Tag: Democracy

CCCLXXXVI – With A Sand Pail At The Black Gate

It is good to spread good news, it is good to fight evil.

Quietism takes the attitude of refusing to concern oneself with a specific arena. Politics, palace intrigue, parish council, etc.

Activism takes the attitude of actively concerning oneself with specific arenas. Politics, palace intrigue, parish council, etc.

Quietism is not a refusal to fight. The spiritual battle can be taken up by prayer–praying the rosary does more to both oppose the evil one and to stay the vengeful hand of God than any political victory ever won. The first and foremost front of the spiritual battle is the self. As Zippy has said, “The problem is you and the solution is repentance.” Keep close to the sacraments, and real work will be done to oppose evil.

To an activist, quietism and cowardice might look the same. “Here I am rallying men and elves to form an army and march on the gates of Mordor, and where are you? what are you doing to help?”

Activism is not always a productive fight. We have limited influence in politics, we have limited exposure to palace intrigue, parish councils can easily be as fruitless and tyrannical as a neighborhood HOA. The political battle is usually a showy and emotionally exhausting effort, but neither is it always a vain effort. As JMSmith likes to say–you may be uninterested in politics but politics is very interested in you. There is some kind of a real work to be done in these arenas. I would only caution that one should restrict ones investment to ones level of influence. I leave it to the reader to determine what that level is.

To a quietist, activism might look like a vain and fruitless Sisyphusian task. “Here I am with my sand pail digging away at the foundations of Mordor, and where are you? Off galivanting among the men and elves? What are you doing to help?”

I think it is wrong for each to accuse the other of doing nothing. It is right for each to encourage the other to consider what actual good is being done. It is important to remember that some active works have invisible fruits; some invisible works have active fruits; and it is hard to measure the worth of both.

I prefer disentangling myself from political activism and palace intrigue because worrying about them doesn’t help me. In fact I have observed it to be deleterious to my spiritual health to overly concern myself with these things. Some people have a deeper appetite for political action and palace intrigue, but I have next to none. I pray often for the good of the world, the Church, and the state. God knows what good it does–I mean that as a statement of fact and not futility. I commend to God the fate of political outcomes. Maybe God inspires you to be politically active. Maybe you think the exact opposite of the way I think. May God guide and inspire you to take the actions that are the most good.

I do think, however, that the only fruits we will have in abundance on this side of the eschaton are the invisible ones.

AMDG

Editors Note: Sorry for the abundance of posts. My cup floweth over at odd times, and I have a planned hiatus coming up. My cup will run out eventually. Thank you for reading. God bless you all!

CCCXXXI – Winners, Losers, and N/A

Or, An Apologia For Idiocy, Part 2

Chivalric Catholic has ably laid out a response to my volley as regards voting. In the comments, I discussed a few points of clarification and I think between his articles and comments and my own (with the support and a separate line of attack ably set forth by Jack in the comments), we have set the stage and have clearly defined parameters for what we are talking about.

I am not, however, going to do a point by point response to Chivalric Catholic’s post–in the comments I said I like to get at first principles, to try to go back through the taxonomy of dialectic and find our first common ancestor and then examine where our worldviews diverge. I think I have identified it, but in looking through my post and CC’s response, I don’t think I made the point explicit. So here I will lay out what I think the root is and then respond to some general principles CC identified in his post.

Not My President

The key question is this: Who is bound by the results of a vote?

I approach this idea in two places. Here:

Another ironclad truth is that the losers of a vote are bound by the results of the vote as much as the winners.

and here:

Would your [opinion as to who committed an evil act] be different if the Population voted 60/40 to legalize abortion? If the vote was 50/50, with the legalize abortion crowd winning by 1 vote? What if the population voted unanimously, minus one dissenting vote?

Chivalric Catholic responds to the latter argument here:

Well, the short answer is that the ones who committed an evil act are the ones who tried to make abortion legal. Whether that is a single king or a majority of citizens is irrelevant, since a person is only responsible for his or her own actions. Whether it is a single king or 51% of voters is irrelevant.

Let me digress for a moment. When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, there were immediate protests. Trump won the office with a majority of electoral votes but a minority of raw votes. Our political system determines political victory based on the electoral college, so Trump won in the only sense that mattered. Our system is a Republic, and the electoral college is the “republican” system (in the political systems sense, not the political party sense). Our forefathers established this system and everyone up until this election agreed to the rules.

