Eric at Classical Values has a confession to make:
I’m feeling so burned out by politics that I am genuinely worried.
… I cannot remember a time in my life that I was so burned out and literally drained during what should normally be a political off time.
I have much the same feeling, and I think others do too. But where Eric lays blame on the constant unending political drumbeat, for me it’s more a growing alienation from the idea that politics can achieve positive results. Which is startling, for someone who’s been a political junkie since I started watching C-SPAN instead of MTV at the age of twelve. It’s also silly, given the Tea Party’s growth from nothing in a year’s time and the stunning results of the past elections. Those were positive results beyond anything I’ve seen in the 30 years I’ve been a political junkie. The RKBA victories of the past decade have been astounding. And yet, and yet….
I haven’t watched C-SPAN (or any political TV) in almost a year. For me, this is very odd behavior.
Politics feels… useless, somehow. I am distressed to find myself turning inward, focusing more than before on fortifying self, household, and family against… the unknown.
I am distressed, in part, because that’s how civilizations fall:
[T]he rise of [the Dark Ages] was precipitated by the very survivalism and protectionism that even now appeals to many.
Roman citizens, first on the frontiers, but soon within the interior of the empire (recall that Rome was sacked in 410) began to focus less on peaceful trade and more on security and self-sufficiency. Large landowners hired others to provide local goods, in turn offering security through standing armies. Localities began to be dominated by a hegemony of landowners, each of whom was suspicious of the next. The feudal system was born….
…The problems began to compound themselves as a poorly-run empire began a cycle of overreach. … the emperors did not have the funds to make their promised payments and began a cycle of seignorage, or currency devaluation by “clipping†coins. Quite simply, they reduced the amount of silver in each individual coin.
Finally, a lack of focus on true security and peaceful foreign relations led many Roman cities to fortify, which had been unnecessary for many years under the “Pax Romana.â€Â This further diverted productive resources to military uses. Construction and investment was put on hold while cities and towns enclosed themselves in fortified walls and spent on war materiel.
The ultimate upshot of this progression was what we now call the “Dark Ages….â€
–Socrates, “The Curious Ironies of Protectionism, and the Late Roman Empire,” at The Solution is the Problem blog
Maybe I’ll go read some Billy Beck to cheer me up.
Illustration: Christian Fugitives Run from the Huns, by Gustave Zerner
It’s the other conclusion one may draw from this perspective that troubles me more: when the citizens feel that their input matters not a whit to the Government (that feeling is UNIVERSAL, on both sides of the political divide now), then they will entertain ideas of removing said government and installing something more to their liking. When such removal becomes the most obvious solution, there WILL be civil war, it’s guaranteed.
My take on the civil war is that it will NOT start against the Government, but as a sorting-out between aggressive groups of armed reformers. We see that in the less-developed countries ALL THE TIME, and WE are devolving into one of those less-developed countries.
I see a duplicitous government as permitting, even allying with some of the warring groups. Can you see this? Imagine an armed group with the politics and soul of the DU. When they started shooting at TEA Party events, do you think that the Government would immediately call them terrorists and throw the full weight of Government counter-terror ops against them? I don’t believe an Obama Administration would. War against the Right by proxy. The armed lefty groups as “useful tools”.
Yep, I can see all that as end-game. AFTER THAT, I see your groupings for survival.
I wrote about the decay in cultural confidence back in 2009, and I wouldn’t change a word of that piece today. I’m fully expecting economic collapse followed by the societal havoc experienced by Wiemar Germany in the 1930’s. Rivrdog’s prediction falls right into that.
I think it’s all going to go pear-shaped in just a couple of years (maybe less), and it will be bad for decades afterward.
And I’m past the point of being weary over it, or being willing to re-arrange the deck chairs.
As I quoted in that post, even Bill Whittle stated it in 2003: “Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls; that ground lost may never be recovered; and that greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren. Yes, our betters tell us these things daily. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe it.”
But more of us do believe it, every day. It’s not so much that we believe that “greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren,” though, it’s that the system is so broken that “greatness” doesn’t even enter into the equation.
I hear you. Boy do I ever.
I think the biggest thing driving my case of the fuckits is that I know people on “the other side”; they outnumber me and people who seem to share my political philosophy by about 100:1; and they are staunchly opposed to doing anything to reduce the debt load, or the deficit rate, or, shit. I think it’s probably easier to say “they don’t even think there is a problem”, rather than “they disagree with all of my propositions to resolve the problem”.
The vast majority of people I know are going to fight tooth and fucking nail to keep the bus pointed straight at the cliff’s edge, and the gas pedal hard to the floor.
Rome was essentially finished by Constantine’s time. His edict binding non-slaves to the land meant that essentially nobody cared who was nominally in charge at the top.
If you’re going to take the Roman analogy, then the things to watch for are those that bind the population in a position of subservience to the political elite. While that’s certainly something that the elite would like, we’re seeing a quite un-Roman reaction in the form of Tea Parties, etc.
Taxing the productive is non-binding?
Taxing the productive is non-binding?
While I take your point, Kevin, I have to say that however punitive taxation can be, it isn’t “binding” in the same fashion the cited historical Roman example was. None of us has been legislatively “bound” to our form and place of employment (which I submit is a more accurate comparison than is taxation) – so far – and the closest analogue I can think of to “bind the population to a position of subservience to the political elite” is the on-going effort to criminalize recording the public activities of the police (the political elite’s enforcement arm).
We’re required to participate in the tax system, but we’re still “free” to not qualify to actually pay any taxes.
We’re required to participate in the tax system, but we’re still “free†to not qualify to actually pay any taxes.
Right. All we have to do is stop producing at above the level where income taxation begins. (Try to not pay sales taxes. And, of course, you pay property tax whether you own or rent – it gets passed on to you either way.) But specifically I was speaking of income taxes, and you’re right. About 45% of all households apparently don’t pay income tax now.
I go back and forth between thinking they really do outnumber “us” and thinking that it’s just that the media is so totally biased and that thinking that is what we are “supposed” to do. Much easier for them if we give up without them firing a shot and just keep pulling our plows for them. I’m going to keep firing politicians until they either get the message or it’s clear that no one is going to listen. Either way, there will be resolution.
There is something afoot. Call it the preppier movement or whatever but when this many people get the same feeling it’s worrisome. There are a lot of us that are quietly getting ready to handle disruptions supply lines. OTOH, THEY are not doing the same. They believe their own myths.
What they haven’t figured out is that we don’t actually need them AT ALL.
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