Steve Sailer is fond of characterizing the Democrats as the “party of fringes” as they make their primary appeal to minority groups. When they run short of minorities, they create them by finding a way to slice off some portion of the majority, declaring it an oppressed minority. The result is we have one party that is the default for the white majority and another party that is for blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, depressed single women and sexual deviants. It’s the circus acts attacking the audience members.
This is an amusing way of putting it, but it misses a larger phenomenon that is a consequence of democracy. That is, democracies must always seek to expand the electorate. This is an easily observed pattern. In the 19th century, as the West began to experiment with limited democracy, the franchise was sharply limited. The vote was limited to men, usually over the age of 25, and limited to property holders. In the early years of political liberalism, less than 10% of the adult population could vote.
The franchise slowly expanded, even in places where monarchy was still the form of government. The German Empire had universal male suffrage by 1871. Italy expanded the franchise to all men over 30 by 1912 and then lowered the age to 21 in 1918. The British followed a similar pattern. Universal male suffrage became the norm and then it was the call for female suffrage. Unsurprisingly, women voting got going first in Germany, the birth place of every bad idea in human history, and then spread around the West.
In the United States, the presence of a large black population, as well as a sizable indigenous population, added another wrinkle to the process. The urban immigrant population of the early 20th was another group exuded from voting. Eventually, these groups were handed a ballot. Immigrants became a powerful political force, pushing aside the heritage population in major cities. Of course, blacks have become a key part of the Democratic constituency, once granted full voting rights in the 60’s.
The history of liberal democracy since the late 18th century has been a steady expansion of the voting base. At each turn, various arguments have been put forth in support of expanding the franchise, but the one thing that has always been true is there is never a move to narrow it. After every reform effort, every crisis and every war, the arguments are always in favor of expansion of the franchise. Today, the debate is over handing a ballot to children, the retarded and foreigners. San Francisco has now granted the vote to illegals.
As much as some people wish to believe that open borders is motivated by greed, the real reason is something more systemic. An official open borders policy for labor is actually bad for employers looking to game the rules. That’s the whole point of hiring non-citizens over citizens. The non-citizen, especially the illegal, is less likely to fight back at exploitative employers. Open the borders and it becomes possible to organize those migrants. They become a part of the normalized labor force available to everyone.
The real motivation behind open borders is systemic. In a democracy, all fights within the ruling class take place within the bounds of democracy. One side, let’s call them the reformers, wants to change things. The other side, presumably benefiting from the rules, resists these changes. Selling the status quo to existing beneficiaries is easy, because over time, democracy creates a prevailing consensus. This leaves the reformers at a disadvantage. They simply cannot make the math work to democratically enact reform.
The solution is to expand the voter base. Political reformers of the 19th century, looking to reform the legal and economic arrangements, could appeal to disenfranchised men, offering them access in exchange for a vote, if they could get he vote. Social reformers of the 19th and 20 century could appeal to the female vote, if they could get women the franchise. The last 50 years in America has been about creating a new class of voters, expanding the franchise by expanding race consciousness among non-white voters.
The fight over open borders today is actually a battle to expand the franchise by those seeking to push through a post-national agenda. Since the Cold War, the White House has been held by two Progressives and a neocon, which is just a hyper-violent variant of Progressivism. Despite a near total dominance of politics, the political center has not moved that much since the end of the Cold War. The consensus has the advantage of numbers, so the solution is to import millions of new voters to support the radicals.
The expansion of the electorate is a consequence of democracy. In the age of kings, the ruling class was narrow, closed and well defined. The interests of the king are the interest of the property classes. Disputes are narrow, as the ruling class is hierarchical, with the king having the final word. The ruling class of a monarchy or principality has a motivation to keep the numbers within the ruling elite small. Expansion of their class must necessarily dilute their power within the ruling class. No one wants to add new princes to the mix.
In a democracy, no one owns the state, so factionalism is the the inevitable result of disputes over the proceeds of government. By the logic of democracy, the fights between the factions are adjudicated by the public through elections. Eventually, a consensus forms and the major factions find an equilibrium. The minor factions and the losers of previous fights, have no other recourse than to undermine the consensus and alter the make up the voting public, hoping for a better result in the next elections.