Because of political polarization, the side with the most raw votes lost and took to the streets in protest. They made a few general arguments. First, that because Trump lost the popular vote, he was not their president–that their allegiance lay only with who they voted for, and not with the person whom their political system determined would be the president. They also argued that the people who lost would also not be represented–that Trump would only cater to the interests of the people who voted for him, and not for the people who voted against him.

My position is that both of these arguments are wrong, and both of these arguments illustrate the dangers of classical liberalism.

I Pledge Allegiance To My Vote

The protestors first argument was that their allegiance lay with the winner of the popular vote, and not with the person whom the system produced as victor. This is obviously fallacious, but there is some sense to it. Because they lost, so their implicit reasoning goes, they are excluded from the political system, and so in absence of a leader for the excluded people, they choose their candidate. It is almost a “government-in-exile” argument.

One of the logical consequences of this argument is that the side that wins only has legitimacy to the polity that won, and has no legitimacy to the polity that lost. In other words–Trump enjoyed 100% support from the electorate, because the 48% that did not vote for him don’t count.

This line of thinking is false, dangerous, and a natural consequence of classical liberalism.

This line of thinking is false because, as I have argued elsewhere, when you consent to the process you consent to the outcome. Trump ruled over the 46% of people who voted for him and the 48% who did not. The losers of the vote are citizens, and thereby acknowledge and accept and agree to obey the political customs of the United States of America, and one of those political customs is that we decide presidential elections by voting, and then aggregate our votes using the Electoral College, and the Electoral College decides on the outcome of the election. The losers of the vote are bound by that outcome, and if Trump passed a law that declared long hair illegal, even if that law were unjust, both the people who voted for him and the people who did not would be bound by that law.

This line of thinking is dangerous because it creates political instability. If 48% of the populace refuses to abide by the political customs they are bound to as citizens of the United States of America, then there is a question as to which political customs they would accept. The whole exercise is destabilizing. In order to have a stable government, even in a democracy, everyone must agree to the rules and stick to them even when it hurts. This applies to any form of government.

This line of thinking is a natural consequence of classical liberalism, because classical liberalism teaches us that we have the power to decide the presidency. At the turn of the century, there was a politician named Huey Long who Hambone and I like to talk about as a man too wise for his own good. He was a socialist candidate, and his slogan was “Every man a king”. This is exactly what classical liberalism makes us think and believe–every man is a king–or could be king–or if not, could decide who is king. This is exactly what voting is–it is deciding who will be an agent for the people, who collectively are sovereign.

Ruler over those who agree to be ruled

The second argument implicit in the anti-Trump protests was that the people who did not vote for him were not represented. Trump only needed to pander to the interests of the people who voted for him, and everyone else had to wait their turn to rule.

The problem with this argument is partly what I discuss above–that the losers of the vote are equally bound by the outcome. The other part is that is the reciprocal: the winner of the vote is equally ruler over the people who do not want him to rule.

We see this problem all the time in Medieval times–a King dies, his unpopular brother takes the throne, he has to scramble to make peace and assuage all the subtle factions to ensure they don’t assassinate him or the people don’t rise up in revolt. A King is one flesh with his people and that includes the people who hate his guts. A sovereign who only pandered to the people who liked him would quickly find himself unpopular and on the outs. A sovereign who tried too hard to appease the people who hate him would quickly find himself unable to please anyone and unable to get anything done. A sovereign must strike a balance and must find a way to rule an entire people with tender, loving, filial care.

Abortion, Democracy, and Why Your Vote Matters

We have now all the pieces, I think. Let’s suppose for example that abortion was to be decided by plebiscite, a national-scale referendum where the Government would put it to the people a heads-or-tails vote, this simple question: “Should Abortion be legal? Yes or no.” The Government would then adopt a binding resolution turning the outcome of this vote into law.

You would be tempted to muster all your Catholic buddies and go to the polls on plebiscite day in order to pack the ballot for a big ol’ HAIL NAW. But then something shocking happens: The next day, the newspapers all shout the headline on the front page: Abortion Should Be Legal.

You are tempted to console yourself and your friends–hey, at least we did the right thing, at least we voted no.

