Belief And Democracy

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The willingness to accept something as true, without evidence to support it, is the essence of belief. Someone tells you something and you can either accept what is said as true or reject it, without having much to go on because people rarely layout factual cases for the things they say. Your buddy at the office tells you he heard layoffs are coming, but his only proof is where he heard it. You have to decide whether to accept what he says or reject it, based on other factors.

Belief is the thing at the center of religion, culture, and ideology. You grow up learning about Wotan and his wandering. You accept it as true, even though there is never any evidence to support the existence of Wotan. You became a communist because you learned about historical materialism, and it explained everything. You continue to celebrate Christmas, despite being a pagan communist, because you were told it is what your people do regardless of their religion.

Biologically, belief is assumed to be one of modern man’s oldest traits. Belief, which is often confused with religion, probably co-evolved with language. Taken together it allows for humans to pass along complex and abstract ideas from one place to another and one generation to another. You can read the Epic of Gilgamesh today, in your native language, and learn something about the people who produced it. The abstract concepts traveled over time and place to you.

To get a better sense of the power of belief, think about a race of humans that is devoid of belief so all claims must be backed by proof. Children grow up demanding proof of everything said by their parents. School children demand proof of every assertion made by their teachers. The boss of the corporation is required to prove that diversity is the company’s greatest strength. Humans would never have made it out of the trees without a willingness to believe what they are told.

Like most human traits, belief seems to operate on a spectrum. Everyone knows a gullible person who trusts everyone. Then you have the devout person who accepts everything about her particular religion. On the other hand, we have the skeptic who is willing to question claims that seem a bit over the top. This person is different from the cynic, who assumes everything is a lie. The bulk of people lie between the serious skeptic and the generally trusting.

Belief is probably why democracy ends in disaster. The point of democracy is to have policies that reflect the general will of the people. In theory this means figuring out what most people will accept. You cannot make everyone happy, even in a small group ordering in lunch, but you can make most people happy and those outliers happy enough so they do not revolt. In theory, democracy is ordering pizza for lunch because no one hates it and most people like it.

In reality, democracy quickly turns into a game of convincing the majority to go along with whatever benefits the few. If you and your conspirators can get fifty percent plus one to agree to your scheme, it will be very good for you. Of course, others have their schemes so that democracy quickly moves from understanding the will of the people to persuading the majority. In reality, democracy is ordering Chinese after having convinced the majority that it is the right choice.

That phrase “right choice” is critical. It is never about facts and reason, but about the morally correct choice. Democracy rests on the assertion that the morally correct choice is that which satisfies the needs and demands of most people. Therefore, the way to persuade someone is to convince them that the majority already believes whatever it is you are pitching. In practice, democracy is telling each person that everyone really wants Chinese, except those troublemakers in the pizza party.

This is where belief comes into the room. In such conditions, the true believer will always have an advantage over the skeptic and especially the cynic because the fanatic shares the language and thought processes of the typical believer. Since most people are generally willing to believe what is told to them, as long as the source has some trust capital, the fanatic shares with the typical person that willingness to believe, even if it is in the extreme. The fanatic speaks the common language.

The skeptic, on the other hand, lacks the ability to naturally communicate with the typical person because he questions what is asserted. The skeptic is not trafficking in alternative beliefs but in the lack of belief. This naturally means the audience willing to hear his questions is smaller than that of the fanatic. The cynic is trafficking in the denial of belief, so his market is the smallest. It is why the word cynic has a negative connotation in our democratic societies.

In the game of persuasion, the true believer starts with an enormous advantage because the majority is tuned to believe. There are enough skeptics to force the fanatics to make their case, but they get to make their case in moral terms, rather than factual ones, which is why they so often carry the day. Humans would rather do the morally right thing than the empirically right thing. This reality of the human condition is why democracy falls prey to fanatics and charlatans.

There is another piece to this. Humans in the main are believing machines so they will believe in something. This provides another advantage for the fanatic. In the absence of a better belief, the typical person will still listen to the fanatic, despite his many factual errors, until a better set of beliefs come along. Since the skeptic is never selling belief, but merely questioning it, he never reaps the rewards of his successful questioning of the fanatic. A new fanatic always steps into that breech.

It is why fanatics and charlatans have come to dominate Western countries. Since the Cold War, the West has embraced the idea of democracy, which has unleashed the fanatics and charlatans, who in turn promote democracy as the only moral choice, because it is the manure that fertilizes them. The death spiral of the West is the death spiral of every democracy. Without hard limits, the people will follow fanatics promising salvation until there is nothing left to save.


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KingKong
KingKong
11 months ago

“Humans would never have made it out of the trees without a willingness to believe what they are told.” And how much better the world would be had humans never left paradise. Belief and trust are forms of corruptions. It’s time we go back to a trustless, a beliefless world. Sure, many of you will die in the process, but ultimately what will be left are the meek, the perfect beings. “Taken together it allows for humans to pass along complex and abstract ideas from one place to another and one generation to another.” Complex and abstract ideas is a… Read more »

imnobody00
imnobody00
11 months ago

Every skeptic is a believer. And every believer is a skeptic. Belief in X is skepticism in everything other than X. Skepticism in X has to be based in a reason Y, which is a belief.

In our culture based on the philosophy derived from Descartes, skepticism has good press. So everybody postures as a skeptic, because this looks like culturally sophisticated.

In reality, the opposition between skepticism and belief is a false dichotomy. The only possible opposition is between true beliefs and false beliefs.

JC3D
JC3D
11 months ago

I guess democracy’s motto can be:
Believe in something.
Even if it means sacrificing everything.

Robbo
Robbo
Reply to  JC3D
11 months ago

I’d say it’s more “Believe in the Current Thing – or else!”

