Tag Archives: government

The Trinity of Viruses: The State, the Citizen, the Coronavirus

Authority, collectivism, forced compliance, government, individualism vs collectivism, law, , , ,

Let’s say we give a pass to the blatantly tyrannical approach the United States government and state governments have taken in dealing with the coronavirus “crisis” in the early stages. Not that I would, personally, give any such pass. As far as I understand it, there is no asterisk at the bottom of the Constitution which allows for the wanton disregard of foundational liberties in response to a misunderstood and misrepresented respiratory ailment. But I suppose I understand the panic. After all, we in the United States are a narcissistic society of navel gazing cowards and altruistic fantasy-dwellers who are politically represented  by septuagenarian baby boomers who think they are entitled to eternal politcal power and eternal life, and who, like most baby boomers, are terrified of their own mortality, and who have become so drunk on the ever more potent twin fixes of coercive authority and unfathomable wealth that they are almost entirely unqualified for…well, anything.

So, we drink the elixir of mass panic and ignorance, rush from our homes screaming that the sky is falling, run back inside to our beds and pull up our blankies  and whimper and simper like children in a thunderstorm, and wait for the government to do what it does best—tyranny—to save us from the Chinese sniffles. Of course, there was much we could have done on our own without any of this overt government intrusion in our lives and businesses and families, but the only thing Americans are more afraid of than the coronavirus is personal responsibility and self-discipline.

Anyway, we might forgive the State for its rash, uninformed action seven weeks ago. There was only preliminary information about this virus, some very bad numbers and very inept and silly predictions from the Imperial College in London, along with the natural inclination of the State to shoot first an and ask questions later. But now we have the science…it has spoken. We have the testing, we have the data, we have OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE that the coronaviru simply does NOT represent any credible mass medical threat to the United States, and that the vast majority of people in our nation will experience symptoms so mild that they will never, and have never, sought any formal medical treatment for them. In other words, anyone not over the age of 65 or with some immunocompromising chronic health condition(s) has about as much chance of dying from SARS COV-2 as they do in a car accident on their way to a jelly bean factory. OBJECTIVELY there is NO MEDICAL reason for the ongoing social and economic lockdown in our nation. None. Medically speaking, the lockdown should end immediately.

In case you don’t want to take my word for it, here is a list of some of the experts I have researched in drawing my conclusions on this matter. I suggest you do a simple YouTube search and see for yourself. Each of of these men is literally among the most awarded, experienced, and successful in their field. There are no ringers here:

Dr. Michael Levitt, Professor of Computer Science and Structural Biology, Stanford University Medical School; 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for designing a computer model for complex chemical interactions

Dr. John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University

Dr. John Giesecke, former State Epidemiologist for Sweden; Chief Scientist for the European Center for Disease Control; currently advising Swedish Agency for Public Health; currently advising Director General of the World Health Organization

Dr. Knut Wittkowski, former Head of the Department of Biolstatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design, Rockefeller University

Dr. David Katz, Founder and Director of Yale University’s Yale Group and Prevention Research Center

All of these experts agree on four basic premises, I have found. 1. That the widescale and indiscrimate lockdown measures were neither particularly effective nor reasonable  2. That these measures will most likely do much more harm in the long run than the virus ever will or can. 3. The lockdown will ultimately not have contributed much if anything at all to stopping the spread and evolution of the virus, and will almost certainly prolong the inevitable infection numbers and postpone herd immunity. 4. That the lockdown should be eased immediately because it represents an ACTUAL existential threat to public health

So, when I say that the lockdown measures are NOT medically necessary and that the coronavirus is not a credible threat to public health and that all politcal and media assertions that the lockdown measures are in the best interest of the citizen are complete lies, this is not my opinion. This is objective fact as stated by unrivaled experts in virology, epidemiology, mathematics, and chemistry, who have examined this virus from the point of view of years and years of experience and knowledges in dealing with just this kind of thing. In other words, it is settled science. You no longer have to convince anyone that the lockdown measures are a waste of time, are much more dangerous than the virus itself, and that it is little more than irrational paranoia and/or gullibility at this point which drives citizens to accept this tyranny and economic looting masquerading as public health policy.

So why are the lockdown measures still happening? Why are they not lifted now that we know that the reasons for them are no longer valid?

The answer is that the reason for thei lockdown was NEVER the virus, and so whatever science is saying about he virus has nothing at all to do with how the State is going to deal with it. At least, not THAT virus. You see, every law, act, regulaion, or decree which precedes from the State is NEVER ultimately designed to protect you from some danger or threat, be it a foreign enemy, or a neighborhood criminal, or a virus. Rather, these things are designed to protect the State from YOU. YOU are the disease it does not want ot contract. The lockdown is the mask IT dons to shield itself from the contagion known as the indivdivual citizen.

The virus arrived and It was advertised as an existential threat, based upon completely erroneous numbers along with general, plenary ignorance. The government, not an institution of reasoned action but of disproportionate overreaction, predictably burned the Constitution and then urinated on the fire, took out a sledgehammer and proceed to pound indiscriminately away at the econmomy and our civil rights. And we were okay with this because we were convinced that we would die…or, at least, would run out of toilet paper. Which, granted, is almost as bad. You see, people who are in fear for their lives will do things and allow things to be done to them which otherwise they would never fathom and never tolerate. Our politicians didn’t want us getting angry at their lack of action with respect this fake towering colossus of ravenous disease. You see, the rancher doesn’t try to speak rationally to the cattle when they become startled and threaten to stampede. Harvesting the brutes for meat and milk and leather is what keeps him rich and comfortable, and he does whatever it takes, sans actually speaking to the herd with words and ideas. Ideas and reason and recommendation are beyond the ability of dumb animals, but they do understand electric fences, and barbed wire, barking and snarling dogs, and gunshots. And ultimately the cattle are settled down…made passive. They are no longer a threat, and somehow, they feel more secure. In this way, with respect to the coronavirus and the unsettled simpering masses of human cattle, liberty was summarily sacrificed on the alter of political expediency. And the nation thanked them for it.

But now that thanks is wearing off, and the cattle are getting restless again. The lockdown measures continue, the almost overnight the collapse of the economy and the summary denial of basic rights of freedom of movement, association, and private property has led to skyrocking unemployment, business closures, a deluge of welfare applicants, drug overdose, sucide, domestic abuse, depression, anxiety, panic disorders, heart disease, cancer, child abuse, healthcare industry collapse, restaurant industry collapse, travel and tourism industry collapse, arrant cessation of life saving check-ups and medical procedures, criminality, and educational implosion, to name but a few. Allowing this to continue threatens the power and position of countless politicians. No one in government is safe. Trump’s reelection chances diminish with every passing day, lawsuits are being threatened and filed against government for civil liberty violations, and so to protect their status, politicians are being forced to make overtures towards ending the lockdown.

