Slashdot Mirror
Geeks For Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries
Third Position writes "Many of us yearn for a return to one golden age or another. But there's a community of bloggers taking the idea to an extreme: they want to turn the dial way back to the days before the French Revolution. Neoreactionaries believe that while technology and capitalism have advanced humanity over the past couple centuries, democracy has actually done more harm than good. They propose a return to old-fashioned gender roles, social order and monarchy."
Get in the kitchen, wench!
Bringing back serfdom.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
We kicked out King George a long time ago...we don't want him back.
As long as _I_ am the one who's in power.
I always liked the title Jarl, I think I would be a good Jarl.
No, thanks.
Not all change is progress. But some of it is.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I'm all for it, as long as I get to be the King.
I bet that women and minorities are underrepresented in this movement to turn the calendar back.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Yeah, let's go for that mix.
"Sir, you insulted my daughter..."
Contemporary political thought seems to be about electing the right king.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I blame Game of Thrones. Although you'd think Joffrey would be example enough to discourage monarchy.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
...in 3, 2, 1...
>> democracy has actually done more harm than good
Was this posted from the white house? :)
I'm a monarchist and even I think these people are crazy, they remind me of the flat earthers...
If you think we got corrupt, selfish, self absorbed and self centered cretins for rulers, ponder how much bigger cretins you get if you give them the feeling that they're entitled to it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Any system is great as long as you are one of the elites, living off the backs of the slaves. In theory that shouldn't be possible in a democracy, which is why the elites in the US keep us as far from a democracy as possible.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Please! Someone buy these idiots a history book. This is such a perfect example of people who think they're smart but they actually know jack shit about anything except pushing bits. The funny thing is, after the first arbitrary detention and execution of a dissident for "lesse majesty" or "treason against the crown" they'd all be up in arms and in jail. I really hope they're not all really this stupid and this is all just a way to get a reaction.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
But "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
“If residents don’t like their government, they can and should move,” he writes. “The design is all ‘exit,’ no ‘voice.’”
Any business can tell you the value of switching costs. Once you reel them in, it is expensive to move. So, even though another city-state might be better, people will still not move since the cost of moving, even assuming the State doesn't actively interfere with exit taxes or similar measures, would prevent most from moving. This is why retail chains all want you to sign up for their cursed club cards, to try to create switching costs that will keep you around even though they suck. Plus, we don't live in Bruce Sterling's cladist space utopia, there are limited options for moving in space while stuck on Earth's surface, even ignoring the costs. Why don't all those North Koreans just move? Perhaps these fellows have answers to these criticisms, I haven't spent all day reading their FAQ or anything.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
This is just another teenage rebellion movement like Libertarianism. "Don't trust the old people. They're just trying to oppress you!" Yes, Libertarians, you are now the old guys who can't be trusted. :) As such you and your philosophies must be rebelled against much like you tore at the chains of your oppressor parents in the two party system.
Apparently somebody's been going to too many medieval reenactments, and spicing them up with some conspiracy theorist meetings. Monarchies were nasty places to live for the majority of people. I like the part about nations being very small and people free to move between them to find one they like. Sure, and communism would have worked great if the people in charge were just nicer! Why would a king not try to conquer more territory, and allow his subjects to take off and leave whenever they want?
"Neoreactionaries believe 'The Cathedral,' is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants" Don't let the pentaverate get you! "I hated the Colonel, with his wee beady eyes!"
Around here, we don't dignify them with such latinate terms, we just call them assholes.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I wore a pocket watch before it was hip. Same with hiking boots. So many things I've done before hipsters ruined the scene. Now they want to take Monarchy from me? I've long touted the benefits that a strong authority can have in directing a country's production, but now that hipsters like it, I'm not so sure any more.
Here, you might enjoy this.
The subject of this post is a book by professor Hoppe arguing that democracy is the primary cause of the decivilization sweeping our world, and that monarchy is a better system. However he describes something called "the natural order" as the best system. Basically, democracy tends toward more and more socialistic policies. Monarchs will care for their lands while elected politicians are like renters who trash the place before they get evicted.
You challenged, thus I have choice of weapons.
I choose 5 megaton thermonuclear weapons at 10 paces.
Ah, so you've decided your honor is satisfied? Thought so.
... for having frequented them in France. The French Neo-Reactionaries are, quite often, staunch arch-catholics and rather vehement racists, who often glorify one form or another of fascism. They are a rancid bunch, IMHO.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
But has it done more harm than the alternative -- and what might that be?
But there's a community of bloggers ...
That's funny. Like a herd of turtles.
I vote for the anarcho-monarchist.
(He's just as safely dead as Generalissimo Francisco Franco.)
I was born in a monarchy. Although it was one of the symbolic ones, in Europe, when I became a republican later on in life ( disclaimer: no, european republicans are in no way related to their US namesakes, and quite often are rather leftist or left-leaning ), I remarked how opposed to true social progress monarchists can be. Beware !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Cue them? This "movement" is a product of them, so that there is a nice new label to throw around every time someone says anything bad about absolute democracy and perfectly "PC" society.
... especially the Exit part. I'm surprised, it does make sense.
I'm all for a monarchy, but only on the condition that there's a well-defined, guaranteed way to get rid of the king if he turns out to be bad. Something where people can tell their opinion, and if a majority wants to get rid of the king, the king is out of power. Well, thinking further, we don't want to have a time without king, so maybe at the very same time, we should also decide who replaces that king. I think the best thing would be if there were regular events where we decide which king we want to have, say every four years. We could call it an election.
But wait, what if the king does something very bad in between, something which maybe cannot be undone at the next election, or even takes away our right to get a new king whenever we want? Well, we can state that the king also is bound by the law, and make laws against all the bad things he could do that we can think of. But then, the king is the lawmaker, so if he wanted it, he'd certainly be able to just change that law as well. So to keep the king from subverting the laws, maybe it should not be the king who makes the laws, but someone else. Best, make it many people, so that a collusion with the king is less likely. Those people would then gather together and together decide about laws. And let's vote for those people as well.
Oh wait, I just described democracy! Just that we call the person in power "president" instead of "king".
. . . .but the default tendency of human goverments DOES seem to be the Empire, no matter what name you call it.
And even sadder, the usual life of a Republic is around 200 years. Which explains much of Modern America, which seems to be in transition to both a Police State AND an Empire. After all, we now seem to have both a de-facto permanent underclass and a self-sustaining de-facto aristocracy. . .
Enlightened despotism does work as long as the ruler is an idealist who want the best for their subjects.
It generally only works in small coherent clans, and the biological imperative tend to lead to hereditary rule where usually the second generation is a spoiled fuckup.
... were against democracy.... that is why they established a Republic.
For a better understanding of different government systems - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0
David Brin has been talking about this for years, see any talk by him or this book "Existence".
Of course, democracy hasn't managed to keep someone like Kim Jung Il off the top, either, has it?