It is axiomatic that democracy must be short-term oriented. This is not due to greedy voter, as much as the nature of democracy. The people holding office are temporary office holders with not investment in their position. Therefore, their goal is to squeeze every drop from their position as quickly as possible, Hillary Clinton is the ideal politicians in a democracy, because she wants to auction off every asset of the office she holds, as quickly as possible. This shortsightedness makes expanding the franchise attractive.
When seen in the light of democracy’s inevitable expansion of the franchise, open borders makes perfect sense as the next logical step in Western democracy. It is why the open borders advocates are endlessly chanting about “our democracy” requiring the free flow of people. Democracy becomes a gaping maw, into which everything that defines a people is thrown, in order to keep democracy growing. What starts as a system for the people to chart their own path becomes a system that eliminates the very concept of a people.
For an idea of how far supposedly rational people like Larken Rose goes completely off the tracks on the topic of ‘open borders’ watch this:
Lauren Southern vs Larken Rose – Open Borders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCv1glJx5b4
As a fellow anarchist/voluntarist he was diverging radically from reality
and I found it necessary to virtually take Larken to the woodshed on it!
As for voting, remember what stalin said, “it’s not who casts the votes
that count, it’s who counts them that’s important.
Yes the ‘ruling class’ is ephemeral; those that sit normally out of sight of
the normies however are long term players that are in for maximum gain
over the long haul.
And for the most part they’re composed of zionist jews and their enablers.
(the strict talmudics are equally putrid and evil; a cursory examination of
the talmud for how they view the ‘goyim’ is extremely eye opening..and not at all in a
good way! You can even find them expounding on it openly via jewtube).
“It’s the circus acts attacking the audience members.”
Z Man – i love it!
“Unsurprisingly, women voting got going first in Germany, the birth place of every bad idea in human history…”
That’s a good quote lol I first thought ‘a little unfair’ but seriously. Marxism, welfare, Nazism, nihilistic atheism, even chemical warfare and the latest whopper, open border for muzzies….yeah, most profoundly bad ideas do seem to be Made in Germany.
And I increasingly agree that the female franchise belongs on the list. Didn’t know voting ginas was a kraut idea though
You say “Nazism” like it’s a bad thing. Sure they lost, but sometimes the good guys lose.
Watch “The Greatest Story Never Told”.
Or failing that, episodes of Murdoch Murdoch (especially their latest video, “Race Jam”, very funny send up of Jordan Peterson where Dr. William Pierce comes out of retirement to coach the team…all they neglected was having George Lincoln Rockwell act as the Ref).
You do know that marx’s daughter, eleanor, was the “mother of socialist feminism” and a suffragette, right?
Not at all surprising that the (((tribe))) was pushing for this all along…..
You must create your Mannerbunds, you must create them now, you must take whatever small group of likeminded men you know and create a group. No individual ever conquered a nation, no individual ever fought tyranny.
You understand why we went from cooperation and groups to individualism? Think about it.
Then go out and form your group, you will need them.
Trajectory is everything, and this country’s trajectory is heading south.
When seen in the light of democracy’s inevitable expansion of the franchise, open borders makes perfect sense as the next logical step in Western democracy.
Yes.
What do you think is the endpoint of this progression?
I’ll tell you what I think: immigration ceases only when the conditions for potential immigrants are not significantly better in the democracy than in their originating shitholes. Once they have nothing to gain from moving, they won’t. But of course, that means that the democracy must have been reduced to a shithole itself. I.e.: no jobs, bad economy, political oppression.
America’s future is Brazil. Actually, probably worse, given the World’s Most Important Graph, and the cheapness of modern transportation.
“Germany, the birth place of every bad idea in human history…” Perhaps a post on Germany would be fun, no? Let us be treated to your critique of the ideas birthed in the Fatherland. The comments section should be a hoot, too.
When Germans play at thinking they gave us Marxism, the welfare state, gina voting, Nazism, chemical warfare and the latest, open border for ‘refugees’, w preference for muzzies…. it’s surprisingly true, the quote. Maybe Germans should stick to engineering and not try anything outside of that.
Well, one German did give Christianity the Protestant Reformation. That’s a pretty big idea that’s shaped the western world for about 500 years.
I’m pretty sure the Z Man thinks the Protestant Reformation was maybe the worst idea coming out of Germany. He did get a Jesuit education, and Roman Catholicism is sort of like malaria. It can be treated but never fully cured.