Coofonomics
Coofonomics
11 months ago

One of your best posts this year, among good competition. Am I alone in being skeptical of “skeptic” as a useful political label any more. When I was coming up, roughly ’90s Kindler-Gentler-Year-of-the-Woman-Big-Government-Is-Over Era, that was one common trope among missionary liberals to compliment their own clique, usually linking to a fossilized university or upper-middle-brow newspaper somewhere (except for Bill Maher, bragging about being a cynic is comparatively unheard of). I am sure 90% of The New Yorker subscribers in 2013 would self-identify as skeptics. So I wasn’t that surprised when the secular smarty skeptics morphed into Follow The Science… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Coofonomics
11 months ago

It’s hard to be a skeptic when you’re the establishment.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Coofonomics
11 months ago

I am sure that the overwhelming majority of believers would self identify as skeptics. Sort of like the huge mass of iconoclastic rebels with tattoos

Robbo
Robbo
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

Exactly. Rebellion has been suborned, marketed and packaged like everything else. Look at how many “rebel” rock stars went along with the Covid madness. It’s easy for Bruce Springsteen or Kneel Young to be rebels when the only threat is the occasional drugs bust or a nasty headline. When the REAL crunch came, they folded like a cheap suit. They told us to Rage Against the Machine, and we learnt that they WERE the machine.

Frank
Frank
Reply to  Coofonomics
11 months ago

Yeah, this is a great post. Instant Z Man classic.

Ploppy
Ploppy
11 months ago

The best example of the drawback of the cynic I can think of are the men’s rights/mgtow people online. Everything they say is factually correct that romance is a pretty drape we place over a rather brutal process of sexual selection and mate competition in nature. Also, they’re all angry fifty year old men living alone with no kids.

I think I’d rather tell myself that women do have souls and be happy. At least until the divorce.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Ploppy
11 months ago

I think there’s a goal of evangelizing to younger men so they don’t fall prey to the same fairy tales and make the same mistakes that the older ones did

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Ploppy
11 months ago

The redpill bunch are merely a symptom of the lopsided family and divorce court systems that have been destroying men for years.

Spingerah
Spingerah
Reply to  Ploppy
11 months ago

. No doubt more difficult today but there are a few who get and stay married, raise functional realist children etc..
It is possible. Just takes compromise, hard work and luck in finding someone whos disfunction compliments your own.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

One major problem with democracy is that there will always be far more dumb people than smart people because of entropy. There are far more bad ways to wire a brain than good ways. This is exacerbated by affluence because idiots who would have died in hard times survive. Survive and vote. Another problem is that voters often do not personally feel the consequences of their choices. Therefore you have the same problem as with online tough guys who blarher on about how tough they are etc. Maybe direct democracy should be coupled with having to pay to vote on… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

Fully on board, particularly with your last paragraph, which is also why I question @ZMan’s hypothesis. From a cultural perspective, what is morally right IS what is empirically right. Our tribe has the mores and traditions it has because it was able to outcompete tribes with other mores and traditions. That is, all evidence points to the idea that our traditions are superior in terms of producing a healthy civilization. Which loops back to the idea that believers damn a democracy. Believers are not the problem. It’s the skeptics who bring new ideas, challenging the traditions and mores of the… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Steve
11 months ago

I think skeptics and believes both okay a role in a functioning tribe. The believer brings the fuel to do things, the skeptic tries to stop bad ideas from being carried out. You need a balance of both. We on the DR also need that. We need visionaries who can rally enthusiasm, including self sacrificial belief because overthrowing the current regime will end very badly for some of us. But also skeptics to stop the dumbest ideas before they doom us

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

I think we are looking at “skeptics” from a different point of view. I see skeptics as those who question the way we’ve always done things. I think when you are speaking of skeptic, its the reaction to the skeptics, the ones who question the original skeptics who put us on this road to disaster. That’s what I get from the mention of DR, anyway. DR is,. by tautology, dissenting from the current multi-culti orthodoxy, and instead championing what would have been considered traditionalism a century ago. For example, the skeptics are the ones who gave us the Federal Reserve,… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Steve
11 months ago

Yes we’re using the same word, skeptic, for almost polar opposites it seems. The skeptic against Chesterton vs the skeptic against removing his fence so to speak

WillS
WillS
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

That is the milliin dollar question. How do we restore the founding ideals containedd in WASP culture in our new demograpic. I suspect the only answer is force to maintain some semblance of civilizzation. Tribal divide appears to always end in bloodshed.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  WillS
11 months ago

But we must also separate ourselves from the empire. It is a hard problem and probably without perfect solutions

Longstreet
Longstreet
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

Perhaps your finest column ever, Z.

The percentage of dumb people is expanding. Smart people have very few kids in the modern world. Stupid people have a mountain of kids do the math.

Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you are wise. The percentage of smart people who are wise is very small.

Sadly, you can be smart and wise, but not moral.

Sigh. No wonder democracy is failing.

Hi -Ya!
Hi -Ya!
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

Sing folk songs!

Filthie
Filthie
11 months ago

But… We can’t even ape the workings of a democracy anymore Z. I was just watching a hearing about allowing trannies and queers to compete in local women’s sport. That blonde chick off the swimming team was there and it was all women in the room. The young lady made her statement – call her a skeptic if you want…but as soon as she’s done, this ignorant young black bitch on the commission wants her words stricken from the proceedings because Swimmer Girl is obviously transphobic. The proceedings are shut down while the poohbahs try to decide if the action… Read more »

mikeski
Member
Reply to  Filthie
11 months ago

That blonde chick off the swimming team was there and it was all women in the room. The young lady made her statement – call her a skeptic if you want…but as soon as she’s done, this ignorant young black bitch on the commission wants her words stricken from the proceedings because Swimmer Girl is obviously transphobic. The proceedings are shut down while the poohbahs try to decide if the action is warranted or even allowed under the committee rules. First of all, that’s REPRESENTATIVE IYB Bitch to you, plebe. I watched the video. When the Pride Of Pennsylvania tried… Read more »

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  mikeski
11 months ago

Dudes competing with girls could be halted in a week, if every real female simply refused to participate in any events with the mentally Ill men.

But Bartleby, they spent their whole lives preparing for this time in their lives!

Yeah, and their efforts are meaningless when trannies are involved. So withdrawing their participation at least will at the very least make said events meaningless. Just on their terms.

The chicks just need to say “no”.

