If you are like me, you cannot even bring yourself to suffer a single minute of a single political “debate” because you understand that the nature of such showmanship is purely obfuscation.  And it need not even be conscious…it simply is by the nature of the collectivist philosophy which underwrites the notion of a central governing authority.  Which, by its very nature, appeals to its AUTHORITY to act “on behalf of the people”.

Ah, but since the “people” is, and can only be, referred to in the collectivist sense–because no democratic government claims to represent the interest of just a person (“you” or “me”, individually)–then acting on behalf of the “people” (collective) really means acting on behalf of itself.  Why?  Well, because it alone possesses the mandate of force necessary to compel the group’s collective will upon society…which is to say, the environment.  And this mandate has been given to it by the collective, by the majority group, and not by any one person, or one citizen, in general.  Because any ONE person is, by definition, too small a minority to “elect” that which is being tasked with perpetuating upon the environment the will of the group.  It’s not your will, or any individual will, it cares about, because no such individual will has anything to do with a government that is elected by the people in the collectivist sense, which is the only sense the term “people” can have when we start talking about government…which is the Authority which acts on behalf of Group; and there is no such thing as a group of one. That is an obvious contradiction in terms.  This means that such an Authority can never act in service to YOU, yourSELF.

Your only hope then, once you’ve acceded to this governing Authority, is that it acts is in such a way that you happen agree with its actions; or that you are un-offended by them.  But by no means can you assume that the government acts on behalf of YOU as an individual, since it does not recognize YOU, individually, but only the collective it represents–which, being an abstraction, has nothing actually to do with YOU in the ontological sense at all. To vote then for a government to rule on behalf of the collective, which you as an individual must then by definition be completely and perpetually at metaphysical odds with, presents a very dangerous and intransigent existential dilemma.  You have, by conceding to the premise that man is, metaphysically (at the very irreducible heart of being) a function of the group, abdicated your ownership of Self; and moreover, you have abdicated the REALITY of Self.  You have denied your own fundamental material and ontological and self-evident Truth in favor of an abstraction.  You have rejected your own ability to interpret reality for the impostor of reality given to you by those called to rule you on behalf of the “people”, or  “society”, or the the “workers”, or the “disadvantaged”, or the “nation”, or the “kingdom”, or the “church”, or the “common good”.  You have willingly placed yourself inside the iron maiden of existential entrapment and have assumed as “truth” and as “benevolent” and as “moral” the idea that you, as an individual, are entirely insufficient to life.  You have agreed that you no longer get to be, in fact, you.

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At any rate, since these politicians are vying for the job of ruling you, it seems odd that they would need to, fundamentally or relevantly, procure your permission for such a position.  You see, being ruled is, in fact, the polar opposite of being asked.  If you are asked, you can say no.  If you are ruled…well.  Try telling the IRS that you no longer permit them to draw taxes from your wages; try telling the politicians in Chicago that the gun on you hip is moral and justified because you simply chose to opt out of the article of city law which prohibits such items on your person.  Go ahead and see what happens when you try to “opt out” of the government you get to “freely” vote for; you get to “freely” choose; which “represents” “you”.  I’ll be sure to write you in prison; maybe send you a carton of cigarettes to barter for a week of chastity.  Or to smoke afterwards, whatever suits the situation.

To freely vote to be ruled is a contradiction in terms.  This is patently obvious.  Even if you assume that you have some say in how you are to be ruled (you don’t, if you are being rationally consistent to the idea of a governing authority which acts on behalf of the group), the fact is that since you cannot opt out and still be recognized as a free, legitimate, actual, relevant, moral, and equally ontologically valid self-aware being, voting to be ruled according to the ideas of the COLLECTIVE, even if you happen to agree with them, still must subordinate your individual identity to the identity of the group.  And since the group’s identity can only be manifest by the authorities “elected” to enforce it (that is, to make it “real”; that is, to manifest the group”s identity on reality; that is, to define reality), it is NEVER truly your will which is being expressed and rendered, but the collective’s.  And the logical conclusion of this is that the individual MUST be subordinated to the collective will.  And this cannot be done voluntarily because the individual cannot, by definition, from his singular frame of reference (his individual metaphysic) apprehend the reality of the collective.  Reality is a function of the collective, not the individual.  And those tasked with rendering reality are the proxies of the group, and no one else.  And those proxies are the rulers.  And rulers rule by authority, and authority is force, and force is violence.  Period.  Full stop.  And their authority is a direct function of the abstraction of the Collective, to enforce Collective Will UPON individuals, since it cannot enforce it upon the Collective, itself being a direct function of it.  The Collective and its ruling Authority are, in effect, one and the same.  They are corollaries.  They are sympatico.  It is not then the Collective which needs ruling, it is the individual.  The Collective is ALREADY the epitome of perfection.  It has no need to be ruled; it only has need to RULE.  And what does it rule?

You.

And you don’t see the destruction bearing down on you like a rolling thunderstorm just over the horizon because you are too busy worrying about who to vote for, and cheering the idea of “government of and by the people” as though its some kind of rational tribute to liberty.   But here’s the truth.  There is no “people”.  There is only you, and me, and he and she.  And we are not a collective, we simply are Self.  To vote to be ruled by a government committed to the electoral outcomes of a collective is to deny your very nature as a being of One.

