Cause of death for Western Civ previewed in this PJM essay; read it all, along with this comment:
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....So what about “post modernism”? Well, it’s no coincidence that it arose immediately after WWII, because that is when the Marxists felt strong enough to start their long and violent march against western civilization. Unfortunately, as it turned out, free societies actually are capable of developing significantly more military might than centrally planned societies. This, of course, should not be surprising, since free societies are many times more effective than centrally controlled societies in every respect. Russia and China quickly realized that they would never conquer the west in the traditional military way.
So they decided to subvert the west instead. Post-modernism, relativism, unions, the media, the intelligentsia, the language, the culture, religion, balkanizing and angering people in every way possible (women vs. men, homosexuals vs. the rest, blacks vs. whites, city dweller vs. country, and on and on)…all with the purpose of destroying the civilization that stands in the way of the “progressives” re-ascendance to absolute power.
Skip to 2011. Barack Obama, an ignorant narcissist, a dedicated Marxist, the greatest con-man in history, sits in the most powerful office in the world. He has a trunk full of tricks to distract the rubes while his masters destroy the US and western civilization. The Marxian vision is 97% complete. They are one election away from ruling the world...
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See you around the stewpot....
Meh. The early parts of that comment start from a set of premises that are pretty much bunk.
ReplyDelete"That instigated the need for government, and government quickly and forever forced society into two dominant classes: the governing elite, and the rest, whose mission in life was to serve the governing elite. Since 1776, the goal of many in western civilization has been to restore the old order."
1) There has always been a governing elite, in every society, including the USA from 1776-1840 (or 1830, or 1800, or whenever you want to end the golden age of sticking to the Founders' vision). Always has been, always will be, except in a perfect anarchy, which will last just long enough for three guys to get together and agree that two of them will do what the third says because he's smarter and can make them all rich.
2) This - the poor peasants oppressed by the inevitably rapacious rulers - is a view typical of what I tended to see at samizdata.net while I was still bothering with it. It is utterly false. Serfdom went out - in France at the very least, which is the history I am best acquainted with - in the 1300s. After that the "mission" of the ordinary people was to live as best they could, within the context of local law, as free people always have. They didn't even have income tax. Sure there was a ruling elite who, when they didn't understand what they were doing, screwed up the economy, and that's so very different from now ... oh wait.
A lot of the great authors in the libertarian tradition were Frenchmen who were part of the upper classes of which the monarchy was an integral part. Much of this writing arose from policy debates within the monarchy. They didn't permanently screw up and get it completely wrong until quite late in the game - from the end of serfdom to the Bastille is quite a long period of time. It is no accident that France was the cultural, economic, linguistic, and political center of Europe and indeed the civilized world during that time.
There are lots of other examples from other nations. This idea that freedom is integral to the USA and utterly unique to it and never existed before it is simply false, ignorant, and defamatory. People have managed well enough in the past, under very different systems. Nearly any government can be turned to good purposes, if the rulers are wise. The problem in the USA today is that the rulers are guys who have been chosen for their ability to lie convincingly about how everyone really can have their own pet unicorn and stack of crisp hundred-dollar-bills, while lining their own pockets. Or maybe the real rulers are the 51% of the population that doesn't pay federal taxes, wants more handouts, doesn't understand math, and thinks American Idol is important. Either way: the rulers are far more foolish than your average medieval monarch, who at least had the sanctity of his own neck and the inheritance of his children to keep him focused on not letting things go to hell.
Are we having vegetable beef?
ReplyDeleteI'll bring the carrots.
ReplyDeleteAP
'Bout that there stewpot. I have decided to respectfully decline. Ahem.
ReplyDeleteFor Disciple of Night:
ReplyDeleteThere will be NO beef, if Our Betters have their way. And their Enablers will do their best to make sure that is the case.
That's a great link, Sir. Thank you very much.
ReplyDelete