The paleoconservative thinker, Sam Francis, developed the concept of anarcho- tyranny, which is when the state tyrannically regulates citizens’ lives yet is unable or unwilling to perform the basics of rule. For example, the government put speed cameras and red-light cameras up, in order to catch small violations, but if your car gets stolen, the cops will not bother looking for it. The tyranny is the micromanagement of the good citizens while driving. The anarchy is ignoring the car thieves.
It is a great framing because it is both true and easily validated. It is one of those observations that reminds us that conservatism was not always a collection of toadies and flunkies validating the latest Progressive fads. The Right used to have smart and thoughtful men genuinely concerned with the direction of Western society. They also had the courage to honestly examine what was happening. In other words, the current crisis did not sneak up on us like the fog.
Putting that aside, the paleos focused mainly on the management side of things with regards to anarcho-tyranny. Police departments are an easy example, but a similar process happened with regulatory agencies, large corporations, the academy, and the mass media. In fact, they saw these as tectonic plates of the ruling class that were slowly converging. Of course, this is what has happened. All of the power centers are occupied with the same sorts of people.
Something similar seems to have happened to the political class. It used to be that politicians spent a lot of time pretending to know the issues so they could connect with their voters. The old expression was that all politics were local. What that mean was the politicians needed to spend time among their voters, discussing the issues that concerned them. This was especially true of representative. Congressman put a heavy emphasis on being back in their districts.
You do not have to go back to far when it was rare for a politician to talk about big ideas or abstract concepts. Presidents, when giving national speeches would blather on about the meaning of America or the importance of patriotism. The rest stuck to things like making the roads better, fixing up the schools and helping business. The Democrats would talk about worker rights, in the context of higher wages. The Republicans would talk about less regulation so business could succeed.
In the 1990’s, a common thing was the town hall meeting, which was not really a town hall meeting. It was an expression for when the representative would show up in his district and take questions from his voters. This was the chance for the politician to show how much he cared about the local issues. The way he did that was by having a detailed knowledge of the facts. If someone asked about the roads, he knew all the bills and bond issues related to road repair.
This is no longer the case. In fact, the last time you are likely see your representative in person is when they are running as a challenger. Once they win office, they become an avatar on-line and on television. They never venture out among the people and the old town hall idea no longer exists. For a while they did conference calls, but now they are staged Zoom sessions with actors asking questions. In fact, Congress could now be doing its thing on a sound stage in Hollywood and no one would know.
On top of that, the avatars now talk in riddles. They lurch from one emotional crisis to the next, speaking about it in a creepy overwrought language. Minor misstatements are described as “horrendous” and “terrifying.” The primary feature of our politics now is that every ant is an elephant, and no one dares speak about the herd of elephants standing in the room. Anarcho-tyranny in politics results in emotionally charged drama over abstract concepts and ruthless ignorance of anything specific.
This is one reason the political class flew into a panic when Trump came along in the 2016 election. For all his bombast, he was talking about real things in practical terms that actually matter to people. When he spoke of immigration, he talked about rapists crossing the border and illegal aliens killing citizens. Trade was about China ripping off the country and reducing wages in the process. Trump was a throwback to the old-style politicians and that terrorized the current politicians.
This is something else the paleos touched on, but never fully explored. The managerial state not only becomes self-serving as it matures, but it also becomes inward looking, a self-contained culture. Once it becomes class-aware, as we are seeing today, it becomes rapidly insular. The dual purposes are the moral signifiers inside the system and maintaining the barrier between those inside and those outside. These work in concert to further isolate the system from the general society.
This is why our politicians sound increasingly deranged. Not sounding like normal people is very important inside the system. Who they are is not us, so they are constantly looking for ways to signal that to one another. This is why they are now barricading themselves into a green zone in Washington. Most likely, this will begin to happen at the state level. Americans will be ruled by pod people living and operating inside special zones guarded by razor wire and armed men.
The last phase of anarcho-tyranny may turn out to look something like colonial occupation, where the people in charge live in fortified towns. They use their control of the system to maintain the illusion of power, but in reality, it is all just a very expensive drama that has no practical impact, beyond the cost. The practical aspects of life are handled by corporations and ad hoc associations. Managerialism brings us full circle to a firm of feudalism with material excess.
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Very interesting picture in the first paragraph. That kind of also sums up Jordan Peterson’s observation that we live in a time characterized “by inertia and ignorance.”
Please don’t hit on me for mentioning his name. Ugh.
Jordan Peterson is an interesting guy. So much praise and so much censure has been heaped on him it’s hard to see anymore
I too don’t agree with everything he says. However, there is something about Canadians who stand on the border, both literally and figuratively, of the United States that can actually see the forest for the trees. Marshall McLuhan made similar “outsider” observations.
It’s so long ago but people forget how he got his notoriety. He stood up to the tranny brigade when he was just a professor in the university and he knew all about cancel culture He said he consulted his wife before he stood his ground because he knew that he could lose his job, they could lose everything. That takes a level of bravery that not many people possess
Correct. And, he used that cancel culture against itself. To my knowledge, he and maybe Trump and a handful of others have been able to do this.
Our buddy VD is back attacking the guy, fresh from dropping Qanon and pretending he had nothing to do with it. Drama queens like Vox and the circular firing squad they form around them serve us poorly. Whatever Peterson has done wrong, it’s nothing compared to the “trust the plan” and “cross the Rubicon” nonsense pushed by Day for years. Peterson has done more for our demographic than Day has. Keep that in mind when people attack him.
