Monarchy has factional issues as well. War of the Roses? Hundred Years War? King John making the British Crown a vassal to the Pope so he could hire foreign mercenaries to punish the barons for making him sign the Magna Carta?
And then there was the Spanish Crown which squandered the wealth from the New World in order to become Holy Roman Emperor.
Democracy works better when kept local. The Swiss Confederation does rather well. The United States needs more states. Need to break up the bigger (in population) states in order to make votes meaningful. Should go back to indirect election of Senators as well.
And maybe we should have an Electoral College which actually meets. Nationwide campaigns are so horrifically expensive that oligarchy is inevitable. Elect some electors and let them pick the President in convention.
Or maybe we should do as the Swiss and have an executive committee which represents all the major factions. Give that committee the authority to fire civil servants.
“There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” –
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America
"The best argument against democracy is a five--minute conversation with the average voter." -- Winston Churchill
(and as you pointed out, half of them are more stupid than the average voter.)
“Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.”
The second link should make that explicit. During law school I spent a bunch of time poring over the debates at the Constitutional Convention. Once you internalize the language of "natural aristocracy" and gentlemenly free action, it's really quite obvious.
Second, I am increasingly convinced that the reason historical aristocratic/oligarchic constitutions worked as well as they did had less to do with the inherent merits of such arrangements and more to do with the fact that the catastrophic infant/child mortality and brutal living conditions of pre-modern societies acted as a kind of horrific but efficient mechanism of merit selection. Prior to AD 1900, most of the world lived a hair's breadth away from death by violence, starvation, or disease. Society's capacity for supporting anyone who couldn't pull their own weight (and then some!) and fit in socially was very, very limited. Those who couldn't, tended not to make it. Any slight biological disadvantage, any quirk of circumstance that led to diminished capacity, and people tended to just die.
Such unpleasant realities produced two positive effects. First, population growth was basically flat, meaning that pre-modern societies really didn't have to deal with problems that only emerge at larger scales. Second, those people who did survive tended to be vigorous, productive, and well-adapted/-adjusted to the material and social arrangements of their respective societies. With such demographics, it's not surprising that societies were able to achieve a measure of stability. But I'm somehow skeptical that this was a result of aristocratic/oligarchic constitutions.
Both parties have gone insane, just on different issues.
Democrats believe in open borders that destroy cities (says the mayor of NYC) and working class wages, that people can change their biological sex that destroys the rights of women to privacy and fair sports competition and encourage the sterilization of children as "gender affirming care". They encourage homelessness, crime, and endless deficits. They discriminate against Asians and poor whites seeking education. Their leadership consists of an addled old man and a vacuous, word salad spouting, DEI selected idiot.
Republicans deny the climate change that threatens humanity, denounce the vaccines that reduce deaths from disease, believe that this ( . ) is a 👶 which destroys women's futures, and support a sociopath for president.
This reminds me of what I've heard about vitamin pills and other medicine sold in China. The market and work conditions in China are actually a libertarian's dream, the government regulations are easily ignored and inspectors can be bribed to turn away. Many vitamin pills contain less than what it says on the box, making them cheaper. The cheaper pills are bought by the masses. The real pills are outcompeted and disappear. So the minority who can think and want better pills, can't find them. (Eventually the government comes after the bad pills; the business then disappears, and reopens under a different name. Same with shoddy shoes, jackets, bikes, plastic furniture, etc. In China you buy a cheap bike knowing it will break and later throw it in a ditch.)
Let the masses decide and the few who want quality won't get it. In politics or otherwise. Remember that half of all people have an IQ under average.
(I like saying "half are below average" to make leftist egalitarians angry. They can't oppose it since it will always be true.)
If you're involved in a small party opposing immigration, your main problem is to reach people. Pamphlets, various things to get their attention - we never even stop to think of WHY we should have to reach them and add colorful pictures. They should look up information by themselves and vote accordingly. But everyone knows they don't. In every political campaign that's taken for granted. In order words, EVERYONE KNOWS that the voters are stupid. Someone who needs a pamphlet, a rally, a protest, a speech, pretty pictures, in order to vote for what's right, is stupid.
However, there is democracy in Turkey, Iran, throughout Central Asia, Japan, Taiwan, etc, without leftism taking hold. Not the kind we have, at least. They have it, but it's small. And Americans used to be the most race-aware people in the West; even long after the Confederacy was gone, Americans could elect a president who raised the Dixie flag and was pro-White. Before you have mass immigration of groups who vote Left to loot the majority, it seems it takes media control by a hostile group for truly hateful leftism to spread. Meaning, democracy doesn't seem to inevitably lead to leftism.
Great stuff. Succinct yet comprehensive diagnosis of the systemic illnesses unique to the "democratic" form of political organization. Bravo. I would add that, in order for the natural aristocracy to take over with justice, they would have exempt the disenfranchised from direct taxation and military service, else it would be just another oligarchy.
