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Does "Creative Destruction" Include The State?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
When do we get to exercise democracy and fire every factotum, apparatchik, toady and lackey in the state who has abused his/her authority?
Everyone lauds "creative destruction" when it shreds monopolies and disrupts private enterprise "business as usual." If thousands lose their middle-class livelihoods-- hey, that's the price of progress.
Improvements in productivity and efficiency can't be stopped, and those employed making buggy whips and collecting horse manure from fetid streets will have to move on to other employment.
This raises an obvious question few dare ask: does this inevitable process of creative destruction include the state? If not, why not? Aren't the state and the central bank the ultimate monopolies begging to be disrupted for the benefit of all? If government is inefficient and unproductive, shouldn't it be "creatively destroyed" in the same fashion as private enterprise?
The obvious answer is yes. Why should a monopoly (government) remain untouched by new knowledge and competition as it skims the cream from society to fund its own monopolies and grants one monopoly/cartel privilege after another to its private-sector cronies?
Under the tender care of the state, we now have uncompetitive, inefficient parastic cartels dominating higher education, national defense, healthcare insurance, pharmaceuticals and hospitals-- to name but a few of the major industries that are now state-enforced cartels thanks to the heavy hand of the state (i.e. regulatory capture).
Under the tender mercies of the state, prosecutors have a 90% conviction rate thanks to rigged forensic evidence, threats of life imprisonment (better to plea-bargain than risk years in America's gulag) and other strong-arm tactics that presume guilt, not innocence. We have the best judicial system that money can buy, meaning you're jail-bait if you can't put your hands on a couple hundred thousand for legal defense and the all-important media campaign.
No wonder "we're number one" in false convictions, innocent people rotting away in the drug gulag and overcrowded prisons. The citizenry are fish in a barrel for overzealous prosecutors and "get tough on drugs" politicos.
And for goodness sake, don't get caught with cash--you must be a drug lord! Only drug lords have more than $200 cash on them at any one time. Once again, the state monopoly on force reckons you're guilty until proven innocent--and in cases where your cash and car were "legally stolen" (a.k.a. civil forfeiture) by the state, that will cost you months or years and tens of thousands in legal fees to get your property back--unless you're targeted for further investigation.
As I have described here in detail, the state can empty your bank account on the barest suspicion that you might owe more taxes than you paid. Due process and rule of law have been replaced with legalized looting and harassment by government in America.
Orwell and Kafka Do America: How the Government Steals Your Money--"Legally," Of Course (March 24, 2015)
Welcome to the Predatory State of California--Even If You Don't Live There (March 20, 2012)
The Predatory State of California, Part 2 (March 21, 2012)
Criminalizing Poverty For Profit: Local Government's New Debtors Prisons
Pimping the Empire, Conservative-Style
Pimping the Empire, Progressive-Style
When the Savior State Becomes the Enemy of the People (October 30, 2009)
As for using your rights to uncover whatever illegal spying and dirty tricks the state imposed on you in years past--good luck getting a Freedom of Information claim processed. The state's organs of security are busy targeting suspected terrorists with drone strikes, and your trivial concerns about constitutional rights don't count.
In fact, why exactly are you asking? Your inquiry is highly suspicious.
If there is a difference between the U.S. national security state and the Stasi, it is merely technological. We don't have to depend on snitches; we got high-tech tools, pilgrim.
There are two systems under our state: one for insiders and one for the rest of us. Insiders get a free pass, everyone else gets the state's boot on their neck. If you're Hillary Clinton, rules are for the little people who haven't managed to skim tens of millions in bribes ( a.k.a. speaking fees and campaign contributions). There is no financial crime that can't be turned into a heroic expression of America's greatness--if you can afford the bribes.
Here's how bad it is: let's say you're a senior U.S. senator whose husband is the penultimate crony insider worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a power couple to be reckoned with, wielding state and private-wealth power.
So what did the national security state say when the senator asked for minimal factual reports on agency activities? Blow chow, honey.
The lady in question is senior U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein, who is married to investment banker/financier Richard Blum. Interestingly, Feinstein had carried the national security state's water for years in the senate, defending our Stasi/KGB from inquiry or even the dimmest light of media exposure.
Hey, America's Stasi: you guys really know how to reward your water carriers.
The full story can be found in the new book Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America's Stealth Warfare.
Here's my question: when do we get to exercise democracy and fire every factotum, apparatchik, toady and lackey in the state who has abused his/her authority, trampled on our constitutional rights, participated in civil forfeiture, threatened innocent citizens, looted the system for personal gain and committed malfeasance? It's called accountability and rule of law, people.
If you can't fire your Stasi, KGB, corrupt prosecutors, greedy cops and parasitic politicos, then you don't have a real democracy, you just have a phony facsimile of democracy, an empty shell that's up held up as propaganda to a skeptical world.
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#BankLivesMatter
DEMONOCRACY is the problem....
A Constitutional republic, if you can keep it...
That relic left the building in 1913...
The problem is that the state has guns. They have LOTS of guns. The guns are controlled by psychopaths and sociopaths who have been preparing for years to use them and are looking for any reason to do so. These are extremely smart and exceptionally dangerous people. To them, creative destruction consists of finding creative ways to destroy any public resistance to their omnipotence.
It has been said that we are in an information war. People must first wake up in mass if anything is to change.