This argument is the same as saying Trump is not your president because you didn’t vote for him. The outcome of the vote does not determine the morality of the vote, neither does the way you vote determine the morality of the vote. The act of voting consents to the outcome, be it “yes” or “no”, before you ever know the results of the vote. In other words, you consent that by voting abortion might become legal anyway and that you agree to abide by that outcome. Your act of voting is to intrinsically consent to the proposition that abortion may be legal and the process of voting is simply the way of determining whether abortion is legal. If the pro-abortion side wins, then the only acceptable response of a good democrat is to say “Oh, I guess Abortion is legal after all!”

Well Intended Principles

Chivalric Catholic is nevertheless right that the Church does not admonish democracy as a political system, nor does the Church admonish civic participation, and further still the Church encourages us to make the best with what we’ve got.

The United States of America and other classically liberal polities are not intrinsically evil, but you see how voting can force you–without realizing it–to consent to evil. Further still, there are other forms of civic participation that can do more tangible good than voting. Hambone likes to describe the ballot box as a “revolution release valve”–we get whipped up into a political fervor, go to the ballot, let off some steam, and go home thinking we’ve done something. You have done something, but perhaps not what or as much as you thought.

This is where the “proportionate reason” line of argument comes in, which I am not very well versed in so this is where I will pass the baton to Jack if he would like to pick up on that line of reasoning.

As far as I understand, the “proportionate reason” argument says that the definite discernable good of a given act is what is important, and the definite discernable good of voting is so miniscule as to be meaningless. Therefore, if the decision to vote comes down to a prudential judgement, pragmatic analysis should result in deciding not to vote.

But again–I may be misrepresenting Zippy’s line there.

Thanks are due, again, to Chivalric Catholic for his fair minded engagement (not to mention the excellent content he puts out otherwise), and I look forward to seeing what he has to say in response. Jack, not to put pressure on you but I hope to see a primer on the “proportionate reason” argument because that has always been hard for me to understand.

God bless you all!

AMDG

CCCXXVI – From Athens to Tyranny

There’s a video about the Constitution of Athens on Youtube which is really interesting. It made me realize a logical argument contra democracy, which I will share with you here.

The evolution of Athenian democracy goes like this: They began with a council of elders who chose the three top bureaucrats who divided the executive power of government. This was the Oligarchy period, which came to a close when a prolonged dispute between factions in the council of elders stopped all public business. They appointed a reformer to fix the issues to one of the top three bureaucratic spots, and he began turning Athens into a democracy. His first reforms expanded voting rights, changed some of the duties of the bureaucrats. After some time and this reformer was gone, this limited democracy experienced severe factionalism. New reforms were implemented to further expand voting, further subdivide the factions, and further reduce the importance of the bureaucrats. The video goes into all of these steps in more interesting detail.

What this made me realize is that factionalism is a feature of democracy, not a flaw. It is impossible to have democracy without factionalism.

Consider this: A new government exists with two factions evenly split, Faction A and Faction B. The deadlock causes political and social friction, but over time most of society begins adopting Faction A. Eventually all of society belongs to Faction A, and they can implement their policies without opposition. They have “Won” democracy, and are now a tyranny. Democracy is “stable” precisely because it has many factions in tension, and when any faction gets power they will seek to wield it with tyrannical authority to remove the opposition to their faction. This creates a counterbalance in favor of the opposition, and the pendulum swings the other way for a time.

All democracies either swing between factions or rest on a singular authority. There is no avoiding this. It is possible for a democracy to exist in a kind of equilibrium where it is A) Culturally homogeneous, and B) not under any polarizing tension from within or without.

Cultural homogeneity is required for a peaceful equilibrium because it means there is a common agreement as to values and no faction would deviate too significantly from those values. The second a faction does deviate, there would be an extreme backlash. This creates a negative pressure on reform, and leads to factions that are not too different from each other so they all enjoy an evenly spread appeal among the electorate.

Avoiding polarizing tension is required for a peaceful equilibrium because as long as a state exists in a peace, and given that it is culturally homogeneous, then there is no force which would polarize its populace. No invaders, no sedition.

Switzerland is a democracy, and is stable because it is cultural homogeneous and stays (mostly) neutral in foreign conflicts. Sweden is a democracy and has been historically neutral, but has had some instability introduced due to an influx of middle eastern refugees and recently due to threats from Russia. Sweden is actively grappling with these issues, as I understand it, and has not returned to a stable equilibrium.

America is a democracy, but does not have cultural homogeneity, and is not free from internal or external polarizing factors. As a consequence our factionalism is strong and intense, and will remain so until the equalizing factors are achieved.