Probably in the fall I’ll be posting about the topic.
>”Germany, the birth place of every bad idea in human history”
Oh, I don’t know – I think France gives it a run for its money.
But the Germans meant well, every time, so it’s all OK…it’s the good intentions that matter, right?
Die Lösung (The Solution)
by Bertolt Brecht
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
The problem with democracy is that eventually it must shoot itself in the foot. The more you believe in democracy the more you see it is failing on the very principles it supposedly stands for.
In the UK we had the classic statement of democracy, and seen it trampled on within days. We had what was a straightforward yes or no vote on membership of the EU, though it was framed as Remain or Leave. It wasn’t hard to see that Leave meant ‘No’ to the EU’s power over these damp islands. In any event, the question could hardly have been more direct: there were no ifs, buts, maybes or possiblies.
The vote in 2016 was the biggest democratic action in British history and it gave a clear result. Democracy won, then. Except… er, it didn’t.
Since the vote went the way of Leave we have had the most astonishing government fudges, diversions, re-ordering of priorities, sleight of hands, betrayals and obfuscations. What we are led to believe was a democratic vote did not, clearly, suit those who say they are in favour of democracy. As apparently we the masses did not vote the way the establishment wanted despite a massive remain campaign by all the great and good, we have to continue in all sorts of ways to be under the thumb of Brussels (and Berlin, which is an astonishing slap in the face for families of the huge numbers of Brits who died fighting Germany seventy-odd years ago.)
In short, democracy here showed it was not democratic in the slightest. So as our elite demonstrated so well that we have no democracy, then what for Britain, and indeed for the west?
Remember the French vote on the EU Constitution? It was even written mostly by a Frenchman, and the French voted overwhelmingly against it. It was pretty clear right then that there was little or no popular sentiment for the EU, but that was ignored. The surprising thing is that there wasn’t an overt political movement in opposition to it earlier. It is as if people were happy with rule by elites as long as they weren’t confronted with it directly.
ZMan, you are on a roll the last week
Hear! Hear!
Sounds like someone’s been reading Hoppe. Or Kuehnelt-Leddihn. Good on ya – the first step to fixing a broken system is realizing that it’s broken.
And for anyone else thinking about sounding off about MUH REPUBLIC, you have to understand that the early days of the American republic were not merely a limited franchise but a highly-intelligent and highly-respected aristocratic class.
That’s how broken the system had to be in order to get us to where we are now. It took some of the best statesmen the world had ever seen, forced them into competing factions and inexorably led us to millions of people shrieking about 68 genders and the abolition of border controls. There was no pendulum, none of the “reforms” were ever reversed, just a continuous leftward crawl. This is your civilization on democracy.
Kuehnelt-Leddihn does not get much attention these days. He had a curious mind. For the podcast on libertarianism, I relied on Hoppe as a primary source, so he has been on my mind of late. The thing with Hoppe is he could get the water’s edge in his analysis, but he always turned back to the safety of materialism. Von Mises had the same impulse, so maybe it is something about the libertarian mind. Marxists used to suffer from the same defect.
Kuehnelt-Leddihn was where I got the idea of a western duality between Calvin and Rousseu, the Enlightenment and the Renaissance.
For sure, Hoppe is not perfect; his argumentation ethics smuggle in libertarian premises despite his valiant efforts to construct a philosophy from first principles, and he makes the common libertarian error of anti-statism based on a false notion of man’s “natural” state. But being the first effective libertarian critic of democracy makes him a treasure; he’s rescued countless lolbertarians from eternal spergitude.
I believe the impulse you speak of is Lockean ethics, or Whiggery. Molyneux is infected with it too. Only a powerful 20,000cc dose of Filmer and Froude can cure it.
Or maybe they just take a strong stand against bigotry and hate and know that white men will fight tooth and nail to stop good government
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kMswKahYug
Trevor was born in S Africa but he’s the REAL face of America, whites will be the minority by 2050! (Census) People of Color are the real present and future leaders!
Remind me again of the countries the people of color have led so well?
Thank you for placing in stark relief the irreconcilable differences between whites and “People of Color.” Let’s separate.
Oh hey duck.
Just as note, minority fertility rates are low, dropping faster than White rates. Hispanic rates are just a tiny bit above White rates now.