Already tried that, and look where it ended up. The State is all destruction, no creativity. The State is THE problem.
#Nailgunsmatter
Sorry to break it to ya Charlie-but the USA has become what the Soviet Union could only have hoped for.
Unfortunately you can only practice "gun in the ear" diplomacy/foreign policy for a very limited time before they al just disconnect your interwebs and stop taking your calls
Amen.
"If you can't fire your Stasi, KGB, corrupt prosecutors, greedy cops and parasitic politicos, then you don't have a real democracy, you just have a phony facsimile of democracy, an empty shell that's up held up as propaganda to a skeptical world."
Long empty shells.
And if you put one of those empty shells up to you ear you can hear the Fed's printing presses running. Go on, try it if you don't believe me.
Government apparatchiks vote, and they are highly motivated. Enough people get a government check, so there is your democracy in action. Of course your two choices are both about the same.
first, we must go ALL THE WAY to the left. So, Stalin liberal. Death camp liberal. Mass graves liberal. Only when the average citizen has had enough can there be a change. I think most people are fine with annual gender re-assignmet surgery - but now that the Goverment is running around stealing everyone's money and chopping up babies and harvesting their organs for sale on the black market - i imagine they've gone too far. There is such a thing as "too liberal."
The anti-christ to address congress in September.
Bill Cosby?
Free Shit America does not care, that is the problem. Prepare your family"s exit, it will not correct itself, it will only drift downward to poverty and destitution for 90% of the people. Fight or flee, fighting is insane unless highly organized with specific human targets. If enough are killed, the war is on their doorstep, not on a professional soldier alpha male, and maybe a few females sprinkled in. The big talking powers may fold, but more likely they will be evacuated to some remote inaccessible location and direct the carnage from there.
Another tactic could be for the productive to pull up a chair, stock up on beer, vittles and weapons and sit on their coon-dog asses and let the parasites starve. That reminds the story about Moses arriving at the promised land successfully and declared victory. He proclaimed that they were free at last, go build their happiness unmolested. That's when a thousand hands raised for a question for Moses, " But...but... Moses, when will you be serving dinner?" That is the plight of the parasite class if people balk like overworked mules.
What a depressing synopsis, but accurate.
Now that I own a home, I consider the Jews who had to flee Germany. Who did they sell their houses too just before they vacated. Well, nobody. They fled with what they could carry.
Love your work CHS...
Don't worry,,, Be happy.
The next election will fix it all!
Answer: When you remember who is the servant and who is the master. What they do to us mostly, is an illusion. And we believe in it with all our heart.
"Does "Creative Destruction" Include The State?"
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Be creative in the watering of your Liberty Tree.
Libert is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
To the author. Explain to me how ANY human being can have or acquire authority over ANY other human being.
The fact is, you can't. Nobody can. Nobody ever has. You and virtually all other authors spend entire lifetimes accepting premises that invalidate almost all your thinking processes about non-trivial topics.
How? It's a game... a 'BIDDING' game utilizing the most basic principle of Free Will. The whole process of 'game theory' is how to get what you want as cheaply as possible, and from the PTB at any level in the chain of command, the goal is to get the masses to follow your lead.... thus the 'bidding' process.... to encourage the sheep to follow your dark commands by presenting them as 'good', 'right', 'just' et al. The basic principle of Lying as Goebbels utlized so well, and from which country did he learn this? Us... and we learned it from our British brethen practicing the usual imperial policy of The Great Game. They learned it from every civilization before them... We exist in one dimension of Purgatory... Dark Side rules here, thus history repeats as often as necessary until we learn to leave the rest of the herd behind... Plato's Cave analogy... learning that the game is rigged, the 'house' sets the rules and will change them whenever necessary to ensure they always win. Currently, this means that even all the psychos in our ponerized govt will become collateral damage, as they have served their masters well but are no longer necessary and can be offered up to the masses in the next gambit of 'revolution', same as usual, just different colors... you know the story, 'different strokes for different folks', but in the end, it's always the same game, designed to suck you in and squeeze you to death.
Nice analogy, however freewill, let's call it "super-freewill," is one opting NOT to play the, their, game.
Like that game kids, and immature adults, play where one puts his hands out, and tries to pull them away fast enough to avoid them being slapped--only the strong and/or fast want to have you play it against them, so it is stupid to play.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
Excellent points, &
good reply, gdpetti,
It was the self-justifying,
de facto murder systems
that generate authority:
who could kill whom?
The history of civilization was forged in the crucible of conflicts. The history of civilization was primarily the history of warfare. The oldest book on The Art of War starts by saying "success in war depends upon deceits," and ends by saying "spies are the most important soldiers." Others, like Machiavelli and Clausewitz, elaborated on the same themes, while one of the more recent formulations was that by Vladimirov: "All human history can be portrayed as the history of deception."
To be more rigorously scientific about that results in recognizing that human beings operate as entropic pumps of energy flows that necessarily most closely match the principles and methods of organized crime. Therefore, governments are necessarily the biggest forms of organized crime controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. To the degree that too few people understand that, we end up with a FAKE democracy, in which ENFORCED FRAUDS become more and more totally triumphant, as I also elaborated on the same perspective in my comment below.
There is a difference between real and pretend. Nobody in this thread has explained how authority can exist or be acquired, only that pretending is all that's happening, which is true.
