it’s not going to be different this time. sorry, but it’s not. you cannot elect politicians that are smart and noble and good and that want to impose a “better” vision upon society. you simply cannot. you do not need smarter guys this time. you cannot get nobler women. they will not be better because “they are one of you or one of us.” not now. not ever.
this is because when you elect any politician to impose some vision that you or they have upon society, you are ALWAYS running a sociological experiment that holds the variable of “extreme narcissism and sociopathy” constant. ALWAYS.
you may mistake it for something benign. you may mistake it for leadership. you may think they will use these powers for good or noble ends, but they won’t because you will NEVER have elected a good and noble person. you will always have elected someone sufficiently narcissistic and sociopathic that they believe that they know what is “right” for society and that they have the ability, the mission, or even the obligation to impose it by force “for society’s own good.”
this is the very definition of a monster.
forcing people do do things that they do not wish to by using the threat of force is intimidation and extortion. it’s violence, pure and simple.
taking people’s things without their consent is theft no matter what one codifies into law. slavery was once the law too. that hardly made it benign or moral or socially justified even (and especially) when a majority agreed with it.
demanding under threat of violence that society order itself to some design that you believe is best for it when society itself disagrees is an act of towering egotism and entitlement. (and if it agreed, then why must you force it?)
the sort of person who feels justified or compelled to force such designs upon you is NOT a good person. they cannot be. they do not respect your rights or liberty. they do not see your personal agency and choice as a value or intrinsic to your personhood. they see you as a thing to be changed, manipulated, coerced, and formed into a design that suits them whether you like it or not. then you turn around and expect them to be a good person? really?
it baffles me the extent to which humans keep missing this simple fact. they look at skin color or political party. they fixate on sex, gender, sexual orientation, or tribal affiliation. they try endlessly to combine these issues like some sort of children’s flip book to generate a “politician” that looks right and will be noble and good and serve society as though if maybe we just give the power and mandate to oppress us to a black lesbian buddhist poetess who grew up in philadelphia yet roots for the mets, this time, it’s going to work out because, look, she rides a skateboard!
it won’t. it can’t. because none of these variables matter if you have first selected for narcissistic sociopathy and that is EXACTLY what you have done when you sought someone to impose a vision upon society. that means force. that means conviction of knowing better and a sense of entitlement to bend others to your will because your plans for them supersede their own plans for themselves. it means you have not elected a good or nice or tolerant person. it means you voted “monster.”
the most profound and fundamental of human rights is the right to say “no,” the right to non-interference. when you elect officials whose primary goal is to abrogate this, pardon my french, but what the hell did you expect?
it makes zero difference if they look like andrew cuomo or gavin newsom or lori lightfoot or london breed. it can be nancy pelosi, maxine waters, or billy deblasio. it does not matter because the variables you’re shifting are not the ones that drive the outcome that matters. sure, you might get to select some of the aspects of HOW they will oppress you, take your stuff, and take your rights. maybe you get to pick which personal agency you lose and what new restrictions shall be imposed upon your actions, but you still put someone who wanted to do those things in charge of the apparatus of state violence and turned them loose.
if you finally want to live and breathe free, if you finally want to stop this stultifying one way ratchet toward serfdom, you need to realize that “desire to coerce” is the variable upon which you need to vote, the end to which you must conscientiously object, and the interference against which you must ingrain resistance into your daily lives.
stop thinking in terms of right vs left and start thinking in terms of coercion vs liberty. find politicians that do not want to tell you what to do or take or redistribute your stuff. find leaders who seek to neither compel your association nor forbid it. seek reduction in regulation and the promotion of personal choice, not “just one more set of rules to make us safe.” refuse to comply and encourage others to join you. start saying no. every time you do, it will get easier. be peaceful, but be firm and be implacable. rise.
you cannot coerce your way to freedom and equality nor find some proxy to do it for you.
wise up and stop trying.
the civilization and freedom you save may be your own.