The POZ gets the POC’s too
Worse for you Latin American fertility is in considerable decline and while regional instability is creating some migration issues, there simply isn’t as large a base for replacement migrants to draw from
On top of that bringing in Africans is not welcome or tolerated by most groups will end up in ethnic cleansing. Its already practice in some parts of the So-Cal for Hispanics to forcefully remove Blacks from neighborhoods
In the end the Trevors of the world may well end up as leaders besieged on all sides until they are eliminated by people White or Hispanic who no longer bound to Democracy really want that land
Good luck with spending your Soros bucks
Oh as an aside, it never ceases to amuse me how many recognizable handles you create and your consistent posting style. At least if you are going to troll people you are entertaining so there is that and as a reformed annoy the Libertarians type I can appreciate a job well done.
You should receive voting shares in proportion to the taxes you pay. If married and filing jointly, you get joint votes for the family. Those on social security, welfare, etc. have no skin in the game and should not vote. Government employees should also not vote as they have an inherent conflict of interest.
A direct vote on the issues of immigration and demographics at any point in the last century of your history would have resulted in the opposite of Hart-Cellar. You are not wrong about the flaws of democracy in theory, but you do echo libertarian myopia when to suggest democracy is the problem per se, particularly when it comes to electing a new people. The ruling class decides to expand the franchise in order to cement their positon as patrons of the new man. Democracy is the language by which they justify their actions which, to the native observer, look an awful lot like oligarchy expanding their labor pool.
The mistake libertarians make is in viewing the defects of democracy as solely material. They argue that democracy results in office holders unconcerned with long term capital formation (building the wealth of the nation). Instead, the office holders seek to maximize short term revenues (taxes, financialization, etc.). I did not address that in my post.
I’m simply looking at the fact that the advance of democracy has corresponded with the expansion of the franchise to parts of the public no society ever considered. This happened in a few generations. In terms of history, this is a revolution in thought. Similarly, within two generations of universal suffrage, mass immigration became the norm and the majority faction in most ruling coalitions now favors foreigners over natives.
That’s called a clue.
I’d also warn you against the sin of reductionism. “The ruling class decides…” is a fundamental error when considering democracy as a system. That’s perfectly reasonable in a narrow, private ruling class. The dynamic is personal, so consensus is personal. In democracy, the ruling class is temporary, impersonal and dynamic. Consensus is arrived at by process, with members not always aware of the forces working on them and shaping their opinions. Treating the ruling class as a monolith is good rhetorical shorthand, but not useful when examining the dynamics of democracy.
Athens and Rome did a lot of franchise expansion, too. When it took place it took place rapidly. Usually as a result from some kind of conflict or crisis, and usually in favor of people who were already present in the political situation. You could even say that when the citizenship in the later Roman Empire was made universal it was people who were within the borders. This may be a new phenomenon for us, but it isn’t new.
With all of our technology how about ditect democracy?
What I really want to know is how you get from:
“In the early years of political liberalism, less than 10% of the adult population could vote.” to the next step in franchise expansion. What argument was used to convince the 10% to act against their own interests and water-down the value of their own votes?
The voters are never consulted on such matters. The female vote is a good example. You have an element of the ruling class encouraging women to make the demand. Money is put into their organizations. The factions in the ruling class that back it then use the protests and proselytizing to pressure the other factions to go along with it.
“The voters are never consulted on such matters. The female vote is a good example. You have an element of the ruling class encouraging women to make the demand. …”
I’ve been anti-19th Amendment since I started paying attention to “WTF is going on?!?!”. I just can’t accept that the men (generally speaking) of the time gave women the right to vote. It just seems insane to me now, and I would think even more so to the “man on the street” of the time. Elites engineering that outcome makes much more sense.
I doubt the men at that time realized women would vote in a much more socialistic way. Especially given how much smaller the federal government was back then.
I just can’t believe the majority of men at that time thought women should have the vote, period. Women were inferior to men. Average Joe would have laughed, “Yeah, let my horse vote instead; he’s got more sense.”
That’s funny, but it’s an obvious exaggeration. Lots of men saw their wives doing a good, sensible job raising their kids, managing the house, putting on church socials and whatnot, and it just didn’t occur to them that things could go so wrong. If I judged by my wife and oldest daughter, I’d say “Sure, them voting sounds OK.” Hindsight is 20/20.