For practical purposes, "authority" is simply the adult version of the childish child's game "Simon Says".
I REPEAT:
The history of civilization was primarily the history of warfare. The oldest book on The Art of War starts by saying "success in war depends upon deceits," and ends by saying "spies are the most important soldiers." Others, like Machiavelli and Clausewitz, elaborated on the same themes, while one of the more recent formulations was that by Vladimirov: "All human history can be portrayed as the history of deception."
Successfully, BACKING UP LIES WITH VIOLENCE enables the boundaries between "pretending" versus "reality" to be blurred and crossed. Successfully TRICKING other people has been the backbone of organized crime, because of the ways that those TRICKS were working inside of the context whereby those facilitated the achievement robberies and murders. Civilization was always the development of organized crime on larger and larger scales. The original basis of that was the ability to back up lies with violence, which are an entire interrelated complex, not simply the lies, separated from the violence.
The fundamental basis of contemporary civilization is the ability of private banks, and the corporations that grew up around those banks, to create the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts for everyone else, while, those FRAUDS ARE ENFORCED by governments, which enables those activities to achieve symbolic robberies. BEING ABLE TO ENFORCE FRAUDS makes the relationships between lies versus truth, or pretending versus reality, become hyper-complicated, because the lies assist the "truth" of the robberies and murders, that are the final physical result of those lies pretending to be the "truth."
SUCCESSFUL LIES SOMEWHAT CREATE REALITY.
THERE ARE INTENSE PARADOXES BUILT INTO SOCIAL PYRAMID SYSTEMS BEING BASED ON BEING ABLE TO BACK UP DECEITS WITH DESTRUCTION. FURTHERMORE, THOSE INTENSE PARADOXES ARE AT THE HEART OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOVERNMENTS!
It is not a voluntary game of "Simon Says." It is an involuntary game where physical violence is assisted through deceptions. The final result is the "authority" based on WHO COULD KILL WHOM, FIRST. That "authority" was based on the military results, or the ways that the murder systems actually worked.
There is no way to actually opt out of the physical world, which includes physical violence, which violence is most significantly assisted by deceits and treacheries. Attempting to avoid that is personally possible to some limited degree. However, that has NO theoretical merit within the overall context of the physical realities, that political power is based upon being able to back up lies with violence.
The sublime ideals that say people should not engage in physical violence against each other are impossible ideals, which contradict the ways that the physical world exists. More realistic ideals must be based upon that one must operate within systems of organized lies operating robberies, while the only realistic alternatives are different ways to do that.
The underlying problems that exist after the development of weapons of mass destruction are that NONE of the previous systems that operated the human murder systems continue to be sane solutions to the chronic political problems. For thousands of years, it was possible to fight and win ... While now, any real wars, which escalated to all out use of weapons of mass destruction until those were exhausted, would result in everyone losing. That dilemma is the main way that we are necessarily headed towards the "Creative Destruction of the State."
The combined money/murder systems are based on the long history of backing up deceits with destruction, becoming the established systems based upon ENFORCED FRAUDS, whereby the FRAUDS of private banks making "money" out of nothing are ENFORCED by governments which were developed through the long history of warfare to be military organizations, which were never really "democratic" except to the degree that some historical struggles resulted in some degree of compromises to based upon sharing power, since power is originally always distributed, and governments or other organized crime gangs can only partially assemble and channel that originally distributed power.
The ideals of a democratic republic operating through the rule of law were supposed to be based upon recognizing that power was originally distributed throughout the world, since each different entity is its own entropic pump of energy flows. However, those ideals regarding "democracy" were more and more promoted to become impossible ideals, that necessarily backfired badly, the more impossible those democratic ideals became. Instead, the theory of a democratic government became the realities of government controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, operating through the supposedly public money/murder systems.
The authority of governments are due to their history of having primarily been military organizations, which operated through organized murder systems, within which context, their deceits enabled their destruction to be more successfully done. The NEED for that deeper analysis becomes more imperative due to the development of weapons of mass destruction becoming trillions of times more powerful than ever before in human history!
The essential realities are the death control systems, while the deceits regarding those were the lies that assisted those realities. A deeper analysis of how and why that happened is what would be theoretically necessary to perhaps develop better death control systems, which could adapt to the existence of weapons of mass destruction, and all of the other progress achieved in physical science by going through paradigm shifts. Political science needs to go through much more profound paradigm shifts than to merely superficially recognize that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
It is NOT good enough to stay with a superficial view of the "authority" based upon having been able to operate murder systems, which were more successful when there were performances that pretended to be doing one thing, while they were actually doing something else. To continue to rely upon any understanding of politics based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, is more and more becoming a dangerous dead-end, due to progress in physical science having gone through series of paradigm shifts which have over and over again transcended various dualities by developing unitary mechanisms, which enabled technologies to become far, far more powerful and capable.
The heart of the political problems were always the death control systems, that backed up the debt control systems. Those are the reason how and why the current political systems have become ENFORCED FRAUDS. Those situations are way more hyper-complicated than any over-simplistic reduction to "authority" being nothing but a lie, since pretending has a significant role in reality, in the ways that murder systems were more socially successful the more deceitful they were, and money systems were more socially successful the more fraudulent they were.
