Notes on the Election, Democracy, Secession

Why Have an Election?

It might as well be canceled. Unless you like the status quo, it is a waste of time to vote. Today's presidency is nothing more than an elected dictatorship, as Mr. Lew Rockwell calls it. Oh, yes, I know what people will say. A President Barrack Obama would bring something "different" than what we have had. Seeing that the war party establishment likes Obama, why in the world should any normal person? Then Mr. Colin Powell endorses him. A war criminal endorses the so-called "anti"-war man and the predictable card-carrying Democrats cheer. ...Hmmm. I am now starting to dislike partisan Obama supporters more than McCain supporters. I did not think that was possible.

Sen. John McCain speaks about Obama's socialism, but maybe he should look in the mirror. The same goes for Sen. Barrack Obama. He talks about McCain's favoring of the rich and wealthy. Does it slip his notice that he supported the bailouts? Or are we not suppose to notice his embrace of welfare for the rich?

Honestly, I do not know of one thing either of the two would fundamentally or deeply change about this government. If it is the continuation of the cartelization of the medical industry, the presence of American troops in over 100 nations, continued bailouts and other regulations to prevent the market to rid itself of these government generated bubbles, or what have you, both bring more of the same. Even when it comes to Iraq, Obama today sounds almost identical to McCain.

But, according to some neoconservative on talk radio, Obama would cut military spending. I sincerely doubt that. But say he would. So what? Now, I know, modern day conservatives don't read much Kirk or Weaver these days, if they even heard of them. Conservative literature, they think, is reading a book by Ann Coulter.

Robert Nisbet in his great Conservatism: Dream and Reality, a book recommended by Russell Kirk, wrote:

Of all the misascriptions of the word "conservative" during the last four years, the most amusing, in an historical light, is surely the application of "conservative" to the last-named. For in America throughout the twentieth century, and including four substantial wars abroad, conservatives had been steadfastly the voices of non-inflationary military budgets, and of an emphasis on trade in the world instead of American nationalism. In the two World Wars, in Korea, and in Viet Nam, the leaders of American entry into war were such renowned liberal-progressives as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. In all four episodes conservatives, both in the national government and in the rank and file, were largely hostile to intervention; were isolationists indeed.

As is typical, good (or, I probably should say, relatively good) political-ideological terms are stolen and then assimilated into a pro-establishment mentality, i.e., statist and culturally to the "left." After all, any truly anti-statist or relatively anti-statist philosophy, and one that is socially and culturally "conservative," could never become mainstream in an essentially statist and socially "left" establishment (and if it did, then the current federal and state governments would have to be looking extraordinarily different compared to what they look today ------ ditto for the culture).

It should also be pointed out, that the military is a socialist enterprise. By definition it is socialism. Likewise, other so-called "anti-terror" programs are socialist enterprises, e.g., "homeland security." It is thus difficult to get caught up in the Republican hysteria that Obama is a hard-core socialist. That he is a socialist there is no question. That he would be more of a socialist, on net, than McCain is not written in stone. These same people probably said that Bush as opposed to Al Gore must be elected because otherwise "Big Government" would come. One only has to look at what we have today. Of course, no one can say for sure if the government would be relatively larger, the same, or smaller if Gore was president. In retrospect, however, it seems very foolish to say that Bush was the right pick in terms of being a "non-socialist." It could even be convincingly argued, now that we have hindsight, that Gore probably would not have been able to get away with as much socialist enterprises or government expansions than Bush. Hence, the idea of voting for McCain based on one's prediction that he would be less of a socialist is on shaky grounds.

As the late Sam Francis noted, this is how the Republican Party operates in these presidential elections. For example, in 2004 the GOP's big weapon was Sen. John Kerry. They kept on saying that if Bush lost, Kerry would be elected and for this reason you must vote for Bush; and you must ignore all of the anti-"conservative" things about Bush. Conservatives get duped each time. From Francis's point of view, this then allows the Republicans to move more and more leftward and, consequently, keeps the GOP neoconizned. It seems to me that paleoconservatives should not feed this trend.

Anyways, in 2007 Mr. Anthony Gregory wrote an article for LRC saying that the next U.S. President is going to be worse than President Bush. I couldn't disagree with him then and I can't disagree now at this date and time.

Recently he has called for "Four More Years!" I echo this.