And just how long do you think it takes before those in power recognize this dynamic, and realize that the collectivist philosophy to which they (and most of the citizens they “represent”) subscribe must place an insurmountable barrier between the individual and the collective which they have been called to represent?  Just how long do you think it takes them to realize thus that the individual citizen cannot possibly have any relevant or legitimate any say in the governing of the collective, be it through voting or any other means, because he is by definition contradictory to the GROUP?  Well, a casual glance at history will reveal the inexorable slide of every nation in every continent on the face of earth into the smoldering ruins of collectivist ideology (socialism, Marxism, fascism, feudalism, theocracies, monarchism, even democracies like, say…America). History would seem, then, to indicate that it takes very little time at all.  In fact, in my opinion, I’d say it takes on average less than two years after the formation of any society ruled by a central governing body before anything but an illusion of “representative” government, “elected” and doing the “will of the [individual] people”, remains.  And maybe even less than that.

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Above, when I mentioned political debates at the very beginning of this essay you’ll have noticed that “debate” is in quotes.  This is because, to me, political debate is more like a grand advertisement for a product I don’t really need (a centralized juggernaut of force) but which I’m told I must have if I want to “fit in”.  And in this case “fit in”, means to possess an adequacy to my own existence.  In other words, if I don’t have some massive central governing apparatus with all its requisite leaders and rulers to define reality for me (e.g. tell me what to eat, to drink, to drive, to smoke (or not), who I can marry, when my kids are “properly educated”, and by what method, etc.), then I am doomed to death–the product of my inherent depravity.  In the religious sense, depravity means that I am the abstraction of evil in its visceral, material incarnation, and thus can do no good except I that am compelled by threats and force by God’s ministerial proxies “standing in His stead”.  In the political/governmental sense, my depravity is summed up by the generally unspoken but almost universally accepted notion that: Man MUST be governed; for without the collective (the group), led by its elected officials (the arbiters of the collective’s authority, which simply means that they rule, ultimately, by force) man cannot hope to survive.

The simpler translation of this is:  as an individual man does not possess the inherent tools to exist.  He needs the collective; and the collective, being purely an abstraction (because individual human beings are the only material, tangible, and visceral components of ANY group), needs its human rulers to manifest its authority (force) to regulate society (to define collective “reality”) in material reality in order that the infinitely depraved individual can survive.

Oh, what irony we live with!  The logical conclusion of this is: we must destroy the individual’s identity entirely in order that the individual may live. The individual doesn’t actually exist (and fundamentally cannot exist) because he possesses no relevancy to reality except that he be sacrificed to the Collective, in order to (ironically, and contrarily) ensure his survival.  For remember, the assumption in a democracy, though it is not openly admitted as such, is that man must be governed; thus, he cannot by nature provide any relevancy to reality because he is insufficient to his own existence as an individual.  Reality, you see, must be rendered only by the authority of the collective; because, again, it is impossible that the individual can render it because the individual, left to himself, MUST die off.

In fact, man’s death as an individual is so assured that one cannot make an argument that man as an individual can even be born at all.  For his insufficiency to existence is an infinite product of his very root nature; it is infinite ontological depravity; infinite existential insufficiency.  And because of this, it isn’t possible that man can be rationally considered as having any innate ability to be born as an individual AT ALL; since individuality and existence are, according to the operative collectivist philosophy, mutually exclusive. There is no birth into existence for that which is infinitely insufficient to existence.  There is no birth into existence for that which is infinitely unable to exist in the first place.

In other words, the collectivist metaphysic (and the root of all collectivist economic philosophies (socialism, Marxism, fascism, democracy even, dare I say)) demands, horrifically, that the real “abstraction”–the real “illusion”, is the individual.  The only “true reality” is the collective, which, through its agents of authority–rulers, leaders, officials, etc.– subordinate the abstract individual to the collective reality.  What YOU as an individual sense…what you as an individual claim to “know” from the singular existential frame of reference of SELF, is a lie.  Or an illusion.  Or a dream.  You have no say about reality because you, alone, individually, cannot possibly grasp reality by nature.  Your sole responsibility then is to subordinate yourself to the collective; or, more precisely, to those whom the collective has “called”  in order to meet you in your illusion–the individual human “authorities” which have been “elected”, or “appointed” or “called” or “divinely established”, or whatever, who have the human “form” you can recognize in your delusion.  And the reality is that all forms of such authority are ultimately rooted in force (violence) because, in your illusion and your infinite individual state of depravity, you cannot be trusted to actually ACT of your own volition in service to the “truth” of the collective.  For you, being infinitely depraved as a product of your infinite individual existence have no frame of reference for the understanding necessary to exercise volitional obedience.  So, even though ostensibly it looks as if your rulers are reasoning with you, and willing to reason, and entreating your vote, this is purely for show, whether they consciously know it or not.  Reason is utterly irrelevant when you have no choice but to obey.  Once they are elected, you either obey their collective mandates, or you, at best and if you are lucky, will find yourself deprived of the lion’s share of your material possessions.  In the end, however, the ultimate conclusion of such a system is always much, much worse, as history bears witness.   The sacrifice of the individual to the collective–which really means its human governing proxies–always becomes literal when all is finally said and done.

Take a long, pensive gaze at the dusky horizons of the past…look upon the smoldering civilizations littered across the crimson wastelands of human collectivist history.  It is always real blood spilled when those in power finally wake up and realize that there is only one “perfect” way to go about manifesting the “truth” of their “calling”.