The heart of any real solutions must be better organized crime, because any realistic resolutions must be better death control systems. The history of governmental authority, which then became financial authority, was the history of the combined money/murder systems, based on backing up deceits with destruction, and ENFORCING FRAUDS. The main reasons why we are looking at the "Creative Destruction of the State" is the paradox of final failure from too much of that kind of social success. Those INTENSE PARADOXES are hyper-complicated, due to the ways that social realities become based on being able to ENFORCE FRAUDS.
The "authority" is not merely in the FRAUDS, and therefore, that "authority" is not merely fraudulent, but rather, there was the whole history whereby those were ENFORCED FRAUDS. The ability to ENFORCE FRAUDS is what give those FRAUDS their "authority," and that is as real as the ENFORCEMENTS.
This is why humans are finished. Even smart people cannot bring them to admit "authority" is not "being forced by violence".
It seems the predators-that-be and their "education system" have managed to destroy the brains of virtually everyone... even those who imagine they are adversaries.
If everyone understood that the predators-that-be were IDENTICAL to wild lions and other vicious animal predators, perhaps who was trashed who would largely reverse.
RM is not alone in thinking "authority" == "threats and violence". RM has taken this egregeous intellectual error to extreme lengths, embraced the notion explicitly, and made the notion a core premise of his bogus theoretical framework. Huge mistake.
The FACT is, by adopting this notion, RM is forced to claim the following.
You walk down the street. Some thugs jam guns against your head and one says "give me your purse or die".
By equating "authority" == "threats and violence" in order to pretend threats and violence are valid, RM also claims street thugs have "authority" to rob their victims.
I say those thugs do not have authority to rob you.
RM says they do.
THIS IS ABOUT AS SICK AS IT GETS.
RM is criminally insane... though technically, the concept "criminal" is also a fictional one, since "criminal" is a "bad action as defined by government", and "government" is fiction (doesn't exist). So let's just say RM is violently insane as a substitute.
But RM has a lot of company. Almost the entire planet of human chimps has been scammed into believing the same nonsense.
Given the origin of the word "authority", one can easily see how the predators-that-be made this transition happen.
First there was one meaning for the term "authority", which was derived from "author", which implied "the author is an expert in this topic".
As per the usual "boiled frog" approach, the predators-that-be slowly shifted the meaning. First they promoted the notion that "we should listen to experts/authorities", then "we should let experts/authorities decide for us", then "we must let experts/authorities decide for us", and finally, inevitably, "we are the authorities and we will cage or kill you unless you obey".
By this time, the frogs (humans) were thoroughly cooked.
They had slowly but surely created a whole new meaning for "authority", namely "someone you must obey or die".
But this meaning is 100% pure fiction. Why? Because in fact, no way exists for any human being to have or acquire any legitimate basis to tell any other human being what to do. It is literally impossible. And so, the notion is fiction.
Notice the non-so-subtle difference between the two versions. One notion of "authority" is "ethics demand you obey authority". This is impossible, because ethics elevates no human into any such position over any other. The other notion of "authority" is "obey authority or die".
But that second meaning is not the meaning that makes the term "authority" effective over humans. No. If humans understood "authority" that way, they'd fully and clearly understand "authority" is just an exact synonym for "predator". And that would send them on a hunt to kill the predators (as they should).
No, the entire edifice of the predators-that-be is that humans must BELIEVE that "authority" somehow has a legitimate ethical right to enslave them (tell them what they must do, and what must not do). Only then will humans accept the endless and ever-increasing predatory abuse they receive from these "authorities" AKA "predators-that-be".
Of course, this scam has been promoted by kings, emperors and endless predators-that-be for thousands of years. And so, this fictional concept seems perfectly natural and legitimate to virtually all humans today, even most libertarians and a few anarchists.
Humans are finished.
And RM is insane.
RM probably didn't become insane on purpose, but he adopted various false concepts and created a massive theoretical and intellectual framework upon them, which assures his entire construct is faulty. But RM has so thoroughly invested himself in his theory, and repeated it to himself and others so many millions of times, his false notions are indelibly burned into his brain.
Which is why I say again, RM. We should not reply to each others posts.
You totally disagree with me.
I totally disagree with you.
You are perfectly free to attempt to convert the rest of the chimps on this planet to your version of predatory tyranny, but I ask you not attempt to do so in my threads. And I will not reply in your threads and continue to make you look stupid. I'm quite certain you're getting the better bargain.
In my opinion, you do NOT make me "look stupid," rather you provide an excellent foil by presenting clearly articulated presentations of false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, which are what I rail against as being unrealistic, and which backfire badly. That is why I have been provoked to respond to your posts, honestann, because you do clearly state the basis for your political opinions.
I am facing the basic facts regarding the authorities being able to back up their legalized lies with legalized violence. I am not asserting that could be stopped, but only that there could be developed better dynamic equilibria between the various systems of organized lies operating robberies. In particular, I work against the established systems that have criminalized cannabis, which have simultaneously created the biggest organized crime gangs, since there are something like about 200 million cannabis consumers around the world, almost all of which are breaking the law in order to do so. Criminalizing cannabis is the single simplest symbol and the most extreme particular example of how the "authorities" are based on being able to back up legalized lies with legalized violence. I am NOT agreeing with that, rather, I am merely asserting that those ARE the social facts, and attempting to explain how and why those ARE the social facts.