Monarchy is stable, in contrast, because stability is imposed on it from an authoritative central figure. Legitimacy, Validity, Licity are the factors for a stable government, in addition to cultural homogeneity. The culture must accept the terms of succession, and the succession must happen a particular way–then there will be no issues.

AMDG

CCCXXII – Sunshine On Democracy

I watched a movie recently called “Sunshine“. I had watched it before, many years ago, […]. Obviously since then I have changed a lot and so I was primed to notice some key moments that perhaps they hoped would go unnoticed.

If you have not seen the movie, here’s the quick premise: The sun is dying and humanity mined all of the fissile material on earth to launch towards the sun and detonate it, and so reignite the sun. The crew is riding on a ship called the Icarus II, the Icarus I lost contact and their fate is unknown. There are 7 specialists as the crew on each ship.

There are two votes that happen in this movie–two demonstrations of democracy in action. I will share the parables and then we can break them down.

The first vote happens when the crew discovers the location of the Icarus I. The “antagonist” opposes diverting the mission to see if they can help the Icarus I. The psychologist on the mission believes that using the resources aboard the Icarus I–including the undelivered payload–could be helpful. The antagonist says “Let’s vote!” but the psychologist says “This is not a democracy–we are a bunch of astronauts and scientists, we are going to make the best decision available to us.” Rather than consult data and begin weighing options, the decision is handed to the Physicist (the protagonist) to make unilaterally.

The second vote happens in the middle of the third act, the visit to Icarus I has gone horribly wrong and several people have died as a consequence. The crew member whose hapless error caused a death is on a suicide watch. Their mistake also caused the burning of the Oxygen-generating eco lab, so oxygen is now a limited resource. The same antagonist from earlier proposes killing the suicide-risk member of the crew–but proposes the other crew vote on it and demands a unanimous decision. Three of the four people vote in favor, except for one, the pilot, who opposes. The antagonist decides to kill the crew member anyway, despite not receiving the unanimous vote he requested.

What the heck is going on?

In the first case, a vote is proposed, but they declare “no need” because of their intellectual pedigree, and allow one member of the crew to decide unilaterally. In the second case, a vote is proposed, and they demand consent, but in the face of opposition one member of the crew decides unilaterally. In both instances, the resulting decision was unilateral and indifferent to other viewpoints.

The first situation falls to scientism, the religious-like belief that the intelligent and scientific form a priestly class. This is why the decision was handed to the Physicist-Astronaut–the ultimate priest of scientism. In the film, the decision ultimately came down to a utilitarian one: two bombs is better than one, lets see if we can get a second payload to deliver to the sun. There was no gnostic, hidden wisdom–it was a numbers game. The democratic choice may have considered other points of view, irrelevant data. A truly scientific approach would have spent more time on analysis and running scenarios. Both of these represent an abdication on the part of the captain to authoritatively rule his crew. The decision, and it’s consequences, ought to have rested with him. The first vote represents the abdication of a kingly sovereign to the masses, and the masses make bad decisions under a pretense of legitimacy they invented for themselves.

The second situation falls to tyrannical utilitarianism. It is tyrannical because it did not follow the rules it set for itself. It is utilitarian because it weighed the value of a human life, which they did not have the authority to do. The one opponent–the conservative–voted no, and when told that her vote didn’t matter, simply shrugged and said “find some kindness” when you murder the crewmate. Conservatives and right liberals do that a lot. They vote, and when told their vote was meaningless, they shrug and say “please abuse us nicely”. Rules and procedures exist for a reason, and if the Captain had been alive he at least would have had some semblance of authority and legitimacy to add to the proceedings. The captain is one of the people who died in the blunder after the first vote, so he was not present. It is telling that the King died when the people took control.

There’s a lot more I could read into this, but I thought it was interesting. It’s a good movie in it’s own right, and there’s lots of little symbolisms that I hadn’t noticed on previous watch throughs. I hope you watch it, and if you can’t take your traditionalist-reactionary hats off, let me know what you think of my analysis of democracy from the movie.

AMDG

CCLXXXVII – High Bloodline Pressure

There’s a new blog I discovered in my poking about wordpress, the Catholic Monarchist and it’s author JackYankton, who has been writing an interesting series on the virtues and values of Monarchy. I don’t know if he realizes he is a traditionalist reactionary, but I encourage those of you interested to check him out and I hope he finds his way to the broader traditionalist reactionary circle which inspires my writing here.