On the other hand, every epidemiologist and virologist worth a damn is predicting an increase in coronavirus cases and more deaths once people are allowed to reintegrate back into society. This has to do with the nature of such a virus, which must acquire a certain number of hosts before it tapers off and blends into the background haze of common viruses with which man must coexist during the winter months. The lockdown, instead of halting the virus, has simply postponed the inevitable. Politicians are hoping and praying for the miracle of a quick vaccine, and we should all be extremely wary of any vaccine which is rushed into service before the requisite time of 18 months to two years, which is the usual amount of time it takes to produce and research a vaccine for his kind of illness. Any vaccine which appears sooner is almost certainly spurious at best, and possibly dangerous, and is the result of nothing more than profit mongering and political expediency.

So the gonverment has a conundrum on their hands. How do you reintegrate society whilst keeping a virus which MUST inexorably spread from spreading.

The answer is: you don’t.

But if you are the government the answer is to walk the line of contradiction and hope that the American public is too stupid or too scared or too propaganzized (preferably all three) to notice that they are being played for fools. This nonsense about opening the economy “slowly” and “in stages” and “seeing what happens” and maybe “pulling back if we have to” and “opening business only if they comply with CDC regulations” and by color coding counties like they are doing here in Pennsylvania is NOT a medical strategy. I repeat, it is NOT A MEDICAL strategy. It is a political one. And moreover, it is a continuation of the unconstitutional revocation of basic American freedoms that has been occurring for the past seven weeks. The State wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want you breathing a sigh of relief with the idea of “returning to normal”, whilst NOT actually returning to normal becasue “normal” will be, in the words of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, the “new normal”. Which means that the economy and society will reopen but not ACTUALLY reopen. These “strategies” are politcal theater; an illusion, designed to keep you both calm and in a state of fear…to create a dissonance in your emotions and psyche. The State does not care about you, only about itself. And this psy-ops game they are playing now with “reopening the economy” in baby steps is an indulgent massaging of their vanity. They are hoping against all reality that they can open the economy whilst keeping coronavirus cases on the decline. But this cannot be done, and so they must hope that somehow you will belive that that which cannot be done is nevertheless being done by your government. The govenrment for its own sake must open the economy, but for its own sake it ALSO must not. So this is what we get. An opening of the economy which is not really an opening.

Let us open our eyes and see clearly the trinity of viruses at play here: the virus of the State to you and me, the virus of me and you to the State, and the coronavirus to all of us. And let us understand that only one of these viruses is truly a threat to humanity.

END

Coronavirus Conundrum: The futility of ethics by means of mathematics

Authority, collectivism, Ethics, forced compliance, government, individualism vs collectivism, morality, , , ,

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, there is a scene where Spock tells Kirk, who is struggling with an ethical dilemma, that “Logic dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one”.

For many years this never sat well with me, for reasons that I could not quite articulate. I was unsettled. I had a suspicion that the claim was not logical at all. I mean, I suppose it was logical mathematically, but still something seemed off.

Years later I realized the specific problem. Spock is confusing ethical consistency with mathematical logic. Ethics are not mathematics, and the logic which governs the premises and conclusions of the two isn’t necessarily interchangeable. Philosophical logic, or what is better termed “rational consistency”, or “reason”, does not assert mathematical logic as axiomatic. This is because mathematics is wholly abstract, where philosophy is meta, incorporating both the abstract and the concrete. Philosophy, of which ethics is a major category, concerns the nature of existence, itself, not merely the abstract measurement and categorization of it.

Since the dilemma facing Kirk is an ethical one, and ethics are not mathematics, Spock’s claim that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” is entirely meaningless with respect to the problem at hand. It was a pointless and decidedly ILLOGICAL waste of time and breath. Ethically, the needs of the many DO NOT outweigh the needs of the few or the one. This is because there is no rational ethical comparison between “many” and “one” when considering individual human beings. Each person is an utterly singular observer. There is no such thing as deriving an objective “us” or “we” or “many” from an absolutely singular conscious agent. There is SELF, and there is OTHER, where both are singular agents, fundamentally, but the combination of SElf and OTHER into “we” or “us” or “many” is an entirely abstract notion. “We” does not exist, fundamentally, at all. “We” is an abstract concept which combines individuals for purely practical, mutable purposes, never for root ETHICAL ones. Therefore, it is a failure of reason to claim that it is somehow better for, say, one to die than one million. The individual, at the level of SELF, is absolute…he or she IS THE OBSERVER, and he or she is CONSTANT. This is why the individual is so ineluctably necessary to existence and reality. Axiomatically, absent the frame of reference of one’s singular and constant absolute SELF, no claim can be made about anything…nothing known, nothing claimed, nothing verified, and thus nothing can exist, because an existence which cannot be known and thus cannot be valued and thus serve no purpose is a categorically IRRELEVANT existence. And irrelevant existence cannot actually exist, because it can never meaningfully DO anything, including EXIST.

So, that in mind, Spock is really attempting to assert that the needs of the many ABSOLUTES outweigh the needs of a few or one ABSOLUTE. Do you see the paucity of logic here? Spock implies that the death of one person is better than the death of a million, but there is no such thing as a comparison between a single Absolute, and a million Absolutes. “A million absolutes” is no more a quantity of absolutes than a single absolute. There is no AMOUNT of absolute SELF. There is ONLY SELF. Any quantification of individuals then is purely abstract. It is of practical use, but NOT of ethical use. When God says “thou shalt not kill” he doesn’t qualify that command by quantifying it. One death is as equally tragic as a million.

Moving on to the cornonvirus. Today I saw a Vox headline from April 1 which read “The Coronavirus is NOT the FLu. It’s Worse.” I didn’t read the article, because I didn’t have to. The title alone told me that reading the article would be a waste of time, because as far as I was concerned, this isn’t and never has been the issue. Comparisons between the coronavirus and the flu are not the fundamental point anyone should be making.

First of all, the title itself is massively subjective, as “worse” can be defined in multiple ways, and easily manipulated to bolster one’s own personal opinion, no matter what that opinion is. And even if we go with the ostensible meaning of the word—that by “worse” we mean “more dangerous, and with a higher mortality rate”—a month later from when the article was written, incidence testing around the world has proved that the coronavirus is NOT worse than the flu, and may in fact be LESS dangerous.