Not really. Women were greatly more wise and solid before they got the franchise. It was the franchise which gave reign to their worst characteristics. In Tocqueville’s travels thought America he was astounded at the high quality of the women. This was a completely new experience for him.
Was there a relationship between the mass immigration that started in the late 19th century and the granting of the franchise to women? I’ve always wondered If Calvin Coolidge–whose wife and mother were both educated women–supported the franchise as a bulwark against the kind of wholesale corruption that James Michael Curley introduced to Boston?
As Z Man expressed, there were political goals that required expanding the voter pool in order to achieve:
“In a territory where men outnumbered women by a 6-to-1 ratio, some hoped the publicity from the measure might attract single women to Wyoming to rectify the gender imbalance as well as to help it achieve the population threshold required to apply for statehood. Politics also played a role as some Democratic legislators hoped the bill would put the Republican governor in a tough spot. If Campbell, whose party championed African-American voting rights, vetoed the measure, he would look hypocritical. If it passed, Democrats thought women voters would reward them for introducing the measure.
“Much to the chagrin of those Democrats, however, Republicans gained seats in the territorial legislature and won the vote for the territorial representative to Congress in the two years after Campbell signed the law. Blaming the newly enfranchised voters for their defeats, Democrats passed a bill to outlaw women’s suffrage, but they fell one vote short of overriding Campbell’s veto.
” ‘Wyoming is the first place on God’s green earth which could consistently claim to be the land of the free!’ declared women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. The neighboring territory of Utah quickly followed Wyoming’s lead by passing women’s suffrage in February 1870. The Western territories of Washington and Montana passed similar measures in the 1880s.”
https://www.history.com/news/the-state-where-women-voted-long-before-the-19th-amendment
Also, thanks for the reply.
The podcast has become a part of my regular Friday routine during my workday. I usually listen to it twice back to back as I’m cleaning up my misc issues folder for the week.
Jackson sided with the frontiersmen, and smashed the elite bankers. The difference is that those frontiersmen that were prohibited from voting were actually top notch, valuable citizens. They were carving a civilization from wilderness while fighting off savages and were not franchise send because of bureaucratic minutia surrounding land ownership, statehood, ad infinitum. Today, our “disenfranchised” are the goddamn dregs of society, who would probably suffocate if we could only convince them that respiration is work. Instead of picking up an axe and clearing a patch to build a cabin and a farm they’d die and go back (righteously so) to the soil. Jackson was an admirable man, and he championed for admirable people against what he considered soft, parasitical groups in the cities. He’d have a fucking stroke if he could only see it now.
Sorry, didn’t finish that out. Jackson convinced the ten percent because he was Andrew Jackson and would have probably beaten them all to death if they had not folded.
One reason in our own system is that the franchise requirements weren’t encoded at the federal level. Each state was allowed to make its own franchise rules. Ohio was the first state to allow the franchise to all men. It did so in the desire to attract more settlers. Much later, Wyoming was the first state to allow women the vote. Wyoming needed more wimminz and they thought that would be a good way to attract them.
There was never much thought given to the consequences, I’d wager.
And then it all goes to Pol Pot and the Visigoth Holiday runs out of beer….
Seen another way, the strategy of the liberals has been ‘divide and conquer’. The problem with that is that you reach a point of diminishing returns where you become so divided you can’t function anymore.
Correct me if I am wrong. I believe it was a college professor in Scotland who made the observation about “Democracies”. He said they cannot sustain themselves once the people figure out they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. We see that every day here in the FUSSA. It is only a question of when the collapse will happen, not if.
Except, the public is not actually voting itself a raise. That never actually happens. Instead, the elite occupying the temporary offices of power, enlist the poor to loot the middle. This is why the ruling class is always looking to enlist new hungry mouths into the democracy.
I can understand why ambitious poor people would “abandon their brothers” to aspire to something better, and support the middle class ethos. What I cannot fathom is why middle class people would abandon their peers, to support policies and people that would dump them penniless in the streets, given half a chance.
The voting public absolutely BELIEVES they have voted themselves ” a raise ” .
I used to have a coworker who had moved here from the Phillipines. He was a citizen. One day around the lunch table we somehow got onto the topic of schools. One of my other buddies was bitching about property tax increases because his town wanted to build a new school. He had no kids and was nearing retirement. The Filipino guy said ” In my town schools are free”.