The worst system in the world, except for all the others. In any case, we have to start from where we are ... in a slowly collapsing semi-democracy/semi-republic.
In the short term, we need to do what is necessary to insure our personal survival should things get really bad. A rough guide is this: could you remain in your house or flat for a month, if water, gas and electricity were cut off, and if it were too dangerous to go outside? And could you repel unwanted 'visitors'? It's fairly easy, and not too expensive, to do this, and simply prudent to do so.
But that's just the first step. The second step is to try, starting now, to link up with like-minded people in your area. An organized group of a dozen or two dozen people is a hundred times as strong as that number of isolated individuals. $25 invested in a Baofeng for each member, and a few group sessions to learn how to program it, and to use it -- determining their range, setting up communications protocols ... means you never need be ignorant of events around you, should the mass communications systems go down.
Then you need to develop, and grow, your group. A hundred random Americans will include one or more vets, a nurse or two, maybe even a doctor, people with practical experience dealing with electrics and similar things ... you can take advantage of specialization and the division of labor, and turn your informal group into a proper Community Defense Team, as these people are doing: https://USCPT.org
The key thing is this: we have to have power. How we use it, what constitutional arrangements a new republic should have, in light of the failures of its predecessors ... these are just pointless academic questions unless we have power. And we all know where power, ultimately, comes from ... with the caveat that only organized people, however well equipped, can wield power. So we have to start building those organizations.
too many wills, from too many people. I prefer the decentralized, smaller area/population idea. common laws and boundaries, both physical and intersectionally, seems to be an avenue (re)explored further and (re)implemented. maybe necessity doesn’t necessarily need to be fathered all locally(although it could) as much anymore, if the right few but far reaching laws were somehow ascertained to prompt effectiveness over dominance. obviously I’m painting broad strokes, and probably getting more or less off our brilliant author’s point. nonetheless, I hope civil rest and prosperity is the product of this thoughtful discussion in some way, shape, or form. God Bless!!?
Monarchy has factional issues as well. War of the Roses? Hundred Years War? King John making the British Crown a vassal to the Pope so he could hire foreign mercenaries to punish the barons for making him sign the Magna Carta?
And then there was the Spanish Crown which squandered the wealth from the New World in order to become Holy Roman Emperor.
Democracy works better when kept local. The Swiss Confederation does rather well. The United States needs more states. Need to break up the bigger (in population) states in order to make votes meaningful. Should go back to indirect election of Senators as well.
And maybe we should have an Electoral College which actually meets. Nationwide campaigns are so horrifically expensive that oligarchy is inevitable. Elect some electors and let them pick the President in convention.
Or maybe we should do as the Swiss and have an executive committee which represents all the major factions. Give that committee the authority to fire civil servants.
“There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” –
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America
"The best argument against democracy is a five--minute conversation with the average voter." -- Winston Churchill
(and as you pointed out, half of them are more stupid than the average voter.)
“Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.”
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited
I understand you to be using the term "democracy" in the Aristotelian sense, and as such I'm willing to basically spot you your critique thereof.
But I'm not at all convinced that "natural aristocracy" is the solution. Two reasons.
First, that's actually what the men who drafted the American Constitution were trying to accomplish.
https://ryandavidson.substack.com/p/searching-for-a-natural-aristocracy-1b8
https://ryandavidson.substack.com/p/searching-for-a-natural-aristocracy-883
The second link should make that explicit. During law school I spent a bunch of time poring over the debates at the Constitutional Convention. Once you internalize the language of "natural aristocracy" and gentlemenly free action, it's really quite obvious.
Second, I am increasingly convinced that the reason historical aristocratic/oligarchic constitutions worked as well as they did had less to do with the inherent merits of such arrangements and more to do with the fact that the catastrophic infant/child mortality and brutal living conditions of pre-modern societies acted as a kind of horrific but efficient mechanism of merit selection. Prior to AD 1900, most of the world lived a hair's breadth away from death by violence, starvation, or disease. Society's capacity for supporting anyone who couldn't pull their own weight (and then some!) and fit in socially was very, very limited. Those who couldn't, tended not to make it. Any slight biological disadvantage, any quirk of circumstance that led to diminished capacity, and people tended to just die.
Such unpleasant realities produced two positive effects. First, population growth was basically flat, meaning that pre-modern societies really didn't have to deal with problems that only emerge at larger scales. Second, those people who did survive tended to be vigorous, productive, and well-adapted/-adjusted to the material and social arrangements of their respective societies. With such demographics, it's not surprising that societies were able to achieve a measure of stability. But I'm somehow skeptical that this was a result of aristocratic/oligarchic constitutions.
Both parties have gone insane, just on different issues.