But who cares about this…this is incidental to anything involving the coronavirus insofar as society and public health is concerned. It’s not about how dangerous the coronavirus is or is not relative to the flu, or any other virus. We live in a context where, under the auspices of State Authority, we exist first and foremost as members of a collective. This makes any crisis, even a pandemic, not an ethical problem, but an examination of probability, and this implies the enumeration of the people. The people become numbers, and these numbers are then plugged into a much larger and more fundamental equation, which is this: What course of action best promotes and preserves the position and power of the State? And this is why government can react so differently to similar crises (eg swine flu vs coronavirus), and why its methods and actions are often so incongruent with emprical data (eg the ongoing lockdown despite evidence that the coronavirus is not a significant threat to the nation). The crises are similar, but the policies which best promote State power can widely vary from situation to situation.

And it is here were we get to the root of it all.

The biggest mistake we who are suspicious and critical of government interference make with respect to interpreting government response to crisis is that we confuse government, which is an institution of object violence, with an ethical entity…and more precisely, a MORALLY ethical entity. It is not. Its only purpose is to compel the collective masses into a particular abstract ideological standard that it alone legitimizes, no matter what appeals are made to individual rights or freedom, etc. Government, itself, not you or me or our neighbors, our businesses, our money, our health, our jobs…nothing matters besides that which affirms the State, and promotes the collective Ideal which legitimizes it (in the case of the US, where I am, this Ideal is the very nebulous “the People”). The government IS the nation…to save the government IS to save YOU and ME, so the “logic” goes. We are the State, the State is us. There is no individual to consider in the equation, and THIS is why the coronavirus is not a true ethical dilemma.

Those who are decrying the government’s draconian measures to control the virus are citing the numbers in an attempt to win the ethical debate. They are claiming that many, many more people will die in the long run from the severe economic catastrophe that the unconstitutional lockdown orders are inflicting. I, myself, have asserted this, and will continue to do so. After all the truth is the truth—if you look at the data gathered by highly competent and established epidemiologists and virologists there is simply no way a rational person can conclude that this virus is paticularly dangerous for the VAST majority of human beings, And if you look at the economic data, there is no way a rational person can deny that the measures taken to control the pandemic will kill many more people than the virus ever will. However, as this is not a specifically ethical argument, it will fail thus when employed as one. ETHICALLY, those who would rather doom a billion people via the government’s orders to lockdown society in order to save a few thousand people who might otherwise die from the virus are NOT wrong. It is NOT ETHICALLY (specifically, it is not not morally) wrong to suggest that the smaller number of lives saved by government are EQUALLY and possibly MORE important than the billions who will be destroyed by the ongoing lockdown. Why? Because, as I said, this is NOT an ethical dillema. You cannot make an ethical comparison of the importance of one life over another, so to persist in the fallacious idea that you can possess moral and rational superiority by simply appealing to the math is ludicrous. IF the government wants to kill a billion in order to save a few thousand, an ethical argument about the value of this many lives versus that many is NOT an effective argument because the situational context has nothing to do with the value of individual life.

But, you might say, why not then simply appeal to the mathematical logic? You might say that it doesn’t make sense, numerically, for the governemnt to doom a billion to save a few thousand. Surely it is in the best interest of the State to rule over many than a few, right?

The answer, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, is: not necessarily. It might, but it might not. The bottom line is that IF the State feels that it is in its best interest to destroy the many in order to save the few then this is the course of action it WILL pursue. If you think that the power and position of those in goverment are not the supreme consideration in dealing with any and all issues related to a nation, be it a pandemic or any other thing, then you simply do not understand the true and root nature of the State and the nature of your position under its authority. And there is no ethical argument you can bring to bear which will alter the course of government action. You can quote numbers all day long, and conflate mathematics with ethics all day long, but it will do you no good. It is an exercise in futility and will only serve to exasperate, frustrate, and disappoint you. The only way you will ever get the State to change its course is to somehow convince it, or hope that it will at some point be convinced, that it is in ITS, not YOUR, best interest to choose a different direction.

And here we DO actually get a glimps of the ethics of government. What is “good” for the State is technically an ethical question. Yet we must make a distinction between MORAL ethics and LEGAL ethics. In this article, for semantic’s sake, I used “ethical” as a synonym for “moral”, which I’m sure you understood. After all, any discussion of ethics as it involves human beings may typically be seen as a discussion of morality. But moral ethics are not the same as legal ethics, and I have several articles on this blog where I deal specifically with the difference, so I will not do that here. The point I want to make is that in order to convince the government to change its course, one must convince it that such a change is first and foremost GOOD for the STATE. What is good for the person, for you and me, for the individual, for the human being, is entirely irrelevant, and will never prove efficacious in persuading the government to do anything.

END

Coronavirus Hysteria 2: We were promised an apocalypse, and the State will deliver what nature has not

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So here we are, in the sixth or seventh week of “quarantine”—which, what a lovely little euphemism for “house arrest”—and damn it, the numbers are just not what we were promised. And at the rate things are going, they never will be. We were promised millions dead, and dozens of virus mutations, each more deadly than the last, and instead we got a virus that doesn’t really mutate much at all. We have our mask-wearing laws, our “shelter in place” laws, our stockpiles of toilet paper…so just where in the hell is the insatiable and genocidal mass murdering little packet of RNA called Coronavirus that we were promised?

Now, thanks to prevalence testing (finally…better late than never; well, actually not better late than never, but whatever) we know that the mortality rate of this virus is in the vicinity of the common seasonal flu, maybe even less, and that those most at risk of death are those anyone with an IQ over 90 could have guessed—the elderly, and those with preexisting conditions, mostly lung, heart, and other cardiovascular related issues. In States and Nations which did not threaten state violence to compel economic shut downs and massive unemployment, large scale house-arrest, small business collapse, and the atomization of society through “social distancing” laws, which here in the US are just about the most unconstitutional thing one can imagine short of a rank despot seizing control of the nation and summarily burning the original copy of the Constitution to char right on the Capitol steps…yes, nations which did not decide to rule by throwing all reason and sanity into an infinite abyss and replacing them with psychopathic political expediency—like Taiwan, Singapore, Sweden, and South Korea—have experienced none of the disasters foretold, and have far fewer cases and deaths than many other countries. This of course is objective, emprical, and verifiable evidence…it is evidence that all of the “public health” measures forced upon a compliant and complacent citizenry in other countries has done nothing to save lives, stem the infection rates, or bring greater security and well-being to the people. On the contrary, it has done the exact opposite. Not only has it prolonged the virus pandemic via hindering the ability of the masses to acquire the herd immunity necessary to build long-term protection against the coronavirus, like it protects us against many other viruses, it has doomed them, and particularly here in the United States, to economic insecurity, psychological chaos, bankruptcy, drug addiction, alchoholism, suicide, unemployment, domestic violence, welfare dependency, stress-related health problems such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes, and general ruin…along with prolonging their risk of infection, almost certainly increasing propagation of the virus, which means more death from the virus itself and from complications related to comorbidity.

