populace, and the acceptance of all forces sufficiently powerful and proximate to challenge it. I’ve written about the latter requirement on several occasions. Today, my focus is on the former one: specifically, what might cause a State to lose the tolerance of its subjects.

* * *

     The detail questions behind subjects’ tolerance of a State are simple:

1. What “product” does the State offer us?
2. Can we afford it?
3. Is it “good enough?”
4. If any of the answers to the above questions are negative, what would it cost to oppose and perhaps ultimately topple the State?

     The answers to those questions are never uniform and never static. They change according to time, place, and the identity of the person answering them. When the answers begin to coalesce in the negative direction, the State is at risk of rebellion.

     States claim to offer their subjects many things, but beneath them all is an offer of justice. Give the State the monopoly power to define and enforce justice, and thereafter the State will see to those duties. Those who seek to offend against justice will be pursued and punished; when possible, their victims will be made whole. That offer is the State’s basic product.

     In the usual case, subjects are not permitted to refuse the State’s product. Penalties are imposed upon those who try. The State is therefore not only a monopolist, but one that can enforce the acceptance of its product. That brings the price and quality of the product to the forefront. How good is the State’s justice, and how expensive is it over the long term?

     In the marketplace, vendors compete through price, quality, and their reputations. That allows many vendors to sell products that perform the same or greatly similar functions. The State’s product is qualitatively different.

     Competition is anathema to the State, for it must involve the loss of the State’s monopoly over the use of coercion. When a competitor arises, the State immediately moves to crush it. Should it succeed in doing so swiftly and without greatly disturbing its subjects’ tenor of life, it would represent its action as justice. Otherwise, the applicable terms would be insurrection, rebellion, or civil war.

     But a competitor to the State can only be potentially viable if it can outperform the State at its own game: justice. That is the incentive for the State to deliver on its promise of justice. The open and obvious non-provision of justice by States around the world is a curiosity of note.

* * *

     Inasmuch as States have been notably deficient in providing their subjects with justice, they must defend themselves from potential competitors who are willing and able to do the job. There aren’t many ways to pre-squelch competition. Probably the commonest approach is to deny potential competitors the means by which to compete: i.e., to outlaw the possession of weapons by anyone but agents of the State. It’s been widely tried, but it’s seldom worked.

     In one of the most dramatic cases of competition in the provision of justice, the Cosa Nostra, deeply analyzed in this essay, has evolved an approach of unsurpassed competitive effectiveness. In parts of Italy it commands more respect than the State. Yet the Cosa Nostra is more voracious than the State, and even more ruthless. Russia’s Bratva is organized along similar lines, and is similarly voracious and ruthless.

     Many States have been baffled by organized crime. They recognize the threat and move against it, but without much success. That they’re being out-competed and could redress the problem simply by fulfilling their promises of justice at a modest cost to their subjects seems not to occur to them. At least, that’s the gentlest explanation.

     Justice is a unique product. The State inevitably insists on being a monopoly provider, then proceeds to underperform ever more visibly as time passes. That incentivizes the emergence of competitors.

     When several organizations in a given locale simultaneously offer to provide justice, violence won’t necessarily produce a victor. Even the most powerful State can fail to maintain its monopoly. Sometimes the only possible resolution is a fragmentation into separate territories – “turf” is the usual term – involving agreements not to compete across territorial borders.

     This is the process that has produced our current world order, in which States compete with one another for territory and population. It also accounts for how and when new nations are born. That having been said, I shall leave all further inferences to my Gentle Readers.

Breakfast All Day

     [I’ve been tempted to use that phrase in a great many contexts. This morning I woke up actually thinking it. So here it is. If what follows fails to make it “make sense,” sorry! No refunds! – FWP]

     There are some very smart people saying some very penetrating things… and not being listened to. I’d imagine we feel many of the same things, including frequent sieges of weariness from “shouting into the wind.” Yet we keep doing it. Some of us die with such sentiments in our minds and mouths, unable to reach the keyboard for a final sally.

     Would you like to know the secret to universal peace and amity? Not the secret to universal happiness; I’m still working on that one. But we’ve got the peace and amity bit down pat. Here’s how you can get it:

Mind Your Own Business,
And Keep Your Business To Yourself.

     That’s it. That’s all it takes. It’s been clear for millennia. So why haven’t we achieved universal peace and amity? I can answer that one, too.

     Because we’re shitheads. Meddling shitheads. Each and every one of us carries around a demon whose mission on Earth is to interfere in other people’s lives. Some of us manage to master that demon. Others? Their demon masters them. And there’s no tolerating them.

     No, I’m not the first to make these illusion-shattering observations. Thousands, maybe millions of other people have offered them to the world. But they weren’t listened to. Many of those to whom they spoke simply waved them off: “Naah, he’s just another shithead.” And they went on trying to run others’ lives, or offering power to people whom they thought would do it for them.

     A great man of times past, Frederic Bastiat, expressed the essence of it compactly and brilliantly:

     There are too many "great" men in the world — legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
     Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing." True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone. I do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his automaton. Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human body as it is, so do I accept people as they are. I desire only to study and admire.

     No one listened to him, either.

* * *

     A hot flash for my Gentle Readers: it is possible to have what you want, but there are requirements:

• You could make it yourself, beholden to no one;
• Someone else could make it for you, for a price.

     Real deep intellectual insight, eh? Maybe I should have it printed on a T-shirt. But it really is that simple. The trouble starts when you decide that you can force other people to give you what you want.

     That doesn’t apply solely to material things. Most other wants, like peace and privacy, are available on the same terms. You can make them, or buy them. At least you could, if it weren’t for all the meddlers.

     Meddling isn’t just irritating; it’s also expensive. Professional meddlers pile costs atop what it “should” cost to get what you want. Sometimes they tell you “No, you can’t have that” quite flatly. Punching them in the nose carries a cost, too. (Shooting them is frowned upon. Especially by them.)

     The great challenge of the man who would be free today is to escape the meddlers.

* * *

     If it weren’t for SpaceX, Mankind would have no hope at all.

     For a very long time, spaceflight was entirely the province of governments. Elon Musk and SpaceX have shattered that cartel. Spaceflight is now available to anyone with the money.

     Yes, it costs a lot, but that’s in the nature of things. It’s hard. It’s dangerous. There are no McDonalds up there. And the training required is no joke. So for the moment, access to space is an extreme “luxury good.” But most luxury goods grow more accessible over time: easier, cheaper, and available from more sources. So if present trends should continue, our descendants will have easier, cheaper, and more available access to space.

     But “present trends continuing” is a bad bet. There are too many meddlers to count on it. And they don’t want you to escape their grip.

     Governments are poised to clamp down on space travel. They don’t have to do so yet. They’ll wait until billionaires start looking at the Moon as a vacation destination and start planning Lunar playgrounds for themselves and others. When spaceflight stands at the doorstep of true popularity, governments will pounce. They’ll start nattering about “safety” and “the rule of law” and “the need for regulation.” That low-gravity condo you’ve been dreaming about will be made impossible for you to afford… or acquire.

     You see, they’d be unable to meddle with you if you’re a light-second and a half away. Meddlers can’t stand the thought of that, and governments are the quintessential meddlers. So they’ll make it impossible for you to get out there.

     Either we do away with these monstrosities that we call “necessary evils” right BLEEP!ing now, or they’ll strangle the last hope for human freedom while it’s still in its crib.

* * *

     Many years ago, I worked a weird shift: from roughly 4:00 PM to Midnight. It was tough to get used to. It separated me from most of the rest of the world. Others who’ve had to do similar things will tell you about it. Ask a friendly bartender.