Not that I think that they're right on the gender role thing, mind: it's blatantly stupid unless the only work being done is hard manual labour and I'm DAMN sure that the ones pushing for this don't want to actually have to work hard dangerous jobs where, because they aren't physically demanding, women will be available for management roles over them.
You know, they want the RIGHT sort of heirarchy.
Some geeks REALLY need to get out and get laid...
The rise of European nationalism....
It's the economy, stupid
We've been through this before.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Just sayin'
They are ethno nationalists, against multi culturalism, against human rights and against equal rights for women. They are anti-democratic.
I fail to see how this is any different from nazism.
Instead of everyone who breaths being able to vote only let people who opt-in vote. To opt-in would require some form of service to the government be it civil services, administrative, military, etc. Freedom would still exist for all but political decisions would be limited. That might curb masses of people voting for candidates who simply promise the world and deliver little. Just because the idea is from Starship Troopers doesn't negate its efficacy.
Anyone who thinks leadership should be determined by bloodline
When you say "leadership", you mean "coercive authority". Now you have a sentence which actually conveys the literal reality of the situation, rather than the marketing campaign.
As long as the monarch is a computer and not a person, that is programmed to run a small number of tasks
I'm imagining Congress coming up with laws, and getting them all vetoed with a text response of "Our words are backed with Nuclear Weapons!"
Since 1988, the House of Bush has occupied the Presidency for 12 years, the House of Clinton for 8 years and been a major player in another administration for 4 years as well as having better than average odds of gaining the White House for at least another 4 years if not 8.
It gets even more like that if you start looking at the House, Senate and Governorships and factor in other family dynasties like the Kennedys, the broader House of Bush.
Then there are various corporate/government crossovers where scions of capitalists enter politics. Minnesota's governor is the child of the Dayton family (retail shopping, family was behind Dayton's and now Target Stores).
I'm not sure we need to declare a new monarchy or aristocracy; we've just more less quietly reinstated it.
Just recreate Plato's republic with ye old Philospher-King http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_(Plato)
How many times have you heard from "Christians" when asked about Mormons, Catholics, 7th Day Adventists, or any OTHER sect other than their own, that they do not think of them as "Christian".
That's why I just roll my eyes when I hear non-sense about the US being a "Christian" nation - let alone some of things our Founding Fathers said about Christianity and faith in general.
Non-democratic governance is common in the modern world, it's just that we have a tendency to call them dictatorships. We call them that for a reason. While the "well meaning" dictatorships claim to represent the interests of the people or the nation, they ultimately represent only a portion of the population with little hope for change outside of revolution. Now this may seem fine if you're in that portion of the population, may that portion be a relatively small "aristocracy" or a relatively large social class (as some communist regimes claim). It is unlikely to seem fine if you are unhappy with your situation, or outright repressed, because there is no room for change.
The general argument you hear against Democratic systems is the nebulous "stability" argument.
This of course totally ignores one fact that ought to be blindingly obvious: If your system has no legal way for the people to get rid of leaders they find unacceptable who don't want to leave, then your system is inherently unstable.
This is one of the most retarded things I've seen in a long, long time. This surpasses Bush and Palin idiocy.
Is this some kind of false flag astroturf by the conservatives?
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
I'm fine with this as long as i get to be king, or at least a vassal lord.
My promises are: free housing and food to fit your needs as I perceive them, 100% guaranteed right to full employment with payed overtime in the form of free housing and food. (Payments are subject to force majure due to unforseen events such as war, uprisings or me being unusually greedy). You have the right to chose between one or more choices of spouse that my expert match makers will provide for you. Together the two of you will have the right and duty to have as many children as I deem appropriate. Any children above the limit will receive 100% free child care and 100% free education with a guaranteed 10-year internship at an appropriate workplace between the age of 8 and 18.
As a sign of my gratitude to my loyal subjects I promise no more than 1 hour of torture per year on average over any 50-year period. (Torture limit void if I think you may actually be guilty of something that I don't approve of).
And like monarchy the problem lies in getting competent rulers and the succession wars.
Benevolent dictatorships are far less bureaucratic and less prone to corruption. On the other hand they tend to not represent all the minorities of the country very well, even the most benevolent dictator will have some pet issues he disagrees with even if the population agree, think abortion, gay marriage, etc. The minorities will have no way of getting their rights. The democracy motto after all is "The will of the majority while respecting the rights of the minority".
I still think that benevolent dictatorships are better than democracy, but then again I'm white, male and heterosexual.
I saw that episode. Didn't Kirk have to talk the computer to death at the end of it?
Disclaimer: I'm French.
At school I was taught how the French Revolution was an amazing thing. It freed us. It was the end of a time of the absolute, divine right monarchy that France and other European nations had for almost a thousand years. I learned later about The Terror, where nobles would get their heads chopped off. Including the wives and kids, and I reckon some servants too. There's probably been a rape or two, as well, since that's what you get when a mob forms up and there's nobody to police them. They don't teach you much of that when you're at school. I guess it's understandable, since you don't want 12 years old to learn about rape and kids their age being killed just because they were born in the right family. Or do you?
Anyway, I learned much, much later, in my late 20's, that the actual History is much more cynic. It was not "we, the people" (to paraphrase an American concept) who started this. People got riled up by the bourgeois. A bourgeois is a very, very rich commoner. He can hardly hope to ever become a noble. That limits, right there, the richness he can ever hope to achieve. He'll always be looked down from the nobles. He can be killed for talking wrong to a noble. It's better to be a poor noble than a rich bourgeois. So, they didn't like that very much. They started the Revolution. They manipulated the peasants and poorly educated population to do the Revolution. Just so they could usurp the power from the nobles.
Note that I'm personally fine with the fact that we took the nobles out. Nobody should have a birthright over somebody else, just because. This is unfair, this is archaic, and it doesn't make the society move forward. The problem I have with the Revolution, besides the way it's taught (unless you do a History Major you won't hear much of this), is that it replaced one nobility with another. At least the previous one, the actual nobles, where honest about their absolute power. They said "I'm better than you, you're lesser than me, fuck you and fuck off." But the Bourgeoisie, which is still in power today (we call them Oligarchs, because they are the ultimate Bourgeois and there are not so many of them), is much more hypocritical. They will make you think you're in a Democracy, when really you're not. When the Banks can decide whether or not a state will default its credits, after pushing them towards into a mass debt, it's not a democracy. It's an illusion.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, as I just started typing with no set plans for the post. I guess my point is, I'm fed up of hearing we are in a democracy, and we should feel lucky, because more and more I feel I have no choice and no say. Even if my situation isn't as bad as a serf from 400 years ago, it sure as hell isn't as good as the people back them wanted my life to be.
When ideas like those start getting traction, we must remember something that Churchill so clearly articulated: Democracy is the worst system of government there is - except for all the other systems.