In addition, we are seeing this disturbing push-pull of manipulative reporting from the mainstream media, which is merely the propaganda wing of the government, and primarily for the Left (today’s neo-Marxist sychophants). We are given reason to panic, then reason to hope a little, then more reason to panic, and on and on. It’s what they call in the military “psy-ops”…never let your enemy establish a sense of certainty about the situation and reality in general. Keep them confused and blind to reason and the truth at all times. This virus is hella-dangerous we are told, but we will be just fine if we comply with our quarantine; wear our masks and wash our hands; collect our welfare checks, and stand on those little markers on the floor at the grocery store. But then, you never know…the second wave might be even worse, and we aren’t sure the economy will ever fully return to normal, because there’s no telling what this virus might do; only a few have died relative to the numbers of infected, but watch out! The mass graves of billions is a reality which is just around the corner!

We are psy-op-ed into docility. We are to be controlled through confusion; managed through uncertainty…caged metaphorically, but not physically. The former is much cheaper, and much more effective, and much more profitable.

*

You see, the root of what is going on here is that we were promised an apocalyptic hellscape of dead bodies and ruined lives by the millions and even billions, but here it is six months into this thing and it has fizzled like a match in a hurricane. The virus isn’t doing its job…it got lazy and took an early retirement. The mortality rates are falling fast in most places, and at present the coronavirus isn’t any more deadly than the common seasonal flu. Infections are still going on, but this virus has such a lengthy incubation period and the country initiated the collective house-arrest orders so late, and the “public health” measures of blindfolds and handcuf…er, I mean masks and gloves, and the unconstitutional restrictions on freedom  of associa…er, I mean “social distancing”, are so haphazard, ill-informed, and ineffective, even according to medical experts in the World Health Organization and National Academy of Sciences, that infection rates have only been slowed only insofar as people aren’t moving around as much. The curve isn’t being flattened because we are beating the virus, it’s simply because the government put a moratorium on living life in this country…in an effort to save it. Well…no one does irony like the State. But infections are still happening, and will continue to happen as long as people are alive and breathing. I wonder what government orders are being cooked up as I write this to deal with THAT little problem? (Of course I’m being sarcastic here…for now).

And this is the corner into which our incompetent politicians and policy-makers have painted themselves. By overreacting to this relatively harmless virus, and giving into the conspiracy theory panic-mongers on social media, YouTube, in the mainstream media, and even in medical institutions which exist to advise the State on public health issues, all of whom were telling us such fantasies as billions could die, and that this is a Chinese bioweapon, and that it is mutating into an unstoppable perfect viral storm of certain death, and plastering dozens of contextless videos of people in Asia being thrown into quarantine camps, barricaded in their homes and apartment buildings, and crematoriums with bodies lined up like a street parade to be disintegrated into a black-smoke oblivion as though Auschwitz had been rebooted…yes, by overreacting to this deluge of rank spectacle with almost zero actual information about the virus and then summarily assuming almost plenary control of every aspect of the life of the citizen, the government doomed the nation to the apocalypse which the virus was never, ever going to actually deliver by itself.

Like I said, no one does irony quite like the State.

In other words, here is the corner which at this point pretty much guarantees that this “lockdown”…this suspension of basic life and freedom in this nation will go on pretty much indefinitely at this point. At least, this is the rational perspective…thankfully the State has a habit of acting irrationally, so there might be hope. Anyway, the government, by allowing this lockdown to continue, creates an economic, social, psychological, medical, and political disaster which rapidly approaches the point of irreversibility with every passing second, and in addition to this doesn’t actually do anything  to halt the threat of the virus but merely prolongs the existence of it as a threat by hindering any chances for herd immunity to develeope and deal with it. And this could threaten the positions of those in power in the long run.

But if they lift the lockdown the coronovirus will ineluctably spread and the numbers will climb…this is the dreaded “second wave” they are talking about on the news now. Of course, there is nothing to fear from a second wave, because the mortality rates will not change…it will not make the virus any more deadly and will in fact, create mass immunity rather quickly as people get it and recover, so there is nothing to be afraid of. But the State knows how ignorant and short-witted and reactionary and fickle the public is and when the people see the number of infections rise again they will of course completely lose their collective shit and blame the State for opening the country up too soon. And this will turn out very bad for politicians and policy makers in the short run.

So…understand this: this forced house arrest and economic cratering we as citizens are being forced to endure at this moment has absolutely nothing directly to do with cornonavirus, and all attempts to present this virus as some kind of actual, visceral, clear and present threat to life and limb is pure fear-baiting and propaganda for power and profit. There is nothing about the virus itself for the overwhelming majority of people to be afraid of. This has everything to do with the ruling class biding their time until they can create an artifice of plausible deniability. In other words, they are opting to go with the long-term disaster approach of holding fast the nationwide lockdown in the hopes that this buys them enough time to come up with a plan to save their reputations, and with it their positions and power. Of course, the longer they let it go, the more short term the long term disaster gets. Now, I’m sure that there are some in power who are looking to the Golden Knight of the Glorious Vaccine to come and rescue them out of their self-sabotage, but that necessitates that this lockdown proceed for at least another eighteen months if not two years. This scenario leaves them with no country left to rule at the end of it all, of course, but if you think for a second that the government isn’t seriously considering a lockdown which extends until a vaccine arrives (and that a vaccination can even be created is no certainty), then you don’t know how insatiable the State actually is, and how ferociously self-interested it can be when faced with what it believes is a true existential threat. Not only are they considering a two-year lockdown, but right now this IS the ACTUAL plan which is being implemented. It IS the reality at present. The government has not equivocated in the least about their power and intention to extend the lockdown for as long as it is “necessary”.  Where “necessary” means “serves its own interest, period”.

*

So, the virus isn’t doing what the government told us it would do. The “public health” measures are not and will not have the effect on the virus that we are told they will. But see, this is not the fault of government, lest anyone get the wrong idea about the point of this article. I am by no means criticizing the State. I am merely pointing out the perfunctory and necessary failure of it when it assumes responsibilities that are not inclusive of its nature, purpose, and abilities. I would no more accuse the lion of failing to build a canoe than I would accuse the government of failing to handle a crisis, or promote the health and well-being of humanity.