We responded with ” what are you talking about ” – and made some comments about how schools are paid for thru property taxes – and asked him if he owned a home – and paid a property tax bill. He responded that he did.
Long story short – Filipino guy was COMPLETELY under the impression that schools are “free” – because he didn’t get a bill in the mail that *specifically* charged him for the schools. Now this is a technical guy working with computer hardware. So he’s not a complete low-IQ idiot. When we challenged him on his “understanding” – he got pissed.
In one of the towns (city really) near me – right on the Rte 128 belt – the town council recently approved an eminent domain taking of land belonging to the Stigmatine order. Because the town wants to build a new high school. The vote was met with resounding applause from town residents who approve of them taking the land. These people absolutely believe they are “voting themselves a raise”. They think a vote to take property from somebody else enriches themselves.
Back when Obama got elected – there was that famous video of the black woman saying ” Obama is gonna pay ma rent and ma bills and ma heat” or some such thing. This woman absolutely believed she was voting herself a “raise”.
It doesn’t matter what actually happens – it matters what they believe. Because that’s how they vote. And in some cases – their belief actually is true. The voting public often does vote itself benefits from the government till.
The fact that the overlords are constantly there doing a ” 1 for you and 5 for me” type deal every time the vote is taken doesn’t matter – as long as the public gets their 1.
The God-Emperor’s words and deeds indicate that he would be with the City of Waltham given that he is such an outspoken supporter of eminent domain.
Of course, crony-capitalist types tend to be for eminent domain.
I believe the support for the “democratic socialism” game is based on the idea that what wealth finds its way to people comes from some mysterious public-private consortium. Much of it comes directly from the government cheese factory, and also things like education pay and non-profit pay, all of which has this socialistic feel. As these have been the areas of maximum paycheck growth in the last ten years or so, there must exist a “magic money tree” that is paying for it all. So let’s all of us tap into that “magic money tree” and peel a few bills off for ourselves through “democratic socialism”. That’s the mentality we are up against.
The lefties have drained dry the idea that you can make it out there without their help. “You didn’t build that” to the Ohio plumber and all.
Beyond that, the grifting game, led by the Clintons, and essentially participated in by all of the politicos, reinforces the idea that the socialist public system is where the bucks are. Join the hayride and get a piece of it for yourself.
The Clintons have been masters of the grifting game.
I think time is the core issue. Trying to yak our way to a remedy is slow and uncertain, whereas open borders (and demographics) leads quickly to the inevitable collapse. The wealthy elites are hoping that the base population can be converted into controllable hive drones, thereby maintaining the status quo order and hierarchy. When that fails, then they typically opt for genocide. There are better alternatives than just sitting in the pot with temperature rising slowly.
After Trump its going to require dealing in lead for a real fix. Are you ready ?
I don’t think the Right is ready period as they are way too individualistic and even voluntary cooperation is hard for them
Learn to be in a group, operate as a group, sacrifice for that group or die
This expansion of democracy business goes back to ancient Greece where there was competition between Athens and Sparta over getting other poleis to have oligarchies or democracies, and Athens was actually forcing democracies onto people. The instrument of expansion, as I see it , is that once given the vote, people come to see it as a piece of property that they own and can pass on to their children. It is a legacy that even the poorest man can own. The only thing that I can see as a counterweight to this is where a regime that is not democratic offers a set of rights or protections that outweigh the perceived value of a vote. This is why some well-treated slaves fight for their masters against democracies in conflicts, as when helots fought for Sparta, or slaves volunteered in the South.
And democracy is not the goal for the left. They will claim with everything they have that direct democracy is their goal, but inevitably it becomes clear that once direct democracy gives them the proper set of people in power, the democratic aspect of government becomes a complete joke. It is a one party rule by an oligarchy that simply lies in wait during the conflicts. This phenomenon caused Tocqueville to realize that the same mid level managers who ran the government in France managed to survive the Revolution, the takeover by the radicals, the Thermidorian reaction, the Directory, Napoleon, and ended up being functionaries in the Restoration, one of his themes in The Old Regime and the Revolution. If you want a prime example look no further than this https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Joseph_Siey%25C3%25A8s&ved=2ahUKEwjjwoG5tsncAhUC7oMKHZtnCfsQmhMwAnoECAsQHA&usg=AOvVaw16TdOUgEKV43mIwSOVmTD-. I don’t think he lived to the Restoration, but there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he would have found a place for himself in it. Meanwhile all you are taught of him in school is What Is The Third Estate.