1. Blasphemy: as a law the crown can and does have you executed for everything from a simple expletive to your atheism or lack of church attendance. Criticism of the monarchy, as exemplified in thailand, is very punishable by death.
2. Grinding poverty and inequality: Monarchial rule begets serfdom and a midevil class structure. furthermore that class is infected upon your name for generations. Kings decide what you can and cannot eat with hunting laws, and who you can and cannot marry by proxy of the church. in the past, even certain hats and colors were banned by monarchies.
3. forced rule: In an absolute monarchy, the monarch rules as an autocrat, with absolute power over the state and government. If you want to see what this is like, visit North Korea.
Curtis Yarvin, the prominent neoreactionary mentioned in the piece, is a Libertarian. as are Hoppe and Seller.
Neoreactionaries believe 'The Cathedral,' is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants. Anissimov calls it a 'self-organizing consensus.' Sometimes the term is used synonymously with political correctness. The fundamental idea is that the Cathedral regulates our discussions enforces a set of norms as to what sorts of ideas are acceptable and how we view history â" it controls the Overton window, in other words.
This is just a comedic recasting of a Fox news script. Rail against the intellectual elite, lambast the media for their liberal bias, and bitch relentlessly about how Political Correctness is destroying society by repressing dicks like John Derbyshire and every other techbro and brogrammer barking 'dyke' and 'cunt' at the first woman to correct their segfault. Its angry white men that think somehow because they write python or understand linux they have a carte blanche to grind their axe about everything from the taxes they pay to the horrors of enduring their multicultural workplace.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I voting N. Koraea. Is very good paradice, OK? Ha - no voting here, Lol.
I think it was Churchill who said something like, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". The problem is not democracy. If we actually lived in a democracy things would be better -- not perfect, by any means -- but better. The problem is that we live in a plutocracy, not a democracy. Life in a plutocracy is not much different than life in a monarchy. It survives because it maintains an illusion of democracy and is less overtly oppressive than a monarchy.
Proverbs 21:19
"old-fashioned gender roles, social order and monarchy".
I now live in Thailand and I love it. Those three words apply to my adopted country.
Freedom in gender roles does not mean dragging women out of the kitchen; it means the freedom to stay or go as she choses, and my wife choses to stay. Our son is being raised by his mother at home, not by some artiicial mother at a beaurocratic day-care center.
In Thailand society is supreme. In America The Law is supreme because they have no society. Society can be flexible and adaptable and forgiving; The Law is a formula for grinding you up. Here, if your neighbors don't like what you are doing, they will stop you, and the Law is one tool that they can use to stop you. If society likes what you are doing, it does not matter if it is illegal.
In Thailand we have a constitutional king. He is a VERY good man, and he cares about his subjects. His power is primarily leadership, but it is real. He loves his people and his people love him.
Twenty years ago I discovered that I would rather die in Thailand than live in America.
As a Swiss citizen, I would suggest to first try add to the existing system a federal council with proportional representation, the popular referendum and the popular initiative.
Ah I get it. Women like me who are FED UP with being screwed over and looked over in work places, paid less, being belittled and regarded as weak, less able and don't except that as given and unchangeable are FemNazis.
Got it. In that case I am proud to be a FemNazi.
These guys sound like Bond Villains. And not Bond Villains from one of the good movies. More like the bad guy from Octopussy or For Your Eyes Only.
I am 43. I'm not a Baby Boomer. Do you know what a Baby Boomer is? They are those that were born during the "Baby Boom" after WWII (1945-1955). They are all over 55 pushing 60 now.
"Baby Boomers" were the most entitled generation (NOTE: I'm not talking about those of the less fortunate ethnic persuasions. Methinks the term "Baby Boom" doesn't necessarily apply to them). They came of age during the "Golden Years" of the U.S. where everything was cheap and the U.S. pretty much ruled the world and was the beneficiary of most industrialized countries left decimated (yes, reduced to a tenth) of their former glory while its Industrial machine, built and funded during WWII, dominated commerce.
For the most part, they are self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, individuals who've never made any significant sacrifice in their entire lives (yes, they're are many exceptions, but, the vast majority of "Baby Boomers" are as I describe). They were in their 30's in the 80's (in fact there were TV shows devoted to how self-absorbed they were at the time - see "Thirty Something").
By the time Generation-X (my generation), Generation-Y, and the Millennials came of age, all of that was gone. Hell, when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's it was already gone for most of the people I knew. There were still enough people feeding off the high of the 50's and 60's during the 80's to make the less fortunate feel like crap. Most of them never achieved shit from my experience.
Out of everyone I knew growing up, no better than 1 in 10 ever went on to anything of value or ever added anything of import to society. They were so transfixed by all the idyllic crap their "30 Something" parents and the "Refuclicans" were pushing about the manifest destiny and superiority of the U.S. that they never bothered to even try to be exemplary.
One of the biggest things I've heard from the "Baby Boomer" generation and their spoiled children over the last half century is that there are no problems that the U.S. (and by the U.S. they mean someone other than themselves who bothers to struggle and work to improve things) can't solve. They sit back, stuff Cheetos into their pie-hole, and wait for someone else to solve the problems of the world.
No problem, they'll soon be the slaves of the Chinese. Good for them. It is going to be one hell of a century. Those of us that actually give a shit (and I'm not just talking about in the U.S. or Americans only) will have to claw, tooth and nail, to keep this country, and all countries from devolving into a set of fiefdoms ruled by the few. We probably will not succeed. There are too many lazy, self-absorbed nincompoops to compete with.
Only when the last vestiges of intelligent, thoughtful, governence is destroyed and all the hangers-ons are starved to death or put in concentration camps (along with many, many, intelligent, hard-working, individuals) and suffering has drained society to the brink of starvation and apocalypse, will enough people have learned the lesson and begin to rebuild society in a manner creating something of value.
Of course, then the whole cycle just begins again. What has been, will be again.
RIP American Monarchist Party
http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/American_Monarchist_Party
moox. for a new generation.
... and they have been with us since before the U. S. Constitution was signed. They had a defining influence on that document, leading to a significant disconnect between it and the principles found in the Declaration of Independence.
It was these individuals who invited the King of Prussia to reign over the new United States and it was they who opposed the Bill of Rights. Bear in mind that no small number of the wealthy who came to American shores did so to establish themselves as the new plutocratic aristocracy. Often, they had in their pockets grants of land and privileges from the crown.
It is simply a symptom of the times that they are coming out of the closet now, though their influence has always been with us. Take for instance, Leo Strauss' embrace of the Platonic "noble lie", which was a touchstone for legitimizing nobility's grip on power long before there was a United States of America.
argh
As clearly revealed in the anniversary edition of Doctor Who, the head of UNIT is now the daughter of original Brigadier. Clearly wiser heads have prevailed...