     But it gave me an appreciation for the nearby diner that would serve breakfast all day. Waffles, pancakes, French toast! Oatmeal with cream and brown sugar! Sausages, eggs over easy! Bacon, bacon, bacon!!

     I came to love that place and the Greek immigrant family that owned it. On the rare occasions when it had to close, I would pout. I’d go home and do my best: toast an English muffin, slather it with butter and jam, and chow down. But I’d miss the home fries and the pretty waitress.

     Time passed, and I went back to working a regular daytime shift. But I retained my affection for that diner… and for breakfast foods. It came as a shock when the diner closed permanently. I had to know the reasons, as I wasn’t the only regular patron who loved it.

     The reason? Someone on the town planning / zoning board had a friend who wanted to build an apartment complex where that diner stood. So he persuaded the board, the board got together with the health authorities, and together they made it ever more difficult for the diner to stay in business. The builder came along with an offer for the locale. The family bowed to the inevitable, took the money, and moved on.

     I think I want a waffle with butter and syrup. Or maybe a three-egg omelet with lots of cheese and diced ham. And home fries! Lots of home fries.

     Have you ever had a craving like that, Gentle Reader? Better satisfy it now, before the meddlers get to it. There are a lot of them, you know. And shooting them is still frowned upon.

What Is "The Law Of Nations?"

     This piece and the many others that have been written since American forces deposed Nicolas Maduro have excited questions about “international law.” The phrase is portentous but misleading. If we take as our template “law” as it comes about in parliaments and is enforced by armed agents of the State, we find ourselves unable to grapple with “laws” never legislated nor backed by specific enforcers. To give “international law” appreciable meaning, we must seek guidance elsewhere.

     Article I Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States includes this provision:

     The Congress shall have power… To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

     When the Constitution was written, “the Law of Nations” was taken to mean the body of proscriptions commonly recognized and enforced throughout those nations from which the peoples of the original thirteen states held as their heritage. Two above others were paramount:

• “Thou shalt not kill.”
• “Thou shalt not steal.”

     Despite the political departure the Constitution represented, the Founders recognized the key legal commonality between America and its Old World roots: the laws against forcible predation. Thus, they empowered Congress to define those acts as punishable outside as well as inside our national borders. Other national laws were omitted from consideration, or deemed unenforceable “on the high Seas.” At the time there was no consideration of laws such as today’s forbiddings of various drugs. Smuggling laws enforced at the nation’s border were outside the “high Seas” scope of the provision.

     Today “the Law of Nations” is more extensive than in 1787. For example, there’s a general agreement among civilized nations that the international transport of certain drugs, and the unauthorized transport of weapons, should be forbidden. No world legislature passed laws against those things; it’s simply a commonality among the great majority of nations. So it became first a matter of tacit international agreement, later confirmed by various treaties and United Nations “conventions.” (It’s also a criterion for recognizing a “rogue state” or a “failed state.”)

     Mind you, such agreements, implicit or explicit, are agreements between States. States do such things to benefit themselves, not their subjects or neighbor States. Were the U.S. to rescind all its laws against traffic in fentanyl, for example, the existing agreements against international traffic would remain. The other nations would continue to enforce them to the extent possible… which, with America subtracted from the equation, would be considerably less.

     Just this morning, “The Pour Over,” a newsletter I get regularly, put forth its own take on “international law:”

     That’s not a bad abstract treatment of the subject, though it doesn’t delve into the history of the thing. As regards enforcement, it’s a bit simplistic in leaning upon “sanctions.” Clearly those are not the only instruments at a nation’s disposal, as the U.S. demonstrated by sinking several drug-smuggling boats in international waters.

     There were, of course, protests against those sinkings. Google’s AI summarizes those reactions, including those from outside the U.S.:

     International criticism of the U.S. strikes came from various sources:

• United Nations and Human Rights Bodies: The UN human rights chief suggested the strikes might constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights voiced "deep concern," requesting investigations.
• Foreign Governments: Venezuela condemned the operations as aggression and violations of international law, filing a complaint with the UN Security Council. Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the strikes "extrajudicial executions". Brazil, China, France, Iran, Mexico, and Russia also stated the strikes violated international law.
• Non-Governmental Organizations and Activists: Human rights groups and legal experts, including the American Friends Service Committee, questioned the legality of the killings and the absence of public evidence.
• Public Protests: Protests against the U.S. actions occurred in locations like Rochester, New York, with demonstrators carrying signs such as "No War on Venezuela".

     The international negative reaction primarily focused on the U.S. military's use of lethal force in what were seen as law enforcement scenarios without publicly providing evidence for the "narco-terrorist" label, leading to concerns about legality under international law.

     But lethal force is the ultimate form of enforcement. It stands behind all other varieties of enforcement. The opinions of the protestors, individual or national, do not matter. The drugs and their transporters were offending against “the Law of Nations” as currently agreed among the States of the world. Moreover, they were doing so in very fast vessels designed to evade capture by the larger, slower vessels of blue-water navies. American aircraft destroyed them. As a character of mine once said, period fucking dot.

     This is not a moral defense nor a legitimization of the action. It’s what States do, and States are amoral. On net balance, I’d say it was a good thing, my opinions about the War on Drugs notwithstanding. It’s best for the potential consequences of an action to be clearly understood beforehand and plainly visible afterward.

     Let there be no misapprehensions: if there is to be a “Law of Nations,” it will be the great powers who will determine and enforce it. Indeed, there needn’t be a “Law of Nations” for that to be the case. The great powers will always enforce their will in No-Man’s Land. Consider low Earth orbit in this regard. Till now, the “Law of Nations” has barely brushed against it. That will change.

Design To Function

     I’ve done several kinds of design. They all have unique requirements and constraints. But they share a single universal imperative: the one in the title above.

     “What must this thing to do?” is the prime question of design. You must know and understand it. You must also know and understand that what you want it to do isn’t the only thing it will do. Quoth Marc Stiegler: “You can never do only one thing.” There will be side effects. It’s guaranteed that one or more won’t be pleasant.

     These days there’s a great deal of consternation over charity. That should surprise no one. The foofaurauw over how, when, and to whom to give has been raging since Christ walked the earth. Much of that rage is over the putative side effects, with this one in particular: the more money and effort is dedicated to charitable action, the more money and effort charitable action will demand.

     The great Cyril Northcote Parkinson understood it. He propounded his Second Law – “Expenditure rises to meet income, and tends to exceed it” – for that reason. That Law is broad in application, but it definitely covers charity.

     Money and effort put to meeting a particular demand reinforce that demand. Consider what happened to medical costs when governments got involved in paying for medical products and services. Providers raised their prices to absorb what had been budgeted and clamored for still more. It’s the same with charity: “Hey, look how much I got from them! Get over here and get in on it!”

     That didn’t happen when charitable giving was confined to the wills and wallets of private citizens. Their willingness to give of themselves was limited by firm constraints: their families’ needs and their recognition that there’s such a thing as unwise giving. The responsibilities and demands of living enforced the former; personal involvement with the recipients of charity persuaded them of the latter.

     Given that sad wisdom – and as it flows directly from human nature, it’s both sad and inevitable – how does one design a charitable organization?

     The short if brutal answer is: You don’t. Organized charities destroy the personal involvement that best serves to deter unwise and excessive giving. The closest possible approach to a sound charitable organization is something like a local food bank that vets those who want to partake of it. Even those will be plundered to some extent by the undeserving.

