I wish I could write this well! Mencius Moldbug has come out of quasi-retirement to write of the NSA scandal and, as usual with him, nails it so completely to the mast that I am left stunned at the brilliance of it. I won't attempt to explain, just excerpt. Unfortunately, like bean-and-cheese burritos, Art Deco and late night Winnipeg Jets games just barely coming in on a fuzzy CBC broadcast, this is one of those things one either grasps innately the immense inner beauty, or not.
On the NSA matter directly:
On the threat-level posed by USG:
On the absurd state of affairs this matter reveals:
On the NSA matter directly:
And this is how you come to live in a world where there are these two separate concepts, "politics" and "democracy," with opposite emotional valence. Calling anything "political" is a harsh condemnation. But if it is "democratic," it is good and sweet and true. But what is democracy without politics?
Nothing more than the American system of government - communism, ie, rule by the party of civil service. As Americans, we can at least be thankful that communism has done less damage here than elsewhere. It's great to be an exporter, especially when your product is dioxin. It gives you the comforts you need to worry that someone is grepping your emails.
Thus, while I am not really one for purges, I'd be dismayed to see anyone who calls himself a real reactionary worrying at all that Obama is reading his email. Or whatever.
First of all, a reactionary is a gentleman (or a lady). A gentleman (or a lady) doesn't whine. If he finds himself whining, it will be because his leg has been crushed by a truck and he's in enormous fucking pain. It won't be because some meanie is denying him his universal human right to rule the country, or his 1/10^8 share in that right, or whatever.
My son actually thinks he has human rights. It's because he's 2. This morning he asserted his right not to take his amoxicillin - with some success, but not much. I expect the critics of the NSA to have about the same luck. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
On the threat-level posed by USG:
Whereas out here on the "extreme right," some of us actually do oppose the government. I would be genuinely worried if I thought Washington was capable of persecuting dissident intellectuals. One way to see where America is going is to look at where its satellites in Europe are, and Britain and other countries certainly treat jokes on the train and casual anti-Party tweets much the same way the Czech authorities in 1971 or the German authorities in 1937 treated unconstructive public comments about the Party or the Leader.
But really, these fools are easy targets. Yo, don't be an easy target. Don't blow shit up and don't try to found any tax-exempt organizations, and you ought to be fine. The Cheka ain't in the building. And the process of turning our progressive bureaucrats into Chekisty would not involve making them more awful, but more energetic, manly and capable. I won't hold my breath.
On the absurd state of affairs this matter reveals:
A prudently governed nation would not need to record everyone's phone calls and emails. A prudently governed nation would concern itself with its own affairs and no one else's. It would thus maintain either a culturally and politically homogeneous state in which terrorism was no more a concern than in the conflict between Vermont and New Hampshire, or a polycultural regime like the Ottoman one, in which every culture governs itself and knows it will suffer, not advance, if its members go crazy. But apparently the Orwellian panopticon creates more jobs in Virginia than the boring alternative of fencing the borders and enforcing consular law, so we can expect it to thrive. Americans prefer this ridiculous regime to any other. Yet they still object to being blown up indiscriminately in public places as if they were Israelis enduring the "peace process." So there is really no alternative, especially as our impending defeat in Afghanistan will swell the jihadi supply.
Moreover, the fascist militarists who actually do this job are some of the best men in America. American communism, for obvious reasons, loves to send America's best men to Afghanistan to get their private parts Osterized by fertilizer bombs. This is American war since 1945: State solving the problem of how it can get DoD to stick its dick in a blender. Solving it rather well, I'd say. Many of America's best men are in the Pentagon, and good men know how to obey, and into the blender goes that dick.
So Moldbug's problem is not (just) with the Declaration, but the Magna Carta?
ReplyDeleteI mean really, no, I just don't get this.
Let me take a shot at this. Moldbug is a former Libertarian and, as such, tends to take theory out to its most logical conclusion at a ruthless level. In other words, he is more continental in his thinking than Anglo. More Descartes than Burke, by far. In the Anglo tradition, theory is tempered by the ever-present realization that human beings and their institutions are by necessity crooked timber and, as such, trying to draw rational lines out to logical conclusions from theory is doomed to failure and to misguide.
ReplyDeleteWith that as background, here we go:
-- In Moldbug's view the former concept of the unwritten British Constitution was more accurate an institution than the Constitution since any "constitution" must necessarily describe not the ideal workings of a government but its operation in fact. As the former described how HMG actually worked (note: before it became an American state) and the latter almost never describes how USG actually works, any "constitution" that purports to be written is by definition worthless.
-- Additionally, he believes sovereignty is always unitary, it always resides somewhere, and promises on paper like the Const (or, yes, the Magna Carta) aren't worth anything in reality since, if sovereignty is threatened, they will be ignored by the unitary power.
-- Therefore, the proper reactionary view is to admit openly that someone must rule, that there is no paper-plus-judiciary structure that will keep that rule in check if needs be, so the best way to prevent abuses is by giving the ruler a direct, personal and posterity interest in object being ruled. That is, we need The Return of the King.