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Bartleby the Scrivner
11 months ago

That’s hard for them to do, what with them always trying to find a way to get everybody to, even grudgingly, sing Kumbayah. But if this group of highly competitive women can’t summon up a resounding NO, well, what is to be done. Can’t White Knight for them.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Filthie
11 months ago

Multitribal democracy is totally impossible. It always degenerates unto war by voting. And then the side with the fewest votes decides to exchange the ballet box for the cartridge box. And there you go

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Filthie
11 months ago

Filthie-

The first section of your post is an apt description of how communism works.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
11 months ago

In reality, democracy is ordering General Tso’s Shit after having convinced the majority that it is the right choice. FIFY The real question in all this is why true American patriots, along about 1965, pulled a volte face and suddenly became fanatics for anti-America (AINO). Moreover, what produced the anti-American elite fanatics who convinced the American patriots that their country was terrible and had to be replaced by its opposite? Did American patriotism somehow attenuate, creating a void into which was poured the curare of anti-Americanism and anti-white racism? This transition from good to evil was shockingly quick, highly improbable,… Read more »

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

The high-low alliance was an important factor in the rapid change you speak about. When an elite class wants to cement its social control over a near-peer faction (e.g. the American middle class), it makes common cause with both foreigners and with lower class natives, whom it promises to enrich from the spoils taken from the middle. This natural dynamic can only be offset by strong middle class solidarity, which the peculiarities of American culture make rather difficult.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
11 months ago

That’s surely part of the equation. However, we’re still left with the puzzle of how true believers could, in extremely short order, be convinced to disavow their old beliefs and adopt totally antithetical new ones. I can understand slow modifiction of one’s ideas over a period of decades, but radical transmogrification of ideas in an extremely short span strikes me as bizarre and unnatural. Vikings correctly pointed to the importance of the idiot box, but still…

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

Two guys in Templar uniforms; one is saying, “Uhh, are we Amalek now?”

WhereAreTheVikings
WhereAreTheVikings
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

Perhaps, Ostei, at least in part, the incessant visuals of Holocaustianism post-World War II were manipulated into an indictment of all whites to the point that many whites themselves bought into it, and did not want to be identified with 6’2” blond, blue-eyed Kurt patrolling a barbed wire fence in any form or fashion. The government, via Ike, freed the emaciated Jews, so what could go wrong with its all-out war on “inequality”, the obvious consequence of a free society? Factor in the never-before seen, ever-present, and ever-shaming brainwashing power of TV, plus the whites’ retreat into materialism and the… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  WhereAreTheVikings
11 months ago

I don’t think holocaust became a big theme until the late 70s or 80s. Notice how they made a ton of WWII movies in the 50&60s. And not a word about Jews. Farmer Jackson in Iowa in 1960 wouldn’t have known what the Holocaust was

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

That’s interesting because The Tribe controlled Hollywood just as much then as they do today. And yet they felt it was better on balance to keep schtum about the camps. Perhaps they felt it best to bury the story lest some new Mustache Man come along and think, “say, I can do that too, but better!” Was there any tangible reason for them to change their mind and begin to use it as a sign of Jewish piety?

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
11 months ago

The earliest mainstream cultural reference to the Shoah of which I’m aware is the Twilight Zone episode, “Death’s Head Revisited,” which was broadcast in the early 60s. But it may have been an outlier. I just do not know.

PS–There was one other TZ that focused on Nazism. It was called “He’s Alive,” and bruited that Nazism was alive and well in mainstream America at that time. Old Rod certainly got in on the ground floor of the Shoah bidniss, alright.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

Not sure when the Holocaust industry really took off but I heard that the shabby series called Holocaust with Meryl Streep and James Wood was a major breakthrough. That’s late 70s early 80s. Since then it’s been a subplot in every WWII movie

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

This was an act of war against the historical American nation. How it was pulled off is a long story. The JQ was a factor, communist true believers played a role, historical ignorance had its part, shameless chutzpah shaming of those who saw the danger was there. It was war by treason and by other allegiances trumping loyalty to America

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
11 months ago

I have a feeling we wouldn’t be having these discussions if there was a way to keep elites from drifting into the clouds and divorcing the dirts. Noblesse oblige, a sense of ‘my people’.

Rome, France, the US, etc. Different ages, different circumstances, different political systems, but in each case, the people and their leaders lost touch. I want to say the USSR, too. Maybe that’s the secret sauce? Idk, throwing it out there.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

Seems to be a natural cycle. Not much to do about other than keep out the invaders so your people and culture can rebuild after the decline.

We failed to do that. We’re screwed.

The Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, they’ll have their ups and downs but the people always survive to rise again.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

Web:
“Japan still has about three times the population it had in 1900. Prediction: Japan will be much better off in 25 years than those countries who replaced their native populations through immigration.”

The Yakuza don’t call anywhere else home. Try getting past them.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

In RoK they are starting to talk about immigration re: their 0.25 TFR

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

If they do that, the only Korea in the future will be in the north

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

Well, then, they’re fucking retarded. It’s not as though that they don’t have dozens of examples in the West of how that works out.

We can at least fool ourselves by saying that we didn’t know. They can’t.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

About a week ago, Korea’s shocking infertility became world news. Anyone interested in the subject already knew about it, but It was decided that right now everyone should hear about it.

A couple days ago, in the face of this NEW CRISIS, the Korean government announced its intention to add a million immigrants a year—to a country not much larger than Kansas.

Mass immigration isn’t the death of a country but a celebration of its murder, already accomplished.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

When your elites stop seeing themselves as part of the people your goose is cooked

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
11 months ago

The best part of today’s, for me, is the contrast of function. Why belief? Why is man a believing animal? Because the function of the individual is a different thing than the funtion of the group. Emotionally neutral information seems best suited to individuals; the dense pyramid or template of accumulated facts can be constructed, brick by brick, at single leisure. Emotionally charged information, denoting position within a maneuvering group, doesn’t have time for such reflection. One doesn’t have time to consider, until later, the reasons of if and why this mofo is trying to step on you, or if… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Alzaebo
11 months ago

Addendum: facts and proofs are too dense and detailed to be communicated quickly; authority depends on a speedy demonstration of power.

