PostHeaderIcon Just Deserts

One frequently encounters the sentiment that people get the government they deserve. This is usually found in the context that those suffering tyranny in foreign lands, should rise up and overthrow their rulers. I must admit that I have in the past been persuaded by this logic, especially during debate over the notion that we somehow have a moral obligation, to go abroad seeking dragons to slay, on behalf of oppressed people.

I am pretty clear in my assessment that we have no such obligation; but is it even true that oppressed slaves deserve their masters, for lack of will to depose them, violently if necessary?

In a comment section here the other day, CT referring to Hillary said:

It boils down to CHARACTER … who has it and who does not.

I am not talking about CHARACTER of the candidates I am talking about character of the American voter who clearly is about to get exactly what they deserve.

From my increasingly anarchistic perspective, I was tempted to quip that this would be their just deserts, for legitimizing the oligarch’s Kabuki dance by voting at all, regardless of the winner of their sham election. The “Deep State” could care less who wins an election; because normally they control both candidates. The jury is still out; but this is the first time in at least a generation that this may not be true.

I have just finished reading probably the most important essay of this political season, which concluded with:

The election of 2016 is a test—in my view, the final test—of whether there is any virtù left in what used to be the core of the American nation. If they cannot rouse themselves simply to vote for the first candidate in a generation who pledges to advance their interests, and to vote against the one who openly boasts that she will do the opposite (a million more Syrians, anyone?), then they are doomed. They may not deserve the fate that will befall them, but they will suffer it regardless.

The pseudonymous author was referring, of course, to the #NeverTrump faction of the conservative intelligentsia, which he repeatedly excoriates with the delicious metaphor, of comparing them to the Washington Generals. Some may not recall that name of the always losing team, which traveled with the Harlem Globe Trotters, and was paid well to provide a hapless foil, for their entertaining shenanigans.

Actually, the author is a master of metaphor, as he began his profound essay with:

2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.

Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.

Two more rather thought-provoking metaphors; no? In between are the best arguments for disenchanted conservatives to swallow their hurt feelings, and get out the vote for Trump, that I have seen anywhere. E.g.:

One of the paradoxes—there are so many—of conservative thought over the last decade at least is the unwillingness even to entertain the possibility that America and the West are on a trajectory toward something very bad. On the one hand, conservatives routinely present a litany of ills plaguing the body politic. Illegitimacy. Crime. Massive, expensive, intrusive, out-of-control government. Politically correct McCarthyism. Ever-higher taxes and ever-deteriorating services and infrastructure. Inability to win wars against tribal, sub-Third-World foes. A disastrously awful educational system that churns out kids who don’t know anything and, at the primary and secondary levels, can’t (or won’t) discipline disruptive punks, and at the higher levels saddles students with six figure debts for the privilege. And so on and drearily on. Like that portion of the mass where the priest asks for your private intentions, fill in any dismal fact about American decline that you want and I’ll stipulate it.

Conservatives spend at least several hundred million dollars a year on think-tanks, magazines, conferences, fellowships, and such, complaining about this, that, the other, and everything. And yet these same conservatives are, at root, keepers of the status quo. Oh, sure, they want some things to change. They want their pet ideas adopted—tax deductions for having more babies and the like. Many of them are even good ideas. But are any of them truly fundamental? Do they get to the heart of our problems?

Any serious thinker would have to say, “NO.” Then, consider this devastating logic:

If conservatives are right about the importance of virtue, morality, religious faith, stability, character and so on in the individual; if they are right about sexual morality or what came to be termed “family values”; if they are right about the importance of education to inculcate good character and to teach the fundamentals that have defined knowledge in the West for millennia; if they are right about societal norms and public order; if they are right about the centrality of initiative, enterprise, industry, and thrift to a sound economy and a healthy society; if they are right about the soul-sapping effects of paternalistic Big Government and its cannibalization of civil society and religious institutions; if they are right about the necessity of a strong defense and prudent statesmanship in the international sphere—if they are right about the importance of all this to national health and even survival, then they must believe—mustn’t they?—that we are headed off a cliff.

But it’s quite obvious that conservatives don’t believe any such thing, that they feel no such sense of urgency, of an immediate necessity to change course and avoid the cliff…

While reading this essay, it occurred to me that my lifelong metamorphosis from a Truman democrat, to a Reagan conservative, to a Harry Browne libertarian, to an Ayn Rand objectivist, and now to a Murray Rothbard anarchist, all stemmed from the frustration that my traditional American culture, inculcated while growing up in the halcyon ’40s & ’50s, was consistently losing ground to the Far Left Multicultural Progressives, in the political arena.

If there were still such a thing as a Truman or Scoop Jackson Democrat, I might still be one. Had the Reagan Revolution persisted, I might still be a Republican, and reasonably content with the notion of democracy. It was the feckless politicians themselves, who caused me to explore deeper into political philosophy, to the point that I now challenge the very necessity of a state, and its wannabe rulers. As I have explained elsewhere, the only way I can think of to overthrow their tyranny, without another bloody revolution, is to stop voting for the lesser of two evils, which only legitimizes the bastards.

Thus, I have vowed to never vote again. Yet, the logic of this essay is very persuasive. Voting for Trump just might delay Armageddon long enough to come up with a better plan for the future of our posterity. If I didn’t live in California, where only Democratic votes count, I might just have to break my vow and vote for Trump. If I did, it would probably be this essay that changed my mind. It is that good, so naturally I highly recommend that you go read it. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º

10 Responses to “Just Deserts”

  • That has to be one of the most astute observations put to paper that I have read in a very long time.