It is a great framing because it is both true and easily validated. I had a reminder of it a week ago. Some relatives of mine had an attempted break in at their shop. The perps wheeled some large ‘industrial’ bins out in front of the shutters of the shop – for cover. They then worked behind them to cut through the security shutters, and fortunately didn’t get far. This was on a suburban high street. When they called the police, they were told they’d be called back. They weren’t. The law seemed most uninterested, and upon the relative in… Read more »
“High street” you say? This was either in the UK or you are from the UK. If this was in fact in the UK all that is necessary would have been to tell the authorities that the perps are spray painting anti-Muslim slogans. They’ll be down FULL SWAT faster than you can say “aloha snack bar.”
Indeed I do say ‘High Street’ as I am from the UK. Interestingly, the same shop, along with four others, had been vandalized a few nights previous. I thought as you thought, if a naughty soul had done the dirty on the Mussulmans then the coppers would’ve been very interested and would’ve beared down upon xir with all the vigour of Muhammad upon a hareem of captured white girls.
Why do pols avoid contact with voters? Because that is not how to get elected. So how do you get elected? Money. How do you get money? Say the things the people with money tell you to say. Do the things they tell you to do. Once the media knows you’re bona fide, you were selected by the monied, then they will control public opinion for you.
What? But The Guardian and The Washington Post say I have Democracy!? My vote counts. And if I wish to change The System, then I shall do so! How can we defeat Climate Change and Systemic Systematic Pneumatic Racism without Democrazy?!
On a serious note, yes, that is a succinct way of putting it. I may read this to my newborn son each night. Don’t want the lad to be a compleat delusional.
Gov. Whitmer of Michigan has a record breaking millions in her re-election campaign fund now.
In most EU countries, radar detectors are illegal. The French just set their speed cameras on fire and call it even.
Dozens of France’s new ‘invincible’ speed cameras have already been vandalised
https://www.thelocal.fr/20190823/dozens-of-frances-new-invincible-speed-cameras-have-already-been-vandalised
Interesting topic to bring up, Karl. Near my area where I take a walk at lunchtime a camera was put up in late 2017. It was burned in early 2018. Fixed around the same time and burned again in early 2019. It was then removed. I thought: good on you, whoever you are.
Interstate 29 running through Sioux City, Iowa underwent a fiasco of a construction project that took 11 years to complete. They had much hated speed cameras located along the interstate through most of the project. They finally removed them and put them in storage when the construction was completed. I remember reading about at least one time one was vandalized.
https://siouxlandnews.com/news/local/scpd-explains-where-i-29-speed-cameras-went
The tyranny is the micromanagement of the good citizens while driving. The anarchy is ignoring the car thieves.
let me put it this way: white man’s microaggressions are dangerous cause it could lead to holocaust, but non-white macroaggressions are healthy and natural cause it’s racist to force them to stop.
let’s take sweden as example: white women have the right to go against their own men for any minor offenses(imagined or real), but when they protested against mass rapings nothing happened.
Prince Prospero may find life behind the castle walls is not all he hoped for. I hope to live to see their death throes from my redoubt in the woods.
Covington’s Northwest series is fun reading if We want to see what having colonial occupation with “Bremer Walls” looks like in local zones, while the dirt people mill about their former city.
The Right used to have smart and thoughtful men genuinely concerned with the direction of Western society. The Right has devolved into nothing but a collection of grifters and scam artists. Take our buddy Ben Shapiro, for instance. His Daily Wire is hocking a “conservative Hollywood movie” made by a bunch of #NeverTrumpers which does nothing but make fun of the audience while reinforcing the Left’s narrative. Here’s David Cole’s analysis (a reminder that some Jews have decency enough to tell the truth): A company called Rebeller hired a bunch of NeverTrump conservative scammers to “make movies in the Trump… Read more »
ZMAN…..From our conversation yesterday….please watch this when you have time…thanx
Dark Side of the Looking Glass – Patrick Byrne (bitchute.com)
And it doesn’t get worse than this:
Yellen Gets Ethics Waiver To Lead Regulator Meeting On Gamestop Insanity After Taking $810K From Citadel | ZeroHedge
Will we live to see the day when these people are lined up a la Ceaușescu? I certainly hope so.
Unfortunately, these retarded clowns are placed into their positions of power by average voters/people – so there’s plenty of blame to go around. Now that voting is increasingly seen to be a waste of time, the real question is what the hell is it going to take or what will be done to get rid of these cancerous carbuncles once and for all?
In the end, it is an inversion of legit, holy, medieval feudalism. The real Church also replaced by sterile pagan wokeism and it’s own rites.
Like that ancien regime when it got perverted by the Enlightenment to allow peasant abuse, or the colonials when likewise they became too insular yet too dependent on their servants, the current managerial system will also be toppled by increasing the (bloody) sand in the gears.
I copped a massive fine a few years ago right before Christmas for not stopping at a stop line, which I’ve got to be honest, had no idea about, silly me. My only crime was slowing down, almost to a stop, checking for oncoming traffic and continuing. It was so scummy because they absolutely new that, without a stop sign, most people would just, you know, use common sense and do what I did. Meanwhile, I regularly observe the dindu imports fresh into town getting five finger discounts at the local supermarket whilst a well meaning but incompetent security guard… Read more »
Americans will be ruled by pod people living and operating inside special zones guarded by razor wire and armed men. I’m just an incurable optimist, I guess. I keep thinking about Our Glorious Supervisors behind the razor wire and armed men, and thinking, Gee, that sure looks like a prison fence. And the significance of those armed men depends entirely on the direction in which their attention is focused. Which way those guns are turned. We could easily replace those armed men, if necessary, or simply explain to them which way to point their weapons. Then, with the perimeter secure,… Read more »