     Mega-charities such as the United Way are the best possible examples of unwisdom in giving. They absorb most of their receipts in organizational expenses; the fraction remaining isn’t guaranteed to reach the deserving needy. That’s not conjecture; they issue regular reports that make the problem starkly obvious. Jerry Pournelle would have told you so.

     Charity – the simple act of helping those who need and deserve help – is thus insusceptible to efficiency through organization. But if something that simple defies top-down control, what is there to say or do about the many thousands of other things for which we form and tolerate large organizations?

* * *

     There’s a quote from Herbert Spencer that comes to mind:

     “A blade which is designed both to shave and to carve, will certainly not shave so well as a razor or carve so well as a carving-knife. An academy of painting, which should also be a bank, would in all probability exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A gas-company, which should also be an infant-school society, would, we apprehend, light the streets ill, and teach the children ill.” And if an institution undertakes, not two functions but a score; if a government, whose office it is to defend citizens against aggressors, foreign and domestic, engages also to disseminate Christianity, to administer charity, to teach children their lessons, to adjust prices of food, to inspect coal-mines, to regulate railways, to superintend house-building, to arrange cab-fares, to look into people’s stink-traps, to vaccinate their children, to send out emigrants, to prescribe hours of labor, to examine lodging-houses, to test the knowledge of mercantile captains, to provide public libraries, to read and authorize dramas, to inspect passenger-ships, to see that small dwellings are supplied with water, to regulate endless things from a banker’s issues down to the boat-fares on the Serpentine; is it not manifest that its primary duty must be ill-discharged in proportion to the multiplicity of affairs it busies itself with? Must not its time and energies be frittered away in schemes, and inquiries, and amendments, in discussions, and divisions, to the neglect of its essential business? And does not a glance over the debates make it clear that this is the fact? and that, while Parliament and public are alike occupied with these mischievous interferences, these Utopian hopes, the one thing needful is left almost undone?

     [Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus The State]

     Spencer was one of the greatest intellects of the Nineteenth Century, nor can anyone justly claim to have surpassed him. He saw clearly. He told us about what he saw forthrightly. And what was he saying in the above? Design to function! As straitly as possible, have your instrument do the thing for which it was fashioned, and nothing else. Even if we omit all abstract considerations of things such as freedom, justice, and the rights of men, there can be no profit in assigning a great many responsibilities to a single instrument.

     That is: except for the profit that accrues to those who loot it.

* * *

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader. The above is the consequence of having crossed the path of one who seemed a sincere liberal. His grail is “compassion in government.” He felt it as imperative as dispensing justice and protecting the nation from invasion. I could not sway him. Ultimately I had to conclude that for him, charity was a “design point:” something absolutely required of the State. The absurdity of an institution whose sole method is force undertaking to dispense the milk of human kindness did not reach him.

     Well, I suppose I should restrict my outreach efforts to those who can be persuaded. Now it’s back to fiction. This next novel will be special! Not only will it tell a gripping story that expresses deep truths about the human condition; it will also present and analyze an entirely new chess opening and include the C.S.O.’s twelve favorite cake recipes! Coming Soon to a website near you.

The State And I

     “I don't mean that a business politician won't steal; stealing is his business. But all politicians are nonproductive. The only commodity any politician has to offer is jawbone. His personal integrity – meaning, if he gives his word, can you rely on it? A successful business politician knows this and guards his reputation for sticking by his commitments – because he wants to stay in business-go on stealing, that is-not only this week but next year and years after that. So if he's smart enough to be successful at this very exacting trade, he can have the morals of a snapping turtle, but he performs in such a way as not to jeopardize the only thing he has to sell, his reputation for keeping promises.”

     [Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love]

     “A man who doesn’t detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government on earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.”
     There we understood each other. “I know something of that joy,” I said.
     “Yes; so I judged.”

     [Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness]

     With the foofaurauw swirling around President Trump’s decision to depose Nicolas Maduro – which I find that I approve – I have a few reflections you might find relevant, or at least mildly entertaining.

     Evils come in many varieties. In particular, they’re not all the same size. The State is the largest organized agent of evil that we know of today. But States are not equal in size, nor in the evils they perpetrate.

     The view from 30,000 feet tends to make unequal things look closer to equal. But the differences remain. They’ll be acknowledged by those honest enough to see them plainly. So we weigh the evil of conscription against the evil of millions of lives being extinguished in gas chambers, and decide temporarily in favor of the former.

     Would I prefer that the United States have no government – i.e., that we become the Untied Anarchies? Why, yes. Can I bring that about? Sadly, no. Moreover, geopolitical reality dictates that it not be that way for the foreseeable future.

     A world partitioned into States is a world where the choice will always be among evils. That is the world we live in and must endure.

* * *

     From the available evidence, Nicolas Maduro was at the top of one of the most evil regimes in the history of Man. Worse, he sought to inflict harm on America and Americans. He oversaw both the smuggling of fentanyl and the migration of gangsters and other criminals into our country. He is, in other words, a very bad guy.

     President Donald Trump decreed that Maduro should fall. American armed forces went forth to see to it. Acting with a degree of precision altogether unprecedented in warfare, they captured Maduro and brought him to the United States to face trial. This both gives Venezuelans a chance to improve their lot and puts other socialist despots on notice that their futures are not assured.

     I approve. Indeed, I applaud. Our State did something to reduce the threats to Americans, and to reduce the amount of evil in the world. It did so because President Trump wanted it done. He is a good man who has arranged for a good thing to be done.

     I can disapprove of the institution of the State and hope that it will someday cease to exist, while acknowledging that it has done something of which I approve.

* * *

     Many theorists and commentators in the Right regard the State as a necessary evil. We’re all familiar with the concept and the justifications advanced in support of it. Probably the best of them conceives of the State as an instrument rather than an institution. If that instrument could be confined, somehow, to the protection of life, liberty, and property, then it would be an agent not of evil but of justice. It would be worthy of the support of good men.

     Of course, as is always the case, the most important word in the previous paragraph is if.

     Since early in the Twentieth Century, we have been unable to confine our State to justifiable activities. More recently, we’ve been given a chance to limit it somewhat. Confine it completely to its proper bounds? No. But the Trump Administration has striven in the direction of less coercion and greater freedom. It’s marching in the right direction. Freedom lovers can’t ask much more than that, circumstances being what they are.

     It’s petty and sour-mouthed to react to the capture of Maduro by saying “Well, yeah, but when are you going to do something about firearms rights, or regulatory overreach, or taxation?” A good deed should be applauded for itself. Yes, we want more. It’s understandable to clamor for still more pro-freedom actions. Don’t disparage other improvements, even if they seem small, simply because they aren’t what you were hoping for. The removal of Nicolas Maduro from power is an improvement.

A Glimmer Of Hope

     A couple of days ago, something unusual happened Across the Water: A Briton dared to defend another Briton against the threat of rape by an immigrant.

     If you aren’t familiar with the details of the event, the defender was a 14-year-old Scottish girl named Mayah Sommers. The intended victim was her 12-year-old sister. The would-be rapist was from... somewhere else, probably the Middle East or Africa. Mayah protected her sister by brandishing a large knife and a hatchet at the immigrant. Apparently that was enough to daunt him, and thank God for that.

     The story is resounding throughout the U.K. I have no idea how much currency it’s achieved here or elsewhere. Young Mayah is drawing comparisons to Boadicea, to Joan of Arc, and to other courageous women known to history. She deserves as much praise as she’s received, and more.

     However, her courage has had other consequences, not all of which were easy to foresee.

     The one that’s drawn the most cries of outrage was Mayah’s immediate arrest for brandishing a bladed weapon. In emasculated Britain, that’s a criminal offense, and never mind the wherefores. The probability is high that popular sentiment will compel the dismissal of that charge, but as in all such things we must wait and see.