As one guy said of his oldest sister, a tyrant who rode herd on the rest of the kids when the parents were gone to work, “Justice was swift and immediate.”

Or, as my dad said of grandpa, “The belt didn’t come off if you said no…the belt came off if you hesitated!”

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Alzaebo
11 months ago

Maybe man believes because man has a soul. Maybe the soul is the believing thing, drawing from the depths.

Like you say, maybe morality is at or near the surface, a mere code of conduct. Light reflects off of waves, right?

Diavolobello
Diavolobello
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

On the other hand, I remember reading, somewhere, the theory that we didn’t evolve to perceive reality with perfect clarity, because it wasn’t necessary for reproduction and the survival of our offspring – our flawed, subjective perception was adequate for the job.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

Agree. What then is the function of a soul?

Storage. To store nested information, memory, into a non-organic medium. One less fragile to corporeal dangers.

Belief is compressed information.
Belief allows us to work with very partial information. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Since we lack the terms to properly describe the nonphysical, well, the signal-to-noise is the problem.

Working to amend that.

“Who says?” really does have an answer. That answer is the “Why”, defining the penultimate function.
To get to both, one needs answer the What and How.

cg2
cg2
Reply to  Alzaebo
11 months ago

“Belief is compressed information.
Belief allows us to work with very partial information. Gotta start somewhere, right?”

I like that.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

4 classes of people? Fanatic, believer, skeptic, cynic? With believer to include most of your common unthinking idiots, making it the largest group. I’m gonna posit that class mobility between these is limited. Born a fanatic, always a fanatic. What one is fanatical about may change, but the fanaticism itself does not. I know people like this, and they are all women. I was probably born a skeptic, and reality turned me into a cynic. Relatively short hop. Cynic could be another word for dissident. Or perhaps a cynic is just a dissident who isn’t politically engaged. Going all the… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

Are cynicism and nihilism synonyms?

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

They’re related. All nihilists are cynics, but not all cynics are nihilists.

Eloi
Eloi
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

The problem with the taxonomy is belief and cynicism are not mutually exclusive.
A person can believe in God and be cynical in regards to people. The Bible even supports this reading. Faith in one location does not exclude faith in another.
Reductionism is often problematic; we are not mechanical objects.

Eloi
Eloi
Reply to  Eloi
11 months ago

“Cynicism in another”*

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Eloi
11 months ago

You’re right, but even so, if you separate out religious belief from the classifications, I think it works pretty well for matters purely terrestrial

WhereAreTheVikings
WhereAreTheVikings
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
11 months ago

Believer to fanatic can be a product of a male being raised solely by females, and having no other influence in the home, neurotically channeling thoughts and feelings best kept on a somewhat stoic leash. This is especially true now that females have taken over many, if not most, principals’ offices. The male principal alternately throwing a football on the playground and swinging a paddle was the last line of defense after the ink dried on the no-fault divorce laws. Not only has he been banished, we have added illegitimacy rates and grrrrllpower to the plight of young boys. God… Read more »

ray
ray
Reply to  WhereAreTheVikings
10 months ago

He is trying, but it’s an uphill grind. America has persecuted, degraded, and demeaned ‘her’ boys for decades.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
11 months ago

“The skeptic, on the other hand, lacks the ability to naturally communicate with the typical person because he questions what is asserted.”

This. It is difficult to tell folks voting is a waste of time without sounding like the crazy uncle (particularly if you ARE the crazy uncle).

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
11 months ago

The willingness to accept something as true, without evidence to support it, is the essence of belief. I have a somewhat different take on this. Belief is always a rational (that is, a spiritual) act. Specifically, it is the act of giving intellectual assent to the truth of a proposition. The proposition may be offered with evidence or without it, but in either case the act of assenting to it is fundamentally the same. All communication carries with it a certain presumption of truth because we can always infer that when someone communicates something to us, he intends for us… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
11 months ago

“The state is a greater good than any one individual…”

I disagree. The society may be a greater good. The test of that is whether people are willing to defend the society. But if the state is the idea that one man should have authority over another, that will never be a greater good, any more than rape or slavery would be.

I agreed with the rest, though. Maybe I misunderstood? Though you specifically said it was moral for a state to command someone to die for it’s sake…

Intelligent Dasein
Intelligent Dasein
Member
Reply to  Steve
11 months ago

Hello Steve, thank you for your comment. I apologize if my word choice caused any confusion. I am simply employing the classical idea of statehood here. There are senses in which the individual or the family are more important than the state. The individual is the only locus of moral worth, for only individuals (not nations, tribe, or peoples) can be saved or damned, and only individuals can make decisions and act. So, if it comes down to a choice between serving the state and saving one’s soul, you must save your soul. There can be no debate about that.… Read more »

TomA
TomA
11 months ago

If you want to confer useful wisdom onto succeeding generations of your tribe, the best way to accomplish this goal is via hard-wiring of the brain during the formative years of a child’s development (typically 3 to 7 years old, when the brain doubles in size and neural pathways are reinforced). These seminal habits of mind become the bedrock of all future behaviors. And all of this is a product of evolutionary forces. What works, persists. In a natural environment of hardship and existential threat, wisdom is refined by tangible experience (e.g. being stupid gets you dead and out of… Read more »

cg2
cg2
11 months ago

Very good food for thought. I’ve been called a cynic since teenager, but didn’t begin to become skeptical about Truth Justice and the American Way until Obama.

Maus
Maus
11 months ago

Democracy is nothing but rule by the mob. When the mob are idiots then stupidity will reign. The only real power of consequence to the individual then is the power to be left alone. But fanatics won’t allow that heresy, so a contrarian individual must conform or burn. At that point, any morality underpinning belief has been transcended by a religion which demands purity and sacrifices, blood running down the neo-Aztec pyramids and a growing heap of skulls.