Strawman argument. Hypocrites are hypocritical, duh. And you will see by reading your image that a filibuster does not only benefit the republicans, who are a minority in the senate now, but also have in the past benefited the democrats when they haven't had a majority.
A filibuster is a tool against the tyranny of the many. It is one of the very few institutions currently in place that allow an opinion to be counted not only by the number of people who support it but also by the force with which they hold this opinion. If a majority has a slight preference for something, but there is a minority that strongly opposes it, what should happen? Certainly a straight yes or no vote would not accurately represent the will of the voters, so when called on to vote, what should the losers do? Should they simply accept their fate? This is now what the law requires them to do, but it is certainly not just.
Most protestant denominations and many Catholics that are well versed in the foundations of their beliefs don't have any major problems with most other major Christian groups.
That was THE most eloquent version of "No True Scotsman" I have ever seen!
So Christians who are well versed and knowledgeable about Christianity (True Christians) have beliefs that are closely aligned.
Like birth control? Evolution? Drinking and dancing? Whether or not to interpret the Bible literally? Using or owning guns? GAY MARRIAGE?! Or any political hot topic?
I get different opinions on all of those in my own church, dude! As a matter of fact, in Metro Atlanta, some Episcopalians split off because they couldn't stand the church allowing women priests!
Just imagine a Southern Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, arguing about those!
That explains all those people in the Guy Fawkes masks - no doubt trying to restore the monarchy.
[Insert pithy quote here]
In the 17th century as the Divine Right of Kings declined in legitimacy, the race was on for an alternative reason to obey the government (other than that they would shoot you otherwise). Both Hobbes and Locke constructed the idea that there is an implicit contract between the citizens of a country and its rulers: you do your job and we will accept your ordering of society. A small but significant element of this was the right to leave if you didn't like what the government was doing. Interestingly the refusal of this right to the subjects of Marxist regimes marks them out as nastier than their predecessors (the Berlin Wall and the rest of the Iron Curtain was a largely successful attempt to keep East Germans at home). For Hobbes this was the ONLY right of the subject; Locke argued that the contract implied a right to participate in the government, which was seminal in the American revolution.
In the days of kings, someone would come to power typically because they were a powerful warrior. Indeed, in medieval Europe, the economy was based on a number of monarchs frequently going to battle with each other over land and resources. If you were a king of England, and you didn’t try to take over some part of France during your reign, you were a failure. (This explains the right of succession by blood. They didn’t know about DNA, but they did know that relatives had similarities and wanted people similar to successful past rulers.) Interestingly, the most successful monarchs were those who were loved by their own people (good management ability) feared by everyone else (mindless slaughter of people in foreign lands). This delicate balance between aggression and empathy was hard to find, and looking at the history of the English monarchy, not everyone managed it. This sounds like Ender’s game: In the history of the English monarchy (which I am a bit less ignorant of than others), there were plenty of Valentines and Peters those reigns ended in one kid of dismal failure or another, while the Enders are well-known in history. In the abstract, this sounds cool, except Ender and those successful kings were responsible for wide-spread slaughter of countless.
So this idea of returning to a monarchy sounds really bizarre to me. Rule by the one or few is not a recipe for peace, security, or freedom. In medieval Europe, if you were a peasant, you might live out your life unmolested, or you might fall victim to the whims of a foreign army or your own. Peasant life was essentially worthless except for the bit of farming they could do. This sort of attitude was the case into the 19th century. Have a look at the way the English treated the Irish when the potato blight killed off their only economical source of food. The Irish were under English rule, but apparently not under English protection, because all Parliament did was quibble while people starved to death. We also tried communism in several countries. The Soviet Union fell due to a collapsing economy, and China systematically converted to capitalism. Of course, capitalism is a system of economy, and China is still a dictatorship, but it’s a step in the right direction. Basically, when your life and your work have no value, then you have no motivation to work, except under the whip. So what these monarchists are suggesting is a return to slavery.
This isn’t the Christian fantasy of Jesus returning to earth to rule as a benevolent king. People will come to power because they want power, and then they will maintain that power by destroying others. We have that happening in our republics today. The differences are that (a) people are elected or not based on how their constituents perceive the representative to further their interests, (b) there are enough conflicting opinions that sometimes the bad ideas get filtered out, and (c) we have a judicial system that can find bad laws unconstitutional and overrule them. (Frankly, I think the executive branch in the US has too much power and is a vestige of the US legal system being a derivative of the English legal system, which has a figurehead king. We get to elect ours, but ours don’t seem to be very effective at anything other than being a scapegoat for the failures of the legislative branch.) Basically, a republic has problems, but a dictatorship is much much worse.
And let’s not forget to address the baloney about returning to traditional gender roles. As a society, we’re only beginning to respect individual human rights and dignity, regardless of ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation. If we’re going to experiment with totalitarianism, why don’t we try putting some women in control? Oh, sure, they’ll screw it up too. Humans in power always do. But at least it won’t be a bloodbath.
Yeah, unless it's a resurgence of a previous movement, isn't every reactionary group "neo" by definition?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Government by the masses only works when the masses are well-educated. If the masses are, by and large, as ignorant as Americans have become, then they're easy to manipulate via fear, and produce government by those least-suited for the task. Sadly, the mass underfunding of public education in the US has been a bipartisan effort- people in the US overwhelmingly choosing lower taxes + poorer public education over higher taxes + better public education- and a self-perpetuating one at that. After all, poorly educated people are also easier to convince to further cut money from education.
The ideal form of government may well be the true Philosopher King, but I'm not sure that such a person has ever existed- or could ever exist. Barring that, self-government by an educated populace has produced the best results so far- quoting Churchill: "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried."
-Z
Isn't that what's already happening in the US? Anyone with an affiliation with the Kennedy/Clinton/Bush is automagically a strong candidate in any election.
From the article:
Indeed, why should we be worried about an idea apparently only popular with a few kooks on the internet? Because it makes a great boogey man for use in undistributed middle fallacies. Now anyone who has any sort of criticism of our current political system can be ignored simply by accusing them of being secret neoreactionaries. No need to actually address their argument when you can accuse them of secretly wanting to reduces us to serfs. Oh and they hate women and minorities too!
Take for example:
See? Srinivasan may not be neoreactionary himself, but he once made an argument that appealed to some neoreactionaries. Therefore we can safely ignore him without bothering to have to refute any of his points.
sounds like the Mormons!?!?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Flamebait? Current mod is -1 Flamebait, AFTER I tried to mod +1 Interesting. Normally I disagree with roman_mir also, but at least read the content. -1 does NOT mean disagree. This is ridiculous.
Please shut the fuck up. seriously if you want anyone to take you or your party seriously just stop spouting this kind of bullshit.
Once you remember Czar Nicholas II of Russia, you quickly abandon all ideas of returning to a monarchy!
There seems to be the tacit assumption by the proponents that they would be part of the elite of such a society. I think some of these people would be in for a rude awakening once they found out that they would become the peasants under their "new" system.
