It seems we are in synch as I just wrote a similar piece reflecting on my escape from political tribalism, which I encapsulate thus:
“Shedding my own labels peeled away the cognitive biases that had inhibited my ability to appreciate the perspectives of those outside my in-group, and it helped me see through the lies told to keep my in-group enslaved to an ideology that served the rulers rather than the people.”
I also sketched out my core values, a process I encourage everyone to try as it helped me clarify my inner guiding principles versus those that had been implanted by cultural indoctrination tools such as education and propaganda. These are the five top-level core values I wound up with:
• anti-tyranny | pro-liberty
• anti-fear | pro-courage
• anti-hatred | pro-love
• anti-illusion | pro-reality
• anti-destruction | pro-creation
Here is a Note I wrote on this topic for those who want to read further:
It was Duncan Trussell I once heard describe this ongoing, revolving door mess you describe as, ‘It’s like we’ve created a machine to select two apples that we get to choose from millions and millions of apples, except instead of choosing the two best, shiniest, crunchiest apples, it selects the two most rotten, and we have to choose one. There are no others’. Obviously paraphrasing but it’s how it is. The machine is broken and regardless of the quality apples going in, it always spits out the worst two, or at least the most corruptible two. And the cycle goes on. Basically, the system selects those who are most ruthless and self-interested, otherwise they’d never rise to the top of the party. I’m not sure how to fix the machine though, I really don’t. That’s the problem.
All of this is why the only meaningful reform is radical limitation on government powers. Unfortunately, the Bill of Rights has became a sort of permission slip to do anything that isn't prohibited by it, when the intent was for the Constitution to enumerate entirely the powers of the federal government.
Instead of meaningful reform, we can't even get Congress to abolish FISA court surveillance or rein in the tiniest part of the secret police... I mean FBI abuses of power.
The rules limiting government power function as taboos. The first person to violate a taboo is punished roundly, like Caesar, but by the time the second person violates the taboo it is normal and accepted. The habits of a constitutional nation of limited government power are ever more rapidly disintegrating. The young can't even conceive that there should be a limit on the government's duty to censor 'hate speech' or 'disinformation.'
I doubt we will be able to persuade people to advocate for change until they have personally and directly experienced worse abuses of power.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
As I recall, the term moral majority referred to everyday people with moderate views (mostly conservative but the term was inclusive to cross political lines) most of whom didn’t follow, and had enough sense not to send money to, television shills such as Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Pat Robertson. It did become a label used by liberals to slur people without trying to understand them, however. Further, Evangelical Christians, a narrower category that didn’t represent all Christians, never were “in power” per se as President or Majority leaders, that I recall, though they had influence as a strong voting block.
The Tao of dynamic balance is the way, as best we can achieve it. There is no “good” static state-it’s always that shining city on the hill that ends up demanding a foundation of skulls “just this once, cuz we’re the good guys and we’re different.”
This is what was meant by “keeping” the Republic; you cannot turn your back on power. It requires constant challenge from whichever angle reveals its weakness and shows the naked emperor.
And that’s exhausting for ordinary people trying to keep food on the table, so it falls to a dedicated few, who then succumb to the siren song, and the wheel turns.
I’ve come to see that this is both inevitable and okay, and constitutes Michael Malice’s White Pill-never give up hope because the wheel is always spinning, *as long as we keep spinning it.*
The argument of this essay is largely correct in terms of general tendencies, but it smacks of trying to establish oneself as superior to the fray in a way that annihilates both history and responsibility. It trivializes the current moment by saying, "Ho hum. This is just the same as it has ever been, and whatever crimes are being committed would be committed equally by the offenders' opponents, if they were in power."
It is true that there is the incentive to silence one's opponents when one has a hard-won, tenuous grasp on awesome power. It is not true that all factions are equal in their tendency to succumb to that temptation. Whatever petty corruption certain televangelists may have engaged in to their own and their followers' shame, there was nothing in the 1980s backswing against 1960s and '70s "liberalism" to compare with the ravenous power-grabbing and openly-demanded censorship of the wokist and vax-covidian fanatics today. Nor was there by the Trump administration, only a few years ago.
It matters where we tie the knot of our virtue. If we stand openly for liberty, fair play, and honorable conduct, then our friends and enemies will rightly denounce us as hypocrites should we betray these values, and we will lose power accordingly. Factions that call for "safety" or "justice", or the stamping out of human nature in the form of racism, inequality, misinformation, or smut, are capable, with no inconsistency in their standards, of any atrocity.
