CDXLII – Torturing An Analogy

This is a small part of JMSmiths latest, but since I have spent so much time in this space decrying voting I wanted to both share a useful analogy and torture it to death in the service of my own cynical aims.

JMSmith introduces us to the analogy of the five hungry men:

Five hungry men can vote on where they will go for lunch, provided their palates and budgets are broadly similar.  But five men cannot operate as democracy if all five men are not hungry, or their palates and budgets are radically dissimilar.  Any vote in the second group will cause radical dissatisfaction, very possibly revolt, in the minority that is forced to do, or eat, or spend what it really, truly does not wish to do, or eat, or spend.

The point of Smith’s article is not about voting, it is about something else. It is interesting in it’s own right, but I am interested in voting.

Smith is only suggesting that democracy fails when the five men are not hungry, or “their palates and budgets are radically dissimilar”. This is true. Because I am a fan of organized structures, let’s call this failure a Type I failure–the voting population is not equally hungry, wealthy, or tasteful.

Voting has another kind of failure. Five hungry men must first agree to vote on where they will go for lunch. None of the five hungry men is especially evil, none of the five hungry men is especially virtuous. By agreeing to vote on where they will go for lunch, they are agreeing to the decision making power of the collective. When the five men agree to vote on this decision, they are in effect saying “I will go eat lunch at the place we agree to go to lunch.” This is an unstated predicate to the analogy. But it causes problems if the five hungry men disagree. Let’s say each of the five men proposes a different place to eat, and votes for their own idea. Let’s call this a Type II failure–the voting population cannot agree on a path forward and so arrives at a stalemate. To be clear, a Type II failure includes everyone voting having a different idea, or exactly 50% thinking one thing and 50% thinking another. These are situations where people vote and no outcome is determined.

Because the five hungry men must agree to vote, and so agrees to the outcome of the vote, what if the outcome is morally bad? In an effort to resolve the stalemate, one of the savvy hungry men suggests that everyone goes to a strip club to eat, hoping that a majority of men will be enticed by something other than the promise of food. This illustrates a Type III failure–the voting population agrees to something morally ill, thereby binding those virtuous voters to the same moral ill.

You might be tempted to say, wait a minute, why don’t those virtuous voters leave and go somewhere else? They don’t have to go to the strip club! If this analogy were on a national scale, the idea of “taking your ball and going home” is also known as “secession“. Let’s call this a Type IV failure–some segment of the population is so offended that they organize their own votes and go their own way. They fragment from the main body in the hopes that doing so leaves them more equal in the way JMSmith described. Let me hammer this point home: If you don’t like the outcome of a vote, rejecting the outcome is secession (in thought and word if not deed). The alternative is remaining loyal to a voting system that is designed to eventually produce evil outcomes. Voters are stuck between a rock and a hard place: Secession or Evil.

There’s one more failure that I can think of. This is when the five hungry men are not all good faith voters. Let’s say one of the men has been sponsored by Joe’s Burger Joint, and has been paid to bring in customers. The five men vote and this sponsored man makes a heartfelt appeal that all of them should eat at Joe’s Burger Joint. The vote is cast and the outcome is that the men agree to go to JBJ. This is a Type V failure of voting–it was not an honest appraisal of the options. This dishonest appraisal of the options can come in the form of corruption, of people willing to pay for their preference to win, etc. The dishonest deal of one paid agent for an outside party has led to a decision which is legitimized by the crowd. Let’s say they all get food poisoning and somehow learn that the man was paid by JBJ to suggest it. When they confront him, he replies (correctly), “Hey I just suggested it, you all voted for it!”

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America suffers variously from all five failures.

Type I – The voting population is not culturally, economically, morally homogeneous. This leads to different weights for different options, and different incentive structures in different places.

Type II – Americans are more or less 50/50 between either political party, and cannot agree on a path forward. Each party has a drastically different idea, which leads to stalemates and instability.

Type III – Abortion is legal. Hopefully not for long. But it is legal. ‘Nuff said here.

Type IV – Agitators on all sides of politics like to occasionally bring up secession. Either fragmenting states, forming a new country. All the other errors lead to moderately homogeneous groups to desire their own domain where their votes would not be so error prone.