The summary is right about one thing: democracy appears undesirable, or at least sub-optimal, to many intelligent successful geeks.
The actual support for wanting to "turn back the clock" or to have gender roles or whatever is fragmented, and may range from "this is probably worked better than what we're doing today" to "yeah, I'd enforce this via the sword", with relatively few people advocating the latter.
In the last 15 years I've given up on the GOP, given up on libertarianism, and now consider myself squarely an anarchist.
There's a strain of people, lets call them "technocrats", who are probably very smart, and believe that if only they were in charge, they could make things better.
These people want to believe in democracy, but they see the very real impediment it presents to them getting anything done. It's ridiculous to them that they must put up with climate deniers and intelligent design blowhards (and critically, those that these groups elect to office) when there is critical work to be done.
They may be right, but invariably the powerful institutions they build will be co-opted by people who are either less capable or less moral, or often, both. You build a state science department, and invariably, Pat Robertson is going to end up running it somehow.
Then you have people like me, who have become so disillusioned with government that I contend the whole affair should be done away with.
I was fed a steady diet of government school growing up, and I've found out how much of that was pro-state mythology. And so one naturally questions other parts of the mythology. Is our government good? Is it effective? Does it have the right goals? What about the "right" to vote? Who really ought to have it? Why?
I, for instance, take the unpopular view that voter suppression is probably a good idea - as long as it is done for the right reasons. Voting in this country is by no means an "absolute right". Felons don't get the right to vote; neither do children or the mentally handicapped (beyond some level). So let's dispense with that claim entirely. Society has always had (and will continue to have) rules on who may vote.
Some percentage of the voting public is clearly dumber than I am, and clearly unable to manage their own affairs and well-being appropriately.
So a rude question emerges: Should people who cannot manage their own lives get any role in managing mine? (e.g., a "vote")?
I'm persuaded that the answer is, "no".
The difference between an anarchist and a technocrat, on this issue, is that an anarchist ALSO doesn't recognize the right of a successful man to govern an unsuccessful one.
The tech crunch article listed Herman Hoppe as one of the members of this club. I'm a fan of Hoppe, and he in no way is an advocate of Monarchy. He is a critic of the state, and specifically a critic of democracy. He has an excellent bit of writing that explains immigration policy from the POV of a monarch vs. an elected official, and in his conclusion, the self-interested monarch has a much better set of incentives for a positive immigration policy than does the elected official who panders for votes. Pointing out situations where a monarch behaves preferably to a democratic body does make one an advocate of Monarchy, any more than saying "the trains ran on time!" make one an advocate of Mussolini.
What you're seeing here is a group made up of successful, intelligent people, who grew up with the internet in its wild-west days -- there was no authority to crush dissent and no censorship.
They're questioning the mythology of society. Either our society is on firm enough footing that it stands, or it isn't, and these ideas spread.
It's worth pointing out that the fastest growing socio-cultural group is socially conservative Islam. Proponents of progressive social democracy had better have some pretty damn good answers (and more kids), because there's a storm coming. Not helping the impending clash is the reality of this article: Some of the best and brightest that our progressive society has produced are having second thoughts about the society that birthed them.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
If the world is ruled by a computer, I guess this computer will be the #1 hacking target.
... like it did for Louis XVI the 2nd of Pluviôse of Year 1 (1793-01-21 for all the morons that don't use the Republican Calendary ;-)), I'm OK to put all of those "neoreactionaries" one after the other on the throne :-)
The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill. The problem is not the type of government, but rather that people suck. People are selfish, biased, territorial, cliquish, bribe-able, stubborn, irrational, etc.
Asking for a new or different government system to compensate for ALL the crappiness off human nature is simply asking too much. It can compensate for some of the weaknesses, but not all. And it's often a trade-off such that compensating for one weakness may magnify another.
That being said, I'm all for small-scale tests, just not on me. If you can form a voluntary colony somewhere to test a different kind of government, that's wonderful. Just don't invade and force it.
Table-ized A.I.
...it's only a model.
Table-ized A.I.
Let me guess...overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white, angry that women and swarthy people are horning in on their privileges. Folks for whom the Tea Party didn't work out. Fun bunch, to be sure.
"The feeling that you aren’t being heard or seen or represented isn’t psychosis; it’s government policy."
-- Russell Brand in New Statesman
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's almost as if Parliamentary Scandinavia, Republican Rome, and Democratic Greece never happened. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Lot's of quoting of Churchill on here without any real thought behind the meaning of the words. Lots of talk elsewhere about how things are bad, people aren't being heard, etc. and trying to come up with ways to change it. Tea Party candidates got elected to try to reform government along a similar vein of thought.
Hot tip Quincies, it's all pointless.
Government doesn't exist to serve you, it exists to serve itself. What is the difference between a monarchy and what we in the US have right now? We have illusion of choice in our master.
But the simple fact is being able to pick a different master every few years makes you no less a slave.
One of the comments here said "Bringing back serfdom" I don't believe it ever left. When 35-50% of your labor is stolen, how are you not a serf already? Property taxes ensure we all pay tribute to mighty government, else men with guns will evict you from the land. That means you don't really own it, you are merely renting it from the government.
The problem is not government, it never has been. The problem is when individuals believe in authority. They believe that someone, for whatever reason, has dominion over their actions even to a small extent.
People must learn to reject this idea. Any involuntary authority over another human being is unethical. To tell someone they must submit to your speed limit because you have more friends than them that wrote it down on a piece of paper is no different than telling them they don't have the right to live because you decree it so.
If you want to truly be free, then you must learn to reject the very idea of authority.
The Most Dangerous Superstition - Larken Rose
That's true that there are very fundamental differences in how they see the structure and role of the church, however the means of salvation remains consistent in both. Much of the fighting is the same as it is today, it comes from politicians attaching themselves to the church (or at times abuse of the church when politics and the church were one and the same). The views of both groups are not that fundamentally at odds even if the practices and minor points have considerable differences. Most conflicts between the groups were about power or revenge, neither is related to theology.
All the more reason(s) why religion has absolutely no place in government.
My neighbor, a Southern Baptist, would argue with everything you have said to his last breath.
The priest at my local Episcopal Church says they're not Catholic 'light' but Catholic "Right".
My sister in law - Church of God - thinks they are the only TRUE Christians.
A Cardinal once said, "If you are not Catholic, you belong to a cult."
And I won't get into all the nuts who come to my door.
Everything I witness in the Christian community flies in the face with everything you have posted.
Not serfdom. Serfs were bound by traditional duties, but the same traditions bound their liege lords with obligations and to recognize certain rights. So, for example, you cannot turn a serf off the land his father worked. You cannot threaten him and his family with hunger in order to compel new concessions. He has a great many days guaranteed off since they're holy days. Most days of the week, he's actually working for himself and only a fraction was her required to work on his liege's land and projects.