"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." -- Frank Herbert (Dune)
2000 years ago one penned “There is nothing new under the sun”. Man hasn’t changed.. starting of with great ideals they are compromised through time. All fall as the vision is tarnished and lost as it is passed to the next generation. At each passing more is lost and cannot be regained
I disagree. The tendencies you outline certainly do exist, and they affect everyone. But they do not affect everyone equally, not by a long shot. And I believe it is safe to say that those more susceptible to these tendencies are not randomly (equally) distributed between the parties.
One way people can be sorted is to say there are two kinds of people: Type A, those who wake up in the morning concerned about themselves, their own, and matters in "their own backyard," and Type B, those who wake up worrying about everyone else, and how to control everyone else. Another description of the same two groups would be those who just want to be left alone, and those who are activists, who are all about others, and controlling the behavior of those others. All others, without limit. One of these two groups is LOT more about power, and susceptible to it's temptations, than the other.
One of our parties can aptly be described as the party of government. It is naturally (literally so) heavily populated by Type B individuals. It seems you have entirely overlooked this difference.
As to everyone being equally affected by power, I give you George Washington. At the time he left the office of President, he held more power in this country than anyone then or since, and was being asked - begged, even - to stay on. He could have been King. He famously walked away.
There are such people, and there are a lot more of them in one party than the other. That would be the party with more Type A and fewer Type B individuals.
Recent empirical evidence is provided by the differing reactions to the covid insanity in the Red and Blue states. There was clearly less abuse of power and more freedom in the Red states, was there not? There is a difference in the parties.
We have ignored the fundemental brilliance and the warnings from our Founders.
Two words "Limited Government".
They knew.
“it’s the coke vs pepsi selection of ‘who’s going to be doing the suppression and rapacious taking this time?’”
This analogy is more appropriate than you may realize as BlackRock and Vanguard basically own both Pepsi and Coke and create the illusion of competition—just like they do with their two parties! (https://organicconsumers.org/who-owns-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/)
It seems we are in synch as I just wrote a similar piece reflecting on my escape from political tribalism, which I encapsulate thus:
“Shedding my own labels peeled away the cognitive biases that had inhibited my ability to appreciate the perspectives of those outside my in-group, and it helped me see through the lies told to keep my in-group enslaved to an ideology that served the rulers rather than the people.”
• “My Two-Year Stackiversary: Lattice of Coincidence + The Courage to Face the Truth” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/my-two-year-stackiversary-lattice)
I also sketched out my core values, a process I encourage everyone to try as it helped me clarify my inner guiding principles versus those that had been implanted by cultural indoctrination tools such as education and propaganda. These are the five top-level core values I wound up with:
• anti-tyranny | pro-liberty
• anti-fear | pro-courage
• anti-hatred | pro-love
• anti-illusion | pro-reality
• anti-destruction | pro-creation
Here is a Note I wrote on this topic for those who want to read further:
• https://substack.com/profile/1727692-sherman-alexie/note/c-15370018
Nailed it. Pete Townsend today : "we will get fooled again".
It was Duncan Trussell I once heard describe this ongoing, revolving door mess you describe as, ‘It’s like we’ve created a machine to select two apples that we get to choose from millions and millions of apples, except instead of choosing the two best, shiniest, crunchiest apples, it selects the two most rotten, and we have to choose one. There are no others’. Obviously paraphrasing but it’s how it is. The machine is broken and regardless of the quality apples going in, it always spits out the worst two, or at least the most corruptible two. And the cycle goes on. Basically, the system selects those who are most ruthless and self-interested, otherwise they’d never rise to the top of the party. I’m not sure how to fix the machine though, I really don’t. That’s the problem.
Great post!
What I am worried about is, once "we" take over the government, will "we" also turn authoritarian and nasty? The answer is "probably yes"
All of this is why the only meaningful reform is radical limitation on government powers. Unfortunately, the Bill of Rights has became a sort of permission slip to do anything that isn't prohibited by it, when the intent was for the Constitution to enumerate entirely the powers of the federal government.
Instead of meaningful reform, we can't even get Congress to abolish FISA court surveillance or rein in the tiniest part of the secret police... I mean FBI abuses of power.
The rules limiting government power function as taboos. The first person to violate a taboo is punished roundly, like Caesar, but by the time the second person violates the taboo it is normal and accepted. The habits of a constitutional nation of limited government power are ever more rapidly disintegrating. The young can't even conceive that there should be a limit on the government's duty to censor 'hate speech' or 'disinformation.'