     After that comes the dawning recognition that the U.K.’s laws against even the most minimal personal armament – even carrying pepper spray is outlawed, barring specific police permission – are utterly insane. They amount to a license for the would-be predator to do what he likes to less aggressive and weaker prey. Horror at the idea that innocent Britons – men and women both – are forbidden to possess and carry the means of self-defense has taken a long time to ripen, but today it’s fully upon the Sceptered Isle.

     Third is the de facto position of The State: protect the predator from the consequences of his deeds, especially if he’s an immigrant, a Muslim, or both. Put baldly, it seems incomprehensible. Yet U.K. governments maintain that posture so consistently that one must infer that it was deliberately chosen. It lends weight to the suggestion that The State values the immigrants above the lives and well-being of native Britons.

     Fourth and last is the rising hope that some measure of masculine courage and native pride might be kindled in the larger British populace by Mayah’s actions. I must admit that I hope for that as well. Britain deserves better than to be Islamicized and removed from the brotherhood of Western civilization. But the odds are against it, for a simple reason.

Britons fear weapons more than their invaders.

     The technical term for a fear of weapons is hoplophobia. It seems endemic in the U.K. The suggestion, made by Larry Correia among others, that we should mass-produce and air-drop handguns to beleaguered Britons has been met with rejection by Britons themselves. They fear the consequences of mass armament more than what’s being done to them by the invading hordes.

     Robert A. Heinlein was adamant that a slave must free himself. What of the slave who prefers slavery to freedom?

     This saga may have a few more stanzas to run. Mayah Sommers is being hailed as a symbol of reborn British courage and defiance: a Mockingjay, if you will. Her example may yet galvanize what masculinity and defiance remain buried in the British soul. If it’s simply too ironic that a young teenage girl must teach those things to British men, then so be it. The Sceptered Isle needs her example too badly to quail at the disgrace of it.

What is to be done?

 

Steve Biddle, in one of the comments to my Christmas Day post, “An Epidemic of Politics” agreed with the need to resist evil, but asked  how older, infirm, or otherwise unfit persons ought to go about it. “And I ask in all seriousness: What are we to do?” I was going to post a reply to that question, but quickly realized that the subject was far too involved to cover in a comment, and was worthy of a broader response.  Steve, here is at least the beginning of an answer to your question.

'Chto délat'?' - 'What to do' or 'What is to be done' is famously known as the title of one of Vladimir Illich Lenin' pamphlets extolling the virtues of Marxism and how to establish Socialism in Russia. I knew it was published in the early 1900s but what I did not recall until I looked into it again was that it was inspired by a novel by Chernyshevsky in 1863 written while he was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg. Those interested may find more information in Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_to_Be_Done%3F_(novel).  

It would appear that Liberty loving folk here in these united States are awakening to the idea that their freedoms may indeed be gone if THEY do not do something about it. Most folks, having never considered the subject, are reasonably enough at a loss for how to proceed. One of the reasons that I am a student of history is that while technology changes, human nature does not. It is always worth examining the strategy and tactics of the enemy for useful means and methods, and while I revile the result, one has to regard Lenin's approach as successful, especially since the American Left has emulated it so closely. What did Lenin say should be done?

What Lenin advocated was that there ought to be theoretical, political and economic education system supported and carried out by a political party to provide motivation for the man in the street. What this approach did in essence was to separate the direct action elements from the political elements, and provided a support structure for those folks actively involved in physical confrontation. It also provided a level of deniability to separate the folks who did the talking and educating from the folks that carried out the riots, bombings, sabotage, assassinations and other physical activities. The consciousness raising and propagandizing of the political wing allows persuasion of the undecided,  gradually moving the moderates toward the extremes, and provides a recruiting ground for those willing and capable of direct action. We see this pattern carried out by the Left repeatedly, with a political front organization supporting a violent direct action wing. We see it repeated because it often works. One example is the IRA.

The Irish Republican Army, a Marxist organization, had no more than 300 active members involved in direct action for most of its existence, yet it was able to hold the British Empire at bay and ultimately win a victory. It was able to do that despite constant betrayals by splinter groups and factions, and penetration by British spies because it had Sein Fein as the support/political wing, providing money, food, safe houses, and other support for their fighters, and propagandizing the British ceaselessly. Sein Fein was, (and remains!) a classic Leninist theoretical, political and economic education and support organization.

Similar groups exist within Islamist culture; there are numerous educational and relief organizations believed to be fronts for direct action jihadis. Germany's National Socialist Worker's Party followed a similar approach, with the SA as the tip of the spear (at least until the Nazi party took power, at which point they became a threat!) We see this model in use here in these presently united States today, with the Democratic Party and its allies in the media and technology groups acting as political and indoctrination front groups, and BLM and Antifa, among others, acting as the direct action arms. They are organized, they have abundant funding from corporate appeasers and traitorous billionaires, and they are dedicated to the destruction of America the Free. It is clear that the Left has organized and coordinated their activity; the recent massive election fraud is the result of a coordinated attempt to subvert and overthrow the Constitutional order, which has been under attack for over a century.

Rage is the appropriate emotional response, but rage, by itself, is insufficient. Liberty loving folks are late to the party and we are fragmented, divided and under ongoing assault. So, assuming Biden is illegitimately installed in what will once again be the Spite House, what are we to do about it?

Make our weakness our strength. A grass roots resistance movement numbering in the millions, composed of tens of thousands of small independent cells cannot be effectively infiltrated. Hidden in the body of the American people it cannot be overtly crushed militarily. And with somewhere between 600 million and a billion small arms, with over a million unlicensed machine guns, it cannot be disarmed. Unless we consent.

The road to a successful resistance movement is a journey, and each individual in it has to walk that road at their own pace. The key is starting the journey, establishing the habit of independent thought and action as you take each step. Some may move faster than others and are willing and able to go farther in their journey, but that does not matter as much as your commitment to Liberty.

First, establish your own ideological foundation. Ask yourself, and be sure that you understand the answer to the question, “What is the primary function of government?" If, like me, you believe that the primary function of government is to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then you are a friend of Liberty. Satisfy yourself and understand the reasons why you believe that the present actions of the Left are INTOLERABLE. Not just evil, but not to be tolerated under any circumstance. Withdraw your consent from what would be an illegitimate government. Once you have established that in your mind, then take the next step.

The Left want you alone and isolated; this is why the Left is trying to outlaw any sort of congregation under the fiction of infection prevention. Even outdoor activity, which carries a very low risk of CCP virus infection, is under attack. Effective resistance starts with associating with other people, so do not let yourself be isolated. Talk to your local acquaintances at church or other social events. Make a holiday cake or pie for your neighbors and engage them. Sound out your bowling buddies or sewing circle friends about what is happening. Restaurants and bars are good places to congregate when possible; if indoor activity is “not on” then set up outdoor events.

Call your friends and acquaintances, and set up some sort of outdoor activity- a nature walk, a cookout, a trip to the range. When you have those meetings, walk the parking area and look for bumper stickers with pro-liberty messages or promoting pro-liberty political candidates, and ask about why they have that sticker. One of the clubs I belong to has a weekly outdoor get-together at a local park. Don't let yourself be isolated! Reach out and make connections; you can use the fact that the government is trying to isolate you as the entry wedge for a larger discussion about individual freedom. Make it your goal to have at least one event every week, even if it is just a few people. Every meeting of liberty minded folks is, by itself, an act of resistance, for it offers the opportunity of meeting and learning about liberty minded folks. Then take the next step.