So it looks like if the right is going to win out over the left, we have to beat them to a form of authoritarian olgarchy that suits us, rather than them? If you believe Jeanne Fitzpatrick https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/dictatorships-double-standards/&ved=2ahUKEwjU1vLqt8ncAhVi34MKHTCqCL0QFjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw26YdfheEau08Kp6p824ezp you already know that right wing authoritarian governmentz are most likely to become democracies, and we’re back to where we started.
Hereditary monarchy? Sooner or later you are going to run into a tsar Nicholas, or a Louis XVI.
The two forms I see that seemed to work out well were when the Roman Emperors had a string of good guys who adopted the heirs to their throne , rather than pass it on to a son. And the method of succession of a lifetime leader, the Doge, by the Venetian nobility, which was in itself not entirely hereditary. My preference is the Venetian. That republic lasted over a thousand years. Not one fucking country has ever come close.
The centrifugal force of nationalism is tugging at the opposite force of democracy. I’m putting my money on DNA.
“When they run short of minorities, they create them by finding a way to slice off some portion of the majority…”
Or, they quickly import a new victim group. I’m convinced that was at least part of the motivation of the Western European political class who decided to open the flood gates to third world Muslims.
Great post. I can see where open borders greatly accelerates the political successes of cultural Marxism … it’s all about getting power NOW in order to pillage the majority while the getting is good. As Rhodesia & South Africa prove, there’s no wealth to redistribute once the productive folk are disenfranchised. The U.S. is entering the final couple of generations where there’s enough plunder to maintain a semblance of peace. When productive whites figure out they’re better off going John Galt, the Marxists will get their revolution. This is going to end the way all democracies end … it’s gonna be bloody.
The natural solution is to enslave every White man they can. Because patriarchy or something. It would generate enough money for a bit.
White men have most of the guns, the high tech weapons and are becoming radicalized in enough members to make this a non starter.
In any case enslavement through taxes which is more likely won’t raise revenue .Leftists never get this but coerced compliance is not going create wealth. Maybe best case scenario you have low quality food on the table
The reason someone might peruse a progressive tax as policy like in the 1950’s is not revenue, it doesn’t work. Its to prevent huge wealth disparity. If personal wealth is limited,the gap between rich and poor is necessarily smaller
And note this really doesn’t preclude the generation of wealth. There are limits to personal consumption and when 10% of people own all the wealth, they can’t spend that much
Leftists don’t get this either, the only way to have a bigger state is to have more people able and willing to pay into it. The paradox there is if people are doing well they don’t need the State and if they need the State they aren’t doing well and there is less revenue
The US can over borrow and hack the rules a bit by being the reserve currency , its an imperial extraction basically but it won’t go own forever
That said the elite have no moorings in any civilization. They don’t care about anything other than their little ponds and if the rest of the world is a choking hell so long as they are safe and important they don’t care
Its why the success of that NYC commie is a good thing, she’s probably a true believer and more importantly a purely ethnic vote. That is the shot across the bow, in a multi ethnic society people vote race and religion. Race? Hispanic Religion? Leftism .
Jeremy Cornyn is already talking about seizing middle class homes and housing the Grenfell Towers survivors there. Read it in the FT.
The UK is not the US.
if they are too weak to resist they get what is coming to them as contra to opinion the people of the UK can get guns if they want them.
Thinking that the Left will just go away is rubbish. In the end its going to be an authoritarian Right Wing state or the Left wins, Its not a pleasant notion but the only way the Left has ever been dealt with is by removing them from power.
That aside if the Right continues to embrace Neo Liberal economics they guarantee a Leftist victory. Human societies depend on a sense for fairness and you can bleat muh economic liberty all day and night, when it comes to what’s fair the other guys gets as much of a say as you.
As for Corbyn’s plan these are vacant properties owned by wealthy people not middle class homes. No one is being displaced and a lot of property in London is owned by oligarchs and never used
A great many people, me included think that a primary home and a dacha if you’ll forgive a Russian expression ought to be inviolate but if you have three or more homes you aren’t renting and don’t use, its probably fair that in an emergency they end up used by a Left Wing State, too bad so sad, use it or lose it or use that power to make sure that the reasons people like Corbyn are in office don’t happen
My only objections would be that the State should be properly responsible for the damage and only well behaved citizen stashed there.