I doubt we will be able to persuade people to advocate for change until they have personally and directly experienced worse abuses of power.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
George Orwell, 1984
As I recall, the term moral majority referred to everyday people with moderate views (mostly conservative but the term was inclusive to cross political lines) most of whom didn’t follow, and had enough sense not to send money to, television shills such as Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Pat Robertson. It did become a label used by liberals to slur people without trying to understand them, however. Further, Evangelical Christians, a narrower category that didn’t represent all Christians, never were “in power” per se as President or Majority leaders, that I recall, though they had influence as a strong voting block.
The Tao of dynamic balance is the way, as best we can achieve it. There is no “good” static state-it’s always that shining city on the hill that ends up demanding a foundation of skulls “just this once, cuz we’re the good guys and we’re different.”
This is what was meant by “keeping” the Republic; you cannot turn your back on power. It requires constant challenge from whichever angle reveals its weakness and shows the naked emperor.
And that’s exhausting for ordinary people trying to keep food on the table, so it falls to a dedicated few, who then succumb to the siren song, and the wheel turns.
I’ve come to see that this is both inevitable and okay, and constitutes Michael Malice’s White Pill-never give up hope because the wheel is always spinning, *as long as we keep spinning it.*
As Taibbi’s partner/friend Walter Kirn put it recently: I’m against whomever is in power.
Excellent article, but I have a serious question:
Has the US ever experienced this level of hegemony?
I think you know where I'm going with this.
The argument of this essay is largely correct in terms of general tendencies, but it smacks of trying to establish oneself as superior to the fray in a way that annihilates both history and responsibility. It trivializes the current moment by saying, "Ho hum. This is just the same as it has ever been, and whatever crimes are being committed would be committed equally by the offenders' opponents, if they were in power."
It is true that there is the incentive to silence one's opponents when one has a hard-won, tenuous grasp on awesome power. It is not true that all factions are equal in their tendency to succumb to that temptation. Whatever petty corruption certain televangelists may have engaged in to their own and their followers' shame, there was nothing in the 1980s backswing against 1960s and '70s "liberalism" to compare with the ravenous power-grabbing and openly-demanded censorship of the wokist and vax-covidian fanatics today. Nor was there by the Trump administration, only a few years ago.
It matters where we tie the knot of our virtue. If we stand openly for liberty, fair play, and honorable conduct, then our friends and enemies will rightly denounce us as hypocrites should we betray these values, and we will lose power accordingly. Factions that call for "safety" or "justice", or the stamping out of human nature in the form of racism, inequality, misinformation, or smut, are capable, with no inconsistency in their standards, of any atrocity.
"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." -- Frank Herbert (Dune)
2000 years ago one penned “There is nothing new under the sun”. Man hasn’t changed.. starting of with great ideals they are compromised through time. All fall as the vision is tarnished and lost as it is passed to the next generation. At each passing more is lost and cannot be regained
Amen. Power is intoxicating, and whoever obtains it becomes fixated on keeping it. The ruling party is where all the sociopaths converge.
I disagree. The tendencies you outline certainly do exist, and they affect everyone. But they do not affect everyone equally, not by a long shot. And I believe it is safe to say that those more susceptible to these tendencies are not randomly (equally) distributed between the parties.
One way people can be sorted is to say there are two kinds of people: Type A, those who wake up in the morning concerned about themselves, their own, and matters in "their own backyard," and Type B, those who wake up worrying about everyone else, and how to control everyone else. Another description of the same two groups would be those who just want to be left alone, and those who are activists, who are all about others, and controlling the behavior of those others. All others, without limit. One of these two groups is LOT more about power, and susceptible to it's temptations, than the other.
One of our parties can aptly be described as the party of government. It is naturally (literally so) heavily populated by Type B individuals. It seems you have entirely overlooked this difference.
As to everyone being equally affected by power, I give you George Washington. At the time he left the office of President, he held more power in this country than anyone then or since, and was being asked - begged, even - to stay on. He could have been King. He famously walked away.
There are such people, and there are a lot more of them in one party than the other. That would be the party with more Type A and fewer Type B individuals.
Recent empirical evidence is provided by the differing reactions to the covid insanity in the Red and Blue states. There was clearly less abuse of power and more freedom in the Red states, was there not? There is a difference in the parties.