From these contacts, build your own 'Committee of Correspondence.' These are acquaintances who have a clear interest in promoting Liberty. Make it your goal to add at least one person per month to your group (which does not even have to have a name.) Encourage your committee to make their opinions known; letters to the editor, comments on Liberty loving blogs and websites, attending local political meetings. (town meetings, county board meetings.) The Sons of Liberty were known to paste up political pronouncements on various local public walls, the Colonial equivalent of graffiti. Signs and billboards with pro-liberty messages are in order. “Stop the Steal!” A public lecture and discussion group is in order, if you can swing it. Invite friendly local leaders to the discussion. Then take the next step.

It is well to keep in mind that any active resistance group requires tremendous logistical support. Modern militaries require at least 10 support personnel for every 1 person in the field, and they rely on government support for their material; taxes pay for fuel, food, ammunition, transportation, lodging, equipment, and all of the myriad of things one needs to deploy an effective military. The support folks are just there to distribute all the stuff that government taxes have bought. Insurgent groups have none of that support. Any effective resistance movement must have a deep base of support for everything needed to fight in the field; the 300 active IRA had tens of thousands of supporters in Ireland, and had millions of dollars, plus small arms and ammunition coming to the movement largely from contributions from the USA. (Reference this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehukpdse8_w  Each of these Armalight rifles came from the US. ) Encourage each member of your group to store food, clothing and other essentials. Such stores are the backbone of active resistance. Then take the next step.

Identify members of your group with useful skills, assets and the willingness to use them to support the fight for freedom. Folks with shooting, gunsmithing and reloading experience are obvious candidates, and equally obvious targets for the Left; some help in diversifying the flow of arms and ammunition is worth consideration. Communications is another obvious need; amateur radio operators or CB operators are useful both for providing communications to the Resistance and in providing signal intelligence. These are all obvious items to consider, but there is much more to be considered under “logistics.” Any experienced combat veteran will tell you that the ability to rest, recuperate and re-equip in a secure comfortable location with good food after combat operations is essential. Being able to provide and move needed supplies from secure storage to the people who will use them likewise. Who can do these things?

That old widow in your sewing group who knows how to make and repair clothing, and has a three bedroom house, with room for “an out of town cousin.” The retired transportation specialist who drives professionally knows how to get anything from one place to another. The amateur carpenter can make hidey holes for those needing to conceal politically incorrect items ranging from arms and ammunition to pamplets and leaflets. The local shoe repair place can mend worn boots for freedom loving feet. The Polish grandfather who makes the best potato salad and sauerkraut, or the farmer who raises chickens, goats and beef cattle. The list is almost endless, but there is one other specialist I will make a point of considering.

Socialist regimes often try to restrict movement of their subjects; historically they've done this with various sorts of physical documents, and the historic answer was forgery, developed to a high art, and to some extent still of use.  These days the up-to-date Communist uses tracking and identification with electronic devices, like your smart phone. The Chinese government does exactly that, and monitors every text, email and telephone message for “incorrect thought.” Who helped them do this? Why, various US tech companies, like Google. Just as IBM enabled the Nazi government to identify the Jews in Germany by applying their data processing technologies to German census data, which the Germans were promised would be confidential, so Google has helped the Communist Chinese to identify their dissidents. Any bets on whether Google would be unwilling to do that here in these presently united States? Resistance groups will need a specialist to spoof and confound these tracking technologies.

A step you can take any time is to learn something new and useful, and teach what you know to the other members of your group. First aid, orienteering, shooting, communications, reloading, growing food, cooking food, camping securely are all obvious topics but there are others. Field repair of clothes, shoes and gear. Combat skills. The list is endless; I consider any day I haven't learned something new to be a wasted day. Now here is another step; it should probably be one of your first, but it will be a hard one for most people.

With the exception of people who run extreme triathlons and engage in other extreme athletics, most people in these united States can benefit from physical exercise, and most people in these united States avoid it like the plague. To paraphrase Michael Z Williamson, “Combat does not determine who is right. Combat determines who is left.” Physical fitness is the foundation for becoming combat ready, regardless of your age. Keep in mind that during the final days of the Third Reich, an improvised German unit comprised of old gamekeepers and hunters ruined several units of elite British troops. One surmises that these old Germans, while not able to perform as they could when young, were likely in very good condition for their age. With that and their hunting skills, they devastated their opponents. Whatever your age, spend an hour every day on improving your physical fitness, both strength and cardio. Any exercise is better than no exercise, and walking is a good start. Get exercise! Then once you have exercise established as a habit, take another step.

We've talked about the need for the Freedom Forces to have a robust logistical infrastructure, but we must also consider attriting the Left's infrastructure. One way to do this is to shun them. Have nothing to do with a Leftist; refuse them service if you can. If forced to, give crappy service in the guise of stupidity or incompetence. If you are a barista, put salt in their coffee instead of sugar, or put too much sugar in.  Never give them what they want. Overcharge them. Give them the two day old pastries or the moldy ones with the mold scraped off, especially if they are taking it “to go”. If you get a complaint, take refuge in the rhetoric of the Left, accusing them of ageism or sexism, or racism if you are a person of color. If you are involved in online sales and can identify your customer as a leftist, send them the wrong stuff; my wife ordered gloves and got a bunch of food containers, purely by accident. This was amusing, but imagine a Leftist receiving a copy of Trump's "Great Again" instead of the Lenin's "State and Revolution." Confusion in medical records is always interesting if it is possible to do without being traced. The point is, make their interactions with Americans as unpleasant as possible, and never relent. Be innovative and creative. Take another step.

If and when you are ready to take the risk, there are all sorts of other monkeywrenching that you can do. People spend most of their time at home, at work and in their cars; if you know what a communist's activity schedule is there are a myriad of possibilities for the devious and creative that are hugely annoying but stop short of doing physical harm to anybody. I could go on for hours on how *I* might take take such a step, but that is not the point.  

 Each of you, gentle readers, must take your own steps in the direction your best individual judgement tells you best suits you.  The forgoing are just a few suggested steps each of you, O gentle Reader, can take on the journey to becoming an effective member of the Resistance to Tyranny. They are not the only ones, by any means, nor do they have to be taken in any particular order, except for the first. Once you have taken that step, never give up. Never, ever, EVER give up. Keep making new steps. Be uncompromising. Be relentless. Be as brave as you can be.

Most important of all, be DANGEROUS. Remember, the Left have asked for what is coming. Make sure that they get it in fullest measure, and beware of the sin of mercy.  "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." 

With regard to all who seek the Light,

Historian

The Return Of The Vigilance Committee

     Matters are coming to a head:

     Three Philadelphia police officers riding in an unmarked car were checking on a man on a bike when he pulled out a gun and fired at them before a second shooter joined the fray, setting off a gun battle that saw two officers briefly hospitalized, police said.

     The 14th District officers, two men and one woman, were driving down the 1400 block of Sharpnack Street, in the Cedarbrook section of the East Mount Airy neighborhood, when the first gunman pulled up next to them on his bike around 8 p.m. Friday, Philadelphia Police Department Sgt. Eric Gripp said.

     The officer driving the car rolled down his window to check on the man when he suddenly pulled out a gun and started shooting, causing the officer to pull off Sharpnack Street and onto Fayette Street, where he crashed the car into a fence, Gripp said.

     The first gunman kept firing after the officers crashed, striking their vehicle multiple times, with one bullet piercing the car door, going through the seat and hitting the driving officer in the back, Gripp said. The officer’s bulletproof vest saved him, the sergeant added.