RealityRules
RealityRules
11 months ago

The real rot of the system is that the moral claims are not based on a real morality. Morality is not being nice to everyone, giving away some other person’s things to strangers or trying to eliminate, “hate.” Heck, the latter is a false accusation if not mostly a projection so it is impossible for it to be moral. That road has led to the present moment. Primary school keeps people morally stunted. The culture introduces and sanctions this anti-morality. The University is a finishing school that cements status networks that require adopting the anti-morality in order to belong. It… Read more »

WillS
WillS
Reply to  RealityRules
11 months ago

I suspect they do not question the morality or rightness of their actions. They are in charge and have power. That sis all that matters.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
11 months ago

Covid was a life changing event for me. If 80% of the people around you believe that a thin layer of teflon paper over their faces protected them from anything, with 10% of them layering the masks, and 80% of the people around me thinking the shots protect you from getting it in the first place, they’ll believe ANYTHING. And I mean ANYTHING. They could also believe one day that a preemptive nuclear strike is an only option for dealing with (insert enemy). I always thought democracy was stupid a failure, but it’s more than that. It should be terrifying… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  JR Wirth
11 months ago

I believe in the public’s gullibility (today’s Z-man observation), but I also note in defense of the general public your particular example is conflated with prior good will of the public for the medical profession. My general impression is that the medical profession was the last bastion of belief (institution) in “the system” to fall. The COVID scamdemic was an eye opener for many in this regard—myself included. One by one, the institutions we once held in esteem have fallen and now we are all—or should be all—skeptics. Perhaps even skeptics on their way to becoming cynics. That being said,… Read more »

Bourbon
Bourbon
Reply to  Compsci
11 months ago

Compsci: “…the medical profession was the last bastion of belief (institution) in “the system” to fall…”

This thing with Barry Young & the depopulationist Pfizer v@xxines in New Zealand is a tipping point.

Epidemiology here:
http://tinyurl.com/4jch6jn5

Legalistics here:
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/news/covid-jab-whistleblower-appears-in-court/

If “they” get away with un-person-ing Barry Young, then you can start singing the various swan songs of the Anglosphere.

http://tinyurl.com/wf3akm2e

Bourbon
Bourbon
Reply to  JR Wirth
11 months ago

Z: “…fanatics and charlatans have come to dominate Western countries. Since the Cold War, the West has embraced the idea of democracy, which has unleashed the fanatics and charlatans… the people will follow fanatics promising salvation…” ========== JR Wirth: “…they’ll believe ANYTHING. And I mean ANYTHING…” ========== What’s new this time around is the iPh@g and the Scr0tial Media. Basking in the warmth & exhilaration of the instantaneous real-time Dopamine Hits has the effect of exponentially accelerating the downstream devastation; but there’s never the experience of regret, because the Dopamine Hits just keep cumming & cumming & cumming. If we… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  JR Wirth
11 months ago

Why wouldn’t they believe the mask story? Everyone has been in a hospital at some point in their lives, even if only visiting someone. Everyone has seen operating rooms, at least on TV and everyone is wearing a mask. Not to mention the social proof. When you went out, everyone else was wearing them. I only didn’t believe the mask story because I saw how people were using them. I saw people putting their masks in their pockets and reusing them over and over. I saw people wearing cloth masks, which are even more ridiculous than the gas station blue… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
11 months ago

But mask-wearing was only part of the fatuousness. Believing that Covid was the Black Death was the other. Almost immediately I bowled out that masks were a useless periapt against a wildly overblown threat. Now I had no reason to expect the masses to be as quick on the draw as I was, but their utter laggardliness, which still obtains to a certain degree, is unforgiveable.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

In the very beginning, Covid looked quite scary. I became aware of it very early on, like January or early February 2020. The images of people falling on their face in public was pretty alarming. The bioweapons lab found a km away from where it supposedly originated in that wet market added even more worry. But I do agree it became obvious fairly early on that it was no black death. This became especially obvious when over the course of a single day people gathering went from killing grandma to being essential to public health when Saint Fentanyl died for… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
11 months ago

Well, I must say that I was already mightily predisposed to regard pronouncements from on high as utter bullshit, and that applied to the Covid narrative as well. But if you innately trusted authority, as older AINOians tended to do, you were apt to be mighty slow on the uptake vis-a-vis the Power Structure’s Covid lies.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
11 months ago

@Ostel In the beginning, all I knew about Covid was short films coming out of China. I wasn’t “following the experts” who were mostly silent on the issue, I was believing videos that leaked out of China. I remind you people were falling on their faces in China. The hospitals were loaded with people. There were videos of Chinese authorities locking people in their apartment buildings. Any accompanying audio was in Chinese. The Western press was ignoring or downplaying it. IIRC, Nancy Pelosi was saying it was racist to not go shopping in Chinatown. Shortly thereafter, the “hug an Asian”… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
11 months ago

On the contrary, society came together pretty well for the first 2 or 3 months of it. It wasn’t until it became apparent that it wasn’t anywhere near what it was cracked up to be that this cohesion fractured. So we were capable of dealing with a health emergency. But we aren’t anymore, because they cried wolf.

cg2
cg2
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
11 months ago

“I believe it is probably being studied by every government in the world. They know what worked, what didn’t, what the limitations were, what messaging worked and what failed.”

But will they realize that it will never work as well again?

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
11 months ago

“I only didn’t believe the mask story because I saw how people were using them.”

I only didn’t believe it because I’ve designed and installed air handling systems in a number of chemical plants. I have first-hand data of what happens when you surge or backflush a HEPA filter, which would happen with every exhalation, and especially every cough or sneeze.

Had they recommended a filter with the exhale valve, maybe. But the straight N95 or the silly surgical masks? Right. There’s a reason industrial air filters don’t use those.

Danny
Danny
Reply to  JR Wirth
11 months ago

It’s easier to be fearful that to be courageous and calm in the face of a challenge. It would seem that fear is a cornerstone of fanaticism as well.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  JR Wirth
11 months ago

I too dwell in that frigid, remote cave, JR, and it is no picnic! The groveling credulity before almighty Covid crushed what respect I had for the human race. And if you have no faith in the basic wisdom and decency of humanity, how can you support allowing the imbecilic masses to hold power? Look at all the idiots and clods who surround you. You really think they should be in charge of anything more consequential than tying their shoes? I sure don’t.

cg2
cg2
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
11 months ago

I feel like you might be a bit harsh in judgement:
1) Wuflu was obviously a manmade virus that was extremely virulent and a factor of as much as 10 times more deadly than regular annual flues. I witnessed 30 somethings spending a week in the hospital in my own neighborhood.
2) The event was hyped by a full court press I haven’t witnessed in my lifetime, including 911 and extending right down to all of our regular long time physicians.