-- That is correct insofar as it goes, but it goes too far. What Moldbug does not account for is the Anglo tradition, inherent in the old British Constitution (of which the Magna Carta was an important building block), that power will not be *legitimate* if exercised in certain ways or as against certain culturally and traditionally valued rights, deeply seated in Anglo culture.
-- That is to say that Moldbug is correct right up to the point that he is not.
-- In the instant case, he is correct to mock any Constitution-based reason for taking offense, as that document is well off by mroe than 100 years in describing the USG sovereign and now power is exercised against rights. As correct in this sense, his nailing of the unseemliness of right-wing complaints is on target.
-- However, he sees the restoration of proper government as along his theory, all the way out (which would not include the Magna Carta), while I see the necessity of re-imposition of British order in the Anglo world (which would necessarily include the Magna Carta).
-- Thus, I admire his ability to skewer the current system and agree that we, yes, need the King back (and not the duly-elected Gondorian Congress), but as to what that restoration *means* we are not in agreement.
-- Did this make any sense?
Oh, I get it. I've been part of it. I quit it when it wore me down.
ReplyDeleteThe Cheka ain't in the building. And the process of turning our progressive bureaucrats into Chekisty would not involve making them more awful, but more energetic, manly and capable.
For now, this is correct...the "chekista" are lame asses like sloths Steven Miller, James Clapper, et al...donno nuttin, yada yada. But there really are some energetic folks who are striving to take charge...they enjoy the work of chekistas.
Many of America's best men are in the Pentagon, and good men know how to obey, and into the blender goes that dick.
Dead wrong here...the senior military has been intentionally culled of "best men" (fear of a coup if nothing else) and what is left are moral sloths, like General Dempsey (I'd include Petraeus and NcChrystal as examples as well) who are happy to shove enlisted men's and junior officer's dicks in to the blender. Furthers their career and they know they will never have to be in charge...e.g., responsible for...anything for its duration. Anyone below the rank of Brigadier General is chopped liver...blender dicks if you will.
I think Moldbug's "problem" is the democracy we've let evolves from the Republic the founders originally created. I know that is my problem.
Aridog - I COMPLETELY agree with you regarding all officers of flag rank. In fact, if appointed Emperor tomorrow I would order then hung to that last man and woman without a single pang of regret or guilt.
DeleteI believe Moldbug was referring to the real backbone of the U.S. military: the good, manly, honest soldier types one still find (still!) enlisting and in the lower officer ranks.
And to clarify what I meant by *legitimate* I meant that under the Anglo system there was simultaneously 1) a realization that one is effectively powerless to stop the sovereign when it has decided on a course of action (i.e., you WILL take your Amoxicillan, my subject) accompanied with 2) the realization that ONE WILL ACCEPT this unless that course of action is illegitmate, in which case the King is simply no longer the King and the Crown has transferred elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteNow, this is a very messy, very crooked timber solution to the problem. Who will tell the King he is no longer the King? How will this be accomplished? We know the answer to that from British history.
HOWEVER, as messy as that crooked timber solution is, it is many, many times more realistic than the Progressive's "the unjustly oppressed individual will then refer the matter to an impartial court with jurisdiction which will then order the sovereign to desist and make the oppressed person whole."
The old Anglo view understood human beings as humans; the Progressive view is as unrealistic as Marxism/Leninism.
Kevin, yeah, it makes sense - you make more sense than Moldbug on these points, that's for sure.
DeletePersonally FWIW I don't think I disagree much - although it might seem I disagree completely.
I'm guessing you might accept this kind of idea: throw out the Constitution except for the Bill of Rights (as analogous to the Magna Carta). A circumscription of government power, not a blueprint for its exercise.
As for the remedy for the exercise of illegitimate power, well, on that score the Founders made it abundantly clear what their opinion was, both in their writings and their example. I don't get the sense you are saying much different. American late-colonial history is also a part of British history.
Then restore a King.
Well, given that the remedies for illegitimate rule amount to the same thing (appeal to heaven, as it were) then that's an implementation detail which the marketing folks should have input on.
Republicanism sells better in these parts. It's a branding issue.
But prescriptive governance formulas will always break. Yes, so what. So even does computer code over time. Software requires patches, feature refreshes, major refactorings, and shitcanning replacement.
I'm persuadable that the mechanisms of government as codified in Articles I, II, III don't make much sense any more (and actual governance betrays massive infidelity to that document in any case). Maybe a new Convention is in order. It's something we could embrace as a genuinely American response to the problem of rapidly encroaching government power due to technology. What's a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when everyone can expect to be recorded everywhere. Etc.
So much of the legal record can be punked and gamed by government attorneys backed up by tech savvy functionaries, to justify all manner of excesses... it's all "Constitutional" but it's not legitimate. A shockingly broad consensus is developing around this. I don't see this as whinging, I see it as establishing the foundations for seeking a remedy.