     As the cyclist kept shooting, the officers were able to get out of the car and return fire, but that’s when a second shooter further down the street joined in and also rained bullets on the officers, placing them in a crossfire, Gripp said.

     If it went as reported, this seems to have been a “hit:” a planned and coordinated two-person assassination attempt on the Philadelphia police. It’s not the first such attack in recent weeks, though reports of previous attacks on the police have generally not spoken of multiple attackers.

     Glenn Reynolds, not given to excesses of sentiment, opines thus:

     So at what point, faced with assassination attempts, do the police go rogue and form their own death squads to neutralize their enemies? That’s what generally happens in corrupt third-world polities, which is what our Democrat-run cities are becoming.

     One of Glenn’s commenters expands on his thought:

     [I]t WILL NOT create support for gun confiscation. It will, slowly, support the formation of "Societies of Vigilance", in which "law enforcement" is fast and certain, but perhaps at the cost of "justice". Because if I can't call the police to remove a live criminal from my property, I'll call the coroner to remove a dead criminal from my property.

     And indeed, a return of the vigilance committee of the 19th Century West is looking very good.

---

     Vigilance committees, whence we get the pseudo-pejorative vigilante, are of course disparaged, even condemned, in the official histories of the United States. The term of opprobrium most often attached to them is private justice, which is intended to imply that when justice is privatized it ceases to be just. But is that truly the case?

     Yes, some of the vigilance committees of yore did commit excesses. However, the committees arose in response to a need that would not have existed were the “official” mechanisms of justice in those places and times honest and responsive. In The Enterprise of Law, his massive survey of justice systems outside of State control and sanction, Bruce Benson of the Pacific Legal Foundation argues that in many cases the vigilance committee was a superior substitute for the “official” organs of justice:

     Local governments were established to replace privately produced law fairly rapidly in some places in the western frontier, and public police (e.g., sheriffs) were appointed. State and federal officials also appeared on the scene. But in several instances this government law enforcement was so ineffective or corrupt that private citizens had to re-establish law and order. As Alan Valentine wrote, “If the people had the right to make their own laws and to elect their own officials, then it followed in pioneer logic that the people had the right to change or overrule them. When they were sufficiently aroused to do so, they were not inclined to waste time on fine points of procedure or to show much deference to a protesting officer of the law.” Perhaps the best known cases of this kind occurred in San Francisco.

     Most of San Francisco’s laws during the late 1840s and early 1850s were developed through popular assemblies of citizens. Governmental law enforcement was instituted early, however, so anyone accused of a crime had to be arrested by the publicly employed sheriff and waited for a trial in the next Court of Sessions, which met every two months at the county seat. Lawyers often got trials delayed, and because jail facilities were scarce or nonexistent “postponements almost always meant that the accused would be discharged if he had not escaped first.” Witnesses had to pay their own expenses; and given the delays, many did not wait for the trial. With the swelling of San Francisco’s population during the gold rush, things began to get out of hand. In Valentine’s words:

     As they became increasingly harassed by crime and arson, San Franciscans became more and more ready to sacrifice legal procedure for elementary justice and security. The situation was becoming worse, not better, as new criminals moved in and more and larger fires swept across the city. The better citizens were torn between two fears: fear that nothing short of popular tribunals could cope with crime and fear that popular tribunals would degenerate into lynching mobs, led by the worst elements in town. . . .

     Many of the most respectable citizens believed that the only compromise between rampant crime and rampant lynching was an organized, stable popular tribunal that could be controlled by the better elements in the city. . . .

     San Franciscans wanted something better than slapdash justice, whether legal or popular, but above all they wanted crime reduced.

     The city’s press was urging drastic action by early 1849, but the citizens of San Francisco held back until February of 1851.

     On February 19, 1851, the owner of a San Francisco clothing store was robbed and beaten. The sheriff arrested two men and charged them. A large number of people gathered the next day before the city offices, demanding quick action against the accused. Some speakers advocated an immediate hanging, but one, William T. Coleman, prevailed. He told public officials,

     We will not leave it to the courts. The people here have no confidence in your promises, and unfortunately they have no confidence in the execution of the law by its officers. Matters have gone too far! I propose that the people here present form themselves into a court. . .that the prisoners be brought before it. That testimony be taken, counsel on each side allotted. . .if the prisoners be found innocent let them be discharged, but if guilty let them be hung. . . . We don’t want a mob! We won’t have a mob! Let us organize as becomes men!

     A committee of fourteen prominent citizens, including Coleman, was chosen to take charge of the case. The legal authorities were invited to participate but declined, although they raised no resistance and handed over the prisoners. The committee impaneled a jury and appointed three judges and a clerk. Two “highly regarded” lawyers were appointed to represent the prisoners; Coleman acted as prosecutor. After hearing the case, the jury voted nine guilty and three for acquittal. The prisoners were turned back over to the authorities. The impetus for a vigilante organization was in place, however.

     Plainly, had San Francisco’s “authorities” been trustworthy and diligent, Coleman’s call for an alternative would not have resonated with the public. Compare this to today’s situation in America’s riot-torn cities...and in other places where agitators are permitted to harass private citizens dining, shopping, or going peaceably about their business.

---

     If the law is too mild, private vengeance comes in. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Compensation”

     While no institution – especially no “public” institution – is wholly trustworthy and perfectly diligent, America’s police forces, on net balance, are an asset to the maintenance of public order, and of justice as Americans generally understand it. Private citizens are rightfully outraged, both at the “orders from above” that have handcuffed the police in dealing with looters and rioters, and at attacks on the police such as occurred in Philadelphia. Both varieties of outrage testify to a developing urge among decent Americans to act as law enforcers, especially in those districts where the police are unable or unwilling to do so.

     If modern vigilance committees should arise, I have no doubt that our “public officials” will condemn them – “Private justice!” they will shriek — and issue orders to the police that they be suppressed. Whether the police will comply with such orders, given those selfsame “public officials’” unwillingness to allow them to enforce the laws that “protect” life and property, I cannot predict. But we may be sure of one thing at least: questions vital to the conception of justice itself will be raised and hotly discussed:

For whose benefit is there law?
Who owns it?

     With that, I yield the floor to my Gentle Readers.

Comedy Is Hard...

     “I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” – Will Rogers

     Commentary is easy, especially when comment is essentially unnecessary. Governments and those who “run” them, provide a lot of material for us to laugh at, though the laughs are usually quite hollow. In particular, politicians never, ever accept responsibility for anything that goes wrong because of their policies...but watch your step, private sector! The least little bobble and we’ll nationalize you in the “public interest!” Venezuelans could testify to the consequences.

     The syndrome is not confined to our South American neighbors. Have a case in point:

     After facing widespread criticism for being out of town campaigning for president during the previous weekend's blackout in Manhattan, de Blasio called a rare early-morning press conference to discuss his complaints over Con Ed's handling of the recent outages.

     De Blasio said he was “extremely disappointed” with Con Ed, echoing recent remarks by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and saying the city still didn’t have adequate answers about what caused a power outage in midtown Manhattan last week....

     “It’s very clear we have to question whether Con Ed as a structure now can do the job going forward or whether we need to do an entirely different approach,” de Blasio continued.

     De Blasio raised the possibility of a public takeover of the utility without fully committing to the idea, insisting that an independent investigation must take place first.

     This...person, whom Big Apple voters have given the mayoralty of The Once Greatest City In The World, has turned it into an impoverished hellhole in which violent crime has exploded and rioters own the streets. Now he seeks to take over a private company that has served the region faithfully and well for many decades – a company whose progenitor was founded by Thomas Edison himself. Who on Earth, given the record of nationalized and municipalized utilities here and elsewhere, would imagine that de Blasio and the cronies he’d put in charge of New York’s electric service would do a better job?