Compare this with the circumstances your cite. Some rights are granted by our legal system but the obligations owed to a worker (esp. pay) have been in decline since the 1970's. But the employee has no security. High unemployment makes them easily replaceable; Walmart doesn't allow them to organize; they could be left at any moment with more bills than money. Thus, concessions are easy to secure for the employer who knows his employees only work for him because they've few other options. Sure, they don't lower their worker's salaries but they do reduce labor costs by having ever fewer workers perform ever more tasks. And who can complain? As for days off, Walmart workers certainly don't get our civic holidays off. Days like Sunday were once a great and beautiful thing. They were guarantees that an employer was not the master of an employees life. They granted all people the very human dignity of being able to spend time with family. They even allowed time for people to recognize a god other than Mammon. Walmart employees even have to work on Thanksgiving now and the holiday season has the most taxing schedule for them. A retail worker often does not know when he'll be working two weeks hence, and can therefore make few sure plans to spend with family and friends. Oh well, it's easier just to stay home and watch TV ($199 at Walmart!) and eat popcorn than to have to risk cancelling on friends again. As for the fraction of pay, I would be willing to bet that the ratio of profit, Walmart:"associate", is far better for Walmart than ever was the ratio of produce, liege:serf.
So, I do not think it best to say Walmart wishes to make its employees serfs. Serfs are a meddlesome bunch and tend to riot when their traditional rights are usurped. I think rather that Walmart wishes to leave its employees in a servile condition, as a great master over so many slaves. And while I'm at it, I'll throw this little bomb: the current form of consumerist capitalism undermines friendship, family, the human dignity of workers, and even religion.
Isn't reactionary by definition not "paleo"?
Wasn't this basically Plato's argument a long time ago? The best theoretical form of government is to have a "philosopher king" that has a lot of power but always acts in the interests of the people, this way things get done efficiently and even if the uneducated people think its not correct to do. But of course the problem is making sure the king is a philosopher -- most of the time, these type of people are not the ones that even want to be king. Otherwise, you end up with a very bad situation. Democracy is not perfect but it tends to smooth out the problem of not having philosophers as leaders, but we don't always know what is best for ourselves.
Harry Reid just got rid of the filibuster in the Senate. It was one of the few protections against the tyranny of the majority. Maybe his next step will just be a winner-take-all type setup in the Senate where the minority party is abolished completely. Once this is done, he can just declare Obama King. Sadly, most on the left would cheer for this.
Yes, this was a bad step, however the alternative was, for the immediate future, much worse.
Please realize that the filibuster rules are unchanged for matters legislation. They have only been removed in confirmation hearings, where the Senate says yes or no to someone the President wants appointed to fill a vacancy. Most commonly a vacant judge position. The change means that appointments cannot be held in limbo for months and years; there will be a timely "yes" or "no" decision. That will enable the Federal government to run at closer to its best possible efficiency. Instead of staggering for lack of judges, etc.
This Senate rule can be reversed using the same process that put it in place. If there is ever any value in allowing procedural delays in a Senate confirmation process, then this rule will be reversed fairly soon.
Will
Where are you getting "paleo" from? A Ctrl+F in the article itself didn't even find it.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
+1 Funny.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
Please realize that this end of filibustering only applies to the Senate confirmation process. Where the Senate votes on whether a proposed appointee is fit to hold the appointed office. Filibustering on policies and legislation is NOT affected.
The Tea Partiers brought this situation on by their attempts to cripple the Federal government until they got their way. That is tyranny by a minority. As a group, the Tea Party is walking closer to the line that defines treason and impeachable actions than any other political faction in living memory. They do not seek the compromises that make a democratic republic work; they push a "my way or the highway" agenda which risks everyone's safety and pushes the cost of government higher and higher.
Will
Now that's a monarch I would like to have, delivering nukes to unsuspecting representatives while they're plotting with lobbyists.
OK, I now realise this applies only to the Senate confirmation process. I apologise for not having read. I will agree that filibustering the vote to fill a cabinet position is more commonly an unsportsmanlike tactic than it is a fight for the minority's rights. Nevertheless I will maintain that there are legitimate reasons for a minority to want to reject a candidate to an appointed office, and while removing the filibuster may be justified, another avenue for minority dissent should be opened. To be clear, I believe that as a tool to stand for the rights for the few against the wishes of the many, the filibuster is very poor.
The neo-reactionaries are awesome! Who else will take charge and keep the house-elves in their proper place?
Let me guess: you still believe the IRS wasn't used to attack tea party groups, the NSA hasn't been spying on citizens, Obama made the right decision regarding Benghazi, and this current "deal" with Iran isn't a trap as a pretense for another war, just in time for 2014 or 2016 elections.
Pat Buchanan has found a new audience.
Great.
This just in: Tires overrated; do we really need fire?
Freedom in gender roles does not mean dragging women out of the kitchen; it means the freedom to stay or go as she choses, and my wife choses to stay.
That is true, but when most people speak of "old-fashioned gender roles," what they typically mean is that deviation from this scenario -- men working, women keeping the home -- is frowned upon. That women should have either less actual rights (as a matter of law) or less effective rights (as a matter of social pressure).
What, for example, would most Thai people think of a couple where the man stays at home to take care of the kids while his wife works? Would anyone think that was odd? Would they be subject to mockery or scorn? How about even just small jokes that aren't really jokes or odd looks?
Here, if your neighbors don't like what you are doing, they will stop you, and the Law is one tool that they can use to stop you. If society likes what you are doing, it does not matter if it is illegal.
Society rarely is flexible and forgiving especially if focused on conformity of tradition, and if your neighbors can punish you from deviating from their expectations, then you have no real freedom. "Freedom" to do whatever other people want you to do isn't real freedom. It's just oppression by more local means.
We used to have situations in America too when society trumped law: black people got lynched for being the wrong race in the wrong place, and the murderers got off scot free because society approved of what they did regardless of what the law thought. The reason for rule of law is to protect those who are unpopular but whose rights would be trampled without it.
In Thailand we have a constitutional king. He is a VERY good man, and he cares about his subjects. His power is primarily leadership, but it is real. He loves his people and his people love him.
He might well be, but a man who cannot be criticized cannot be trusted. No government or other organization can run well if it closes its ears to any data that might suggest a course correction, and the crime of lese majeste is an abomination that elevates a mere man to the position of a god. Respect should be earned, not dictated by law.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Nonsense!
The only way this rule can be reversed is if the majority Party wants to reverse it. And the majority Party has NO NEED to reverse it - if they need procedural delays, they don't need a Filibuster to get them...
It was a mistake, however, on the Part of the Dems, though, because, by and by, the Republicans WILL get control of the Senate.