    WOW!

    • You are probably the only one who bothered to go read it, CT. I am frequently perplexed at how little interest others find, in some of those things I regard as truly profound. The author has penned a sequel to it, answering many of the critiques and objections subsequently expressed. It is as good as the original. Enjoy. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º

      • This guy is absolutely brilliant Dave!
        I LOVE THIS MOST:

        My preferences run toward Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, Reagan, and the like. Trump doesn’t measure up to any of them. But his flaws are overstated. One of the dumber things often said about Trump is that “you can’t trust him with the nuclear codes.” This statement, first, betrays a complete lack of understanding of nuclear command and control. More important, it’s an extraordinary calumny, one that accuses the man of a wish or propensity to commit mass murder on the scale of Pol Pot. On what basis does anyone make such an accusation? Can Trump be erratic, obnoxious, and offensive? Of course, he can be all that and more. But while these qualities are not virtues, they may well have helped him punch through the Overton Window, in which case I am willing to make allowances.

        And last but not least his response to:

        Which brings me to the final two objections, which are really the same: I am said to be insane, and my insanity is supposedly evident from my contention that things are really bad, when in fact they are not that bad.

        Made me laugh out loud a lot!
        Just my opinion but this guy is worth noticing in society today. 😉

        Why are others not interested?
        Busy life style, lack of attention to what they themselves should be handling instead of handing it off to someone else.

        We are in this mess today because the focus became ME, ME, ME, let Joe fix it instead of I AM PLAN A – Z.

        Sometimes I wonder if even the “preppers” are prepared … LOL at least they have a running start.

        Look at what is going on now … the “sheeple” expect Trump to FIX IT FOR THEM.

        Well it ain’t gunna happen little brother without them doing part of the heavy lifting. You know that and so do I.

        Those who don’t want to heavy lift will simply sit and whine about how he failed them. When they are the seat of that failure to begin with. 🙂

      • You know Dave I have been thinking about why others might not bother to read Publius Decius Mus’s articles.

        1. They are fairly long. Most are not willing to wade through a lot of reading material.
        2. Clearly he is talking way over the head of most people today. As aggravating as that might be … it is reality.

        For that reason I try to keep what I say on my blog simple and even at that … some things are long winded. I worry about that because the public today has an extremely short attention span.

        When I started blogging in ’98 I found if I had a lot of data to present best it be accompanied with pictures to break up the text. I know you don’t care for images but then you are not the average reader who just wants the facts only ma’am.

        Back then I had quite a discussion with the guy who owned the server my websites were housed on … when he called one day and asked if I was running a porn site. I was shocked said no and asked why? I was burning up their bandwidth with excessive traffic and they were shocked that a puny personal website yammering on about poetry, crafts and basic blah blah blah. He wanted me to do away with the images or cut them down. I declined and I told him people came because of the graphics not just the blah blah blah text. It took about 6 months and finally he was convinced … lol

        He finally hired me to design his business website and dumped his 2 color UGLY theme … lol
        Later came his wife’s business site and then a couple years of doing the design of websites of his clients that needed websites for their businesses.

        My introduction into HTML then CSS before there were programs that actually did it for you … lol
        That means today if something that my design program botches up I can actually fix it even though java, php, html and css all move at a pretty rapid changing pace. 🙂

        Alas all of that is a bit boring for me now and I try not to do it if I can help it.

        • I’m sure you are right, CT. However, at least the regular contributors here, can certainly handle his intellect if they so chose. Troy, and now Chris, are just burnt out over this delightful election season. I do appreciate your continued participation. Without it, I would probably just pack it in myself. My cup of tea is discussion and debate, not soliloquies. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º

  • Here is another excellent follow-up interview of author Publius Decius, which is well worth the time to read. This guy is really GOOD! â—„Daveâ–º

    • This guy is really GOOD!

      I raise that to really BRILLIANT!

      Don’t you just love this?

      Machiavelli says that the selfish desire for glory can only be satisfied by the highest level of service to others, to the greatest possible multitude.

      OH MY … apparently we think alike … lol… think I just said this to you above 😉

      The attack that people have made against me is “this idiot thinks Trump is a savior!” Of course I haven’t said that and don’t believe it. He is like a burly blocker who’s opening a path for us to run through. It’s still up to us to run through the gap. He won’t—and can’t—do that for us. We have to do it ourselves.

      So in terms of education and knowledge, we’re on a downward trend and have been for a while.

      LOVE IT! I said to a dimwitted mother the other day who was touting her child’s 4.0 grade point average. YOU REALIZE that 4.0 grade point average would be a D- 50 years ago do you not?

      Need I say how pissed she was?
      The truth hurts does it not? … LOL

      Anyway I have read this guys stuff sometimes back but don’t remember exactly what it was about. He was pissing off the establishment then too.

      • Agreed again, CT. Poor mother… she probably had not been forewarned about your quick and acerbic tongue. 😉

        4.0 today, just means the poor child’s mind has been well indoctrinated by the factory Progressive schools. Sending one’s precious child to one of those forlorn places, is a particularly egregious form of child abuse. 🙁 â—„Daveâ–º

        • Sending one’s precious child to one of those forlorn places, is a particularly egregious form of child abuse.

          Indeed it is!

          Every parent today needs to find a good private school and be closely involved in what their child is being taught. Home school providing there is a semi intelligent parent doing the job would be good too.

          The most precious commodity we have is the children of the world today.

          I hope Trump will follow through on this education necessary change as promised. He appears to understand how important it is and clearly he was on the ball with his own children.

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