Type V – Corporations, Countries, and other interested parties consistently lobby politicians and pay for public agents such that the public discourse is not one of honest appraisal of ideas. An outside party with an agenda has paid for the privilege to influence the discussion of the matter up for a vote.

One way you, personally, can avoid contributing to all of these failures and even help fix them:

Don’t Vote.

AMDG

CCCLII – Else, Instead, Next

Or, An Apologia for Idiocy, Part 4
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Jack’s Additions)

I spent the last article refining my case against classical liberalism, but there are some glaring and obvious questions that would pop up and that are important to address so we can turn this diss-track contra democracy into something productive and forward looking. There are three questions, and I will take them in turn. This article has been sitting in my drafts for an awfully long time so whatever I originally intended here, I am going to abbreviate and perhaps expand on later.

What else can we do if we do not vote?

Anything. Any action can make a difference. Top of the list should be prayer. Second, consider the Corporal and Spiritual works of mercy. Govern your life seriously, and in conformity with the truths of the Church, and you will be amazed at the difference you can make on the society immediately around you.

There’s an anecdote I read many years ago, about an experiment in traffic. On the highway, stop-and-go traffic can start by any sudden slowdown, and begin a chain reaction that lasts for hours, even after the original obstruction is cleared. But stop-and-go traffic naturally means that you can travel at the average speed, such that you are slow during the clear periods and time your pace to arrive at the stopped traffic just as they start to move again. Someone actually performed this experiment and found not only that their experience was better but traffic began to actually clear up around them. People in neighboring lanes were changing their behavior and before long one persons influence had mitigated or cleared a hole in the traffic.

This happens in society too. One person unwaveringly acting virtuously can have a huge influence on the people around them. The reverse is true too, which is why we should be so self conscious about sin.

The great thing is that any of these actions is much more effective on a practical level than voting, whose “benefits” are abstract and miniscule.

What ought we prefer instead of democracy?

I didn’t realize this but cruising around Zippy’s blog as I do sometimes, I saw a commenter say that classical liberalism has been expressly condemned by the Church as a heresy, by name. So I was initially going to hedge but honestly, let’s not beat around the bush: We should prefer Monarchy. Clear, unambiguous, unequivocal authority structures. This is natural to God and to Man and would simplify life tremendously. It simplifies life morally too. No ambiguity about who is responsible for what, no political gamesmanship.

What ought we do next to move towards the ideal?

I hesitate to say we ought to advocate for Monarchy. First, it is expressly forbidden by the American constitution so it would be a dramatic deviation, it is an unrealistic expectation. A more realistic expectation is to just encourage people not to vote. Change the political culture. Live it and show people the fruits of your life. Especially because agitating means political activism, which we should not do. We should live as if we are in a Monarchy, and pray for the realm and for the good of the country and obey the law and the magistrates and be good neighbors and good Christians. God is our King, so we need not desire an earthly king. We need only conform our lives to God, the rest will follow.

AMDG

CCCXXXVIII – Collective Action

I was refreshing my memory of my own explorations of voting when I found a couple articles which I wrote in favor of voting. For your edification, if you would like to follow my reasoning–follow my trail of thought from popped brain to staunch non-voter, look at these links:

Confusion: XXVIII – Everything I Just Said Was Wrong (No. 2)
Deeper Confusion: XXIX – Everything I Just Said Was Wrong (Was Wrong)
I Got There: CXII – Veni, Vote, Vici

I am sure there is more, click the links within those articles to follow my full argument yourself. Tackling the issue of voting was one of the first projects of this blog.

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The topic here is about collective action. Does more Catholics voting change the dynamic of voting?

I like to go to extreme hypotheticals. Let’s suppose some scenarios: A) Our control scenario, which resembles the current state of things; B) No Catholics Vote, as a rule; C) All Catholics Vote, as a rule; D) Only Catholics Vote, as a rule.

Voting is wrong for two primary reasons:

• If you accept the process you accept the outcome
• Voting allows subtle cooperation with sin

In the control scenario, A, the argument is that Catholics voting is doing some good. In states like California and New York, the Catholics that vote are an extreme minority–and that is assuming all Catholics are orthodox, which is not a given. So while they vote, their governments still pass Abortion legislation, still legitimize homosexual civil unions, and various other evils.