The unthinkable part is what to do when the tyrants are your neighbors/fellow citizens. The chosen leader is an extension of the majority. Thus the evil despot becomes the anxiety ridden isolated atheist retired bureaucrat living next door who draws a connection between your freedom to his anxiety and dreams of a "strong" leader who will reign in such reckless freedom in name of all things virtuous. I don't know the answer to that question.
"The kinds of people we need in government are precisely the kinds of people who are most reluctant to go into government -- people who understand the inherent dangers of power and feel a distaste for using it, but who may do so for a few years as a civic duty. The worst kind of people to have in government are those who see it as a golden opportunity to impose their own superior wisdom and virtue on others."
(Thomas Sowell (2013). “Controversial Essays”)
I've always thought of myself as a free thinker who is impervious to manipulation. I still do. I have my opinions and beliefs. They are my own. I'll listen to others with respect (usually), but my beliefs/conclusions are grounded in fact and reason and experience. I don't care if I don't get to sit at the cool kids table with all the cool kids. If the price of admission is my self, then I'm not interested. I admit, though, that the visceral hatred (yep, hatred) I've experienced from some family members has been jarring.
People must work hard to maintain balance in this country, in this world, right now. We are subject to propaganda 24-7-365 through media, social media, and entertainment. Trying to uncover truth requires a serious commitment; and, lately, more than a few trips down more than a few rabbit holes. Did you ever notice, though, that the guy in the movie who lives off the grid in an Airstream in the Arizona desert with tin foil over the windows is the only guy who actually knows what's going on?
We are being subject to a gigantic psy-op. The pressure on people to conform is fierce and unrelenting. Most people go along to get along. Most don't have the time or inclination to go down the rabbit holes. Low information voters usually believe what their masters want them to believe, even if it doesn't make sense. And cognitive dissonance has become familiar, even comfortable for far too many Americans.
In order for them to vote for the person instead of his or her immutable characteristics, they must first wake up and realize they are being manipulated. That's going to be a heavy lift, especially for those on the left.
I confess I still don't know exactly what's going on. Nothing makes sense wrt the virus or the election. I've heard some crazy, deeply disturbing stories over the past few months that I hope are not true because they're too horrible to contemplate.
I watched a Tucker Carlson interview with J.D. Vance yesterday. He's an extraordinary guy with an extraordinary story. I recommend the interview. He said the only thing that puts the puzzle pieces together. The people who are running the government, the people who run big business hate this country. They hate it. They want to destroy it. I think he may be right.
If the uninformed, the under-informed, and the misinformed truly understand the endgame...they will wake up.
Always hopeful and refreshing for my soul...love the cat representation of the "Spirit of '76". My great, great, great Uncle, Archibald M. Willard was commissioned to paint the original. His painting lives on.
misrule and absurdist pseudoscience of 2020, the thing that will strike them most is how “experts” and “leaders” either forgot or ignored that there were actual societies of actual people attached to their epidemiological joy rides.” —egm 9.13.20
I love the gato and I love the rhetoric, even (or maybe especially) when it gets a bit overheated. Here I think if anything the problem is understated. It's not just that every elected official at a level higher than county counselor is a narcissist. That's true, or at least true often enough that it's the most prevalent characteristic. The problem isn't just them, though, it's us. If you put the most self-effacing person in charge, there would still be an action (over inaction) bias. The right thing to do right now, at this moment in the U.S., would be to stop doing anything -- just to say, "Everyone go back to what you were doing in February 2020" -- but to the public, or most of it anyway, that person would look lazy. So the official would feel compelled to run around and promise this and that program or initiative, not necessarily due to any self-aggrandizing tendency, but perhaps even out of an impulse to serve.
Brilliant. I would go even farther though, and argue that the system of representative government itself cannot support the kind of politician you say we need:
The unthinkable part is what to do when the tyrants are your neighbors/fellow citizens. The chosen leader is an extension of the majority. Thus the evil despot becomes the anxiety ridden isolated atheist retired bureaucrat living next door who draws a connection between your freedom to his anxiety and dreams of a "strong" leader who will reign in such reckless freedom in name of all things virtuous. I don't know the answer to that question.