Well, I suppose that’s not completely true…the government could be blamed for making the attempt to go beyond its endemic and singular purpose; but I’m not sure that’s even what it is doing. I believe all of these attempts to address real problems in a productive and satisfying way are merely a facade for rank power grabbing. I believe the State knows exactly its purpose and its skill set, and relentlessly pursues these to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps I’m simply being too cynical, but really…eventually the lion, no matter how naive and ambitious it may be, WILL realize that it’s really only good at being a lion.

Here’s what I mean: the government’s only real purpose and talent is to annihilate. It’s like Ivan Drago from Rocky IV that way—whatever it hits, it destroys. Government is force. Government is an instrument of destruction…it is the centralization and monopoly of overwhelming compelling violence. It’s only job and only talent is to destroy the individual in sacrifice to a collectivist Ideal that it represents incarnate. in the US the Ideal is “the People”, but it can be anything—the Church, the Nation, the Race, the Worker’s Utopia…etc. It may try, and even in good faith, and in earnest altruistic intention, to correct social injustice, or to ensure economic stability, or to protect the health of the public, or the educate the masses, or to feed the them, or house or clothe them. But it fails, always, and at all times. Whatever problem it tackles, it makes worse, sooner or later, because it MUST. Because in all cases except destruction, the government is the lion which is trying to build a canoe. No matter what it does, or how hard it tries, or how good things may look for a while, the canoe must inevitably sink. It won’t work, becasue it simply can’t EVER be an ACTUAL canoe. Because lions do not build canoes.

What goverment does do… what it is so very good at that it does it perfectly even when trying to do the exact opposite, is wreck peoples’ lives. At the end of the day it murders, hinders, starves, threatens, imprisons, abuses, corrupts, and buries any and all expressions of individual autonomy, freedom, free will, and personal responsibility. Fiat currency, unrestrained debt and money printing destroy the econonmy; govenrment schools become institutions of collectivist and moral nihilism indoctrination; government wars begot from emprical meddling annihilate entire generations of men; social justice programs alienate and oppress the majority in the name of “equality”; tax collection takes the competent and productive and feeds them into farms and charnel houses where they are fleeced and butchered to buy the votes of the incompetent and unproductive, and on and on. And that is why, even though the virus disappointed in its foretold disaster, the apocolypse we were promised shall come to pass. Because where nature fails to heel and hobble mankind via its pestilence, meteorological disaster, or disease, the State takes up the slack. The virus failed to annihilate us, but don’t you worry, there will be destruction and death, in the millions and billions, just as we were promised. The virus won’t get you, but here’s what will: depression, anxiety, heart disease, cancer, unemployment, indigence, bankrupsy, alcoholism, drug addiction, desperation, loneliness, domestics abuse, crime, uneducated youth, economic depression, inflation, debt, anger, frustration, mistrust, indolence, early death, loss of friendship, loss of avocation, chronic sickness, failure to obtain preventative healthcare intervention and regular check ups, and on and on…all brought to you courtesy of your “public health” officials who are so desperately trying to save you from that which you will in all probability never see, hear, feel, or even notice should it by happenstance come upon you. Indeed, you may never personally know anyone who has truly suffered from the coronavirus, but you will certainly know personally one, and likely many, who has and have suffered from the State’s policies to protect you from it.

Yep.

No one does irony quite like the State.

END

 

Rights are a Slavemaster

Authority, collectivism, collectivist metaphysics, forced compliance, government, individualism vs collectivism, law, , , , , , ,

There is no such thing as rights. As George Carlin once said—“We made them up. Like the boogie man.” There is only Truth and Death…and I define Death as anything which denies the Truth; and I define Truth as the whole of ideas which do not contain or imply contradiction.

But that’s a separate issue.

For now, let’s just say that, speaking of rights, for example, mankind must freely associate or it must die. Man’s singular “I”, or “Self”—his absolute awareness of an utterly singular existential frame of reference—implies an incompatibility with forced ethics, and “forced ethics” means Law. And authoritarian-compelled restricting and compelling association is a cornerstone of Law, despite what the ideals of western democracies might tell us. Under law, then, man is made a slave. And slavery will destroy the Individual because it demands that the Singular Self commit itself to a frame of reference outside itself—to an external will, or “Authority”, which it cannot possibly do because it is, itself, the Singular frame of reference for Reality and Existence. The Self, then—man, the Individual—will thus necessarily be crushed to dust by Law, as punishment for inherent disobedience or as a product of Its own futile attempt to obey, where obedience is impossible because it requires a denial of Self, which the Self cannot do because, again, it is absolute.

In an ultimately pointless and vain attempt to mitigate the Law’s fatal flaw, “rights” are employed as a political solution. In other words, “rights” are a function of the Law, not the other way around, as most of us assume. Despite the perhaps benevolent intentions of rulers, rights are merely a transfer of the indiviudal’s existential political-moral status and station in Reality as a general, categorical, natural principle of his life to the State. The State, being the Authority over man, must then define man’s rights for him; and having defined them, must thus dictate them. And “dictated rights” is one of the head-scratching oxymorons which nevertheless implicitly forms the backbone of all “enlightened” democracies. Since the State by definition has Authority over man, because it is Authority by definition, being the practical incarnation and motivation of the Collective Ideal (e.g. the People), it will necessarily then have Authority over all of man’s “natural rights” which are said to be a function of his existence. It is a noble attempt at merging individual freedom and collectivist sociology , but clearly this cannot work. Man outsources his rights to the State, which exists to govern man. It governs man because he is, by nature, incapable of governing himself, as an individual, pursuing moral living via his individual will and choice alone. Man as an individual is depraved…societies functioning thus by strictly voluntary association with no central authority to compel behavior must then collapse into exploitation, chaos, and death. Because of this inherent natural depravity—the inability to manifest a moral society through the will alone, without Law—whatever good man can “possess” must be dictated to him by the Authority in spite of himself. His “natural rights” then are whatever the State decides they should be at any given moment. To claim that man, who is not good in and of himself, which is why he must have government to compel his behavior, has an inherent morality which implies rights which should be safeguarded in order that he not become a victim of government tyranny is a complete contradiction in terms.

To put it frankly, rights are nothing more than a form of political expediency. Man, being depraved in nature, has no individual rights. Further, the concept of “natural human rights” implies that man should possess some form of existential autonomy. But that autonomy is incompatible with the State, which exists specifically to compel man’s behavior against his will. So by what logic do we say that the State can possibly recognize an individual’s rights?