Hell I agree with I think someone here told me its Greg Johnson at Counter Currents that people who don’t support steep taxes on people making 50x and more the minimum wage are not people we want in society
Of course, all this screeching about democracy from the political class fails to understand that this country was founded as a republic, which is a different thing entirely. The last thing the founders of this country wanted was “democracy”- which they predicted, correctly, would degenerate into mob rule and demagoguery. However, since 1865, that republic is dead, so whatever we do to take back power, we’re not going back to Washington or Jefferson’s virtuous yeomen electorate if we win. I see us lurching from crisis to crisis as the left radicalizes itself further and becomes explicitly revolutionary, and the forces of order finally react in an authoritarian manner.
It’s not just the political class – but a pretty good majority of people at the bottom who will constantly scream the words : “but we’re a democracy!!” .
In my experience this includes quite a few people who align themselves as conservatives. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like a broken record to myself because I constantly have to bring up the exact point you’re making: The founders of this country recognized that democracy would degenerate. But – I also wonder if some more study of the subject is not needed. Because it seems the Swiss have been able to keep their country going as a direct democracy for quite a long time without serious degradation. I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that women were not granted the right to vote in Federal elections until 1971. I personally also believe this has something to do with the Swiss military structure – and that is why I continually stress that the US had a militia system when it was founded – and the Founders did not trust a standing *Army*.
So maybe it is possible to have “democracy” – but with some very seriously restricted access to only certain members of the population.
I also see an awful lot of “we’re not getting the Republic back” sentiment. My problem with this is: basics are basics. If you can’t at least acknowledge what the basics are of creating a well run civilization – then you’ve admitted you’re just floating in the stream and latching onto whatever whim suits you. You’re in reactionary mode.
I’ve got no problem saying that the kind of society and nation I want to live in is a small government Republic with limited voting rights. I’ve also got no problem considering the fact that maybe this simply cannot work if you let women vote. I’ve also got no problem considering the fact that maybe you simply cannot have this kind of setup if you’ve got “diversity” – in whatever form that may take. I would MUCH rather prefer to live in that type of society – even if it meant regular militia service – that the womenfolk cannot vote , that there is no government safety net – and that I don’t have to deal with “diversity” – than the current system we have now which just seems like a screw job to me each and every single day.
If a Republic like the Founders envisioned can only work when it’s restricted to members of a certain “tribe” – well then so be it. I’ve got no problem with that. In my experience quite a few members of other tribes simply don’t get it – and never will.
A republic is *not* a “different thing entirely” from a universal-suffrage democracy. It can be shown logically that the former must necessarily lead to the latter, which essentially was the whole point of Z’s post today.
I’ll accept “usually does,” but I don’t know if you can prove “must.” I’m open to the possibility that there’s a way to protect the limited franchise or at least extend it, but we just haven’t thought of that.
If that’s not possible, then we just have to accept the sad fact that republics have a limited lifetime and that periods of despotism or revolution are inevitable.
If we look are some really long-lived governments, we have Imperial China and Egypt. I think we’re unlikely to go back to an imperial dynasty and I’m even more sure I wouldn’t want to live under one.
The Republic of Venice lasted 1000 years, but it was small compared to the US. Still, we could probably learn some lessons from Venice — it didn’t fall from within, it was conquered from without, so there’s that. It maintained a system of restricted voting rights throughout its history.
However, as Zman predicts, that franchise was liberalized over time.
Maybe if the nature of the franchise (and maybe conditions of immigration and citizenship) is established as a fundamental, non-amendable, feature of the government in the Constitution or founding charter or whatever, it can stave off the expansion of the franchise. Another 1,000 years would be a pretty good run.
I kind of superficially used to like Heinlein’s idea in Starship Troopers that the franchise only be available to people who have engaged in military service, but no, that wouldn’t actually work out well. Just look at our gay, female and trans-friendly military. The left would transform it in no time to 2-4 years of government welfare with the franchise as a prize at the end. No real soldiering required, and participation prizes abound. Plus, you build a big standing army and those in charge of it will be itching to use it all the time.