Democrats believe in open borders that destroy cities (says the mayor of NYC) and working class wages, that people can change their biological sex that destroys the rights of women to privacy and fair sports competition and encourage the sterilization of children as "gender affirming care". They encourage homelessness, crime, and endless deficits. They discriminate against Asians and poor whites seeking education. Their leadership consists of an addled old man and a vacuous, word salad spouting, DEI selected idiot.
Republicans deny the climate change that threatens humanity, denounce the vaccines that reduce deaths from disease, believe that this ( . ) is a 👶 which destroys women's futures, and support a sociopath for president.
A pox on both their houses.
This reminds me of what I've heard about vitamin pills and other medicine sold in China. The market and work conditions in China are actually a libertarian's dream, the government regulations are easily ignored and inspectors can be bribed to turn away. Many vitamin pills contain less than what it says on the box, making them cheaper. The cheaper pills are bought by the masses. The real pills are outcompeted and disappear. So the minority who can think and want better pills, can't find them. (Eventually the government comes after the bad pills; the business then disappears, and reopens under a different name. Same with shoddy shoes, jackets, bikes, plastic furniture, etc. In China you buy a cheap bike knowing it will break and later throw it in a ditch.)
Let the masses decide and the few who want quality won't get it. In politics or otherwise. Remember that half of all people have an IQ under average.
(I like saying "half are below average" to make leftist egalitarians angry. They can't oppose it since it will always be true.)
If you're involved in a small party opposing immigration, your main problem is to reach people. Pamphlets, various things to get their attention - we never even stop to think of WHY we should have to reach them and add colorful pictures. They should look up information by themselves and vote accordingly. But everyone knows they don't. In every political campaign that's taken for granted. In order words, EVERYONE KNOWS that the voters are stupid. Someone who needs a pamphlet, a rally, a protest, a speech, pretty pictures, in order to vote for what's right, is stupid.
However, there is democracy in Turkey, Iran, throughout Central Asia, Japan, Taiwan, etc, without leftism taking hold. Not the kind we have, at least. They have it, but it's small. And Americans used to be the most race-aware people in the West; even long after the Confederacy was gone, Americans could elect a president who raised the Dixie flag and was pro-White. Before you have mass immigration of groups who vote Left to loot the majority, it seems it takes media control by a hostile group for truly hateful leftism to spread. Meaning, democracy doesn't seem to inevitably lead to leftism.
Great stuff. Succinct yet comprehensive diagnosis of the systemic illnesses unique to the "democratic" form of political organization. Bravo. I would add that, in order for the natural aristocracy to take over with justice, they would have exempt the disenfranchised from direct taxation and military service, else it would be just another oligarchy.
I think Timocracy needs to be given a try, but that’s just me.
Machiavelli have a very sharp take on the government in this brilliant review of his works
Machiavellian Democracy https://a.co/d/7ItF5xU
The worst system in the world, except for all the others. In any case, we have to start from where we are ... in a slowly collapsing semi-democracy/semi-republic.
In the short term, we need to do what is necessary to insure our personal survival should things get really bad. A rough guide is this: could you remain in your house or flat for a month, if water, gas and electricity were cut off, and if it were too dangerous to go outside? And could you repel unwanted 'visitors'? It's fairly easy, and not too expensive, to do this, and simply prudent to do so.
But that's just the first step. The second step is to try, starting now, to link up with like-minded people in your area. An organized group of a dozen or two dozen people is a hundred times as strong as that number of isolated individuals. $25 invested in a Baofeng for each member, and a few group sessions to learn how to program it, and to use it -- determining their range, setting up communications protocols ... means you never need be ignorant of events around you, should the mass communications systems go down.
Then you need to develop, and grow, your group. A hundred random Americans will include one or more vets, a nurse or two, maybe even a doctor, people with practical experience dealing with electrics and similar things ... you can take advantage of specialization and the division of labor, and turn your informal group into a proper Community Defense Team, as these people are doing: https://USCPT.org
The key thing is this: we have to have power. How we use it, what constitutional arrangements a new republic should have, in light of the failures of its predecessors ... these are just pointless academic questions unless we have power. And we all know where power, ultimately, comes from ... with the caveat that only organized people, however well equipped, can wield power. So we have to start building those organizations.
Democracy is soldiers voting or it’s fraud. This has long been fraud.
too many wills, from too many people. I prefer the decentralized, smaller area/population idea. common laws and boundaries, both physical and intersectionally, seems to be an avenue (re)explored further and (re)implemented. maybe necessity doesn’t necessarily need to be fathered all locally(although it could) as much anymore, if the right few but far reaching laws were somehow ascertained to prompt effectiveness over dominance. obviously I’m painting broad strokes, and probably getting more or less off our brilliant author’s point. nonetheless, I hope civil rest and prosperity is the product of this thoughtful discussion in some way, shape, or form. God Bless!!?