To square this circle:

The State defines man’s rights for man; and since the State is Authority, these rights are therefore entirely dictated by the State, making them in practice, if not also in theory, a direct consequence of the State, and not of man’s own natural existence. And notice how everyone in society who is clamoring for this right or that at any given moment is concordantly demanding that it be enforced—canonized by Law, and thus thrust into the category of “that which shall be obeyed or forfeit your life”. Rights and government violence are not only politically hand-in-hand, they are undeniably corollary.

“Rights”, therefore, far from being a marker of a benevolent State safeguarding and championing the cause of individual liberty, is merely a digestif given to the people to make government tyranny easier to absorb. And the irony should not be lost on us that that which claims it exists to uphold and secure our “natural rights” is that which cannot exist without completetely dismissing them.

Property rights? Taxes obliterate the very notion.

Speech rights; rights of association; privacy? I am not permitted to reject the Authority of the ruling class…I am bound by the coercive, legal obligation to obey the outcome of the vote, no matter how unjust or stupid or pointless or irrational it may be, otherwise I forfeit my life…thus all my “rights” to speech, privacy, association, property are subordinated to the governed (coerced) society at all times and in all circumstances. I am a slave to the Collective Ideal forced upon me by the Agency of Violence known as the State. I have no individual rights as far as it is concerned, because I, myself, do not exist and do not matter as far as it is concerned.

This is not hyperbole…it is not a screed or a conspiracy theory or some hypothetical injustice. This is what the metaphysics—the fundamental philosophical primaries—necessitate. There is only an immutable, inexorable, inevitable, and immediate consequence of the organization of society, and by extension Reality on the whole, under the umbrella of institutionalized Authority: the marginalization and suppression of the Individual.

The concept of “rights” is merely  politcal bromide…lubricating us up to smooth the application of tyranny.

The very fact that in the “enlightened” American democracy we need to insert “rights” as a hedge against what the Founding Father’s admitted was inherent government tyranny illustrates the inherent evil of government. And from this we can extrapolate the futility of rights. Because government is Authority and Authority is force, and Authoritative force is manifest by the supremacy of violent power, rights cannot possibly serve as a hedge against excessive government power. Also, there is no such thing as an excess of power from that which exists, fundamentally, to wield power absolutely.

And here we therefore must ask the obvious question begged:

Without government what need is there of rights? My objective existence, objectively as an individual, is why I am free. Your individuality is why you are free. Government can only serve to nullify that freedom, then, not manifest it. When we consider reality from the perfectly rational, morally perfect frame of reference of individualist metaphysics, then freedom is a metaphysical fact, not a right.

Finally, we say that rights exist as a necessary hedge against government, and this because government, being Authority in essence, is tyrannical by nature. Therefore, think about this: Since government is the monopoly of coercive force, which is legal violence, and legality (as opposed to morality) is the ethical plumbline of societies which are governed by institutionalized Authority, then rights cannot possibly serve the purpose for which they are ostensibly intended. That is, rights do not, and cannot, and shall not, and should not (if we are being consistent in our logic) protect us from or serve as a hedge against that (the State) which exists specifically to compel man against and in spite of his own will/choice into his legal obligation. The very fact that man does not get to choose to follow the Law is proof of the implicit assumption of legal ethics that man’s will is insufficient to ethical existence. Thus, who man wills to associate with, or what he wills to speak, or what he wills to own, or wills to pay is entirely subordinate to government Authority. Rights thus— to free speech or free association, movement or property, etc—are a complete fabrication with regard to bulwarking the individual against government oppression and suppression.

Rights at best are a well-intentioned palliative, which serves to do nothing more for the individual than encourage him to passively accept the State; to make it appear as though the State has anything of any value, practical or philosophical, to offer the individual, instead of revealing the truth, which is that the State and the Individual are mutually exclusive agencies.

END

 

Why Checks and Balances Won’t Stop Government Tyranny

Authority, collectivism, collectivist metaphysics, Determinism, forced compliance, government, individualism vs collectivism, law, Metaphysics, Violence, , , ,

Government is tyrannical by nature. It doesn’t evolve to tyranny, it is tyranny from its very foundation; and this tyranny follows it to the inevitable societal collapse which is tyranny’s conclusion. Government is authority, authority is force, force means forced compliance, forced compliance nullifies choice as a fundamental means of social interaction, nullified choice means a cancellation of man’s will, a cancellation of will makes thought irrelevant, irrelevant thought nullifies human agency, nullified human agency implies metaphysical determinism, determinism nullifies morality, nullified morality as a function of metaphysical determinism implies the politics of “survival of the fittest” (where politics is taken in the philosophical sense to mean how humanity interacts with itself as a function of accepted ethics), survival of the fittest implies the perpetuation of those with superior power by which to command, control, and/or adapt to their environment, superior power always belongs to the State—that’s the whole idea. Otherwise, the government doesn’t govern…it suggests. It negotiates. But ”suggestion” isn’t “law”.

This is basically the sum and substance of it, in a nutshell.

*

Government isn’t people, government is a metaphysical principle. It is a premise of Determinism—man navigates reality not fundamentally by volition (by thought and action), but by determinative forces compelling him outside of his own conscious existence. Man’s sense of individualism is a false front; a liar. Man from birth lies to himself, according to his nature, which has corrupted him by giving him a sense of “Self”. This sense of Self compels man to always act contrary to the truth, which is that the Self is a lie, and that reality is something outside of this Self, which utterly determines all he is and does…which of course doesn’t include “him” at all. So, because man is born with the “original sin” of Self-Awareness and a natural inclination to defer to his own individual thoughts, ideas, and choices, which always and necessarily act contrary to the truth of determinist reality, he must be controlled. He must be forced. He must be governed. The idea that man could ever live a categorically voluntary existence away from and irrespective of some manifestation of supreme coercive Authority is anathema, by definition, to government, then. Freedom, which can only ever really mean freedom from a fundamentally compelled existence, is inexorably exclusive of government. It simply must be. Even at mere face value this has to be apparent to us. The exercise of individual will according soley and utterly to the volition of the individual is a complete contradiction of the very essence of the State. This is arrant; it is obvious. Any attempt to fuse freedom and force is a rejection of reason and an appeal to madness. And this is itself nothing but tyranny.