     We’ve known de Blasio is a Marxist ideologue since he first ran for mayor. His deeds since then have made it plain that he’s a Stalin wannabe, as well. When will New Yorkers regain their senses and eject him from office?

     Somehow I don’t think even Will Rogers could get any laughs with this.

     “Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.” -- Will Rogers

Indicting The Ism

     I had no idea that Vlad is still blogging. Here’s the Sunday punch from his comments on the recent Netflix production about Stalin’s Holodomor, Mr. Jones:

     The Ukrainian genocide, you would think from the film, was not the fault of communism. No of course not. It was the fault of a hedonistic, corrupt, megalomaniac, sex fiend, white-male, American who worked for the New York Times and perhaps Stalin who was not doing things right. ‘Imperfect’ let’s say.

     What they do not tell you, is that it is Communism that did this Genocide.

     That Stalin was a good communist in the way that Mohammad was a good Muslim and Dr. Mengele was a good Nazi. They were all excellent representations of the ideology they believed in and acted on.

     Contemporary socialists and communists will froth at the mouth upon reading or hearing such statements. They’re determined to protect their favored ism against logical or moral assaults. The mere suggestion that socialism requires a Stalin – that it elevates a Stalin to power as surely as the Sun will rise in the east this morning – is enough to provoke them to violence. So they bellow “That wasn’t real socialism!” or “Socialism works, it was the fault of the men in power!” Absolutely anything rather than admit that their ism brings about the same consequences each and every time it’s tried.

     All that having been said, there is a problem with trying to indict a system of belief in isolation from the conduct of the men who will govern it. For there is no scheme of government that eliminates the requirement for men – fallible men, men with individual drives, interests, and agendas – to impose and administer it upon the rest of us.

     Indeed, that’s the Joker in the deck of government itself.

---

     I know, I know: the above sounds like a brief for anarchism. And in truth, I was once inclined to look favorably, even longingly upon anarchism. Governmental terrors and predations constitute a pretty good argument that the whole idea of government – i.e., that some men should wield power over others – is inherently faulty. Quoth Allan Sherman:

     Every government is a geejy bird.
     The geejy bird is a strange creature; it flies only once in its lifetime, but that flight is a spectacle to behold. The geejy bird appears suddenly, standing on a limb, young, elegant, proud, and respectable. Surveying the horizon, it spreads its majestic wings and swoops upward in a wide graceful curve, with magnificent wing flappings, and loud glory whoops. When it reaches maximum altitude, it begins its elegant descent, an ever narrowing spiral. It makes smaller and smaller circles in the sky until, suddenly and mysteriously, it vanishes through its own asshole.
     No one knows where geejy birds go—probably back where they came from. Unfortunately, when they go, they take us along. We are all subjects of one geejy bird or another; we are born and live and die during one of these mad flights. To be born early in the flight is, at least, exciting; the air sparkles with hopes and dreams, and there are worthwhile things to be done. To board the flight in the soaring stage is next best; there is a fresh wind and a feel of strong wings and a dizzying view of the world.
     But what about those of us who are born near the end of the flight? We can’t jump off; the fall would be fatal. In vain we scream, “Turn around, great geejy bird! Turn back in thy flight!” Too late. There is nothing to do but make the best of it. We snap to attention, salute, and begin to sing our stirring anthem. “God Bless Our Geejy Bird!” Together we bravely enter the turd tunnel to oblivion.
     Even the friendliest geejy birds share certain boorish instincts with the disgusting ones. The species is fundamentally predatory. Thus, over a 200-year period the American geejy bird slowly gobbled up all the power it could eat, until it began to look suspiciously like the Louis XIV geejy bird.
     Sometimes I get so mad at government, I could almost become an anarchist—but not quite. In my opinion, anarchy is nothing more than the embryo of government—an inadvertent way to hatch another geejy bird, and there are enough geejy birds already.

     Yes. Despite my quondam flirtation with anarchism, it’s as flawed as any other scheme of social organization. Its instability gives birth to governments, and as Allan Sherman has said, there are enough governments already.

     But my larger point is about the isms promulgated by theorists of all sorts. None of them can be rendered immune to the dynamic of power. Friedrich Hayek’s analysis of this phenomenon in The Road to Serfdom remains unrefuted – probably irrefutable on this side of the Second Coming.

     John Gall, in his neglected book Systemantics, made a powerful case that systems of all sorts operate in failure mode most of the time. But why would men avid for power want to preside over a failing system? The key to harmonizing this insight with Hayek’s is the realization that the standards of the rulers are not those of the ruled.

     By the standards of the ruler, the system might be working fabulously. After all, it gives him what he wants: power, pelf, prestige, and perquisites. That those things are taken from others by force needn’t trouble him, as long as he remains in power. As for what would come next, he prefers to leave future problems to future solvers and solutions.

     By the standards of the ruled, the system has defaulted on its promises to him. Perhaps it promised him freedom. Yet laws and regulations strangle him even in his most private affairs. Perhaps it promised him economic security. Yet the State’s consumption of his earnings bites more deeply with every passing year, to say nothing of the instability of his income in a regime where the very meanings of the words in which the laws are written can be reversed by men in black robes. Or perhaps it promised him safety. Yet the police are limp in the face of ever-increasing, ever-escalating street crime, and the nation’s borders are colander-porous.

     No matter what ism supposedly animates those in the corridors of power, over time the system will be perverted toward the satisfaction of the private interests of the rulers, and be damned to what they may have promised the ruled. Yes, Gentle Reader: constitutionalism as well. The sole difference among them is how long it will take for tyrants to rise to the levers of power.

---

     God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all and always well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon, and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. – Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Smith, shortly after Shay’s Rebellion in New England.

     The ism is inseparable from the men who preside over it – and men cannot be trusted with power. But when an ism is founded on the use of power to fetter and dispossess some to slake the grievances of others, it starts life perverse and evil. That automatically refutes every collectivism ever proposed: fascism, socialism, communism, every variety of theocracy, and every other scheme put forth by some utopian theorist who’s had a vision in his cave. They are evil ab initio.

     The cure is revolution...yet as has been observed all too frequently, the typical revolution doesn’t make matters better, but worse:

     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

     Feel free to argue with me. But don’t imagine that I’ll allow you to avoid defining your terms and your standards. I’m funny that way.

When Smart People Say Foolish Things

     “I do not need protecting,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”
     “You are a fine fencer,” I said. “Unfortunately, life is more complicated than a fair dueling situation.”
     “I know that. I'm not a child. But—”
     “ 'But' nothing! He did the same thing I'd do if you were mine. He's protecting himself as well as you. I'm surprised he let Brand know about you. He's going to be damned mad that I found out.” Her head jerked and she stared at me, eyes wide.
     “But you wouldn't do anything to hurt us,” she said. “We-we're related.”
     “How the hell do you know why I'm here or what I'm thinking?” I said. “You might have just stuck both your necks in nooses!”
     “You are joking, aren't you?” she said, slowly raising her left hand between us.
     “I don't know,” I said. “I need not be-and I wouldn't be talking about it if I did have something rotten in mind, would I?”
     “No... I guess not,” she said.
     “I am going to tell you something Benedict should have told you long ago,” I said. “Never trust a relative. It is far worse than trusting strangers. With a stranger there is a possibility that you might be safe.”
     “You really mean that, don't you?”
     “Yes.”
     “Yourself included?”
     I smiled. “Of course it does not apply to me. I am the soul of honor, kindness, mercy, and goodness. Trust me in all things.”