The question is what number of people have had an awakening due to the obviously horrible reaction to it.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  cg2
11 months ago

The initial Covid strain was more virulent than your typical flu, but nowhere close to 10 times so. The Covid death toll is wildly exaggerated, perhaps 90 percent less than the official numbers. In fact, it’s not out of the question that the so-called “vax” has killed more people than the disease it supposedly guards against.

Robbo
Robbo
Reply to  JR Wirth
11 months ago

Same here. I thought I was a cynic pre-Covid. In reality I didn’t know the meaning of the word. Covid was the parting of the ways.

Jack Boniface
Jack Boniface
Member
11 months ago

There is a natural limit to belief, which is a belief in procreation. The Shakers died out because they belived having children was evil. The Mainline Protestants are dying out because they believed the Population Bomb hoax; they are being replaced by Evangelical Protestants who believe having a lot of kids is good. The Traditional Catholics are gradually replacing the liberal Catholics. Orthodox Jews are replacing liberal Jews. Muslims are growing in most places because they believe children are good. China has a depopulation problem because the CCP imposed its one-child policy 40 years ago, and how is having a… Read more »

ArthurinCali
11 months ago

I used to believe in civic nationalism and the idea of the global populace buying a ticket to the (American) story and ideals. Funnily enough, around the time I held these beliefs was 30+ years ago in an America that had a firmly entrenched demographic majority of Heritage Americans. (Roughly 80% IIRC) See, that’s kinda of the paradox of the idea of a successful nation operating under civic nationalism in that you still need a majority ethnic population who puts their full faith in the mythos of said nation’s founding, institutions, and ideals. Once it hits a certain fracturing of… Read more »

krustykurmudgeon
krustykurmudgeon
11 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVxZyRvzPIw

is this the future of american business? I feel these people have discovered a special sauce. High wages combined with a culture of being high quality in whatever they do is the key. If you have that, there’s no need to have a union, even if I am pro-union by default.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
11 months ago

The bottom line however is that those salaries must be paid for out of profit (duh). So can Buckies survive if a McDonalds opens up next door? Can any retail business survive if folks first go to their laptop to order from Amazon? I don’t have answers here, but it would seem a good start if our elites talked more about America—as in American business—*first*! (I know, I know….). Hell, I’ve discussed here repeatedly my refusal to use those ubiquitous self checkout lines in the stores and such as they lead directly to job loss for the position of cashier—which… Read more »

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Compsci
11 months ago

McDonald’s of 20 years ago, maybe. McDonald’s of today offers little to no competition. Maybe a Chick Fil A next door could hurt them. But Buc-ee’s only real competition are truck stops that offer lower quality (and generally fewer choices) along with their lower prices.

The bottom line is there’s nothing like Buc-ee’s anywhere. Never has been. And people are willing to pay a little extra for that.

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Compsci
11 months ago

Likewise for eschewing self-checkout, and for the same reasons.

krustykurmudgeon
krustykurmudgeon
Reply to  Compsci
11 months ago

couldn’t you argue against corporations on freedom of association grounds?

Like if you have a successful independent business and a national conglomerate opens next door and puts you out of business, you should have legal recourse.

RememberTheAMPM
RememberTheAMPM
Reply to  krustykurmudgeon
11 months ago

There was a Claremont review of an NPR guy’s book about Texas — in the 2010s, actually an insta-genre in liberal publishing, of which maybe this book wasn’t the worst entry — by infamous fat guy Kevin Williamson, which hinged on its dismissive (Williamson says) treatment of Buc-ee’s. This just happened to be the first Texan (NPR guy) straying into the wheelhouse of second Texan (Williamson) and it was a thing of true violence; hilarious number of errors detailed, e.g. that Buc-ee’s isn’t a truck stop and excludes vehicles w/ 4 axles or more. Anyway the upshot apparently being, the… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
11 months ago

There’s no revolution or counterrevolution because there’s still a rough consensus among elites. That’s a ‘democracy trap’ re: voting harder.

This will change as things eventually get bad for the elites, too— then they’ll start representing the will of the people lol. At that point, democracy might not look as bad, but the corrective actions required will.

Funny thing, the general will, and how it works.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

Yep. College campuses have been a hotbed of anti-white and anti-Christian hate for decades. Some protesters chant support for the Palestinians and college presidents are called before Congress and then fired within weeks.

It’s all about the elite.

Tarl Cabot
Tarl Cabot
11 months ago

The American Founders thought that their democracy (such as it was) would be guided and balanced by the rational “interests” of its citizens, all contending vigorously though peacefully in the marketplace of ideas. What they fatally failed to anticipate was that those interests would be disguised or even denied as each faction tried to usurp the moral high ground and the unimpeachable authority of the sacred victim. In the end, Democracy is just a morality play for the masses while oligarchs make bank. Other systems may be no better, but are at least somewhat more honest about that, as they… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Tarl Cabot
11 months ago

They were giving people too much credit, thinking they’re rational actors. Big problem with a lot of Enlightenment thought.

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

With the radical drive toward, and expansion of, the voting franchise, any pretentions of thoughtful, and longer-term thinking about societal priorities and the organization to facilitate them being implemented went out the window. As we moved inexorably closer to the Founders’ dread fear, democracy, the impetus toward self-dealing – regardless of the longer term consequences for the viability of republican governance, and the cultivation of virtues that conduce toward that end – became an avalanche, helped along by the fertile ground for demagoguery heedless of rationality and sustainability. And here we are.

WillS
WillS
Reply to  Paintersforms
11 months ago

Only male land owners could vote. Skin in the game makes a difference.

Mr. Generic
Mr. Generic
Reply to  Tarl Cabot
11 months ago

> What they fatally failed to anticipate was that those interests would be disguised or even denied as each faction tried to usurp the moral high ground and the unimpeachable authority of the sacred victim.