His latest article led me to comment about the stability of bloodlines, which connects to a thought I’ve been considering for a long time, regarding how to prevent a monarchy from devolving into tyrannical despotism.

First, regarding bloodline driven transfers of power. The least stable time in any government is always the transfer of power. In America they have become decreasingly peaceful over time, and in Medieval times they were almost always perilous (as I understand it). The important thing when any transfer of power happens is 1) That the incoming sovereign has a legitimate claim; 2) that the incoming sovereign is seated using valid forms; 3) that the incoming sovereign is seated using licit forms. Legitimacy, Validity, Licity, are the three pillars that make for a stable transfer of power. The popular acclaim will accept a new sovereign only if he has all three. If any one is questionable, there will be instability. This is true of any political system.

The advantage of a bloodline based system is it creates unambiguous legitimacy. Either you are or are not the child of the previous sovereign. Questions arise when a monarch has no children–then you turn to siblings or other more distant relatives. But there is a definitive hierarchy: if the previous sovereign was the eldest child, and is himself childless, then rule transfers to the sovereigns next youngest sibling, or their child. This is all made much more simple if the sovereign is a Perfectly Formed Catholic (PFC), as mistresses, divorce, and the like make determining the hierarchy confusing. If the Monarch behaves, then bloodline can be an extremely stable source of legitimacy.

Coronation Mass is a very stable form of ensuring a Valid and Licit sovereign. Once Legitimacy is established, the throne must be claimed following the prescribed rites and then the transfer of power is complete. In the biography of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, St. Joan refused to acknowledge Charles as King until his coronation, until that point referring to him as “The Dauphin”.

In America, instead of bloodlines we have elections; instead of coronations we have inaugurations. Both serve the same purpose–establishing legitimacy and creating a rite which ensures the popular acceptance of the new leader. Elections are more ambiguous than birthright, so inherently introduces an element of instability which can fester and grow. We saw this throughout the Trump presidency–around that time I stopped paying attention to politics, so I don’t know if anyone is making similar agitations about the current president (please don’t tell me if they are–ignorance is bliss).

There is a natural question which follows from this: Once a leader has taken power and received popular acclaim, what stops him from descending into tyranny? We know as sovereign his filial obligation binds him to a duty of custodial care. But what if he ignores that duty? Really–what can we do if our father is a violent abuser? We have recourse to the Mother, she in prudence separates for a while to protect the health and wellness of herself and her children. In a Monarchy, it is really only the Queen Mother who plays that role (like Mama Mary). That is not a great control because the Queen Mother is as likely to be tyrannical as the Sovereign. The American Revolution felt that tyranny must inherently be overthrown, and took the attitude that all monarchy was tyrannical–this is too much of a reaction, as well.

There are three protections for the subjects from a bad sovereign. First is Tradition, which limits the sovereign in behavior and custom. Second is formation, which inoculates the sovereign against being tyrannical by forming him in the first place to have strong and positive values. Third is agitation, which is when the peasantry voice their discontent to the sovereign in varying degrees of peacefulness. Argument is a natural part of a family life, sometimes it is normal that a husband and wife should argue, or that children should argue, to ensure their demands are heard whether they are reasonable or not. The sovereign is not required to oblige every demand voiced, but the sovereign cannot address a problem he does not know about. A sovereign who is confronted with the ill fruit of his decisions on a daily basis must necessarily come to realize that he is the source of that fruit.

If a sovereign does not value tradition, is not formed with strong values, and is protected from hearing the vox populi, he will surely become a tyrant. This is true in a democracy as much as it is in a monarchy. Once a tyrant becomes a tyrant, we must pray for a change of heart, obey his lawful commands, and wait for him to die a natural death, and pray that his issue are more just than he is.

AMDG

CCLXXXIV – One Flesh

In Scripture, we see Adam and Eve referred to as “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”. This is unifying oneness, two becoming one before God. The sacrament of Marriage mirrors this. We also see this language used to refer to Kings: From 2 Samuel 5:1-4:

Then all the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron, saying: “Behold we are thy bone and thy flesh. Moreover yesterday also and the day before, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that did lead out and bring in Israel: and the Lord said to thee: Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over Israel.”

The ancients also of Israel came to the king to Hebron, and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed David to be king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.