In Scenario B, for Catholics in states like California and New York, there will be no discernable difference in the political outcomes. Because Catholics, on the main, tend to be right-liberal in their voting habits, there may be an impact on right-liberal states. Let’s suppose that South Dakota is a state that is on the margins, and when Catholics cease to vote South Dakota will go from a red state to a blue state. Let’s suppose further that Florida is a state that is strongly on the other side: when Catholics cease to vote there are enough right-liberals that there will be no discernable difference in the political outcomes. So in Scenario B, the only discernable impact that Catholics not voting will have is on marginal states where Catholics represent a substantial voting bloc and their withdrawal from civic life means a change in the ruling party. In this scenario, let’s say that the left-liberals in South Dakota immediately pass legislation legitimizing homosexual civil unions and legalizing abortion, among other evils. The responsibility for these acts is not on the Catholics who did not vote. I am not responsible for a murder I failed to prevent, neither am I responsible for legislation I did not positively enact. If I was a Catholic legislator and I failed to oppose the legislation, that would be one thing; just as it would be different if I was witnessing an assault and failed to come to the aid of the victim, who later was murdered. The fact that I am not actively seeking out murders to prevent does not make me culpable for those murders. Neither is it morally valid to blame or punish a group collectively. Culpability is measured individually, and even if every Catholic in South Dakota conspired to not vote, they made an individual choice to participate in the Conspiracy. Their choice to vote or not vote is permitted. If a single, solitary Catholic voted, there would be no discernable difference in the political outcomes.

Scenario B) demonstrates that Catholics not voting does not result in Catholic responsibility for the outcomes. In fact, it makes Catholics even less responsible for the outcomes, because they did not participate in the decision making process.

In Scenario C, we get a similar calculus. Catholics in New York and California see no discernable difference in outcomes because they are an extreme minority. Catholics in Florida see no discernable difference in outcomes because right liberals already had control, so that control is just stronger. Catholics in states on the margins would see some change–lets consider Virginia a state that would swing right-liberal if a unanimity of Catholics voted. In Virginia, the legislature immediately passes legislation outlawing abortion and delegitimizing homosexual civil unions. The responsibility for these acts is not directly on the Catholics who voted, but it is indirectly on the Catholics who voted. The responsibility is on the Catholics in the legislature who enacted the legislation, and who argued for it or against it. Catholic voters in this case made an individual choice to participate in the election, and their choice put people in place to make decisions, which gives the voters some culpability for the outcome. But if a Catholic has some culpability for voting when they win a vote, they also must have culpability for the outcome when they lose a vote. Catholics voting in New York or California have some culpability even though their candidates lost, because they participated in the process.

Scenario C) demonstrates Catholics voting makes them somewhat culpable for the outcomes because their positive action had a direct consequence. This raises a point we can explore more in the next scenario.

In Scenario D, where only Catholics vote, we can presume the nations electoral results would be overwhelmingly right-liberal, although we know intuitively it would not be unanimous. This demonstrates that the positive action on the part of Catholics has a direct consequence on the political outcomes. But the positive action is not just voting for the right-liberals, the positive action is voting at all. Some Catholics would vote for left-liberal candidates and issues, and they would equally be subject to the outcomes of the elections, regardless of whether left liberals or right liberals win. If a single Catholic refuses to vote, they are not taking a positive action, the same way that my refusal to stop murders in my area does not make me responsible for those murders. Refusing to vote is the absence of action and it is not action. Inaction, again, can be a moral evil if I do nothing while someone is assaulted right in front of me; or if I am a catholic legislator presented with a law that would legitimize homosexual civil unions or legalize abortion or other evil. I can put it to you this way: If one Catholic is busy at work and forgets to vote before the polls close, is that Catholic culpable for the outcome of the election, regardless of who wins? The answer is obviously no. Does that change if this Catholic chose not to vote? The answer may be less obvious, but is still no.

Scenario D) demonstrates that only positive action can make a person culpable for a moral evil, and the choice is not between voting for one candidate or another, but between voting at all and not voting.

Let’s put one more scenario out there for consideration.