*

Again, government isn’t people. Again, government is a metaphysical principle. And again, it is determinist, which means it is collectivist (the inexorable link between collectivism and determinism is pretty obvious; and I have addressed it several times before, so I won’t do it now). Government transcends individuals at the metaphysical root, like all manifestations of collectivism (churches, tribes, gangs, appeals to “objective” class/racial/sexual distinctions, science-as-philosophy, cultural movements, fads and trends, and on and on). And this is why “checks and balances”, while ostensibly an infusion of sanity and sobriety into governmental polity, cannot serve as any kind of truly effective hinderance to the tyranny of the state. You see, whether you gather coercive power into the hands of only one man, or you spread it across a vanguard, and separate that vanguard by distinct institutions and offices, and regulate the terms by which this power may be consolidated with a complicated paradigm of rules and benchmarks, the very fact that it is coercive power we are dealing with makes all of it a mere ceremonial spectacle. Coercive power, being the fundamental and only really meaningful and efficacious aspect of government, cannot be converted into liberty by sticking it in a blender with constitutional hoops and hurdles and pressing “purée”. Freedom is freedom from coercion. Nothing more. Nothing less. Period. Yet the governmental deals exclusively in force…that is its only real currency. Anything else is window dressing; pretend play; an attempt to excuse the inevitable violence and perfidy of the ruler, and to sooth or mask the misery of the ruled. But the truth is that the square peg of  humanity will never be forced into the round hole of government without crushing them both.

*

The operative and ultimate moral issue with government is a priori coercive (violent) ruling power. It’s not about who happens to wield that power, or how many hurdles—“checks” and “balances”—are ostensibly erected in his path before he can exercise ruling power absolutely. Those hurdles are a function of the very same appeal to authority which gives him his ruling power in the first place. Ruling authority cannot be checked because it is fundamental…it is not merely a facet of government, it is government. The foundational principle of Authority establishes the government, the government doesn’t just happen to wield authority as though its power to compel behavior by violence and threats of violence is merely tangential to some greater munificent purpose. The ability to use superior violent power to compel “right” thinking and behavior isn’t a “last resort”, as though the primary purpose of governing Authority is negotiation and compromise and/or the encouragement thereof! See how foolish this is, and yet we all believe that it is indeed somehow the case, even though it defies simple, remedial logic. The necessity of power to point a government gun in someone’s face to get him to do the “right” thing specifically because he is born a rebel and a sinner to reality, itself, and is utterly insufficient to existence if left to his own mind and will, has about as much to do with compromise and negotiation as a ham sandwich has to do with Shakespeare. Getting the “right” ruler or establishing the “right” checks and balances simply cannot change the fundamental purpose and essence of government:

to govern.

And governing is forcing, and forcing is controlling, and controlling, fully and properly realized, is tyranny.

The problem is not getting the right checks and balances in place. And it’s not who rules, but it is simply the fact that they rule at all. Once it is accepted by metaphysical principle that man must be ruled, he will be sacrificed to the State. There is no way to avoid the inevitable conclusion of the premise which demands the governing of individuals in order to integrate them into the “Truth”, which is always merely some insipid and tangential collectivist Ideal (the Nation, the Tribe, the Race, the Chosen Ones, the People, the Workers, the Good, the Just…almost anything can pass for an Ideal).

*

Finally, I’d like to address the bromide—the political trope—which is the notion that the ruling class (politicians and other government officials) should somehow be expected to follow the same laws as everyone else. This…is utter and complete nonsense. It hasn’t happened and it will never, ever happen, because it has about the same practical existence as the tooth fairy and the same practical efficacy as a black highlighter. It is foolishness. It’s a contradiction. It’s a fantasy. It is a rank contradiction to government’s essence at its very heart to obligate the ruling class to the laws by which they govern everyone else. By definition if the ruling class is also ruled (and this, impossibly, of themselves) then the ruling class is not the ruling class! And if the ruling class isn’t the ruling class then who is? In other words, if the ruling authority isn’t the ruling authority then by what means can law be established as actually binding upon the men it is supposed to govern? And if it’s not binding then how is it law? Law depends on someone to force men to obey it, regardless of whether men want to obey or not, or choose to obey or not. But if law is to be chosen by men, not forced upon them, then it’s not law. It’s suggestion…negotiation, voluntarism. And this is not governing, it’s merely cooperating.

People think that somehow choosing rulers via “free elections” is the same thing as choosing to be obligated to law.

It isn’t.

The law demands that rulers rule, and that’s what they will do, regardless of who they are, how they were elected, or who voted for them and why. The law is not a function of those “freely elected”, but the “freely elected” are a function of the law, and the law is force, not choice.

Authority—the ruling class—cannot be obligated to itself . And it is foolishness to assert that the ruling class should also be ruled like the rest of us. The ruling class cannot be both and simultaneously the ruled and the ruling. Men are part of one or the other, they are never one and the same. This is merely a contradiction which obscures the truth.

END

Why Government is Infallible: The Narcissism of the State

Authority, collectivism, collectivist metaphysics, Ethics, forced compliance, government, individualism vs collectivism, law, Metaphysics, , , ,

There is no such thing as a governmental solution to the “problems” of government. This is because government, according to the philosophical premises which underwrite it, cannot possibly have any actual problems in the first place.

The State is Authority, and Authority is Force. And the underwriting philosophy tells us that this force is how and why humanity is able to exist at all. It is the cure for humanity’s natural existential inadequacy—man’s “sin nature”, if you will. Man is the problem, government is the solution. Man, if allowed to exercise his unfettered and ungoverned individual will, must inexorably, by nature, devour his neighbor and eventually destroy himself due to his endemic and insatiable appetite for selfishness. Unless his behavior is fundamentally dictated by a supremely violent coercive Authority comprised of a small number of divinely enlightened and appointed philosopher kings, humanity shall be banished from reality, itself, never to be again.

Since the clairvoyance of those charged with saving humanity from itself cannot possibly be apprehended by the barbarian masses, nor can it ever truly be understood by those who are called to rule—because it transcends man’s utterly finite intellectual and rational capacity and therefore extends immeasurably beyond the inadequate confines of human language—there are no problems with the State as far as any human being is concerned. For even if the State somehow actually had a problem, not a one of us, neither the ruler or the ruled, could ultimately understand or articulate it. The terms by which the government is established emanate from a Supreme Being—God, or some other Ideal (The People; We the People; The Worker’s Utopia; Racial or Social Justice; The Master Race, etc.)—who calls rulers and enlightens them in spite of their natural human existential insufficiency. What the ruler knows, he just knows…somehow. What government is exactly at root and how it got there is not for him to say, and he couldn’t say it anyway because this knowledge, though residing in him is infinitely distinct from him qua him. The ruler, you see, occupies a strange and pradoxical existential position, as he is both God and man. He is perfect, because he is the State, and yet he is not perfect because the State exists in spite of him. But this contradiction never actually matters because as he is called to rule by God, and his position of Authority is absolute, he can never consider himself in error about anything. He may be determined to be in error by those who for some reason have more power than himself, but in that context he is merely another barbarian like you or me; if he is disciplined for error by those who have power over him punishment will be forced upon him like it is forced upon the rest of us. And if a ruler does somehow humble himself and admit some kind of mistake, he can never concede that he failed as a function of his judgement as a ruler, only as a function of his judgement as a human.