What they fatally failed to anticipate was that they and their posterity would be replaced in their own country. The system worked very well for two generations, until enough immigrants had arrived to elect Lincoln the Terrible.

Götterdamn-it-all
Götterdamn-it-all
Reply to  Mr. Generic
11 months ago

I loved that Lincoln remark. You, sir, are a true cynic. Welcome to the Brotherhood.

JerseyJeffersonian
JerseyJeffersonian
Reply to  Mr. Generic
11 months ago

And with many of these immigrants coming from monarchies and/or autocracies, or being radically leftist, they would think this only natural.

WhereAreTheVikings
WhereAreTheVikings
Reply to  JerseyJeffersonian
11 months ago

Yes, and – the joke is on the feminists – they are patriarchal.

bruce g charlton
bruce g charlton
11 months ago

“To get a better sense of the power of belief, think about a race of humans that is devoid of belief so all claims must be backed by proof.” This is a false opposition between belief and proof; because what counts as proof depends upon prior belief – as is obvious when you try to use proof to change somebody’s beliefs. You later say: “Humans in the main are believing machines so they will believe in something. ” Which is much closer to the reality that is humans Do (rather than will) believe in something; including self-styled skeptics. It is… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  thezman
11 months ago

That’s the issue. Reason can’t cut it as a religion, an authority. It’s a way of thinking, not a set of beliefs. Democracy also fails as an authority because 1) it eventually can’t pass the question of “says who” and 2) its tenets are so malleable that the elites can’t be held to any standard. Democracy coasted off the achievements of its predecessors. Sure, a homogeneous country of high-trust, high-IQ people who agreed on certain values could make a democracy (republic) work. But those ingredients were created by the environment and systems before, not by democracy itself. Democracy is the… Read more »

ray
ray
Reply to  thezman
11 months ago

You ‘killed’ some angels acting under pretense of gods and goddesses. Graduated from two-way theatre. Then you and those angels killed the real God, that you call the ‘Jewish God’, like He lived in a hut at Gilgal or something. Then folks decided they don’t need no God or gods, and became their own gods and goddesses, as convenient. With prompting, folks decided they had become Enlightened, and your deities became humanism, egalitarianism, and reason (now, godling techno-science). However, whether God or gods ‘n goddesses, right along men essentially have worshipped women, and women have worshipped, well, themselves. And here… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  bruce g charlton
11 months ago

The self-styled skeptic believes in all kinds of ridiculous things. 95% of them believe in every progressive dogma that exists. Just try telling these people there is no patriarchy or that natural inequality exists.

george 1
george 1
11 months ago

I guess I would fall into the cynic category on most things concerning the West today. However, maybe I can turn around. Yes. I think I can.

I believe that all of the Marxists and nut cases in charge today really are trying to kill us all. We are ruled by a foreign elite who are plotting our enslavement and eventual demise. Bill Gates will occasionally even say so. It is all Yuval Harari talks about. So you see. I am really a true believer, a fanatic. I feel better now.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

“There is another piece to this. Humans in the main are believing machines so they will believe in something. This provides another advantage for the fanatic. In the absence of a better belief, the typical person will still listen to the fanatic, despite his many factual errors, until a better set of beliefs come along.” This is the key. If I’ve learned anything around here, it’s that politics is a morality tale. The secular, gay-loving media and politician’s rhetoric crashes against the rocks of a devout Muslim or Christian. The Muslim and Christian have a “better belief” and so ignore… Read more »

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

People on our side like to bash Democracy and I don’t blame them. Though the problem I see with with Democracy is it really can’t scale well. Unlike other gov’t systems it also requires intelligent and engaged citizens, and of course a large helping of high trust people. The bigger and more apathetic and more diverse it gets, the worse it is.

I like democracy, and I’d prefer that system if I lived in a society of 500,000 like-minded citizens. But in a country of 350 million passport-Americans, I’d prefer the enlightened autocrat.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Marko
11 months ago

Never looked into it, but the West’s cycle of warlord/dictator > king > nobility oligarchy > elite republic > democracy > warlord/dictator seems to be generally a western thing. Other parts of the word tend to stop at warlord/dictator or nobility oligarchy. I’m not sure that they even made it to elite republic before we imposed it. I have no clue what comes next. I doubt that we’ll get out enlightened dictator. Probably nobility oligarchy masquerading as democracy will stick around for awhile. Seems to work in South America and California. Basically, I think that the old western cycle is… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

” A proud Frenchman would laugh at (and then hate) the fanatic calling for millions of Arabs and Africans to come to France to make it more diverse.”

That was not the fanatic but the skeptic at the root of things. He was the one who said traditional French culture was bad for one reason or another, and the cure for it was multiculturalism. It was the man who questioned French culture that destroyed French culture.

Sgt Pedantry
Sgt Pedantry
11 months ago

Z, do you believe in the Holocaust?

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  thezman
11 months ago

Genius answer. When they start gabbling on*, the next question would be, “uh, okay. So, how’d they do that?”
That’s what turned me.

*about how your people need to be erased

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Sgt Pedantry
11 months ago

The willingness to accept something as true, without evidence to support it, is the essence of belief.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Sgt Pedantry
11 months ago

Yep, Caesar really stuck it to the Gauls.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

That was the Gaulocaust.

Melissa
Melissa
Reply to  Marko
11 months ago

I saw the piles of 6 gazillion sandals.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Marko
11 months ago

Even worse, I heard that the Romans wouldn’t let the Gauls into their country club. It’s known as the Golfocaust.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
11 months ago

He Shoah did…

Pres. IvyLeague
Pres. IvyLeague
Reply to  Sgt Pedantry
11 months ago

From opening of “Norm Macdonald Live w/ Fred Stoller” podcast (2013): “The doctor says it’s quite alarming and that I’m in a lot of trouble… And I said, well, I think it’s funny, and I’m the comedian; so let’s agree to disagree… He goes, ‘I will not agree to disagree, I will disagree.’ And I said, what’s the distinction? Isn’t agreeing to disagree the same, essentially, as disagreeing? No, he says, it’s not… ‘If I agree to disagree it gives more credence to your side of the argument, that that would be as unconscionable as if I were agreeing with… Read more »

imbroglio
imbroglio
11 months ago

Here in Covidia (the home of a slew of D.I.E. colleges/universities) where some community events still require masking and vaxports (Booster #5 may phase into a new universal vax,) these measures were explicitly sold as public virtue. “My mask/vax keeps you safe from me, your mask/vax keeps me safe from you.” Any and all info that questions either the vax or the mask is labelled “disinformation” and banished (not censored in that you can find the “misinformation” if you search for it.) In any event, The Science (prefixed with the definite article) rules. Like the BLM signs on affluent white… Read more »

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  imbroglio
11 months ago

“We’ll support a totalitarian dictatorship if it enforces our progressive, cost-free privilege…” and we will call it “democracy”.