In this case, the people acknowledge David as being victorious in his battles and claim they are united to him in the same way a husband and wife are united–as bone of bone, flesh of flesh. David begins his reign over Israel as a father rules over his children, with custodial care for his family.

This is the care with which a sovereign must reign, it makes explicit that duty of care and that the role of sovereign is not a mere title to be claimed but a distinct responsibility. A husband must care for his wife, and a wife must care for her husband–the relationship goes both directions, but each has a duty to each. So to between a Sovereign and a people.

It is this dynamic that becomes complicated in a democracy. If the people are sovereign, as I have argued, then to whom do the people cleave? Themselves? To whom is owed a duty of custodial care? From whom is received that care? There’s no way to ease into the punchline: Democracy is narcissism. A people promising to love and honor themselves, and take care of themselves, and they don’t need anyone else. The sovereign marriage is between a sovereign and a people–in democracy, a people are married to themselves. The analogy is a husband marrying himself, promising to take care of himself and rule over himself. It is fundamentally incoherent. This is why Democracy, and the Liberal ideology from which it arises, is disastrous.

In such a condition, the people usurp the position and power and responsibilities of the missing spouse, the sovereign. All ownership is derived from the sovereign, but without the sovereign the logic is recursive. All ownership is derived from the people, and the people receive from themselves the delegated authority to acquire property, and they promise to use it to the ends selected by themselves for the custodial care of themselves. What?

Since the French Revolution, liberal institutions and democracies have been sustained but they must be fed and fueled. They must be balanced by something. It takes energy, consumes effort to sustain such an unnatural dynamic. I can’t predict the future but the instability we are seeing here in the USA and which is apparent in democratic societies around the world is directly related to this unstable dynamic.

It is this understanding of the Sovereign that will inform the rest of our discussions on the topic.

AMDG

CCLXV – Liberalism Colored Glasses

My previous article generated more discussion in the comments for which I am grateful. I wasn’t quick enough on the draw to chime in while it was going on but now that I’ve had some time to think on it and have a moment to write, I will comment here. The discussion covered a lot of ground but there’s a common thread that is worthy of comment.

“Right” and “left” as political appellations are unhelpful for discussion of ideas which transcend them. We have to be very particular with our terms because it is very easy to get turned around. When we are talking about Liberalism, we are talking about the political philosophy. In American politics, the reason we refer to republicans and democrats as “right liberals” and “left liberals” is because both republicans and democrats beg the question of liberalism as a political philosophy. Given liberalism, their attitude is right or left. “right liberal” and “left liberal” is helpful as a way of aggregating other flavors of liberalism, so we don’t get confused by their names, because they are all merely kinds of liberalism.

My articles on Sovereigns transcends liberalism, and so makes it difficult to use the language of liberalism. I don’t know what exactly to call it, but I’m proposing to step outside the paradigm and look back in. If we stay inside the paradigm, it obscures the discussion. For example, when I suggested that the People writ large are sovereign in a democratic nation, it was counter-proposed that only the majority is sovereign–this immediately leads to quagmire in the left-right-liberal divide.

It is important to be able to ignore left-right-liberal thinking because it will allow us to see more-or-less honestly what is actually happening in our contemporary politics. For example, the problem is not that left-liberals have some number in the legislature, nor that right liberals have the state houses, but that both left liberals and right liberals are committed to the political philosophy of liberalism.

The political philosophy of liberalism is what is the problem. I think that’s why there’s some measure of talking-past-each-other among the traditionalist-reactionary circles. In the Zippy School, liberalism is plainly observable and problematic and the problem becomes one of how to co-exist in a society committed to liberalism and what can be done to protect oneself and ones community from the liberal Cerberus on a fraying leash. The other side, which due to recency bias I will call the Roebuck School, has observed that something is wrong and has identified left-liberals as part of the problem but which retains the commitment to liberalism. In the Zippy School, liberalism is the enemy and spells doom. In the Roebuck school, liberalism is the enemy in the hands of left-liberals, but can be redeemed by right-thinking right-liberals.

The Roebuck school can’t see outside the liberal paradigm, and so operates within it. The same way I can’t see my eyes because they are a part of me, they can’t see liberalism because it is a part of them. I don’t begrudge their well intended beliefs, held sincerely–but they can’t address the problem, properly construed.