I will admit my secret, though: I do want Obama to beat McCain in the upcoming popularity contest. (And that seems very probable to happen.) Not because I necessarily see him as "the lesser of evil." I am not sure if he is or is not. But I would like the saint-like image of Obama to wane. A few supporters might then realize that he has represented no real change vis-à-vis the political establishment, the declining economy, and the military-industrial-complex.

Don't Vote.

All that you need to know about democracy is that man was more free when he couldn't vote, or when so-called voting "rights" were highly discriminatory and elitist. At least with the latter there was no egalitarian illusion. The idea that everyone was equally capable of voting, and thus deserving of one equal vote, was not present. Why should, for example, government workers vote?

People often make analogies between the market place and democracy (as I have in the past), but the differences are polar, which makes the analogies superficial. There is no such thing as "equal" dollar voting in the market. Society couldn't function without there being inequality in the pricing system. The result would be chaos. The allocation of scarce resources would be in disarray.

Neither is democracy compatible with private property. There is no such thing as democracy in my household. The owner of a store does not run it democratically. Churches are not democratic. Two thugs that break into a man's home and, being that they are good supporters of democracy, allow the owner to vote on the decision of taking or not taking his valuables is not compatible with liberty, order, and/or a just society.

Accepting democracy as a principle is filled with logical contradictions. (E.g., see Murray Rothbard in Power & Market.) Even beyond that, majority say-so does not turn a wrong into a right. Nor can majority say-so make a Euclidian triangle's angles not add up to 180 degrees. Now as a political system, democracy can either allow or disallow the possibility of it voting to end itself. If democracy does allow this, it is contradictive because democracy as a transcendent and supreme value can end itself. Democracy is therefore in a position that would not be transcendent and supreme. Or, if it cannot, then the disallowing thereof is un-democratic by eliding the wishes of the democratic masses. This is contradictive, too. Hence it cannot escape from being internally contradictive.

Given that democracy is about the relative majority winning over the minority, it is only appropriate that democracy, as a logical outcome, must thrive so that geographically this ideal of majority over minority truly prevails. If the democratic principle is true, then democracy is rationally most consistent with a world government. Man cannot have it both ways. If the majority is right, it must also be right at the global scale----and even more so. Arguing this is untrue would be an un-democratic statement because it would allow self-determined minorities to break-away from the majority. Moreover, accepting self-determination (which is inherently anti-democratic) would even allow ever increasing minorities to break-away to the point of allowing individuals and family households to secede from any democratic rule. Supporters of democracy, to avoid this result, must then embrace global (world) democracy. If not, then one has to admit that there is something greater than the democratic principle.

Things to Look At:

• “Against Woman Suffrage” by Lysander Spooner (New Age, February 24, 1877) [N.B.: I'm against man suffrage too, btw.]
• “Non-Voting Archive” at LewRockwell.com
• “Non-Voting Archive” At Strike-The-Root.com
• Monarchy > Democracy. Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn will teach you why.
  

Secession & "Apple Pie."

Nothing is more libertarian than secession. After all, viewed in one light, that is what libertarianism is all about: The right to be left alone, unmolested by government. It is about man's right to secession.

The classical liberal Ludwig von Mises wrote:

whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with. This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars.

Secession is actually in our bloodlines, as Americans. The American War of Independence was a war of secession. So it can hardly be called "anti-American." If you really believe that, you must then think the "Founding Fathers" were anti-American.

In view of this, we can describe the partisan denouncements, and the typical unthinking nonsense of "anti-American" labeling (which is common among left-neocons), that have been specifically directed at Gov. Sarah Palin for allegedly associating with a secessionist group in Alaska as horsepucky. You would think---ha, ha, ha---that after eight years of the Bush administration "blue states" would welcome secession. Could it just be that the explanation for this is that they don't have any principled problem with the enormous power that the Bush administration has possessed? Could it just be that they want that power for themselves?

Secession: A Way to Bring Freedom.

One worthy project for a paleolibertarian would be to start up an organization for various secessionist groups across the U.S. It could organize various groups under one tent.

Scattered geographically, isolated, and alone these individual groups would have trouble having success. I am not sure only one lone city could secede by itself. Only if more than one seceded at the same time could the probability of success increase. So if they coordinated with each other to some extent, then, it seems to me, their chances would be relatively higher. It would be more difficult for the federal government to crack-down with more than one area seceding. This would be true both in a military sense and in the sense of the federal government gaining public support to be aggressive against such areas.

Please let me note three further things in regards to this.