Just like calling face diapers and cooties shots “science”.

And two dudes living together “marriage”.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
11 months ago

I’m reminded of that old chestnut about marriage:

“Go into a democracy with eyes wide open, go through a democracy with eyes half shut”.

For the sake of sanity, some things are best when not too closely examined. Most things, even.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  ProZNoV
11 months ago

Funny you bring up the marriage reference, I saw a meme a few weeks ago that depicted a father walking with his young son. The son looks up at the father and says, “Dad, did you know that in some parts of the world, you don’t know who you’re marrying until the day you get married?” The father replies, “Son, it’s like that everywhere.”
I laughed my ass of at that one. The wife wasn’t too happy – not that I give a shit at this point.

usNthem
usNthem
11 months ago

Great post today and outlines exactly where we are today, particularly in the US, but also the west in general. Of course, the skeptics will say, but Z, were not a democracy, we’re a “constitutional republic”! Yeah, ok kemosabe – lol. That’s why Z is often saying we have to create a new moral framework/paradigm better than the garbage were inundated with daily – maybe just more reality based? I don’t know if it even has to be all that new. It seems like even a 100 years ago, despite the usual charlatans and other assorted fanatics, people in general… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  usNthem
11 months ago

“It seems like even a 100 years ago, despite the usual charlatans and other assorted fanatics, people in general just saw things as they were,…”

As previously mentioned, one requirement for a functioning democracy is that the people are of one tribe. 100 yo we were a White nation (in the main), so things went along fairly well until we allowed in “diversity”. So the real question is “who is it that allowed diversity through the door”? I leave (((who))) to this group’s imagination. 😉

KGB
KGB
Reply to  usNthem
11 months ago

The people who rule us are explicit about defending “our sacred democracy”. How can anyone pull out the old saw about a constitutional republic at this point? The only people who matter (for now) have defined our form of government as something other than a republic.

My Comment
My Comment
11 months ago

Z’s points about belief are why people need a leader whom they will trust to tell them what to believe and do and why that leader will not be allowed to emerge. Even though Orange Man Bad was ineffectual and mostly a fraud, he was a leader not vetted by the true rulers of the country. They could not and still cannot allow such a person to gain power again. Even if he is cooped it says a bad precedent. Conservatives are allowed to have websites owned by the chosen to make sure that the more important thoughts are in… Read more »

pyrrhus
pyrrhus
Reply to  My Comment
11 months ago

Our “democracy” has devolved into a straight up racket, where the 1% decide what’s good for them, and rely on their puppet media, pollsters and commentators to sell it…and if it can’t be sold, they do it anyway…
Autocracy is about the same as socialism, except that it’s only socialism for a small class of people…Biden wants another 106 billion for proxy wars in remote countries, but nothing for veterans sleeping under bridges or Americans in general…Like socialism, you can vote your way into it, but you have to shoot your way out of it…..

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  pyrrhus
11 months ago

As I’ve said repeatedly in the past, the way to stop this nonsense—wrt war and war funding—is to not put it on the credit card. You want to play Rambo overseas, fine, then levy a surtax upon each and every tax filer (not necessarily payer as many filers don’t pay taxes) to fund the appropriation for the war de jour.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Compsci
11 months ago

Better yet, get rid of the secret ballot. The parties all put together a budget, and when the ballots are counted, everyone voting for the winning faction gets their per-person share of that budget. You vote for the dumb ideas, you pay for them.

heymrguda
heymrguda
11 months ago

Interesting discussion of that revered institution we call “democracy.” Like most, I’m not sure what the answer is. Some sort of philosopher king or benevolent dictator, as proposed by some, seems to be too close to potential tyranny to be seriously considered. Maybe more local control or direct democracy, like the Swiss cantons, or limiting voting to those not supported by or working for the government, as some have proposed? Consider our out of control spending, now closing in on $34 trillion. It will continue unabated as there’s no checks and balances to stop it. Whatever the solution I think… Read more »

Carrie
Carrie
11 months ago

I like this. I also think this is where the terms / use of logic, rhetoric, and dialectic come into play. Vox Day sometimes mentions these concepts, in the context of how”those of us on this side of the Great Divide” (as Z Man would say), with regard to how Leftists in general use rhetoric to fire up their people, (no facts needed, only feelings). I actually think they do a good job. Our people are so logic-oriented that we would do well to practice more feelings-based rhetoric. Myself included. (That is: IF we are clear on an objective about… Read more »

Curious Monkey
Curious Monkey
Reply to  Carrie
11 months ago

This is not an easy mesh to untangle. It is true you need rhetorical fire to motivate people. Usually the idea is to use human passions to manipulate people into what you want them to do. Action follows passion: I only noticed this as an adult in a Terminator 2 rewatch. Terminator is trying to convince the kid not to go back and rescue his mother (passion is hard to control), later the kid becomes angry at something I don’t remember and this could be used to make him a good warrior so Terminator tells him his anger is good… Read more »

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  Carrie
11 months ago

I went to a town meeting to convince the town councilors to put a ‘grandfather clause’ in a recently enacted town ordinance. I argued about the logic of it and was met with skepticism.
My wife stood up and appealed to them from emotions, and easily carried the day. I listened to her jive and just knew she would have them eating out of her hands.

It was all touchy-feely goo-goo, but they lapped it up.

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11 months ago

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