You appear to misunderstand my attempts to understand why the actual social facts ARE the social facts, such as that the combined money/murder systems ARE based on governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks. You interpret my attempts to understand the FACTS with agreement that those should be the FACTS. Rather, my approach is an attempt to promote more radical truths, which could enable more realistic ideals, in order to be able accomplish as much as was actually possible, with respect to changing those social facts, which can not become more than changing the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies, in which context the banksters symbolic robberies enforced by governments are overall the most important.
I have no political positions, unless you consider my claim that "politics is fiction" a political position, which I don't (it is a metaphysical and epistemological position).
By now, you probably don't remember, but I actually agree with a great deal of your manifesto (though I disagree with much of your terminology for various reasons).
Where you go off the deep end is your insistence that "no alternatives are possible".
That is false, and I keep calling you on that, which annoys you.
This became a pointless discussion, because no way on earth exists to settle the matter.
Why so?
Because the history of mankind has progressed through the stages you describe over and over and over and over again. Which, of course, settles nothing, because we agree about that. After so many repetitions of the same pattern, how could anyone (much less reality-and-observation guided me) dispute the pattern?
Though I don't like the way you describe this in various ways, where we fundamentally head off in different directions is your intransigent insistence that "it cannot be otherwise... PERIOD".
That is false.
And I know that's false.
And so you will never get me to agree.
-----
One problem you face is this. You would have been correct for hundreds of thousands of years to say "man cannot fly". You'd have hundreds of thousands of years of evidence of humans [with contraptions on their arms] jumping off cliffs and falling to their deaths to prove your conclusion. And in fact, millions of people believed man cannot fly long after the Wright Brothers built an airplane and learned to fly.
The situation of our dispute is similar... except... at least I can prove that tiny groups of humans need not and do not always become organized in the pattern you describe and claim is unavoidable (an unavoidable truth, or a radical truth).
And so, at least on small scales, I know you are wrong. Not wrong that the disaster always occurs at large scales, but that the disaster must happen PERIOD. You want to elevate your observation of the pattern you see to something like "the fundamental nature of reality". THAT is where you are wrong. TOTALLY wrong.
You keep repeating your same manifesto over and over and over again. I can't read it any more. I am sick and tired of reading the same thing endlessly. It has given me intellectual repetitive stain syndrome, so I must give up reading it like I had to give up manipulating the cursor on my computer screens with a conventional mouse (switched to my left hand and rolling ball type).
How you can stand to write the same thing a trillion times is beyond me.
You are the one who misunderstands me. You imagine I'm trying to undercut your theory. For the most part, I'm not (except various details that are mostly beside the point). I simply refuse to elevate your manifesto to "the nature of reality", because doing so is FALSE.
So you really should stop thinking I disagree with your theory, and understand what I actually disagree with. The status you assign it.
Most of what you say is indisputable... it is simply the observation of history, or more precisely, the patterns in that history.
You may remember the story I once told here in ZH... about my experience in 7th grade history class. I never paid attention in school. I always had my notepads out and perhaps a math or science book too, and was working on some crazy science or engineering project. Maybe my optical design program for example.
Usually I was observant enough to not get caught. But once when I must have been deep in thought, the teacher slapped me on the back of my head to snap me out of my daze. Obviously he saw I was working on my own projects, not history.
He said aloud to embarrass me in front of the whole class (which never worked for me, other than I don't like to be noticed or paid attention to), "have you learned anything at all from history?".
Without even thinking, I replied "the only thing I've learned from history is that nobody ever learns anything from history".
Of course the class laughed... but didn't understand.
He said nothing. He just stood there. The fact that he didn't respond, but eventually just walked away, was because he did understand the meaning and significance of what I said... and didn't want to discuss that in front of the class.
In other words, I understood the essence of your thesis in 7th grade.
And not just the seeming inevitability either, since you've read many times here in ZH how I understood the bogus nature of authority and other fundamental components of what you call politics (bullies and victims).
You say in your message above that you consider my opinions "unrealistic". If that was what you said before, we never would have started the war we had. Why? Because I don't much disagree with that. The mere fact that the endless repetition exists is plenty to support that opinion (thought not enough to make it certain much less inherent).
We totally agree humans respond to threats. I mean... DUH. And we agree that this lets human predators dominate human producers and other sheeple.
There can be no stable or acceptable "dynamic equilibrium" between human predators and human producers. You should know that. The very nature of the factors that make the existing pattern repeat endlessly mean any temporary "dynamic equilibrium" between human predators and human producers (or force versus voluntary interaction) will soon resolve itself in favor of the predators.
Look how "America" turned out, for example.
I don't take pot, and in fact never drank alcohol or smoked cancer sticks. But of course I agree that every human should be free to jam whatever they wish into their own bodies.
And, of course, I agree prohibitions always create nothing but violence and profits for thugs.
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I find absolutely NOTHING wrong with trying to identify and understand why social facts exist (why they are facts). That is a perfectly reasonable and potentially somewhat valuable endeavor.
And I agree the human predators who call themselves "government" and "central banks" are simply enforcing frauds.
I have agreed those are facts for decades.
One of the problems I have with you is... you never seem to remember that I agree with all that. But more than that. I not only agree with that, I've been harping about that for decades, long before I ever heard of you or ZH.