First, spreading libertarian political philosophy needs educated men. Good ideas do not spread on there own, after all. And while this might be a "politically incorrect" statement, it is essential for us to understand that, in an intellectual sense, ideas of liberty do not come from the common man of the masses. For instance, obviously someone like Newton, who revolutionized physics and mathematics, was not a common man of the masses. Thus the development of libertarian thought is hierarchical. So, at least at first, if libertarianism is to spread it first works from the top (e.g., intellectuals and elites) downward (e.g., average men). The masses do not create their own ideas systematically. They follow the intellectuals, whoever they are. (Read The Paleo Blog's "Ideas, Consequences, and Libertarianism.")

See von Mises on this here.

Second, success would depend on national public support. It would need to exist to some degree; otherwise the federal government might try to use physical force to stop it. The public might have mixed feelings, true, but they must at least see the federal government moving in with force as illegitimate. It is pretty obvious that any serious secession group would be portrayed, by the federal government and the mainstream media, as filled with "bad" and "stupid" people. As racists, Nazis, religious extremists, neo-Confederates, drug using losers, or who knows what. It is therefore important that any serious secession group must portray itself as filled with normal, ordinary people.

Third, if indeed anti-statist libertarianism does spread, it would ultimately have -some- element of spontaneity which knows no central plan. (This would especially be the case if areas that secede were to be completely stateless.) This is why I am somewhat skeptical of "Anarchist" organizations akin to the "Libertarian" Party. A mass movement of secession on the national scale does not seem conceivable at all. It is only comparatively more conceivable seeing local states, districts, cities, and towns peacefully seceding. For this reason, my view goes back to supporting an organization which focuses on that. To clarify, there will be "plans" and so forth. But most of it, I think, would be decentralized. (Think of the Ron Paul campaign. The heart of the campaign was its decentralization.) In addition, institutions and groups should not themselves be glorified, so to speak. That is to say, they should not become ends to themselves. Instead their goals should be "glorified."

These remarks and notes might seem out of place with the current climate of opinion. And, I'll admit, I am not what you can call an optimist. But then again, there is always a chance that in, say, ten years from now the possibility of real secessionist movements might develop. Empires never last forever, after all. They go bankrupt.

To be succinct, there are two different phenomena. One is centralization and the other is decentralization. The phenomenon of centralization is so destructive that it can kill itself in the end. In that event, this is when the light of liberty might shine through the darkness, even if it be just for a moment.

Why Don't People "Get" the Market?

On another note, Dr. Walter Block, a great scholar of liberty and economics, conjectures that man is socio-biologically hardwired towards socialism. Since man in early hunter-gather societies only understood cooperation explicitly as against implicitly (as in global markets with prices), there is an almost "instinctive" bias towards socialism. Men see prices go up in a disaster area and then everyone will yell (both Democrats and Republicans) that this is evil price gouging which needs to be made illegal by the force of the gun.

While there might be some truth to it, ultimately I reject it as grasping at straws. The reason, I believe, the majority of men have difficulty understanding the operation of the market place is because the logic behind it is "abstract." It requires a dedicated effort on the part of a man to attempt to truly learn economic logic. It is not something we are born with----anymore than man is born with an understanding of mathematical logic. Just think about mathematics a bit. Most people have tremendous difficulties with this subject, especially in its most abstract forms. Over-and-over again I have seen this in math courses. I don't think you can just assign the reason to early man and his lack of math skills.

Dr. Keith Devlin writes in The Language of Mathematics:

The acceptance of abstraction does not come easily to the human mind. Given the choice, people prefer the concrete over the abstract. Indeed, work in psychology and anthropology indicates that a facility with abstraction seems to be something we are not born with, but acquire, often with great difficulty, as part of our intellectual development.

Maybe I am an oddball, but I view (good, Austrian) economic logic as sometimes more difficult and more "abstract" to grasp than (most basic to intermediate level) mathematical logic. At least mathematics is often easy to concretize, in a manner of speaking, into equations. It is not so easy with economics, even when you can generalize the concepts of supply and demand with lines on a plane. Contra Dr. Block, I personally don't see man "growing out of" the current state of mind when it comes to understanding economics. Men will not have an "instinct" for the market in the future. Nor will man have an "instinct" for pure math in the future.

[To footnote, no doubt higher-up mathematics gets very abstract. Up there it is more abstract than economic logic. It can get very detached from the "real world." And, clearly, mathematics is more developed as a science than economics. Nevertheless, I do stand by saying that understanding economic logic as a whole can often be more difficult to grasp than the various abstractions of mathematics. Although, maybe I am just an oddball.]