In the comments, JMSmith makes the point that “Democracy must always tend towards the abolition of private property and the establishment of communism.” Democracy is the petri dish in which liberalism thrives, so the following syllogism is valid:

Democracy tends to abolish private property
Democracy is a kind of Liberalism
Liberalism tends to abolish private property.

It is not merely left-liberals that tend to the abolition of private property, but all liberalism. This is the key point:

Right-liberals, while anti-communist in posture (right now), are committed to the eventual abolition of private property through their commitment to liberalism. Right liberals are not fighting against liberalism, they are fighting to control liberalism so they are the ones in charge when private property is abolished.

This is a counter-intuitive thought. How can a well-intended right liberal, who is anti-communist, be committed to the abolition of private property merely through being right-liberal and having taken no action towards that end?

Let me help clarify by restating it.

How can a well-intended accountant, who is anti-abortion, be committed to killing babies merely through working for planned parenthood, even though he has taken no action towards that end?

By materially supporting the political philosophy all actions undertaken will work towards perpetuating that political philosophy. This is not a question of left-liberal control or right-liberal control, this is a question of material support for the problematic political philosophy.

And so! What can be done about it? DavidtheBarbarian says:

I disagree with Scoot, to paraphrase, that there is no way to participate in the decline to slow or guide it towards some “safe space.” I think it is like mucking out the Augean stables. It is dirty and it requires heroic virtue to accomplish and not become dirty thereby, but it is worthwhile.

I would suggest that David is operating under the misapprehension that the problem is left-liberals and not liberalism as a whole. In that case, “participating in the decline” cannot help but perpetuate the political philosophy which is the real problem. To paraphrase Bruce Charlton in a comment from Orthosphere, it is the Boromir Option: trying to use the one ring against Sauron. You can’t fix a broken car while you are driving it. Ceasing to vote, which is the choice I have made, serves at least to cease perpetuating the political philosophy of Liberalism.

So that leaves the question of “what can be done” unanswered. Here’s what I say: Serve your community. Improve yourself. Perform the Works of Mercy. These will do more to soften the blow than any vote you could ever make. Even if you still want to vote, if you commit to these things, you will improve the world around you.

But I still think you shouldn’t vote!

AMDG

CCLXI – Veritable Heritability

Over thanksgiving […] I visited my family and […] enjoyed watching a television show called Downton Abbey. It’s good harmless fun and served as a macguffin for a lot of good conversation. During one conversation about the TV show, one among my family made a comment to this effect:

I don’t respect inherited wealth or titles because the recipient did no work to earn it. Inherited wealth and titles leads to decadence because hard working generations beget spoiled and comfortable generations, which squander the wealth and didn’t learn how to earn it. That’s why I don’t respect Monarch’s and such, too–they didn’t learn to rule they were just given authority.

My immediate reaction was to think about why I have such a fondness for Monarchy. Monarchy with a big caveat–rule by a Perfectly Formed Catholic (PFC) Monarch. That’s a tall order even on a good day. But still–in contrast to democracy, is it better to be given authority by birthright or is it better to be chosen by a game theoretical contest? Does asking people for authority select for better rulers?

The chief virtue in my family members opinion is work ethic–one cannot inherit work ethic, it must be chosen individually and in their imaginings the hardest working will be the most successful.

I think this is not true even if we assume a society of PFC‘s and ignore any deliberate evil in our fellow man. In a perfectly competitive market of individuals, sometimes the first to work will come to dominate other hard working late comers. Hard work is good, but material success does not imply virtue. There are people in the world working diligently for the ends of evil. That is why it is not enough that one works hard.

Inherited wealth is not inherently bad–nor are inherited titles. It’s merely a mechanism for transferring stuff from one person to another. Legitimacy is all about following the proper forms for transfer. In America, our proper forms involve game theoretical contests on a massive scale. In Medieval Europe, the proper forms involved coronation Masses and bloodlines. Both are semi-arbitrary but neither is better. Assuming our forms of legitimacy is better is just current-year-ism. Good rulers can certainly come from weird but legitimate forms–but so can bad ones.

CCXLV – Keeping Up with President Jones

A feature of democracy is that anyone can rule. It is also a flaw.

When even Joe the Plumber can be King, instead of thinking of obedience to the King, everyone thinks “well if he can do it I could surely do much better”.

Democracy kills the relationship between Sovereign and Subject because instead of the subjects learning to love their sovereign, they begin planning to do his job better. It’s like keeping up with the Joneses but the Joneses are King so the only way to one-up is to be a better King.