Yet, you persist pretending like I'm one of the terminally stupid unwashed morons who do not understand this, or do not agree with you about this.
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I do not interpret your attempts to understand the facts with agreement they should be the facts.
The reason I don't make that mistake is... because you do agree they should be the facts in pattern (though not in specific details). For example, rather than dismantle or destroy large-scale implementations of threats and destruction (government), you want to control them, and tweak their direction and emphasis.
YOU want to control threats and violence.
YOU consider it impossible reality can exist without them.
And THAT is what I dispute.
Understand that I do consider it arguable that large-scale populations would always end up being perverted into the same old threat-and-violence configurations that have always existed and always perverted mankind. In other words, I consider your position to be arguably true (and arguably false).
But at very least, the tilt has to start out radically biased in your favor, because we both agree "that's what has always happened... so far". You just don't like the "so far" part, and so you attack me endlessly. You don't consider the issue arguable AT ALL.
I suspect the reason for that is because... your decision to GAIN CONTROL of the large-scale "threat and death controls" can only be justified if the very existence of large-scale "threat and death controls" is inherently unavoidable.
If they ARE avoidable... if they CAN BE avoided...
Then you have NO JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER for adopting your position. You would be "just another human predator who wants their turn at the controls of the large-scale "threat and death control" system.
Which is what you are.
BECAUSE...
You don't know they are unavoidable. You just want to believe that.
Because you lust for power, just like the predators-that-be.
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RM, I hope you can learn to distinguish me from the rest of the morons around here (and elsewhere). Often I think you can't remember what I said, and so you just assume I hold the same stupid notions everyone else does. But I don't. So I get damn tired of being treated by you as if I do. Which is why I called the truce, because we were both wasting our time.
You can continue screwing around with your "dynamic equilibrium" as long as you wish. While I agree that both "the ends justify the means" and "the ends do not justify the means" are both too simplistic to be applied blindly, your approach leans VASTLY too far in the direction of "the ends justify the means".
You are free to argue that my approach leans too far in the direction of "the ends do not justify the means". I don't care. That's my decision, not yours.
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What also irks me is when you pretend your conclusion that large-scale "threat and death controls" are utterly inherent in the fabric of reality (including human genetics or consciousness) mean this dynamic also necessarily applies to small-scale, even tiny-scale groups. I explained why I believe you need to take this position above (to justify becoming a human predator yourself, because you imagine any other possibility is inherently impossible).
I don't know why you have to do this. Why can't you be content to say something like, "I don't know whether the recurring configuration that always repeats in large-scale societies would necessarily occur at small-scale groups or not". Instead, you just wave your hand and pretend to know. You could say, "for me, who plans to always live in large-scale groups of humans, whether small-scale can work differently or not is irrelevant to me". But you don't. You always need to elevate your theories to facts of reality or fundamental nature of reality. Which is just BS, but you do it anyway.
You make the same mistake regarding wildly different environments like outer space. While I have thought about the dynamics of human interaction in outer space for decades (and I'm a space scientist who should and does know the physics of living in outer space rather well), you want to simply wave your hand and pretend you know your "laws" are "universal". Which again is just BS, but you do it anyway.
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Let's return to our truce. I don't answer your messages and you don't answer mine. That will make your threads MUCH cleaner. That will make my threads MUCH cleaner. Both of us benefit. And so do most readers, I believe.
Thank you. I really wish more people would catch on to the point you are making. There is a lot of non sequitur posing as informed criticism, because of how indoctrinated so many of us have become as a result of the very system that we want to change. "The revolutionary impulse has been turned in upon itself".
>When do we get to exercise democracy and fire every factotum, apparatchik, toady and lackey in the state who has abused his/her authority?
When you pull the trigger.
Such a stupid question.
Nobody will commit to Freedom.
Nobody wants to be the first.It will take a martyr if history is our guide.
"Here's my question: when do we get to exercise democracy and fire every factotum, apparatchik, toady and lackey in the state who has abused his/her authority,"
We don't, and that point is being made more clear with each passing day. At some point, you'll be a law-breaker no matter what, and probably much worse if all you wish for is to live free and be left alone. So, you make the conscious decision well beforehand with careful thought: Die on your feet, or live on your knees.
Every paragraph in this article proves the need for a Fourth Branch...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/277193
The author either has no idea what democracy is and is confusing it with republicanism, or he thinks democracy is a good thing. Either way, it's a bit disconcerting it showed up on ZH.
Does the market include the state? No.
There's your answer.
And a large part of the reason organic capitalism never had a chance.
"When do we get to exercise democracy?"
When enough citizens understand that they are necessarily members of an organized crime gang that they call their country. Of course, "democracy" has already been about 99% destroyed, as demonstrated by the degree that the public "money" supply has been privatized, to become frauds by privately controlled banks which are enforced by governments, which developed through vicious spirals of the funding of the political processes, which achievement was then leveraged up and UP in all of the ways outlined in the article above. However, the article above, as do all other articles I have read by Hugh-Smith, (similar to almost all of the rest of the content published on Zero Hedge) continue to take for granted the ways of thinking about these problems based upon the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals.
Everyone has some power to rob, and power to kill to back that up. Governments assembled and channeled those powers, while those who were the best organized at using those powers were able to capture control over governments. However, there is nothing novel about governments being the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. Governments have always been that, and have always necessarily been that.