And the Republicans will have no more reason to grant the Dems more power as the minority than the Reps had as a minority, now do they?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Monarchy? Well, I guess feuding warlords would tend to level the playing field somewhat. At least initially. Doubt this is what's intended, though.
Meanwhile, those who embrace Enlightenment ideals, free markets, limited constitutional democratic republics, and national soveriegnty must allegedly embrace "intellectual property", and, regardless, get labeled as reactionary right wing haters by the Globalist (tm) Nazis (you know who you are) and Maoists (you too) decieving with foundation planned technocratic wet dreams and sugary promises of grassroots transparent utopia. Meanwhile, when's the last time you ever heard of, say, just for instance, Mutualism. That's something from back in the day you kiddies wouldn't remember, though. Back when men were men, women liked it, and people were far less objectified than they are now.
Damned positivist idealism. So fucking one-dimensional. Give me a break. Go join Al-Quaeda or something.
I read/watch Game of Thrones! But I do NOT want to play it myself.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I'm actually with them, part of the way.
Democracy, no we must be more precise: Representative Democracy has failed us.
If you lump 300 mio. people into 600 representatives (each one representing half a million people) then the main unintended consequence is that you have just created a massively optimized corruption center.
And if the income inequality is large enough that the very rich can spend more money on lobbying their wishes than half a million people can, then they always win.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Neal Stephenson did it first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age
fittest, and most handsome men
ohhh yeahhhhhh..... , sexy, sexy Adolph!
Where the past is the future.
What a silly notion. Sounds like a modern term for "my generation was so much better than this new generation".
Like consent of the governed, yo. What makes them think they could get a monarchy even if it was a good idea? How the hell do you even go about that, and when you do--who chooses the first king? I can't imagine much outside of an outright military coup, which doesn't bode so well for a well-running modern nation state.
What is the modern billionaire if not the new nobleman?
but take away . . . and . . . and . . . and . . . Democracy is garbage...
So the Constitution but not the Constitution? Amusing, and more coherent than most of your posts.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Especially when it concerns the Bushs's as his sons are nothing but nearly retards (I'm sorry for offending any retard).
In this case it was appointing judges to a court circuit that has the lowest case load of any circuit and also happens to be the one that hears a majority of cases being brought against actions being taken by Obama. The situation reeks of court packing.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Just do a raffle like the old greeks. It can't be worse than the actual politicans. Seriously!
Karl Marx said it right: "The best form of Government is a benevolent Monarchy and the worst form of Government is a Despotic Monarchy."
How do you make sure you get Emperor Hadrian as opposed to Emperor Caligula?
That is why all the other forms were invented: Representative Republic with well defined elections being our current form.
is a dumb serf. We all serve at the pleasure of our super-rich masters. When they tire of us, out we go. We pay taxes, they receive them. We ARE living in a feudal system that disguises itself as a democracy and gives the illusion of political choice because they let us vote.
There goes one now! How do I know? Because he's not covered in shit like the rest of us!
Off with their heads!
Pay attention guys! This is a 4 digit UID calling all of you guys old! Shit must be bad.
Famous mathematician Cauchy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin-Louis_Cauchy (1789 – 1857), was a "royalist."
Haven't got to tracking down more details about his attitude.
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Relies on the premise that the majority of people are good.
I challenge this assumption.
This is leaving aside the fact that sociopaths will be the ones to climb the most ambitiously.
Why don't we have a lottery to decide who represents us?
It works well enough for juries anyway.
... they could just learn Arabic and move to Saudi Arabia. I am happy to pitch in a modest amount for the ticket price, if this helps to get rid of them.
We just haven't ever had true democracy. We finally have the technology to, but certainly not the will.
People just aren't that interested.
Parent post assumes that the Republican party will continue into the future. However it is failing, has been failing ever since Reagan stitched together an unlikely coalition of evangelicals and corporations. Whether the Tea Party nonsense is its demise (Sarah really plays the part of the Angel Of Death quite well, doesn't she), or it staggers on for another five years, it just is not going to recover.
This has happened before. In the history of the USA the GOP will be the sixth or seventh national political party to lose its clout and crumble away. Hopefully a workable alliance of smaller parties will be able to fill the need for an articulate conservative point of view in Washington. Maybe the Libertarians and some of the eco groups can find ways to agree to disagree on some things while moving together on other things.
Back to the point. There are a lot of Democrats who had to hold their noses to vote for this limitation on filibustering. The rules will likely be changed as soon as the threat of the Tea Party shutting down parts of the government goes away. So in two to six years, is my guess.
Will
But not my cock. Where be my harem? The pressures of the throne are great!
Are you quite sure you don't have a monarchy, or at least a ruling class? For example if Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic primary and won the 2008 election, the last 20 years of the presidency would have been held by just two families. And that's just the political ruling class, not even going into the stupendously enormous wealth gap and the power the 1% and 0.1% wield. Citizen's United means that a billionaire holds a hell of a lot more power than your one vote and 10 dollar donation. I would posit that you do have a ruling class, you just don't dress them up in robes and a crown.
Just that...
Here is what sums it up for me:
Thiel, meanwhile, voiced a related opinion in his own article for Cato Unbound: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Simply Brilliant! You believe that freedom and democracy are not compatible, so you go for a system in which only one person or family is free.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What's the difference from being ruled by the likes of Jamie Dimon?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triarchy_(theory) is better
Casteism
For most of human history people lived under the social systems these people are advocating. Enlightenment civilization, of which democracy and free markets are only two components, is less than 400 years old, and in that time we've seen a flowering of technological and cultural growth that dwarfs everything else that happened in the previous millennia of human civilization. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I think it more likely the neo-reactionaries are analogous to the cranks who write papers claiming to disprove quantum physics and then post them to the world using tools which depend upon those physics to function.
Science fiction author and Enlightenment champion David Brin has a blog post exploring some disadvantages of neo-feudalism. In that article he links to the Anti-reactionary FAQ with detailed criticisms of their arguments and goals.
Monarchy? Nooo, these guys are just the lunatic fringe. The way things are going we're going to end up with another beast entirely; corponations.
Corporations are becoming exceedingly large and powerful, to the point where they are either taking control of governments, or undermining them. You can see a good example of the birth pains in Canada right now; the oil sands.
Once you're in the oil sands, forget about the rights you have outside of them. You're at the whim and mercy of the companies there, with them being at the mercy of big oil. They prattle on about safety and such, and all the advantages of working in the oil sands, all the features...but that's a front for insurance and to keep a good face to the rest of the world.
Make no mistake; the land is theirs, and their 'laws' apply far more than Canafian laws there. It's not the corponation stage yet, not by a long shot, but it's the start.
There are more currents who adhere in one or more ways to these ideas:
Political and philosophical Satanism, for instance, which despite it's name and despite being inscribed as religion is in all aspects an atheistic movement based on aesthetics and the embrace of most of the things that have been deemed as "bad" by most judeo-christian (and similar) cultures such as the right to vengeance.