"The kinds of people we need in government are precisely the kinds of people who are most reluctant to go into government -- people who understand the inherent dangers of power and feel a distaste for using it, but who may do so for a few years as a civic duty. The worst kind of people to have in government are those who see it as a golden opportunity to impose their own superior wisdom and virtue on others."
(Thomas Sowell (2013). “Controversial Essays”)
I've always thought of myself as a free thinker who is impervious to manipulation. I still do. I have my opinions and beliefs. They are my own. I'll listen to others with respect (usually), but my beliefs/conclusions are grounded in fact and reason and experience. I don't care if I don't get to sit at the cool kids table with all the cool kids. If the price of admission is my self, then I'm not interested. I admit, though, that the visceral hatred (yep, hatred) I've experienced from some family members has been jarring.
People must work hard to maintain balance in this country, in this world, right now. We are subject to propaganda 24-7-365 through media, social media, and entertainment. Trying to uncover truth requires a serious commitment; and, lately, more than a few trips down more than a few rabbit holes. Did you ever notice, though, that the guy in the movie who lives off the grid in an Airstream in the Arizona desert with tin foil over the windows is the only guy who actually knows what's going on?
We are being subject to a gigantic psy-op. The pressure on people to conform is fierce and unrelenting. Most people go along to get along. Most don't have the time or inclination to go down the rabbit holes. Low information voters usually believe what their masters want them to believe, even if it doesn't make sense. And cognitive dissonance has become familiar, even comfortable for far too many Americans.
In order for them to vote for the person instead of his or her immutable characteristics, they must first wake up and realize they are being manipulated. That's going to be a heavy lift, especially for those on the left.
I confess I still don't know exactly what's going on. Nothing makes sense wrt the virus or the election. I've heard some crazy, deeply disturbing stories over the past few months that I hope are not true because they're too horrible to contemplate.
I watched a Tucker Carlson interview with J.D. Vance yesterday. He's an extraordinary guy with an extraordinary story. I recommend the interview. He said the only thing that puts the puzzle pieces together. The people who are running the government, the people who run big business hate this country. They hate it. They want to destroy it. I think he may be right.
If the uninformed, the under-informed, and the misinformed truly understand the endgame...they will wake up.
Always hopeful and refreshing for my soul...love the cat representation of the "Spirit of '76". My great, great, great Uncle, Archibald M. Willard was commissioned to paint the original. His painting lives on.
“when people look back on the carnival
misrule and absurdist pseudoscience of 2020, the thing that will strike them most is how “experts” and “leaders” either forgot or ignored that there were actual societies of actual people attached to their epidemiological joy rides.” —egm 9.13.20
The resting state of humanity is tyranny, as the resting state of matter isn't life, that's the exception.
And times like these prove how much of a miracle both are, freedom and life, as fragile as precious.
Can i use this as a letter (partly) to EU parlament (not all members) to ask them to vote against digital passports?
I love the gato and I love the rhetoric, even (or maybe especially) when it gets a bit overheated. Here I think if anything the problem is understated. It's not just that every elected official at a level higher than county counselor is a narcissist. That's true, or at least true often enough that it's the most prevalent characteristic. The problem isn't just them, though, it's us. If you put the most self-effacing person in charge, there would still be an action (over inaction) bias. The right thing to do right now, at this moment in the U.S., would be to stop doing anything -- just to say, "Everyone go back to what you were doing in February 2020" -- but to the public, or most of it anyway, that person would look lazy. So the official would feel compelled to run around and promise this and that program or initiative, not necessarily due to any self-aggrandizing tendency, but perhaps even out of an impulse to serve.
Well put. Tired of this Left and Right thing. It's authoritarianism versus freedom to choose, the rest is in the the weeds.
Are you on Mastodon?
Brilliant. I would go even farther though, and argue that the system of representative government itself cannot support the kind of politician you say we need:
https://bretigne.typepad.com/on_the_banks/2016/10/the-real-reason-libertarians-dont-matter.html
Precisely
RON PAUL 2008!!!!!!
Bravo. Well done.