     [Roger Zelazny. The Guns Of Avalon]

     The above, from one of Zelazny’s justly famous Amber novels, nicely captures the internecine quarrels of the royal family of that realm. Its ruler, Oberon, has gone missing and is presumed dead. Every one of his sons and daughters wants the crown. Every one of them is willing to murder all the others to get it. For any one of them to trust any other would be an act of insanity – and therefore, trust among them is nonexistent. That’s the perspective from which Corwin, one of Amber’s princes and the narrator in the above, is speaking to his niece Dara, whom he’s only just met.

     The absence of trust makes room for the operation of other qualities that trust can – and sometimes does – obscure. One of them is dispassionate analysis.

---

     As long as I’m in a quoting mood, here’s another:

     "Excuse me, Miss," Stromberg's voice boomed out. Teresza jerked her head around to find the sociologist and most of the class staring straight at her. "Yes, you who're holding Mr. Morelon's hand in a grip of steel." A titter ran through the hall. Teresza flushed. "Do you have an opinion on the subject?"
     "Uh, no, Professor." Teresza rose and gathered her thoughts as best she could. "I was just surprised to hear that they had all that junk."
     Stromberg smiled broadly. "Everyone is, Miss...?"
     "Chistyakowski."...
     "Well, you may take my word for it, Miss. In 2061, thirty-four percent of the economy of the richest sector, which was called the United States, was devoted to entertainment and diversions. As a category, that outstripped the second largest sector, medical services, by more than two to one. If our histories are accurate, its products were consumed with an unbelievable avidity, and its customers were perpetually hungry for more." He leaned forward over his lectern and peered hard at her. "Would you care to venture an opinion as to why they wanted so many frivolities and distractions?"
     Two hundred pairs of eyes pressed against her as she groped for a response. She squeezed Armand's hand and tried to think.
     The household she and her father kept was simple and modest. They had all they needed and a handful of minor luxuries, but no one would have thought their lifestyle lavish. Yet she couldn't think of anyone she knew whose surroundings were substantially more opulent. Not even the Morelons, whose wealth would have sufficed to buy the Gallatin campus ten or twenty times over.
     But why would anyone want to be surrounded by all that junk in the first place?
     "Professor," she said slowly, "I can't help asking the question the other way around. We could have all that stuff if we wanted it, couldn't we?"
     Stromberg grinned suggestively. "Indeed we could, Miss."
     "So why don't we?"

     Teresza’s question is the question of the day. Indeed, it’s the question of our nation and our era. And apparently the answer to it, though in plain sight, is being ignored or overlooked by some very bright and articulate people.

---

     The second citation above concerns the colony world of Hope, which is utterly without governments of any description. Thus, it lacks the overheads subjugation by a government imposes: laws, regulations, armies, police forces, other agents and agencies, and the taxes required to support them. The absence of those overheads has allowed the colonists to advance from pretechnological subsistence to roughly the technological-economic status of the United States in 1960 in only twelve hundred years – and that despite an ecology that’s lethally hostile to Earth-derived life. The colonists, descendants of a group of anarchist exiles who called themselves Spoonerites, like their ungoverned status just fine. Hope society emerged as family-oriented.

     That was also American society in 1960. While certain technologies were still maturing in 1960, all the elements were present to give swift rise to every one of the fripperies of today. Yet there was no pressure for those things. Rather, American adults concentrated on making a living, maintaining peaceful and orderly households and communities, and producing and raising their children.

     America’s markets in 1960 were appreciably freer than they are today. The six decades since have seen an explosion of coercive laws and regulations, nearly always under the overt rationale of “protecting the consumer.” The emergence of virtually all the luxury consumer-non-durable goods of today followed the imposition of all those laws and regulations, and – of course – the explosion in taxation that accompanied them.

     The federal government soon discovered that taxation was not enough to fund its new voracity. The Laffer Effect defeated rates above a certain revenue-optimum level. The sole alternative was to borrow. The Federal Reserve system guaranteed that large-scale federal borrowing would result in inflation.

     The accelerating rise in the cost of living compelled Americans to embrace the two-income family. For many, overtime labor became the way of survival. The repercussions were not long in coming. The reduction in the amount of time and energy that went to family and community matters was felt almost immediately. Children needed something to substitute for the attention of their parents, and parents needed something to distract their children from their parents’ obsessive concern with expenses, debt, and their futures.

     The proliferation of consumer fripperies was a response to these things, not the cause of them.

---

     Some very smart people, quite as concerned with the deterioration of our families and neighborhoods as I, have assailed our markets as “too efficient.” The late Robert Nisbet, a towering intellect, once wrote that “our markets may be too efficient for life on a human scale.” I have no doubt that he was sincere. Nevertheless, the correlation between the explosion in luxury consumer non-durables fooled him as it has fooled others.

     You’ll see a lot of opinion writing that echoes Nisbet these days. Most of it is by self-described conservatives. Here’s a recent sample. Yet there’s nothing conservative about measures that enable the advancement of government power and intrusion. Objections to the freely chosen behavior of Americans in the American marketplace can only empower the statists among us. Rather, we should be looking at reducing the size and intrusiveness of our 88,000 governments – federal, state, county, municipal, and school district – back to pre-World War I levels.

     Would that guarantee a return to the family-oriented society of those years? No, it would not. There are no guarantees in sociodynamics. But it would remove the propellants that powered our flight from it. Moreover, it would restore a great part of the freedom Americans once enjoyed: an autonomy untroubled by fears of not being able to meet present or future bills. It would reinstitute conditions in which Americans’ paramount attention could go to things close to home, rather than to a rat race toward a potentially illusory security.

     I’ll let Professor Arne Stromberg, holder of the Edmond Genet Chair in Sociology at Gallatin University, the foremost center of higher learning on Alta, the northern continent of Hope, close this tirade:

     “Families are the fundamental building blocks of a stable society. Extended families—clans—are the best conceivable environment for the rearing of children, the perpetuation of a commercial forte, and the germination of new families and their ventures. A clan like yours, Miss Albermayer, conserves a brilliant genetic line and a priceless medical specialty at the same time. A clan like yours, Mr. Morelon, makes possible a benign agricultural empire and produces natural leaders one after another while connecting Hope to its most distant origins. And all healthy families, which cherish life and bind their members to one another in unembarrassed love, can find far more to occupy and amuse them than they need."
     Teresza's mind lit with memories of the way the Morelons had enfolded her and made her one of them. No day could have been long enough for all they had to say and do and share with one another.
     "When Earth's regard for families and their most fundamental function deteriorated, her people ceased to enjoy the sorts of ties that had held them together throughout the history of Man. Without families, and especially without children, they groped for other things to fill their time, whether to give them a sense of purpose, or to distract them from the waning of their lives. Some invested themselves in industry or commerce, but without the sense of the family line to be built up and made prominent, those things failed to satisfy. Others immersed themselves in games, toys, fripperies, and increasingly bizarre forms of entertainment, which palled on them even faster. Still others made a fetish out of sex; there was a substantial sex industry on Earth, though it tended to operate in the shadows and was seldom openly discussed. They needed emotion and substance, but all they could contrive was sensation and novelty, and they pumped an ever greater share of their effort and wealth into seeking them. That's my thesis, for what it's worth."
     The hall was silent. Teresza peered furtively at the faces of the students nearest her. The majority of them were wet with tears.
     "For us," Stromberg said, "it's enough that we're happy, secure, and free. We don't really need to know definitively why our statist forebears traveled a path so different from our own. But it's among the great mysteries of social science, and worth thinking about from time to time even in isolation."

     Indeed it is.