More of interest in regard to the current article is their conception of society as a meritocracy, Social Darwinism, but not in the sense of Liberals but more in the sense of what is really meant by meritocracy: People which contribute to society should be leading and the rest wouldn't have any right to vote or decide, much in he way of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" and tribal societies such as the Maori. The more radical proposals rank from an aristocracy very similar to the old one but with no implied inheritance or a limited one (such systems have been in place in ancient China and to certain extend Korea or in other forms among the Germanic and Nordic tribes).
Note, however, that the idea of "gender roles" is not even contemplated or discussed: Everyone has the right to do as he/she fits. And of course, race place no role whatsoever... (except that black Satanist goth-chicks kick massive ass).
One of the arguments against democracy of these groups is that the majority is not always right and that a mass of ignorants can hardly take intelligent decisions. Of course, Democracy is actually not about intelligent decisions but more about keeping as many people content as possible. If this is a good idea with 7.000 Million H. sapiens on the planet is a different question.
Another ideal firmly rooted in democratic and libertarian ideals is the sanctity and superiority of human lives. And I am not talking about abortion here. We are obviously social apes and our ancestry brings this heavy burden to such an extend that even the most liberal pro-choice activist would be shocked by the mere mention of reducing somebody's freedom to create a new human to add to the rest. A new fat ass to add weight to an already crowded couch, another waddling burger-swallowing piece of lard unable to even walk a mile without a car or escalators. Or if born in the "other part of the world" just another mouth to feed with not much to put into it.
Please note that I stress "new Human" as we are not talking about killing an existing one or doing anything that may pose the lives of existing ones in danger: We are talking about creating a completely new individual from scratch, to add more burden to the society and the planet, and just for the sake of an ideal about a right that is as stupid a notion as the superiority of democracy or the right of every half-witted redneck to decide how to steer a country or a city.
OK, you got me. I feel perfectly identified with many of the Neoreactionary ideas. But you also have to note that we are mostly talking about a philosophical and aesthetic current with a great of romanticism and the knowledge that we don't have much of a chance to win; But don't ever grow to confident...
-- 29A the number of the Beast
If you want to understand the most critical difference between political ideologies and system and get past their oversimplifications, the fly in the ointment things they gloss over, the hopeful dream with all the nastiness ignored, ask yourself if they include everybody or who they exclude.
So, if you want to exclude people, ask yourself if you can really get away with it and at what cost. Quite often political ideologists either aren't honest about this or get it wrong. Do you want to include people who are financially minded, for instance, or white, or Christian? And how to you keep the "others" out.
American History in particular is full of enclaves of people that think alike, where like-values are enforced. Such "utopian" colonies survived because it was easy to isolate them. Jim Jones moved the People's Temple to Gayana to isolate them from what he regarded as dangerous outside influences before he coerced them to drink cool-aid laced with cyanide and die. Except from the suicide, how is that much different from the Mormons in Utah?
The problem with that today, and I think it is connected with the recent spike in gun violence and mass shootings, is that there are fewer places to run and hide and that to have to stay and get along with lots of different kinds of people, like in the increasingly urban lot of most of humanity, takes an approach that is not elitist. The problem with this is that economics, the breakdown of inclusive economic and political institutions could change all that, and that change would be based on elitism and scarcity, for the notion that there isn't enough to go around turns people selfish and they begin to invent lies about how they deserve the fruits of society while others do not. For a long time I scratched my head about how a very advanced nation like Germany could have embraced Hitler and the Nazi movement in 1933. It seemed to me a mystery of how the nation that had embraced the most advanced science and philosophy could have made what in hindsight seems like such a dreadful mistake. But now I know how any advanced culture can go down that road including in the United States. It is by embracing Conservatism in the form of elitism, the motto for which is "I've got mine, screw you!" The Brown Shirts are not all that far removed from that kind of thinking which the rhetoric from some of the Tea Parties has revealed.
Now, of course, the opposite political pole also can spawn elitism, as we can document in Socialist and Communist regimes. but they become essentially Conservative. If the poor generializations that come out of American political rhetoric were to apply, North Korea and even China would be much more inclusive societies than they are. They are essentially protecting their investment and their elites just as Western countries who cater to Conservative Capitalists do.
There is no better elitism than an big lopsided income distribution, such as is emerging in the U.S. The apologists for laissez-faire economics like to downplay its unfair aspect, that having very rich people in the market drives up prices for everybody and especially those at the bottom. Look at the housing market, especially in the wealthy parts of the nation. They love to point out how opportunity is there and to be rewarded by iniative. What they fail to tell you, and probably why they are so willing to claim that, is that they got to a scarce resource first and locked out others in doing so. So the psychology of scarcity feeds on itself, it supports elitist thinking. The problem with that is that there is a Day of Rechoning in which accounts are called in and in which the disadvantaged get some payback. That is made even more likely by a high rate of change, that business models and empires become vulnerable. In human history the tide of tyranny has often been helped by outside calamity, and although I cannot predict when the next volcano will explode and plunge the earth into ashfall winter, that has happened before and it has promoted elites. We might be able to outgrow the temper tantrum of elitism by then.
I'm not sure neo (new) and reactionary (embracing old ideas) are comfortable together.
As much as the current form of democracy isn't working too well (turning into police states), the problem with monarchy is it pretty much was a police state. So, we'd be trading one system of oppression back to another one we got rid of because we didn't like its system of oppression. Maybe these 'geeks' need to try thinking forward rather than backwards. A way to guarantee less oppression and more freedom would be good.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Faced with the eloquence of parent post, I find that there is nothing I can possibly say to argue this any further.
Thank you for so clearly demonstrating my point.
Will
Govt doesn't need our taxes. Govt can PRINT dollars.
Govt is imposing taxes only to keep us SUBSERVIENT.
"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild in 1744.
Casteism
Yes! Now go make me a sammich!
So much for the reactionaries - they are peculier U.S. nutjobs. That's not the way things are going. Thankfully. Refer to Pope Francis I "Apostolic Exhortation" "trickle-down is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ"
The oppression fantasy is a self-fulfilling claim. A person with a hammer eventually sees nails everywhere. Also, the wage gap has been debunked ad nauseam, perception of your ability doesn't take that ability away, your bitter entitled female-privileged attitude as displayed in this post probably doesn't serve you well when you want a raise or promotion, and please learn the difference between except and accept (do you realize how severely that mistake changed the meaning of what you said?)
It would also help if you had noticed that my post was not pejorative towards feminazis so much as commentary on what would certainly happen if someone were to try to shove some form of mass traditionalism down society's throat.
Probably autocorrect. The perils of mobile browsing?
I've lived/worked in US/EU/Japan. IMO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy is better due to the proliferation of cell phones/internet/tv channels/print/electronic media.
Casteism
power corrupts people and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
powerful people should volunteer to 24x7 surveillance.
Casteism