Scenario E is where nobody votes at all. Maybe it’s some big coincidence, there’s a pandemic, a big storm, record heat in the hot places, record cold in the cold places, nobody goes out and nobody votes. Not a single ballot is received, not even by the candidates running for various offices. Nobody votes. What happens?

Well, there would be no discernable difference in political outcomes because everything would stay the same, for a time. Probably the people in office would stay in office and everything would continue running. Who is culpable for the actions of the legislators then?

The answer is–the legislators. The people who did not vote would not be making a positive endorsement–silence does not imply consent–but it does admit acceptance of whatever happens. Effectively, our government would be a government ruling by decree, since it would not have the legitimacy of the people.

If one person voted in each state, then the responsibility for the outcomes would fall on those 50 people, and not on the population who decided not to vote.

Therefore, not doing something does not make you responsible for the things other people do unless your singular participation would have changed the outcome. No elections are won or lost by a single vote, and if they were it would be impossible to tell whose vote was the deciding vote. So culpability for election outcomes is remote, even when you do vote, but it is nonexistent when you decide not to vote.

QED

AMDG

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

CCCXXIX – An Apologia For Idiocy

The Greeks took their democracy seriously, coining the word “idiotes” to refer to someone who did not participate in civic life. We get this from the word “idios” meaning “ones own”–in essence, an idiotes was someone who was “on their own” and didn’t join in the crowd in their demonstration of voting.

So this is an apologia for not voting, based on the conversation ongoing at Chivalric Catholic’s combox.

Here’s CC’s comment in full, partly so I can quickly reference it and partly so you can see the substance of what I am responding to:

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Scoot: thanks for the comment. Let me explain my line of reasoning:

-You could argue that [consenting to the process requires consenting to the outcome], but I don’t think it makes much sense to act from a pragmatic perspective in such a way. I mean, the same argument could be used in any form of government. You could say that in a monarchy, perhaps there is a king who is crowned at a time when abortion is legal. He wants to make it illegal and has the power, as king, to pass said edict. If he tries to pass an edict that makes abortion illegal, isn’t he consenting to the same process as made abortion legal when a previous king passed the edict to legalize abortion? In that case, is he agreeing that the criminality of abortion is something that can validly be decided by lineage and edict?

-(I am slightly disappointed you did not use the examples of Rusty Carson and Muddy Hoggard, but…) I see what you’re saying. However, what about the aforementioned king? Say he lives in a constitutional monarchy and tries to pass an edict that illegalizes abortion. However, this kingdom also has a parliament who overrule it. Is the king wrong in passing the edict according to the law because by doing so he is consenting to the parliament’s overruling to being a good way to solve a problem?

In other words, I think this reasoning can go down a problematic hobbit-hole where by inaction and by telling orthodox Catholics not to act, it could potentially cause harm in and of itself. Obviously there are other ways to act against abortion, such as protests and whatnot, but the popular vote—if orthodox Catholics vote as a collective—can matter.

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The challenge here, CC, is that you are begging the question as regards Liberalism. That is to say–your comments seem to me to arise from a presumption of liberalism, which my comment and suggestions clearly violate. What I am suggesting to you spills the banks of political theory–I will try to elucidate where this Liberalism is begged, and make plain why my suggestion is orthogonal to the political reality. This is the closest thing to political 4D Chess, so please be patient with me–it took me a long time to come around to these ideas and I am not trying to force you into certain political thought, the goal is to present a worldview that is new and different and which I found valuable and maybe you will find valuable too. Maybe you will not find it valuable, but my goal is that you will accept this is new data and food for thought.

All that said as prologue, here are some illuminating questions:

1. Take two situations: One where a King declares, by decree, that Abortion is legal; another where a population votes unanimously to legalize abortion directly. Who has committed an evil act?
   1. Would your answer 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?
   2. Would your answer be different if the King requested the legislature legalize abortion? If the King asked the population to vote directly to legalize abortion?
2. If a King decrees that Abortion is legal, is the process of issuing decrees evil or is the act of the King on this subject evil?
   1. Would your answer be different if it was a population voting by any given ratio to legalize abortion?
3. Let’s suppose that in one of the previous scenarios, where there was one dissenting vote, that dissenting vote was a well meaning and well formed Catholic who believes that Abortion is intrinsically evil. Given your answer to (2) and (2-1), is that lone dissenting vote a good or evil act?
   1. If abortion is evil, why must that truth be decided by a vote?
4. Does the Law follow society, or does the Law lead society?
5. Where does Authority come from? How does the source of that authority affect the legality of Abortion, when it comes to either a Kings decree or a popular vote?

