Process that Preserves

I've written about the problems of the NSA surveillance of Americans in Presumed Guilty, and will switch from that to the man who actually revealed the NSA PRISM program and fled to Hong Kong: Edward Snowden.

I am not going to pre-judge his actions, but note that they are in violation of the law with presumable harm to National Security involved.  Like any other person accused of a crime he deserves his day in court and I recommend that he do come to a US Embassy and publicly relinquish himself for a public trial.  It will take time for the enormity of his actions to hit Mr. Snowden and when that happens it is my dearest wish that he does come in from the cold.

Really that is the best course of action as the one he is on now leaves him open to accusations and no closure that a trial provides.  If he truly believes he did the right thing then, while he does have much to fear from the legal system, it is a system and it has a process to it.  It is a process that preserves rights and liberty of our citizens.

As I outlined in Presumed Guilty, Amendments IV, V and VI put together the legal system to be followed with in the US and it is one of presumed innocence at the start with the onus of proof of wrongdoing falling to the accuser.  It is a process where the accuser must gather evidence, seek warrants for more information from a judge, and present that evidence in a public court so that the accused has an opportunity for a public trial by jury.  There have been numerous prior proceedings involving secrecy laws and the information within them and the procedure of reading on a judge, attorneys and jury is well understood and well known.

Truly the government need only show that the program was compromised.

I presume that Mr. Snowden's defense was that in his view the program was unconstitutional either in its basis or execution, and that his Oath required him to reveal the program to the American people as a whole.  Most of the attention is being put to Amendment IV:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

As Mr. Snowden is pointing out that the NSA collection of information on American citizens in a wholesale manner is not only not allowable without a warrant, but that the whole of the people cannot be suspected for crimes of particulars done by individuals.  Thus even if the FISA court gave a Warrant for such activities, that Warrant is in violation of the Constitution: Warrants are for cases of individuals or small groups, not the entire population of the US.  If the NSA sought such a broad Warrant then it is in violation of the Constitution by seeking such and not narrowing its scope down to particulars and individuals.  If there is a Constitutional breach at that point it can have one of three sources, it it has happened:

1 – Judicial lack of oversight and not putting a narrow scope to data collection to protect the liberty and freedom of Americans.  You are presumed innocent of a crime and when the Executive asks for data on you via a warrant you are then suspected of a crime.  The entirety of the American people cannot be suspected of a crime and it is incumbent on the Executive to narrow the procedure down to likely individuals and their associates, not the whole of the People.  By not recognizing this basic piece of logic, the Judicial branch in authorizing such a Warrant can be found in breach of the Constitution.  At that point the Warrant is rescinded and all individuals not associated with suspected terrorists are removed from the data stores in their entirety, including all back-ups.

2 – Executive branch problems can fall into the area of not interpreting the law correctly and creating an unconstitutional execution of it via programs.  In this instance a law would be Constitutional but the PRISM concept would be violating basic protections and freedoms of the People as a whole and in their individual particulars.  Any program so ill-crafted as to need all of the data on all of the people to find the very few who may be supporting terrorists is so ill-conceived that it points to a basic and systemic problem in not just the program but in those who created and authorized it.

3 – Legislative works are not always found to be Constitutional and Congress may have given a law that contravenes the basic protections of the American people as a whole and as individuals.  The entire scope of the law may be so ill-created and ill-conceived that no one doing the process of approving it in Congress realized just how wrong-headed it was.  However if Congress did craft the law properly, but was not informed of the scope of the resulting program and what it entailed, then that is a failure of the Executive branch to properly inform the Legislative branch about the implementation of the program.  If the law, itself, is the fault then it lies with Congress at the very passage of it and all programs and functions created by it go away, and the data stores are destroyed.  A lack of Executive accountability, however, puts the Executive at jeopardy for not performing a duty to Congress as required by Congress so that Congress can exercise oversight.  In this instance a program and law can be Constitutional but both Mr. Snowden and all who are in the Executive reporting chain can be held accountable for not properly accounting the program to Congress.

These are the possible problems that Mr. