Love this, but also think about decentralized leadership - where groups of leaders and thinkers can strategize together. How can we work together in ways to end corruption of the systems that oversee our lives? Decentralize everything!
#DecentralizeEverything #TransparencyMovement
How can decentralization be used to combat corruption?
Yeah I'm not sure what a Fondling Father is but saying no to them sounds like a good call. Also not sure what your comment has to do with mine. The key to fixing everything is fixing our broken system. It has been corrupted and no one is talking about how to fix it.
It isn’t really broken because it’s been working exactly as intended from day 1.
It would be great to discuss solutions and I agree that nobody is doing that. Probably because moving from oligarchy to democracy (or to republic) to whatever is next only happens once every few hundred years and nobody can really envision what it looks like because without a new technology to help us to the next level of human governance, we’re sunk.
1) Natural hierarchies in small groups where each member of the group can account for every other members' actions, including the leader. And they can gang up on him to get rid of him if necessary. This was 99% of our evolutionary existence on earth and it's what we're wired for.
2) Unnatural hierarchies -- oligarchies, dictatorships, etc. Here I lump everything from the Aztecs to ancient and Maoist China. Etc. You get the idea.
3) Representative democracy (I'm lumping in republics like the US here)
Most people would agree that 3) is better than 2) and the best thing "we" have come up with yet, unless you have a benevolent dictator, which seems pretty rare.
So the trick is... how do we get to a point where we are 'governed' mostly by ourselves, guided by wise leaders who can be easily deposed, should that become necessary? Because that's what humans are wired for, actually. We all see what's going on. But we're powerless to gang up on the psychos of the world and do anything about them because societies are so large and there's been so much resource consolidation by elites again now.
So what we have is that 3) has actually sort of reverted to 2).
What we need to be figuring out is how to revert to something that looks much more like 1) but functions in a society of billions (not just hundreds).
It's a technological problem. And if we can't solve it, the next phase of government (2 on steroids) is going to be much uglier and more unnatural for our species than anything we've ever had.
Also Doc, I don’t think it is working exactly as intended with 50% tax rates and boatloads of American cash being transferred to ultra elites. Before anything can happen we need a Transparency Movement like this
I'm amazed at how the Iroquois nation tribes were able to decide on a great system of government that has many similar facets to our early form of government (not the oppressive one trying to strip away our rights). I had previously found a document that explained it all, but with a inspirational slant to it, in that it was an inspired effort, much like I believe our own Constitution was inspired. This has a sanitized version https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iroquois-Confederacy
Yes, if we can re-infuse (widely) the knowledge of what our constitution says, and the power of us over them, and to hold them accountable, then we'll have a fighting chance.
I believe the tax system should be inverted. First, the states should reaffirm what services they want from a federal government, then the STATES should be tithed to pay for it, and I further propose that the states should be tithed in proportion to their budgets - IE spendthrift states contribute most! Just watch the race to the bottom of state budgets and taxes! And yes, I mean NO personal taxation by leviathan.
Ooh. I like it! But... the states are so GRATEFUL for the money they get from the feds... particularly when there are mandates tied to it. (Because the government skims money off for other programs by taking the money already in the program that the feds can replace, and using that money for other purposes. Yes, it's a shell game.)
"one nation, not of united states but of united people held together by shared visions of liberty"
Lo siento mucho, but we do NOT hold shared visions of liberty. I posit that the gap between the vision for this country of those on the left and the rest of us is unbridgeable. Uniting the left and the right is a dead letter. We either destroy them or they destroy us. Not a happy message to impart, but certainly an appropriate day to do so. The left will never leave us alone, will never be satisfied. Their movement needs the peace of the grave.
Maybe uniting in every way isn't necessary. Maybe the "uniting" could be much looser, with a LOT more freedom and better management. Better means of building community. We need some better leadership, I say. New ways of thinking about living as a group without having too much conformity in ideology and "worthiness" ideas. Rigid conformity as a means of being able to survive well is no way to run things... That's more like coercion.
Independence personified!! Totally agree and practiced daily by myself and most of my family. People have been duped into thinking they need a "dear leader" for way too long.
Collectivists cannot seem to fathom such a spirit. They're convinced it's some sort of fascist plot. We weren't philosophically prepared for the times we're living in. So many fallacious priors pounded into our heads and very hard to let go of. The biggest one that comes to mind is "fascism is right-wing". "All institutions must band together with loyal citizens to fight the right-wing nemesis!!". I don't think projection is a conscience strategy. It simply looking at oneself and assuming others have the exact same temptations and thought patterns. It's an effective tool in many areas of life.
It seems good right now, maybe, but it's not leadership that got us into this shit, it's chicanery, fraud, lies, greed, and a stupified, sickened, and overly-dulled citizenry. What we need isn't Evil POSING as leadership, it's Good Leadership. I say let's get David E. Martin in there to help us get to the de-centralized stage... He's shown repeatedly that he can't be bought, and he's a true patriot. That said, we should all "lead" ourselves, and be educated in HOW TO THINK. What say you?
Not sure what the funky lettering is about, but maybe it's an assumption that you think that's what I'm saying. We DO need to get the right people in there, but we also need to get the WRONG people out of the power to be able to KILL the right people. The SYSTEM is the problem, not leadership. Try running much of anything that involves a group, without leadership... I'll stand over here and watch! ^_^
Thank you for this thoughtful and thought-provoking article.
At the risk of seeming to quibble and thus detract from your fine work, I will say that I occasionally find myself wondering if “electing our leaders” is really the correct framing. I will be the first to admit to having endured a second-rate education, and that may be at the heart of my misapprehension, but I have always regarded elected officials as administrators of state function, not as leaders.
In my experience, leaders arise naturally and organically and have no need of being elected; their role in the community is in no need of official sanction. Occasionally a leader may be elected to high office, but frequently we must choose the least bad from among a crop of mediocre and pedestrian self-seekers who would be largely incapable of delivering on their promises even if they intended to.
It was never completely clear to me how the process of being elected, as contaminated as it is with the grubby business of currying favor among competing special interests and with the establishment, automatically conferred some kind of moral virtue that I necessarily would want to follow in the sense that one follows a leader.
Is it possible that much present difficulty might be ascribed to venerating as leaders ordinary people who should be elected as invisible servants?
Was I misled when I was taught that “a bad king is one the subjects hate, a better king is one the subjects love, but the best king is one that the subjects don’t even know they have?”
Wouldn’t efficient and minimally-intrusive administration of the routine affairs of a town, a county, a state and a county be better than elected officials arrogating to themselves “leadership”?
Leaders are best left to arise in an environment where elected officials don’t see them as competition.
There’s more to this than I have room for here, but I hope I have managed to convey the gist without undermining your inspiring work.
being elected confers no virtue and often proves its lack.
gato's first law: "as soon as one allows politicians to determine that which is bought and sold the first things bought and sold will always be politicians."
the only way to take the power hungry out of politics is to take power away from politicians.
the small state is not the platform for power such people desire.
the first step is to reduce the size of leviathan, its reach, its remit.
when it can coerce, those outside who would lead struggle to finds influence.
where i would quibble with your take (which seems in no way the result of a second rate education) is on leadership in politicians.
george washington immediately opposed and shut down any notions of making him or anyone else king.
THAT is the leadership we need. mere stewards and officials become cogs in a big machine whose creeping power and inclination can turn to tyranny.
what's easy to forget is that it is usually the people who clamor for it.
thus, we need true leaders of character and courage who will tell the people "no" when they ask the state to take up new powers.
"you do not want mew to have this. consider how else such a power might be later used by others you would never wish to wield it."
that is leadership of free people: the courage to refuse to subjugate them even and especially when they demand it of you.
that takes real strength.
and i think it's that we must seek in those we would appoint stewards.
When you rely on people to lead they can always be corrupted. Like Naval Ravikant says a good system should be able to be turned over to your enemies and still not be corrupted. Our is corrupted when people we elected are running it. The key to fixing it is to create a new system and plug it in like life support to our current one. Like this:
all these writers and doctors, professors and scientists & statisticians i have followed since 2020 have shown their humility and bravery & constancy, in the face of all the worst types of threat. I consider them all humble beacons of hope who inspire trust. 🙏
I remember when I voted in my first presidential election (all the way back in 1988). They still used lever machines in my county at the time. I remember wondering if my vote really mattered at all. There was no record of it. For the 1992 election, they upgraded to a touch pad system that was still basically mechanical. When you pulled the lever, your vote was cast and the curtain opened. In 2020, they switched to the Dominion machines (I live in a corrupt county outside of Philadelphia controlled by Democrats). When the guy handed me a felt tip pen, I asked him, "Are you sure this is okay to use?" Like most of us, I've taken many standardized tests and filled out many forms. Felt tip pens were never okay...until 2020. He assured me that it was and then watched me very intently as I put my "ballot" in the scanner.
My doubts about election integrity did not start in 2020. I've always doubted the process and the people. IMO, the 2020 election only confirmed what I had long suspected.
No doubt, many (most?) of the people who seek elected office are power-hungry egotists who lack the intelligence, integrity, or ability to be leaders.
I submit that they are also not really in control. The people and forces behind them who catapult them into office, who speak quietly into their ear from the shadows, are the people in control.
The past two plus years have revealed many of them. They aren't hiding themselves or their intentions as they were in the past.
that was me too. i'm in CA, and in 2020 (and the recall Newsom election a year later) we were sent four ballots for our home (via mail because that's now permeant for all elections here in CA). We have only two adults able to vote. We went in person, just to be as sure. The most recent election for the primaries only a few weeks ago? only two ballots. They know what they are doing.
And ballots came back to my house, claiming the signature was suspect, after they had declared the recall defeated. How many people I wonder, had that happen.
Love seeing this. I often use the example of working on a big project. We may decide among the group that one of us is the best qualified to lead our project to success. And then, once the project is done, we all go our own separate ways and the "leader" we chose goes back to being just another person in the community. This philosophy that we have to elect someone to tell us what to do for decades is horrific.
Thank you for this thoughtful and thought-provoking article.
At the risk of seeming to quibble and thus detract from your fine work, I will say that I occasionally find myself wondering if “electing our leaders” is really the correct framing. I will be the first to admit to having endured a second-rate education, and that may be at the heart of my misapprehension, but I have always regarded elected officials as administrators of state function, not as leaders.
In my experience, leaders arise naturally and organically and have no need of being elected; their role in the community is in no need of official sanction. Occasionally a leader may be elected to high office, but frequently we must choose the least bad from among a crop of mediocre and pedestrian self-seekers who would be largely incapable of delivering on their promises even if they intended to.
It was never completely clear to me how the process of being elected, as contaminated as it is with the grubby business of currying favor among competing special interests and with the establishment, automatically conferred some kind of moral virtue that I necessarily would want to follow in the sense that one follows a leader.
Is it possible that much present difficulty might be ascribed to venerating as leaders ordinary people who should be elected as invisible servants?
Was I misled when I was taught that “a bad king is one the subjects hate, a better king is one the subjects love, but the best king is one that the subjects don’t even know they have?”
Wouldn’t efficient and minimally-intrusive administration of the routine affairs of a town, a county, a state and a county be better than elected officials arrogating to themselves “leadership”?
Leaders are best left to arise in an environment where elected officials don’t see them as competition.
There’s more to this than I have room for here, but I hope I have managed to convey the gist without undermining your inspiring work.
It’s going to be a problem. I have a theory that government will always sink to the lowest moral common denominator: the government is a reflection of the intellectual and moral status of the governed.
Radical decentralization, such as envisioned by the framers of the US Constitution, had it been maintained, would have prevented much trouble. There would be bad states and good states, of course. But sacrificing those who are capable of governing themselves on the altar of some false notion of “equality” is foolishness.
El Gato Malo thank you as always for being intellectually courageous. And for keeping the comment sections a place for discourse!
Independence is needed once again, from the corruption that has happened to the systems that govern over our lives. What can we do to gain that independence back?
This Independence Day we must shift focus from fighting each other to fixing the corrupted systems that govern over all of our lives. This is something we should all agree on, and being the number one problem we face in America today, there is nothing more important:
Here's a parable about the seen and unseen of the greater good fallacy:
The parable of the broken window was introduced by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay "That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See"
("Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas")
The Parable
Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when his careless son happened to break a square of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"
Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.
Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade—that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs—I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
We have sacrificed individual liberties at the alter of specialization...and so much more.
We have sacrificed imagination... and in many senses our connection to human relationships and a commitment to community. Indeed a small part of our soul has a hole in it, due to the lack of a broader view.
Currently we have people making decisions of significant consequences based on their singular view in their silo.
They can not think outside that silo, because they are disconnected from that which is outside. In fact, they can not think out of that silo, because they don't even know they are in one.
This leads to diminished creativity and problem solving skills. And frankly empathy.
And here's the dreadful reality of our time: people such as you, who are the very highest ideals of our nation in living action, must do their work under cover of anonymity.
I always thought one of the great ironies of our national history was how all those little crazy dissident rebellious nonconformist fringe sects who endured every degree of extreme persecution, and never abandoned their struggle for *their* freedom of thought and action, were enthusiastic persecutors of everyone who, you know, thought differently.
In action we are self-parody but we've got those ideals of the Founders to haul us back to some place of reason and commonality.
Back when I was still a garden-variety office indentured servant, 35 years ago or so, I used to read my boss's copy of the WSJ every day and wondered who that moron Max Boot was, spewing all that orthodox Republican garbage, and lo, here we are, and Max Boot is now spewing all this leftist "throw out the Constitution" garbage.
We need an awfully big broom to sweep out these stables.
Love the George Washington quote! But yes, good write up. Despite all the issues we deal with presently we must turn it all around. Start small, start local. The philosophies and reasons why our ancestors tried this great experiment remain valid. We have made many errors - let's correct them as we go - but move forward. No fear.
Everyone makes errors since we are all human. Heck I know animals too err all the time, just saw a lioness be tramped by buffaloes. But where do we start from here? What can an older woman in the boonies do to get these scoundrels out? I will vote,, but how much will it do? I am quite sure we will do the right thing here, but that does not change washington.
secure your home then your neighborhood or your town.
i am consistently stunned at how much focus americans put on presidents and congress-critters and yet how little they know about their own town councils, mayors, school boards, and judges.
That being said, my extra funds are currently being spent in self-sufficiency. For whatever that is worth. It’s a weird version of a life saving account.
Very sadly. I only meant that, especially in times such as these - not too much 'extra' to go around. Sounds like smart investing, on your part - good luck!
Luckily I live in a small community and although I don't know the people that run it, it did real good. Barely any school closure, and they prolonged the school year with the 2 missed weeks, seen no community obligatory masking or shots, but will have to ask to make sure. The bigger town close by has turned blue so there it got real bad. Decided to give my business to others!
John Taylor Gato wrote a few books on homeschooling, describing how the small local schools were taken out, little by little, until parents were drowned out and had no idea what was happening in their child's school. Taking the schools back would be a HUGE start.
some smaller communities here in rural georgia don't even have an elementary school anymore. A child I know had to take the bus at 6 in the morning to return at 6 at night. She was first grader when this happened, the school in their little place closed after preschool.
Sadly this is all by design. It starts with condemning the little schools buildings, this gets a big union project promised (multimillion dollar centralized school built) so many palms greased in the process, it's disturbing once you understand how it works and you follow the money.
My younger brothers elementary school, which was close enough to bike to or be walked by mom, was condemned, deemed unsafe, but interestingly enough a year later was fine for an alternative high school to move in.
Interesting ! The VA here had several empty buildings they considered unusable for veterans. They built a huge new complex that had to be redone a few times, because it was so badly constructed. Now the old buildings house a school ! And the older high school, about 50 years old, was torn down, a new one built with sun panels and all, and then it turned out the panels were rented, and they were not used to produce steam. The people protested against the sky high school tax and won the suit. They all got some money back.
and I'd wonder if we don't need to bring in the voice of the non-human world in our own places. In a little book called The Lure of the Ring, the author, a therapist, investigates the figure of Tom Bombadil. He isn't the one who carries the ring to Mordor, and his influence is the genius loci, the spirit of the place. The ring doesn't call him and those who put it on aren't invisible to him. He is in his geography, he is his geography, and a different sort of power arises from that. His attention is on the trees and mushrooms. a A grounding and rooting in the phenomenology of place that can't be fully articulated, its musics and perfumes. "America" is an "imagined community," but fighting from the strata of where we actually are might be an anti-dote to the lure of the ring.
But as far as too focused on DC... well I view it differently. If I may paraphrase pseudo-Trotsky, "You may not be interested in Washington, but Washington is far, far too interested in *you*!" The entire time you are working to build things locally, you had better be often glancing over your shoulder to be sure no one is coming at you from the EEOC or Title XYZ administration of threatening violation of the Lacey Act etc.
I think you are right. The local people can do some, but the hard rules are made somewhere else. Then the locals have to bend as well, no matter how hard they try to keep you covered
My rural town is corrupt and has its own deep state. Depressing. Like low level bureaucrats all over America, they just wait for their administrative bosses in DC or the state capital to send them marching orders...
Become a powerful keyboard warrioress! Do not let the corrupt and the inept in D.C. sleep at night.
Find documentation on the crimes against all of us that have been committed by the lords of the "plandemic" and keep sending the evidence with your ire and moral outrage to each and every elected and appointed official who's name, email, and phone number you can find.
Copy your local news outlets and the big sick national ones as well.
Some of the people you eventually reach will wake up.
They are seeing the catastrophe in vax injuries also, (in some cases,) some are being awoken from their moral and intellectual comas by the turn of events internationally, more now perceive SOMETHING is wrong, but are frightened to see the depth of the evil stalking all of us.
The best way to break the mass formation is to keep talking, keep writing, continue to expose the facts.
This is an absolutely critical role, and best carried out by those who have the time and the life experience to perceive the current reality as it is. You, and many others exactly like you, in other words!
One step at a time. Deliberately as our founding ancestors did it. Our advantage is we have the errors they would have admitted to to help serve as signposts of what to avoid. Pretty good start they provided however. The Constitution - properly understood - is a super guide. Washington is symbolic of the will of we the people. As it is right now, with so many chainlink fences, it represents one of the places to begin.
"These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." Happy July the 4th to all Americans! And also a Happy 4th to the growing number of people of the world that are freeing their minds from the yokes of fear and blind obedience to authority.
Wise words. And you’re right this time it is world wide. Thomas Paine was right when he wrote in Common Sense that the right Americans still seek are rights all people seeks and value. A very spectacularly Happy 4th to everyone.
Most politicians and even many freedom oriented people forget that politicians aren’t supposed to govern or rule or run the country…and especially not in regard to me.
A politician is supposed to run the government. That’s pretty much it. I certainly don’t need—or want—any politician to rule/run/or govern ME.
And we still have people like David Rubin who just said that the Constitution “gives” us our rights.
I love history and have read lots of early American history. What you’ve written here is a condensed version of their thoughts on federalism, and factions. I often tell my friends that the only solution is that we, the citizens, take back our responsibility as the sovereign and that all this is our fault as we’ve become drunk with a life of plenty. Anyway...great work...especially for such a wee kitten.
"free people do not follow focus group tested soundbites. they follow leaders."
No way!
That alpha dog thinking is what got us in this mess in the first place.
The reason that separation of powers is Article 1 of the Constitution is that it's that crucial to limit the power of leaders. Executive branch wannabe tyrants must be reined in by legislature. Both must be checked in the limits of their powers by judiciary. From Montesquieu to John Locke to our founders, this was make-or-break to ensure liberty.
It has been the deferred protection of liberty to leaders that made this mess. Individuals must be the defenders of their own liberty, as you also acknowledged in this post, and we the people are the ultimate repository of that liberty, also acknowledged by 10th Amendment. You have argued this yourself. MEP Christine Anderson goes even farther: No government has ever promoted the best interests of regular people, ever in human history, no matter how benign-seeming the leaders. Freedom is ensured by us ultimately.
I accept your distinction between leaders and governing officials. But is there any among the former who runs for the office of the latter whom you would vote against, or whom you would not vote for? There is technical difference between the two, but much de facto overlap.
I see what you're getting at though. Thought leaders are not always politicians and vice versa. But we run into trouble also when we outsource our critical thinking. As a member of "Team Reality," I am expected to agree frequently with Van den Bossche and Malone, yet I think they're each wrong about half the time. I do not consent to their being my thought leaders. So leaders must also be viewed cautiously.
there will always be leaders of one stripe or another. this is simply human nature. utopian ideas of "no leaders and each as self governing" in some sort of anarcho-capitalist agora are lovely ideals, but impossible in practice beyond very small scales. they serve, rather, as a sort of asymptote, a pole star, and an aspiration.
government is not nor cannot ever be the ultimate guarantor of liberty. that must always reside with the people.
we instantiate it to establish and uphold such path as we consent provides the best likelihood of providing for liberty.
and we must tear it down and replace it with better should to fail at such aims. that prerogative and obligation must always reside with the people.
this does not mean we must not or even ought not have leaders.
it might well be a fine thing were they not needed, but humanity is simply not like that and like all utopian ideals from communism to pure passivism, its success rests upon a step of "first we must change the fundamental nature of humanity" and such never happens.
humanity is what it is. we cannot change its fundamental character much.
so we must create systems to best accommodate it.
edge-lord positions like "no leaders" strike me as posturing for the salon that serve poorly in the actual agora.
leaders will always emerge.
the best we can do it to render following them voluntary, mitigate their power, and thereby seek to align them to the cause of liberty over tyranny.
"let's not have alpha dogs" does not strike me as a realistic option and i fear that building a system upon such an assumption is akin to building a bridge while ignoring gravity.
it will not long stand.
addendum:
i very much agree with your point that viewing the state as the protector of your liberty is deeply dangerous and how we got into this mess. you outsource protection to a guard dog and one day find you are its prisoner. worse, you forget that there was every another way and became acculturated to such states of subjugation.
this is what makes "woke" and "ESG" so pernicious. it's the weak and cowardly hiding behind the skirts of state and institutional power and violence to bully and suppress the agency of others.
it's the poster child for inverting the nature of liberty.
it's also likely the bridge too far that will flip the system back into proper valence.
Yes. From a historical perspective, I have to acknowledge you're right about the impracticality of rejecting every leader. An extreme example of rejecting every leader is what Leon Trotsky advocated, permanent revolution; leave no leader in power, and Trotsky did not succeed obviously.
However, the outsourcing of one's critical thinking to any thought leader, and anyone who says, "trust me; I've done the thinking for both of us" leads to getting cheated in the end, whether in the micro-economic realm or society at large.
On the other hand, when we teach children and youth to exercise critical thinking skills, when we teach them the responsibility of defending their liberties, when we celebrate adults who role model the understanding and advocacy of liberty, then we the people will be much more resilient against leaders - both thought leaders and politicians - who keep trying to take us for a ride off a cliff.
Correction: the 9th amendment states this more specifically than the 10th.
Also, Anderson quote before European Parliament was:
"Whenever the government claims to have the people's interests at heart, you need to think again. In the entire history of mankind, there has never been a political elite sincerely concerned about the well-being of regular people."
"Always question everything the government does or does not do. Always look for ulterior motives and always ask, 'Cui bono?' Who benefits?"
Unfortunately, while a good many Americans understand that there are checks and balances throughout our Federal
government, they fail to realize that the crucial check on Federal power as a whole is held by the states and, most importantly, the People themselves.
Of course! Without the checks and balances provided by the states and we the people there are way insufficient checks and balances. Since 2020 we have had a systematic lesson in the importance of these. The pendulum will swing (to the point this time such that we barely have a country) but currently we have front row seats at the exercise of these.
This is a crucial point. We live in a freedom loving country, one in which our founding ancestors admired the Native Americans, borrowing from their various examples of community councils. These Native Americans were/are strong and able Americans who embodied survival and coping skills from many thousands of years on the continent. One of the largest errors we made was not to honour and support the freedom of the Native Americans. Same is true of our Hispanic Americans with whom we have shared the continent. Certainly also the descendants of Africans our ancestors brought in as fellow immigrants,
Thank you for framing this politicians vs leaders problems. Politicians are people begging us for a job. The President is the person we hire to oversee the executive branch of the government. The government is not what leads us. It is what keeps people who want to be leading us from taking power. Or, at least it should be. Also, all people who claim to be leaders should be looked at with suspicion. If you feel like you need something to lead you, let it be an idea and not the person expressing the idea.
I agree we all are currently allergic to "leaders!" They are the sociopaths currently on the tip tops of the pyramids of power we unwisely allowed to grow in and around our government.
The CDC, FDA, CIA, NSA, on an on and on, have too much power, too much money, and zero accountability to the people they supposedly serve.
Congress can't rein them in.
It will take great efforts by many Americans to end their lawless ways.
Budgets, outcomes, and accountability aren't sexy, but nothing could be more important
Leaders of the kind the Gato refers to matter as well. They inspire and can attract high numbers of individuals with integrity to accomplish the goal. We need the best, not the worst, in government!
I think you’re agreeing with Gato here. I wouldn’t say that leaders equate to tyrants. In fact in my experience real, leaders are selfless. Gato is simply saying that we citizens have been very clearly making our political choices based on the wrong reasoning - we have surrendered our responsibility to mistrust the government and politicians. The founders provided us the optimal style of government and they all felt that the experiment ultimately tested in the citizens attention to their role as sovereign. We lack that necessary disdain and mistrust of the political class. We are now two idiot factions and we vote, seemingly, with the end goal of ensuring our faction remains in control. And that it. It’s party politics, as opposed to ensuring the government is optimally functional and unobtrusive.
I think if we could make it so that neither faction actually had control of the county just by voting their leader into office, we would be much better off. Part of that is convincing people that the President or any other member of the executive branch isn’t actually the leader of the country. I was taught this in my civics class and it sure seems like the right perspective whether it is true or the founders intended it. But I’m also a contrarian by nature and have no interest in a leader in general.
gato, you have outdone yourself, again! I was really looking forward to today's post because I knew you would bring us learned words of eloquence and inspiration. I've been thinking of ways to bring these ideas forward in my own community, all based around your statement: "1. Liberty is for everyone." I don't yet know if it will be a community forum, a book club or a radio show...but you've definitely inspired me to do more than just agree with the foundation of this incredible organization of a free society, but to now engage in a more public way. Thank you for your inspirational leadership! Liberty is for everyone! Happy Independence day everyone!
Thank you for your encouragement! I am still trying to figure out the best format for reaching people at the deepest level. It does no good if they nod along and do nothing. I would be interested if others have done this kind of thing in their own communities. I live a very small town, so my reach at this point would be limited.
Nobody for Leader.
Start leading yourself.
Love this, but also think about decentralized leadership - where groups of leaders and thinkers can strategize together. How can we work together in ways to end corruption of the systems that oversee our lives? Decentralize everything!
#DecentralizeEverything #TransparencyMovement
How can decentralization be used to combat corruption?
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/decentralize-everything
Great question.
In the meantime I’ll Just Say No to the next group of Fondling Fathers/Smarmy Lawyers posing as liberators.
Yeah I'm not sure what a Fondling Father is but saying no to them sounds like a good call. Also not sure what your comment has to do with mine. The key to fixing everything is fixing our broken system. It has been corrupted and no one is talking about how to fix it.
It isn’t really broken because it’s been working exactly as intended from day 1.
It would be great to discuss solutions and I agree that nobody is doing that. Probably because moving from oligarchy to democracy (or to republic) to whatever is next only happens once every few hundred years and nobody can really envision what it looks like because without a new technology to help us to the next level of human governance, we’re sunk.
What? How is technology the answer?
How is representative government the answer?
Humanity has gone through the following phases.
1) Natural hierarchies in small groups where each member of the group can account for every other members' actions, including the leader. And they can gang up on him to get rid of him if necessary. This was 99% of our evolutionary existence on earth and it's what we're wired for.
2) Unnatural hierarchies -- oligarchies, dictatorships, etc. Here I lump everything from the Aztecs to ancient and Maoist China. Etc. You get the idea.
3) Representative democracy (I'm lumping in republics like the US here)
Most people would agree that 3) is better than 2) and the best thing "we" have come up with yet, unless you have a benevolent dictator, which seems pretty rare.
So the trick is... how do we get to a point where we are 'governed' mostly by ourselves, guided by wise leaders who can be easily deposed, should that become necessary? Because that's what humans are wired for, actually. We all see what's going on. But we're powerless to gang up on the psychos of the world and do anything about them because societies are so large and there's been so much resource consolidation by elites again now.
So what we have is that 3) has actually sort of reverted to 2).
What we need to be figuring out is how to revert to something that looks much more like 1) but functions in a society of billions (not just hundreds).
It's a technological problem. And if we can't solve it, the next phase of government (2 on steroids) is going to be much uglier and more unnatural for our species than anything we've ever had.
Also Doc, I don’t think it is working exactly as intended with 50% tax rates and boatloads of American cash being transferred to ultra elites. Before anything can happen we need a Transparency Movement like this
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/what-we-need-is-a-transparency-movement?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios
Answer to taxes: stop paying them
Answer to theft: start using money they can't steal
Have you really never heard of Jeffrey Epstein (who, by the way, didn't kill himself)? Or of Brandon's long-complained-about groping of children?
If "Fondling Father" *wasn't* an intentional reference to that, then it was the world's best and most intelligent typo.
I'm amazed at how the Iroquois nation tribes were able to decide on a great system of government that has many similar facets to our early form of government (not the oppressive one trying to strip away our rights). I had previously found a document that explained it all, but with a inspirational slant to it, in that it was an inspired effort, much like I believe our own Constitution was inspired. This has a sanitized version https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iroquois-Confederacy
Yes, if we can re-infuse (widely) the knowledge of what our constitution says, and the power of us over them, and to hold them accountable, then we'll have a fighting chance.
Here's more info on the Iroquois Constitution of the Five Nations - https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/iroquois.asp
And thanks, too!
Thanks!
I believe the tax system should be inverted. First, the states should reaffirm what services they want from a federal government, then the STATES should be tithed to pay for it, and I further propose that the states should be tithed in proportion to their budgets - IE spendthrift states contribute most! Just watch the race to the bottom of state budgets and taxes! And yes, I mean NO personal taxation by leviathan.
I don’t want any government services. Why should I be a slave to what a smaller state dictates?
Ooh. I like it! But... the states are so GRATEFUL for the money they get from the feds... particularly when there are mandates tied to it. (Because the government skims money off for other programs by taking the money already in the program that the feds can replace, and using that money for other purposes. Yes, it's a shell game.)
Yes, that is the only way out of this mess.
Damn straight.
Hell yeah
Happy Independence Day. LOL
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KHbzSif78qQ
We are facing genocide, famine, and World War III, but always look on the bright side of life. Happy 4th!
Facing it doesn't mean it's inevitable. Maybe "faithing" it is a better idea... I don't mean religion.
Absolutely
"one nation, not of united states but of united people held together by shared visions of liberty"
Lo siento mucho, but we do NOT hold shared visions of liberty. I posit that the gap between the vision for this country of those on the left and the rest of us is unbridgeable. Uniting the left and the right is a dead letter. We either destroy them or they destroy us. Not a happy message to impart, but certainly an appropriate day to do so. The left will never leave us alone, will never be satisfied. Their movement needs the peace of the grave.
Maybe uniting in every way isn't necessary. Maybe the "uniting" could be much looser, with a LOT more freedom and better management. Better means of building community. We need some better leadership, I say. New ways of thinking about living as a group without having too much conformity in ideology and "worthiness" ideas. Rigid conformity as a means of being able to survive well is no way to run things... That's more like coercion.
Yes! And, we need leadership, less dictators.
Independence personified!! Totally agree and practiced daily by myself and most of my family. People have been duped into thinking they need a "dear leader" for way too long.
Watch the parking meters
Collectivists cannot seem to fathom such a spirit. They're convinced it's some sort of fascist plot. We weren't philosophically prepared for the times we're living in. So many fallacious priors pounded into our heads and very hard to let go of. The biggest one that comes to mind is "fascism is right-wing". "All institutions must band together with loyal citizens to fight the right-wing nemesis!!". I don't think projection is a conscience strategy. It simply looking at oneself and assuming others have the exact same temptations and thought patterns. It's an effective tool in many areas of life.
It seems good right now, maybe, but it's not leadership that got us into this shit, it's chicanery, fraud, lies, greed, and a stupified, sickened, and overly-dulled citizenry. What we need isn't Evil POSING as leadership, it's Good Leadership. I say let's get David E. Martin in there to help us get to the de-centralized stage... He's shown repeatedly that he can't be bought, and he's a true patriot. That said, we should all "lead" ourselves, and be educated in HOW TO THINK. What say you?
wE jUsT nEeD tO gEt ThE rIgHt pEoPLE iN tHeRe
Not sure what the funky lettering is about, but maybe it's an assumption that you think that's what I'm saying. We DO need to get the right people in there, but we also need to get the WRONG people out of the power to be able to KILL the right people. The SYSTEM is the problem, not leadership. Try running much of anything that involves a group, without leadership... I'll stand over here and watch! ^_^
Thank you for this thoughtful and thought-provoking article.
At the risk of seeming to quibble and thus detract from your fine work, I will say that I occasionally find myself wondering if “electing our leaders” is really the correct framing. I will be the first to admit to having endured a second-rate education, and that may be at the heart of my misapprehension, but I have always regarded elected officials as administrators of state function, not as leaders.
In my experience, leaders arise naturally and organically and have no need of being elected; their role in the community is in no need of official sanction. Occasionally a leader may be elected to high office, but frequently we must choose the least bad from among a crop of mediocre and pedestrian self-seekers who would be largely incapable of delivering on their promises even if they intended to.
It was never completely clear to me how the process of being elected, as contaminated as it is with the grubby business of currying favor among competing special interests and with the establishment, automatically conferred some kind of moral virtue that I necessarily would want to follow in the sense that one follows a leader.
Is it possible that much present difficulty might be ascribed to venerating as leaders ordinary people who should be elected as invisible servants?
Was I misled when I was taught that “a bad king is one the subjects hate, a better king is one the subjects love, but the best king is one that the subjects don’t even know they have?”
Wouldn’t efficient and minimally-intrusive administration of the routine affairs of a town, a county, a state and a county be better than elected officials arrogating to themselves “leadership”?
Leaders are best left to arise in an environment where elected officials don’t see them as competition.
There’s more to this than I have room for here, but I hope I have managed to convey the gist without undermining your inspiring work.
this is always the challenge, no?
being elected confers no virtue and often proves its lack.
gato's first law: "as soon as one allows politicians to determine that which is bought and sold the first things bought and sold will always be politicians."
the only way to take the power hungry out of politics is to take power away from politicians.
the small state is not the platform for power such people desire.
the first step is to reduce the size of leviathan, its reach, its remit.
when it can coerce, those outside who would lead struggle to finds influence.
where i would quibble with your take (which seems in no way the result of a second rate education) is on leadership in politicians.
george washington immediately opposed and shut down any notions of making him or anyone else king.
THAT is the leadership we need. mere stewards and officials become cogs in a big machine whose creeping power and inclination can turn to tyranny.
what's easy to forget is that it is usually the people who clamor for it.
thus, we need true leaders of character and courage who will tell the people "no" when they ask the state to take up new powers.
"you do not want mew to have this. consider how else such a power might be later used by others you would never wish to wield it."
that is leadership of free people: the courage to refuse to subjugate them even and especially when they demand it of you.
that takes real strength.
and i think it's that we must seek in those we would appoint stewards.
1 Samuel 8
Ever it was and ever it shall be. His faithful will never yearn for another king to rule over them.
When you rely on people to lead they can always be corrupted. Like Naval Ravikant says a good system should be able to be turned over to your enemies and still not be corrupted. Our is corrupted when people we elected are running it. The key to fixing it is to create a new system and plug it in like life support to our current one. Like this:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/the-case-for-building-a-new-open
but this need pose no problem if you are not obligated to follow.
you simply choose another path
Are there such people in these times?
all these writers and doctors, professors and scientists & statisticians i have followed since 2020 have shown their humility and bravery & constancy, in the face of all the worst types of threat. I consider them all humble beacons of hope who inspire trust. 🙏
Yes. Trump certainly did a bit of this against the urgings of those at the inception of the Covid hysteria. (Not enough, mind you, but still some...)
Do we elect our "leaders"?
I remember when I voted in my first presidential election (all the way back in 1988). They still used lever machines in my county at the time. I remember wondering if my vote really mattered at all. There was no record of it. For the 1992 election, they upgraded to a touch pad system that was still basically mechanical. When you pulled the lever, your vote was cast and the curtain opened. In 2020, they switched to the Dominion machines (I live in a corrupt county outside of Philadelphia controlled by Democrats). When the guy handed me a felt tip pen, I asked him, "Are you sure this is okay to use?" Like most of us, I've taken many standardized tests and filled out many forms. Felt tip pens were never okay...until 2020. He assured me that it was and then watched me very intently as I put my "ballot" in the scanner.
My doubts about election integrity did not start in 2020. I've always doubted the process and the people. IMO, the 2020 election only confirmed what I had long suspected.
No doubt, many (most?) of the people who seek elected office are power-hungry egotists who lack the intelligence, integrity, or ability to be leaders.
I submit that they are also not really in control. The people and forces behind them who catapult them into office, who speak quietly into their ear from the shadows, are the people in control.
The past two plus years have revealed many of them. They aren't hiding themselves or their intentions as they were in the past.
We must defeat them.
that was me too. i'm in CA, and in 2020 (and the recall Newsom election a year later) we were sent four ballots for our home (via mail because that's now permeant for all elections here in CA). We have only two adults able to vote. We went in person, just to be as sure. The most recent election for the primaries only a few weeks ago? only two ballots. They know what they are doing.
And ballots came back to my house, claiming the signature was suspect, after they had declared the recall defeated. How many people I wonder, had that happen.
Love seeing this. I often use the example of working on a big project. We may decide among the group that one of us is the best qualified to lead our project to success. And then, once the project is done, we all go our own separate ways and the "leader" we chose goes back to being just another person in the community. This philosophy that we have to elect someone to tell us what to do for decades is horrific.
You know what is even more powerful than leaders? A leaderless movement. Decentralized.
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/decentralize-everything
Non- truncated version. Sorry for the spam.
Thank you for this thoughtful and thought-provoking article.
At the risk of seeming to quibble and thus detract from your fine work, I will say that I occasionally find myself wondering if “electing our leaders” is really the correct framing. I will be the first to admit to having endured a second-rate education, and that may be at the heart of my misapprehension, but I have always regarded elected officials as administrators of state function, not as leaders.
In my experience, leaders arise naturally and organically and have no need of being elected; their role in the community is in no need of official sanction. Occasionally a leader may be elected to high office, but frequently we must choose the least bad from among a crop of mediocre and pedestrian self-seekers who would be largely incapable of delivering on their promises even if they intended to.
It was never completely clear to me how the process of being elected, as contaminated as it is with the grubby business of currying favor among competing special interests and with the establishment, automatically conferred some kind of moral virtue that I necessarily would want to follow in the sense that one follows a leader.
Is it possible that much present difficulty might be ascribed to venerating as leaders ordinary people who should be elected as invisible servants?
Was I misled when I was taught that “a bad king is one the subjects hate, a better king is one the subjects love, but the best king is one that the subjects don’t even know they have?”
Wouldn’t efficient and minimally-intrusive administration of the routine affairs of a town, a county, a state and a county be better than elected officials arrogating to themselves “leadership”?
Leaders are best left to arise in an environment where elected officials don’t see them as competition.
There’s more to this than I have room for here, but I hope I have managed to convey the gist without undermining your inspiring work.
Darn, this unfortunately was truncated.
It’s going to be a problem. I have a theory that government will always sink to the lowest moral common denominator: the government is a reflection of the intellectual and moral status of the governed.
Radical decentralization, such as envisioned by the framers of the US Constitution, had it been maintained, would have prevented much trouble. There would be bad states and good states, of course. But sacrificing those who are capable of governing themselves on the altar of some false notion of “equality” is foolishness.
Happy 4th to my American brothers and sisters! May you not get arrested!
(Some Canadians did in the Police state that was downtown Ottawa Friday Canada Day)
We're with our Maple Leaf brothers and sisters! And happy belated Canada Day! 🇨🇦🇺🇲
Sad. God bless and keep you safe.
Happy Independence Day!
El Gato Malo thank you as always for being intellectually courageous. And for keeping the comment sections a place for discourse!
Independence is needed once again, from the corruption that has happened to the systems that govern over our lives. What can we do to gain that independence back?
This Independence Day we must shift focus from fighting each other to fixing the corrupted systems that govern over all of our lives. This is something we should all agree on, and being the number one problem we face in America today, there is nothing more important:
Article: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/happy-independence-day?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios
Video/Audio:
https://youtu.be/m_biuzQRtGU
Here's a parable about the seen and unseen of the greater good fallacy:
The parable of the broken window was introduced by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay "That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See"
("Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas")
The Parable
Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when his careless son happened to break a square of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"
Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.
Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade—that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs—I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
bastiat comprises an entire education unto himself.
economics, politics, and philosophy, often written in poetry to rival moliere.
if one had to chose but one author upon which to base an entire curriculum, i doubt one could do better.
In short, he was a polymath. Like our founders.
We have sacrificed individual liberties at the alter of specialization...and so much more.
We have sacrificed imagination... and in many senses our connection to human relationships and a commitment to community. Indeed a small part of our soul has a hole in it, due to the lack of a broader view.
Currently we have people making decisions of significant consequences based on their singular view in their silo.
They can not think outside that silo, because they are disconnected from that which is outside. In fact, they can not think out of that silo, because they don't even know they are in one.
This leads to diminished creativity and problem solving skills. And frankly empathy.
Excellent!
Well said and thought provoking
Hi Ryan! Happy 4th! What’s the difference between a duck and George Washington?
One has a bill on his face and the other has his face on a bill!
Har-har!
What's the difference between Biden and Carter?
Carter liked peanuts. Biden likes small girls.
Peanutphilia vs pedophelia
What do they both have in common?
Inflation…not much of a punchline.
i still like it!
HI Ryan! I have a back log of dad jokes for you!
What does a baby computer call his father? Data.
After an unsuccessful harvest, why did the farmer decide to try a career in music? Because he had a ton of sick beets.
I only seem to get sick on weekdays. I must have a weekend immune system.
My friend was showing me his tool shed and pointed to a ladder. “That's my stepladder,” he said. "I never knew my real ladder.”
What do you call a Frenchman wearing sandals? Philippe Flop.
Why is it so cheap to throw a party at a haunted house? Because the ghosts bring all the boos.
I don’t get why Marvel doesn’t use the Hulk to advertise more. He’s basically one big Banner.
What brand of underwear do scientists wear? Kelvin Klein.
Which days are the strongest? Saturday and Sunday. The rest are weekdays.
Love all of them!
Missed ya Candace.
Hope all is well.
Cheers!
And here's the dreadful reality of our time: people such as you, who are the very highest ideals of our nation in living action, must do their work under cover of anonymity.
I always thought one of the great ironies of our national history was how all those little crazy dissident rebellious nonconformist fringe sects who endured every degree of extreme persecution, and never abandoned their struggle for *their* freedom of thought and action, were enthusiastic persecutors of everyone who, you know, thought differently.
In action we are self-parody but we've got those ideals of the Founders to haul us back to some place of reason and commonality.
Back when I was still a garden-variety office indentured servant, 35 years ago or so, I used to read my boss's copy of the WSJ every day and wondered who that moron Max Boot was, spewing all that orthodox Republican garbage, and lo, here we are, and Max Boot is now spewing all this leftist "throw out the Constitution" garbage.
We need an awfully big broom to sweep out these stables.
Many hands (and brooms) make light work. Here we go
Gonna take a lot of endurance and persistence. None of it will be light but it's gonna be worth it.
Love the George Washington quote! But yes, good write up. Despite all the issues we deal with presently we must turn it all around. Start small, start local. The philosophies and reasons why our ancestors tried this great experiment remain valid. We have made many errors - let's correct them as we go - but move forward. No fear.
Everyone makes errors since we are all human. Heck I know animals too err all the time, just saw a lioness be tramped by buffaloes. But where do we start from here? What can an older woman in the boonies do to get these scoundrels out? I will vote,, but how much will it do? I am quite sure we will do the right thing here, but that does not change washington.
start small. start local.
secure your home then your neighborhood or your town.
i am consistently stunned at how much focus americans put on presidents and congress-critters and yet how little they know about their own town councils, mayors, school boards, and judges.
get informed and get involved.
That being said, my extra funds are currently being spent in self-sufficiency. For whatever that is worth. It’s a weird version of a life saving account.
...extra ?! What is THAT? lol.
Well, moneys that had been earmarked for home improving are now buying rain barrels, survival foods, and ammo. Sadly
Very sadly. I only meant that, especially in times such as these - not too much 'extra' to go around. Sounds like smart investing, on your part - good luck!
Luckily I live in a small community and although I don't know the people that run it, it did real good. Barely any school closure, and they prolonged the school year with the 2 missed weeks, seen no community obligatory masking or shots, but will have to ask to make sure. The bigger town close by has turned blue so there it got real bad. Decided to give my business to others!
John Taylor Gato wrote a few books on homeschooling, describing how the small local schools were taken out, little by little, until parents were drowned out and had no idea what was happening in their child's school. Taking the schools back would be a HUGE start.
some smaller communities here in rural georgia don't even have an elementary school anymore. A child I know had to take the bus at 6 in the morning to return at 6 at night. She was first grader when this happened, the school in their little place closed after preschool.
Sadly this is all by design. It starts with condemning the little schools buildings, this gets a big union project promised (multimillion dollar centralized school built) so many palms greased in the process, it's disturbing once you understand how it works and you follow the money.
My younger brothers elementary school, which was close enough to bike to or be walked by mom, was condemned, deemed unsafe, but interestingly enough a year later was fine for an alternative high school to move in.
Interesting ! The VA here had several empty buildings they considered unusable for veterans. They built a huge new complex that had to be redone a few times, because it was so badly constructed. Now the old buildings house a school ! And the older high school, about 50 years old, was torn down, a new one built with sun panels and all, and then it turned out the panels were rented, and they were not used to produce steam. The people protested against the sky high school tax and won the suit. They all got some money back.
and I'd wonder if we don't need to bring in the voice of the non-human world in our own places. In a little book called The Lure of the Ring, the author, a therapist, investigates the figure of Tom Bombadil. He isn't the one who carries the ring to Mordor, and his influence is the genius loci, the spirit of the place. The ring doesn't call him and those who put it on aren't invisible to him. He is in his geography, he is his geography, and a different sort of power arises from that. His attention is on the trees and mushrooms. a A grounding and rooting in the phenomenology of place that can't be fully articulated, its musics and perfumes. "America" is an "imagined community," but fighting from the strata of where we actually are might be an anti-dote to the lure of the ring.
Very cool and inspirational essay.
For sure, ignoring the local is a bad idea.
But as far as too focused on DC... well I view it differently. If I may paraphrase pseudo-Trotsky, "You may not be interested in Washington, but Washington is far, far too interested in *you*!" The entire time you are working to build things locally, you had better be often glancing over your shoulder to be sure no one is coming at you from the EEOC or Title XYZ administration of threatening violation of the Lacey Act etc.
I think you are right. The local people can do some, but the hard rules are made somewhere else. Then the locals have to bend as well, no matter how hard they try to keep you covered
My rural town is corrupt and has its own deep state. Depressing. Like low level bureaucrats all over America, they just wait for their administrative bosses in DC or the state capital to send them marching orders...
Become a powerful keyboard warrioress! Do not let the corrupt and the inept in D.C. sleep at night.
Find documentation on the crimes against all of us that have been committed by the lords of the "plandemic" and keep sending the evidence with your ire and moral outrage to each and every elected and appointed official who's name, email, and phone number you can find.
Copy your local news outlets and the big sick national ones as well.
Some of the people you eventually reach will wake up.
They are seeing the catastrophe in vax injuries also, (in some cases,) some are being awoken from their moral and intellectual comas by the turn of events internationally, more now perceive SOMETHING is wrong, but are frightened to see the depth of the evil stalking all of us.
The best way to break the mass formation is to keep talking, keep writing, continue to expose the facts.
This is an absolutely critical role, and best carried out by those who have the time and the life experience to perceive the current reality as it is. You, and many others exactly like you, in other words!
Wow thank you for the encouragement ! I am doing what I can that way indeed !
Ingrid keep keeping on Sister! I do so enjoy your thoughts and POV!
Viva La Dia de Independencia!
🙏🏼💓🇺🇸
Thank you so much Frontera Lupiita. Your presence has helped me through many a dark day !
💓🙏🏼🇺🇸
One step at a time. Deliberately as our founding ancestors did it. Our advantage is we have the errors they would have admitted to to help serve as signposts of what to avoid. Pretty good start they provided however. The Constitution - properly understood - is a super guide. Washington is symbolic of the will of we the people. As it is right now, with so many chainlink fences, it represents one of the places to begin.
"These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." Happy July the 4th to all Americans! And also a Happy 4th to the growing number of people of the world that are freeing their minds from the yokes of fear and blind obedience to authority.
Wise words. And you’re right this time it is world wide. Thomas Paine was right when he wrote in Common Sense that the right Americans still seek are rights all people seeks and value. A very spectacularly Happy 4th to everyone.
Yes - blind obedience to terrible authority. May we come back to God & break the bands of ungodly authority.
As Washington often said in the darkest of times, trust in divine Providence.
I think Jim Breuer was celebrating the 4th a little early this year...
https://youtu.be/5V7-WZYLBbM
Most politicians and even many freedom oriented people forget that politicians aren’t supposed to govern or rule or run the country…and especially not in regard to me.
A politician is supposed to run the government. That’s pretty much it. I certainly don’t need—or want—any politician to rule/run/or govern ME.
And we still have people like David Rubin who just said that the Constitution “gives” us our rights.
*sigh*
I’ve always found it telling that, after “mama” and “dada,” the first word most of us learn (and use liberally and gleefully) as tots is “no.”
I love history and have read lots of early American history. What you’ve written here is a condensed version of their thoughts on federalism, and factions. I often tell my friends that the only solution is that we, the citizens, take back our responsibility as the sovereign and that all this is our fault as we’ve become drunk with a life of plenty. Anyway...great work...especially for such a wee kitten.
You write:
"free people do not follow focus group tested soundbites. they follow leaders."
No way!
That alpha dog thinking is what got us in this mess in the first place.
The reason that separation of powers is Article 1 of the Constitution is that it's that crucial to limit the power of leaders. Executive branch wannabe tyrants must be reined in by legislature. Both must be checked in the limits of their powers by judiciary. From Montesquieu to John Locke to our founders, this was make-or-break to ensure liberty.
i think you misapprehend what is meant by "leader" and presume coercion where none is implied.
leaders of free people lead a populace to liberty, not subjugation.
they are thought leaders. inspirers to agency.
they generate consent, not compliance.
it has been mistaking dictators for leaders than made this mess.
It has been the deferred protection of liberty to leaders that made this mess. Individuals must be the defenders of their own liberty, as you also acknowledged in this post, and we the people are the ultimate repository of that liberty, also acknowledged by 10th Amendment. You have argued this yourself. MEP Christine Anderson goes even farther: No government has ever promoted the best interests of regular people, ever in human history, no matter how benign-seeming the leaders. Freedom is ensured by us ultimately.
leaders need not be politicians (or elected officials/agents of the state).
i think you're presuming that leadership and government must by synonymous.
i see no reason why that must be so.
I accept your distinction between leaders and governing officials. But is there any among the former who runs for the office of the latter whom you would vote against, or whom you would not vote for? There is technical difference between the two, but much de facto overlap.
I see what you're getting at though. Thought leaders are not always politicians and vice versa. But we run into trouble also when we outsource our critical thinking. As a member of "Team Reality," I am expected to agree frequently with Van den Bossche and Malone, yet I think they're each wrong about half the time. I do not consent to their being my thought leaders. So leaders must also be viewed cautiously.
there will always be leaders of one stripe or another. this is simply human nature. utopian ideas of "no leaders and each as self governing" in some sort of anarcho-capitalist agora are lovely ideals, but impossible in practice beyond very small scales. they serve, rather, as a sort of asymptote, a pole star, and an aspiration.
government is not nor cannot ever be the ultimate guarantor of liberty. that must always reside with the people.
we instantiate it to establish and uphold such path as we consent provides the best likelihood of providing for liberty.
and we must tear it down and replace it with better should to fail at such aims. that prerogative and obligation must always reside with the people.
this does not mean we must not or even ought not have leaders.
it might well be a fine thing were they not needed, but humanity is simply not like that and like all utopian ideals from communism to pure passivism, its success rests upon a step of "first we must change the fundamental nature of humanity" and such never happens.
humanity is what it is. we cannot change its fundamental character much.
so we must create systems to best accommodate it.
edge-lord positions like "no leaders" strike me as posturing for the salon that serve poorly in the actual agora.
leaders will always emerge.
the best we can do it to render following them voluntary, mitigate their power, and thereby seek to align them to the cause of liberty over tyranny.
"let's not have alpha dogs" does not strike me as a realistic option and i fear that building a system upon such an assumption is akin to building a bridge while ignoring gravity.
it will not long stand.
addendum:
i very much agree with your point that viewing the state as the protector of your liberty is deeply dangerous and how we got into this mess. you outsource protection to a guard dog and one day find you are its prisoner. worse, you forget that there was every another way and became acculturated to such states of subjugation.
this is what makes "woke" and "ESG" so pernicious. it's the weak and cowardly hiding behind the skirts of state and institutional power and violence to bully and suppress the agency of others.
it's the poster child for inverting the nature of liberty.
it's also likely the bridge too far that will flip the system back into proper valence.
Yes. From a historical perspective, I have to acknowledge you're right about the impracticality of rejecting every leader. An extreme example of rejecting every leader is what Leon Trotsky advocated, permanent revolution; leave no leader in power, and Trotsky did not succeed obviously.
However, the outsourcing of one's critical thinking to any thought leader, and anyone who says, "trust me; I've done the thinking for both of us" leads to getting cheated in the end, whether in the micro-economic realm or society at large.
On the other hand, when we teach children and youth to exercise critical thinking skills, when we teach them the responsibility of defending their liberties, when we celebrate adults who role model the understanding and advocacy of liberty, then we the people will be much more resilient against leaders - both thought leaders and politicians - who keep trying to take us for a ride off a cliff.
Correction: the 9th amendment states this more specifically than the 10th.
Also, Anderson quote before European Parliament was:
"Whenever the government claims to have the people's interests at heart, you need to think again. In the entire history of mankind, there has never been a political elite sincerely concerned about the well-being of regular people."
"Always question everything the government does or does not do. Always look for ulterior motives and always ask, 'Cui bono?' Who benefits?"
The Iroquois also knew this and had checks and balances in their bicameral legislation and their Council of grandmothers.
Unfortunately, while a good many Americans understand that there are checks and balances throughout our Federal
government, they fail to realize that the crucial check on Federal power as a whole is held by the states and, most importantly, the People themselves.
Of course! Without the checks and balances provided by the states and we the people there are way insufficient checks and balances. Since 2020 we have had a systematic lesson in the importance of these. The pendulum will swing (to the point this time such that we barely have a country) but currently we have front row seats at the exercise of these.
Yes, the 10th Amendment, which upholds that, is a very valuable tool for us to use as needed.
This is a crucial point. We live in a freedom loving country, one in which our founding ancestors admired the Native Americans, borrowing from their various examples of community councils. These Native Americans were/are strong and able Americans who embodied survival and coping skills from many thousands of years on the continent. One of the largest errors we made was not to honour and support the freedom of the Native Americans. Same is true of our Hispanic Americans with whom we have shared the continent. Certainly also the descendants of Africans our ancestors brought in as fellow immigrants,
Do you feel better after that little virtue signal?
I honor and support the freedom of all Americans. If you did, too, you probably wouldn't feel so guilty...
Thank you for framing this politicians vs leaders problems. Politicians are people begging us for a job. The President is the person we hire to oversee the executive branch of the government. The government is not what leads us. It is what keeps people who want to be leading us from taking power. Or, at least it should be. Also, all people who claim to be leaders should be looked at with suspicion. If you feel like you need something to lead you, let it be an idea and not the person expressing the idea.
I agree we all are currently allergic to "leaders!" They are the sociopaths currently on the tip tops of the pyramids of power we unwisely allowed to grow in and around our government.
The CDC, FDA, CIA, NSA, on an on and on, have too much power, too much money, and zero accountability to the people they supposedly serve.
Congress can't rein them in.
It will take great efforts by many Americans to end their lawless ways.
Budgets, outcomes, and accountability aren't sexy, but nothing could be more important
Leaders of the kind the Gato refers to matter as well. They inspire and can attract high numbers of individuals with integrity to accomplish the goal. We need the best, not the worst, in government!
I think you’re agreeing with Gato here. I wouldn’t say that leaders equate to tyrants. In fact in my experience real, leaders are selfless. Gato is simply saying that we citizens have been very clearly making our political choices based on the wrong reasoning - we have surrendered our responsibility to mistrust the government and politicians. The founders provided us the optimal style of government and they all felt that the experiment ultimately tested in the citizens attention to their role as sovereign. We lack that necessary disdain and mistrust of the political class. We are now two idiot factions and we vote, seemingly, with the end goal of ensuring our faction remains in control. And that it. It’s party politics, as opposed to ensuring the government is optimally functional and unobtrusive.
I think if we could make it so that neither faction actually had control of the county just by voting their leader into office, we would be much better off. Part of that is convincing people that the President or any other member of the executive branch isn’t actually the leader of the country. I was taught this in my civics class and it sure seems like the right perspective whether it is true or the founders intended it. But I’m also a contrarian by nature and have no interest in a leader in general.
This is probably the most moving thing I've read in recent memory. You've given me a good deal to think about today. Thank you!
Happy Independence Day, El Gato Malo!
We're done sacrificing for a nebulous "greater good".
The real enemy is the beauracratic state who will make weapons out of process and punishment out of procedure.
Great post. Their "Great Reset" is also a wonderful opportunity for one of our own.
gato, you have outdone yourself, again! I was really looking forward to today's post because I knew you would bring us learned words of eloquence and inspiration. I've been thinking of ways to bring these ideas forward in my own community, all based around your statement: "1. Liberty is for everyone." I don't yet know if it will be a community forum, a book club or a radio show...but you've definitely inspired me to do more than just agree with the foundation of this incredible organization of a free society, but to now engage in a more public way. Thank you for your inspirational leadership! Liberty is for everyone! Happy Independence day everyone!
Do let us know so that we can support your efforts from afar!
Thank you for your encouragement! I am still trying to figure out the best format for reaching people at the deepest level. It does no good if they nod along and do nothing. I would be interested if others have done this kind of thing in their own communities. I live a very small town, so my reach at this point would be limited.
I'm happy to also live in a small town, but like you,would ask for people to speak up with concrete suggestions!
thank you for sharing your ideas!