The double whammy dilemmas that we are facing are due to the majority of people being conditioned to believe in the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, that somehow governments are not the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. Therefore, the vast majority of people have become incompetent political idiots, or Zombie Sheeple, while about the only publicly significant opposition to the core of organized crime may be called the reactionary revolutionaries, or the Black Sheeple, whose bogus "solutions" are basically to recommend that everyone should become better Sheeple.
In every way, on ever level, that is an impossible ideal, which always backfires badly, and causes the opposite to actually happen in the real world. Of course, that has become so extremely common that we have already gone beyond the event horizon into a social black hole, where the almost inconceivably crazy corruption of the funding of the political processes has become runaway criminal insanities. The tragic trajectory we are currently on is that the established systems are headed towards their own mad self-destruction, due to how psychotic they have become, due to their excessive successes based upon being able to enforce frauds more and more losing touch with relatively objective realities.
The only way that democracy could work is if enough citizens understood that governments were necessarily organized crime gangs, and they were necessarily members of those organized crime gangs. A democratic republic operating through the rule of law ought to be a way to assemble and channel the power to rob and the power to kill. However, since the overwhelming vast majority of people, for generation after generation, have been brainwashed to believe in bullshit about politics, and so, want to continue to believe in that bullshit, the vast majority of We the People continue to act like Zombie Sheeple, while guys like Hugh-Smith are nothing more than bleating Black Sheeple inside of that context.
Of course we now have a FAKE "democracy." However, a more real democracy would have to me that more of the people were engaged in controlling the combined money/murder systems, which, at the present time, have become such that the monetary systems are already about 99% privatized, while the murder systems have become about 75% privatized, where "privatization" means that small special interest groups are effectively able to control the use of the supposedly public powers to rob and to kill. The essential problem with the bullshit ideals about "democracy" are that those are promoted as somehow NOT being based on the foundation that everyone has the power to rob and the power to kill to back that up. A real democracy must necessarily be more public control over the powers to rob and to kill. The fake demoncracy we have now are due to the effectively control over the public powers to rob and to kill having being captured by tiny minorities of the overall population, most through the prolonged vicious feedback loops of the funding of political processes.
That situation is way worse, due to there being almost nothing surrounding that core of organized crime, than various layers of controlled opposition groups, which deliberately do not admit and address the issues that governments must necessarily operate some death control systems to back up some debt control systems. The vast majority of the political opposition never proposes better death controls to back up better debt controls, but rather, promotes the impossible ideals that no such systems should exist at all, or at least none that human beings are conscious of operating.
Within that overall context, authors like Hugh-Smith are reactionary revolutionaries, who superficially reveal the degree to which governments have become runaway forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, but then, never propose realistic alternatives, which would necessarily have to be better organized crime. Pretty well all of the content published on Zero Hedge can be characterized as similar sorts of the range of reactionary revolutionaries, who present superficially correct analysis of the problems, but then revert to promoting bogus "solutions" based on the same old false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals.
The only things that exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. Therefore, the only thing that a genuine democracy could do is possibly enable greater use of information enabling higher consciousness with respect to how the powers to rob and to kill were actually used. However, since the core groups of organized crime that actually do those things the most are also the best available professional liars an immaculate hypocrites, and they have surrounded themselves with layers of controlled opposition groups that are also run by professional hypocrites, for all practical purposes democracy is already about 99% dead, and therefore, probably already too dead to recover.
The only theoretical way that more of a democratic republic operating through the rule of law could survive would be if and only if enough of its citizens developed a better understanding of political science. However, in order to do that, enough of them would have to go through profound paradigm shifts in the ways that they perceived political problems. Primarily, that means that they would have to stop presuming upon dualities, and instead start using more unitary mechanisms. That means stop believing in the false fundamental dichotomy between government versus organized crime, and instead recognize that governments are necessarily forms of organized crime, and that citizens are necessarily members of an organized crime gang. That is the only realistic basis upon which a democratic republic operating through the rule of law could exist and survive. On the other hand, to the degree to which the vast majority of We the People do not understand that, because they do not want to understand that, then they have been reduced to Zombie Sheeple, who will tend to be misled by Black Sheeple, and the Wolves in Sheep's clothing.
In North America today, given the established patterns of the funding of politics, and the first-past-the-post voting results, the existing systems have become out-of-control, due to the degree that about 99% of We the People actually behave like Zombie Sheeple, because, even if there is some slightly greater percentage of the people who understand the degree to which "their" government has actually become the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, that relatively small minority still has no politically practical ways to change anything.
Some human beings exert authority over other human beings due to the history of warfare, which was organized crime on larger and larger scales. The de facto tests of social organization upon the battlefields enabled the triumphantly surviving groups to exercise their authority. The surviving War Kings created the powers of sovereign states, which powers were then covertly captured, mostly by the international bankers, who were the best organized gangsters, or the Fraud Kings.
The authority that some human beings exert over other human beings is de facto. It is superficial stupidity to assert that those social facts should not exist. Of course, that kind of stupidity is also quite common in the content published on Zero Hedge, and amongst the reactionary revolutionaries, or Black Sheeple generally, which then also mislead the masses of Zombie Sheeple to go backwards, to become even less realistic about their roles as citizens.