I’ll leave the questions there, and let you answer them on your own (feel no obligation to answer them publicly, feel free to ponder them on your own, though I would enjoy hearing your thoughts).

Here are some places where you assume Liberalism: The King in your scenario lives in a constitutional monarchy. A constitutional monarchy is still a Liberal polity. A Monarch, properly understood, is unhindered by limitations and bills of rights. This is where I would be interested to see your answer to Bullet (5) above. How you view the source of authority affects how you view exercises of authority.

Let’s suppose also that Catholics vote as a singular unit. This assumes Liberalism because it assumes voting at all is important. Catholics acting in concert could take over a political system, and probably could use that system for some good. But that is consequentialism–the idea that the ends justify the means.

The ironclad truth is that Abortion is evil no matter what the Law says. Another ironclad truth is that the losers of a vote are bound by the results of the vote as much as the winners. When Trump won the presidency, the people that said “Not my president” were wrong–just because they didn’t like the outcome didn’t mean the outcome didn’t affect them. Same with Abortion–just because they don’t like that the courts threw out Roe v. Wade, doesn’t mean it’s not complete.

So that’s a lot of hole-poking in the existing system. What is the alternative?

The most influential thing (on me) Zippy had to say on the subject was this:

Power is a material capacity to make this thing happen rather than that.

Authority is a moral capacity to oblige a subject to choose this thing rather than that.

Enforcement is a power associated with an authority, specifically to punish those who disobey authority and extract restitution from them.

Tyranny is a false pretense of authority, frequently accompanied by enforcement of the false claim.

A basic problem with modern people is that they don’t believe in authority: they don’t believe that other men can oblige them to do or not do particular things independent of consent to the obligation.

This one post unlocked the political continuum to transcend Liberalism, for me. These are the only forces that matter in politics, and they apply equally in a Monarchy and in a Democracy. A decision is not made more virtuous by being agreed upon by the Masses–it is an exercise of all of these forces.

This was a lot and I left a lot of hooks and hanging threads for you to pick up or ignore as you so desire. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

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

CCLII – Vote for Fiefdom

My trail of thought for how I got here started with Dune. I’m going to see that film this weekend and I loved the book and so I looked it up and refreshed my memory with some of the fictional politics. In the book, certain noble houses hold planets in fief, and the triggering action for the book is that the fiefdom of Arrakis is transferred from House Harkonnen to House Atreides. There’s a computer game called Crusader Kings which I played some years ago which allowed me to simulate royal politics of crusade-era Europe. Transitions of power were always destabilizing–when a Duke died then getting the next Duke to stabilize his reign was always a challenge. Usurpers from other demesne, peasant revolts, incompetence, all of these things came together to make transitions challenging. I know this was a game so maybe it was simpler in real life, but I’m not very familiar with the realities of crusade-era Europe. If there is a resource someone knowledgeable thinks I could read, please let me know.

I connected this thought to American politics, thinking about “foreigners” running for political offices in different states. The Bush family was not from Texas, yet George W. affected Texan charm for political ends. In the Virginia elections ongoing right now, Terry McAuliffe is from New Jersey as I recall, yet is pitching himself as a Virginian. It feels like fiefdoms. Yet, with the cleverness of voting, the political aparatus known as Liberalism gets to suggest two Dukes to Virginians and we get to vote for the one least likely to be destabilizing. It’s a very clever process–Liberalism determines that there will be a change in power; if Liberalism puts anyone they like in power, they risk destabilization and peasant revolts; if Liberalism offers two Candidates then the peasants can choose the least bad one; if peasants choose then they have to live with their choice, even if it’s a bad choice. All the liberal apparatus must do is proffer two options for the peasants to choose, and it guarantees stability unless something dramatic turns the peasants against them.

This is another way in which voting at all endorses the mechanism of Liberalism. There is no vote you can make to diminish liberalism. It’s like tweeting about how bad twitter is: You can complain all you like as long as you complain using their tool.

AMDG

CCXLIX – Winning With Parasitism

Wood over at his blog made a quip about liberalism, to which I had this to say:

“Liberalism wins by making you think that liberalism is a means to winning and not the end to be won.”

I want to follow up on this idea by thinking about what we mean by winning.

I think what Wood meant in his original post was political victory. By engaging in Liberalism–i.e. liberal institutions and rituals–any given group can achieve victory. It’s the “embarrassed millionaire” theory of politics. John Steinbeck said “In America, there are no poor, only temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. This was an economic point, but likewise, with liberalism, there are no lay-folk, only temporarily embarrassed Presidents. Winning in this sense means taking control of the political system through liberalism.

I added to Wood’s point by suggesting that, beyond serving as a means to winning (political victory), Liberalism is the end to be won. I wasn’t thinking about anything specific but considering it now, this takes a Darwinian sense.

If political ideologies are in a basic world and competing for fitness to survive, then Liberalism wins by reproducing. We know by discussing our faith that Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi can help us to be intentional about our faith life. It works with political ideology too: Your actions influence and are influenced by your beliefs and your prayers. In other words, Liberalism cares that you vote and not who you vote for because when you vote you consent that the mechanism is appropriate to address the problem foremost in your mind.

Lets keep the Economic metaphor going for a moment. Entrepreneurship is a mechanism for mobilizing resources to satisfy some unmet demand. If I demand clean gutters, an Entrepreneur can come along and offer to clear them in exchange for money. If I pay him, I am consenting that the exchange is appropriate to resolving the problem. Exchanging goods (money) for services (clean gutters) is a reasonable way of solving the problem.

If I offered the entrepreneur high-fives in exchange for clean gutters, and the entrepreneur accepts, then the entrepreneur has established that high-fives are a reasonable means of solving problems. The entrepreneur must accept high-fives both from the next customer and the next engagement with the same customer, or else be inconsistent with his own beliefs. Likewise, because one problem has been resolved with a sequence of high-fives, you have learned that high fives are reasonable and will try to solve other problems by offering high-fives as payment.

Likewise, if the problem you have in mind is “the tax rate is too high” and politicians offer to lower taxes in exchange for your vote, then when you vote you are consenting that voting is a reasonable means of exchange to resolve that problem. But really–politicians can’t promise to lower taxes the way the entrepreneur can promise to clean your gutter. So the politician can promise to try to lower taxes.

Both the voter and the politician are bound by that exchange. You agree that votes are reasonable compensation for attempting to solve a problem; the politician agrees that attempts at solving a problem are worth a vote. Both parties have consented and both parties must live by that consent.

Liberalism then perpetuates it’s species by inducing little acts of liberalism which allow the ideology to lay it’s eggs in our brain. Repeated acts of liberalism feed the parasitic eggs, and eventually the eggs hatch and larvae eat us out from the inside and we become empty husks with single minded loyalty to liberalism as an ideology. Liberalism has won.

Voting is a good macguffin for Liberalism because it is the primary means of exchange, just as money is the primary economic means of exchange. This is why when I refused to vote for the first time, I felt liberated. Some eggs in my brain atrophied and died, and liberalism as an ideology lost the battle for survival in my brain alone.

Another question becomes natural from this point: What other ideologies are competing for attention? What are their means of exchange?

A barter system is where both parties to a transaction receive some solution to a problem in exchange for giving some solution to a problem. I need a cow, you need a pig, I will give you my pig for your cow. Money is not essential to productively solve problems, but economics is fundamentally about solving problems and meeting demand. For lay-folk, politics is about our relationship with government, and just as money is not essential to solving problems, neither is voting essential to the relationship with government. So the alternative which I subscribe to is what I will call Neo-Feudalism. The problem to be solved is administration of the Public Good; the means of exchange is obedience. I want the public good to be maintained, the Sovereign promises to do so and in exchange asks for my obedience. I am bound by this exchange, so the next sovereign that comes in I must make the same offer and so make the same exchange, or else be inconsistent with my own beliefs.

AMDG

CXII – Veni, Vote, Vici

When he is defeated by a majority, the true democrat should not merely acknowledge that he was defeated, but also confess that he was wrong.

-Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Of the many contentions of Zippy Catholic, the hardest one for me to accept has been that in a democracy, truth is defined by a vote. This quote by Nicolás Gómez Dávila is stirring for that reason: To a “true democrat”, a vote is not just a preference indicator, but an act of conquest.

Zippy argued that this common understanding among all democrats is what makes voting an immoral act in an immoral democracy. You might be a good Catholic in private, but if you are a democrat in public, you will be assessed as such.

The Conquest approach to democracy is foreign to me. I’ve long been an advocate of civic participation and at the same time a believer in the value of political discourse–discourse which requires participants to have different perspectives, if not argue from different sides, of an issue. Both can be true, in fact both ARE true. But then the day after the vote happens: this is where I get into trouble.

Lets think of it like we think of other philosophical arguments. A nation is analogous to a person. A person has an intellect, and a will. A nation has national policy, which governs attitudes; and makes irrevocable actions for or against that policy. It’s laws are simply analogous to a moral conscience. In a monarchy (taken literally, “rule by one”), this embodiment of the national will is more obviously a single person. In a democracy, the impulse is still to think of our President as the sovereign, but that’s still not quite the case.

The people choose proxies to effectuate the national will in elections. The people–the voting population–are the ones holding the strings. When one side with one policy wins an electoral victory over the other, they and their proxies get to put their views into practice. After an election, the National Person resolves to act in a certain way, and acts are irrevocable. The side that loses an election doesn’t get to influence the national will, so the only power left to them is to influence the national moral conscience. Perhaps one side is allowed to import green beans exclusively from Bhutan, but if the law is changed to say that green beans must be imported equally from as many nations as possible, then the exclusive import becomes morally wrong–it becomes “illegal”. This is the push and pull of the moral arbiters (legislators) and the embodiment of the national will (executives).

Describing Legislators as the moral center of a nation and the Executive as the Agent of a nation is what makes voting an important moral consideration. Legislators who legalize abortion are making a positive affirmation that something which is objectively immoral is nationally moral. This assertion is what I have described as Tyranny. Executives who execute national policy which is objectively immoral but nationally moral are agents of the people, because the side that won selected him, and the side that lost must accept him as the legitimate sovereign or else schism completely. Because the executives are agents, they are culpable for their moral actions and the people are culpable for giving their instructions to their agent.

This is the lynchpin to Zippy’s whole argument. In my previous graf, I described the Executive as the agent of the people, but that’s not true. The Executive is agent of the voting population. Not voting means you have no influence over the Executive if your side wins, and are not bound to an “accept-or-schism” resolution if your side loses.

More to come on this.

AMDG

XXXIII – Demos Man

A Cult shares it’s root with Culture and Cultivate: to raise up from a certain place. Cultivate in the sense of raising agriculture of a quality suitable to consume; Culture in the sense of raising a people of a like kind as yourself. Cult has the modern connotation of raising people but typically has a more sinister idea of something forbidden. It’s common usage was rather mundane, as it was used to describe devotion to a certain of the ancient pantheon of classical gods. Those with particular reverence to Zeus followed a certain form prescribed by the cult of Zeus; likewise with Apollo, Athena, et al.

Human nature remains unchanged since Adam and Eve shared bites of a certain fruit. The names we give our fixations have changed. Our society has many cults, much veneration for things other than man’s proper focus of God. One such cult is the cult of our government I like to refer to as the Cult of Demos; Demos being the root of Democracy, meaning “of the common people”.

The sacred text of this Cult is the Constitution, their precepts are ‘Rights’. Their fixation utterly distracted from the mortal peril of their souls.

The consequences of this distracted fixation is abject demolition of man. In evidence: The open and unashamed promotion of infanticide. The recent ruling that women should be drafted. The ongoing horrors of abortion. Hoax hate crimes. I can go on. Not even in Edeny and Anakay is such destruction possible. Edeny values the sanctity of life. Anakay, as a perfectly anarchic society, would certainly look out for the individual. It is only when society is collectively looking elsewhere that the evil one can execute the great swindle, the sleight of hand, and steal from us the things that make us human.

The devil arrived at the gate, and found it unguarded. We sip absentmindedly from the well which he poisoned while we weren’t looking.

God help us.

AMDG