*

As the perfect knowledge and power given to those called to rule, and which serves as the philosophical underpinnings for this rule, is a direct function of the Supreme Being which is thus and therefore perfect, the State can never, ever possibly be in error about anything at all. In other words, the State is a direct function of God, however we wish to define Him or It, therefore the State can never be the problem…whatever problem happens to be in question. The problem must always be people. Humanity, apart from the perfect, transcendent, and all powerful Creator—because humanity is “fallen” and infinitely wicked and existentially in error—is the only reason anything ever goes wrong, anywhere, all the time. Period. Full stop.

Government, being an extension of God necessitated by the infinite evil of man’s life, is always right; inerrant; infallible. It can do no wrong; it is perfection qua perfection. And even if it wasn’t, neither you nor I could ever be in a position to tell the difference. We are the barbarian masses…the ignorant unwashed. Government supersedes us in existence, and transcends us in wisdom and goodness, which is why it is in the position of Lawgiver and Enforcer. It alone has been tasked to exist as the earthly incarnation of the Supreme Being (however that is defined). It alone has the right to determine what Ethics shall be established (outside of man) and to use legalized violence to compel the rest of humanity (within its geopolitical sphere of influence, which it is always seeking to expand) into “correct” thought and behavior.

In short, government is the perfect iteration of narcissism. It is narcissism institutionalized—narcisssim established as the bedrock of civilization. If you have ever asked yourself why our culture is becoming more and more narcissistic, with a sort of pathological devotion to imperious, irrational self-indulgence on a mass scale, even arrantly and proudly hedonistic, it is because the culture reflects the mannerisms, principles, and virtues of the State, not the other way around.

Government can never and will never fundamentally accept responsibility for any failure, or admit that it is even possible for it to commit fault or error, because its root existential purpose—to remediate humanity’s “original sin”—makes doing so a completely self-nullifying proposition. Government can no more represent a fundamental failure to any endeavor than a square can also be a circle, or a baby can also be a man. It simply has no frame of reference for its own failure (though occasionally to assuage or manipulate the “barbarian masses”  it might pay some mildly-convincing lip-service to its “mistakes”), because it exists for the sole purpose of atoning for the absolute existential inadequacy of man. In other words, in the same way that man, according to the collectivist metaphysics which underwrite all governemnts, is perfectly inadequate to his own existence—metaphysically, epistemologically, and ethically —government is the perfect solution. The Divine solution. As much as man is perfectly inadequate, government is perfectly adequate to satisfy the natural failure of man. It is the perfect solution to the to the root metaphysical problems of man because it is the only solution. It is the only option man has for the survival of the species, both in body and in spirit. Government is the Authority which must force man into proper and moral and efficacious existence, and so it cannot make a mistake because a mistake necessarily represents a contradiction to its very natural essence. In other words, because government is the only possible fundamental solution to the fundamental problems of the world caused fundamentally by the failure of man’s birth to prepare him for existence, any error the government might theoretically make could only be remediated by government anyway.

Man is the problem, government is the solution. And those two states of being are absolute and immutable. This is 99% of what you need to know.

*

Government is the fundamental solution to all the errors in the world because all errors in the world are a fundamental product of man’s existence, which is a failure in and of itself.  To be more specific, the natural failure of man is precisely his individual sense of his absolute Self, which categorically infects his mind, choices, and behavior. Man is naturally given to calling himself “I”, but the collectivist metaphysics of the State demand that the only way he can survive is if he is subordinated to the metaphysical primary of “we”—“We the People”; “We the Nation”; “We the Church”, “We the Race”; “We the Chosen”; “We the Oppressed”; “We the Non-White”; “We the Workers”. And ths is precisely what government does. It transfers ethics from morality, which is fundamentally individualistic, to legality, which is fundamentally collectivistic, and the uses legally sanctioned violence to force the individual to submit to the Collective Ideal which it represents as the Ideal’s functional and practical incarnation on earth. The individual shall not consider Government as distinct from God, you could say, because there is simply no way to metaphysically make any such distinction in the first place.

In summary, we should remember that like the narcissist, any mistakes the government makes are always and entirely the fault of others…of you and of me. Which is simply another way of saying that government doesn’t make mistakes. And this is why, in spite of all the reasoned arguments and objective evidence as to its catastrophical incompetence, government inexorably grows massive, assumes ever-increasing power, becomes more reckless, less tolerant of criiticism, more resistant to real change, more violent, more corrupt, more blind, more deaf, less sympathetic, heartless, incompetent,  bloodthirsty, and beastly.

And yet, it concordantly becomes that much more adored.

END

Is Government Rational? Is Government Necessary? What Metaphysical Assumptions Does Government Make About the Governed?

Metaphysics, , , ,

I submit that government is predicated on the idea that men NEED governing. And this is because men, it is assumed, by their very nature are existentially insufficient to perfect moral behavior (ignoring, for the time being, the contradictory fact that all governments are run by men, so what exactly gives civil “authorities” an existential pass on their own fundamental moral insufficiency?). That is, though not all men will do evil, ALL men need governing because evil is endemic to the human condition.

If this is true then “governing” men is really a means of compelling them through force to “do the right thing”. But of course since evil is a natural function of the human condition, namely, existence, then men cannot by definition do the right thing. Their nature–their existence–ultimately precludes this capability (again with the understanding that not all men do evil but all men have the capacity for evil because evil is natural to man, thus all men must be governed). This being the case, government is really established merely to punish man for his evil nature, full stop. For since man is ungovernable because his nature is evil, the very idea of government is ultimately predicated on the right of government to wield FORCE. And force precludes governing. It is actually the admission that governing man is quite impossible.

This force is to punish man, not for his evil, but for his very EXISTENCE; since it is impossible to isolate man’s capacity for evil, because evil is endemic to his natural existence, “man IS evil” is the metaphysical premise behind government.

But if man is NOT inherently evil, and evil is a product of irrational ideas, then man, if he has rational ideas…well, there is no reason to think he will not function morally. There is no reason to consider him a slave to evil, which means there is no reason to think he MUST be governed.

Food for thought–and just one among the many topics discussed here that, should you dare bring it up, will make people slowly back away from you at parties.