The actual future of human civilization will continue to be due to the development of organized crime. Due to the progress in physical science, that has been growing at an exponential rate throughout the history of Neolithic Civilizations, but that has now encountered the limits of a finite planet Earth, in ways and to degrees that those social pyramid systems have never encountered before. Ideally, that should change the ways that we operate civilizations as systems of organized crime. But nevertheless, because organized crime necessarily exists, and can not be stopped from existing, governments necessarily exist and can not be stopped from existing.
Those who put up utterly absurd bullshit arguments based upon the views that some human beings should not exercise authority over other human beings, because there should not be any violence, actually are making sure that the final result will be far worse, and more unbalanced, than if there was originally a more realistic attitude developed towards the death control systems, with the murder systems as the most extreme manifestation of those. Promoting politics without violence is the same as promoting physics without force.
Some human beings exercise authority over other human beings due to the basic history of slavery being: "Do what I say, or I will kill you." That resulted in the survivors being those who were the best organized criminals, that were thereby able to control those who decided to do what they were told, rather than be killed. Everything regarding the theory of a democratic republic operating through the rule of law ought to be about how the powers that everyone has to rob and to kill are assembled and channeled. However, the ways that the social pyramid systems developed resulted in a relatively tiny minority of the best organized criminals, who were best able to lie about what they were really doing, dominating society so completely that they were also able to control their apparent opposition, and therefore, the ruling classes ended up being surrounded by the large majority of the people who were ruled over, who for generation after generation had been beaten up by those biggest bullies, so much, for so long, that the survivors through that history ended up mostly believing in the biggest bullies' bullshit, and feeling like they wanted to continue to believe in that bullshit.
Hence, the political realities that exist today are there are relatively small groups that specialize in being dishonest and backing that up with violence, while there are large groups that have adapted to that by becoming ignorant and afraid, and indeed, feel afraid to become less ignorant, (and with good reasons, since the more one learns, the worse it gets.) Within that context, where there is almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by layers of controlled opposition, both of which stay within the same frame of reference of bullshit social stories, which were deliberately developed to be as absurdly backward as possible, it appears to be politically impossible to pull out of the death rattle of democracy.
Basically, the article above was another typical example of being superficially correct, while also being profoundly wrong, which is pretty well universally the case in the content published on Zero Hedge. By and large, almost everyone wants to promote their own favourite impossible ideals, while the only things that we can actually do are continue to muddle through the madness that the only things which actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
At the present time, since the public debates are almost totally dominated by people promoting various impossible ideals, the established systems are automatically becoming more severely UNBALANCED, and indeed, there is no other reasonable expectation than that will continue to get way worse ... As long as the world continues to be dominated by those promoting impossible ideals, which is done by both the core of organized crime, as well as by the opposition that they effectively control, then democracy will continue to become an even worse cruel joke than it already is, because there will not be enough people who stop acting like incompetent political idiots in order to actually change the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
The only theoretically sufficient solutions to the real problems would require a series of intellectual scientific revolutions in the basic ways that we think, which would then apply to political science. That is especially becoming more imperative due to the continuing progress in physical science, which has already gone through profound series of paradigm shifts. However, when it comes to politics, we continue to be almost totally dominated by bullshit, in the form of different false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals, which are absurdly backwards, and therefore, continue to backfire badly, enabling the enforcement of frauds to increase at an exponentially accelerating rate.
The only connection between human laws and natural laws is ability to back up lies with violence. Therefore, governments are necessarily systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. To the degree that not enough people face those radical truths, and respond with more realistic ideals, then the social systems based on enforcing frauds automatically become more psychotic, because enforcing frauds never stops those frauds from being false. It is NOT good enough to merely recognize that the established systems are based on governments being the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. In order to change that enough people would have to understand and agree how and why that necessarily had to be the case.
The established state systems are due to the history of warfare, which were based upon the human murder systems, with the supreme ideology being militarism. That is what the power to rob (taxation) and the power to kill (law enforcement) are necessarily based upon. Since everyone has some power to rob, and some power to kill, governments necessarily developed out of that situation, in ways which have resulted in the democratic values becoming almost totally promoted as impossible ideals, which have therefore backfired badly, and caused the opposite to actually happen in the real world.
What would necessarily have to be connected would be better democracy as better organized crime. To the degree that people do not understand that, and do not agree with that, then the deterioration of democracy will become less well organized crime. However, disorganized crime, is not better than organized crime. Rather, that is a fallacy promoted by people who want to continue to believe in impossible ideals. The long history of successful warfare based upon deceits, morphing to become successful finance based upon frauds, has created the social situations in which the bullshit of impossible ideals became almost totally triumphant, because those impossible ideals actually do cause the opposite to happen in the real world. That is why the biggest bullies promoted that kind of bullshit, and why their controlled opposition groups also promote that kind of bullshit.
Anyone who continues to rely upon the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals is therefore either working within the core of organized crime, or within the surrounding layers of controlled opposition. At the present time, that is almost everyone who is publicly significant, and therefore, our fake democracy is almost totally dominated throughout all of its various sociopolitical institutions by the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. Since that is already a fait accompli, to something more than about 99%, my view is that we already committed to having to go through the psychotic breakdowns of such a civilization, due to the longer term consequences of its being controlled by enforcing frauds, so much, for so long, until it suffers from the paradox of final failure from excessive success through being able to back up lies with violence, despite that never stopping those lies from still being false.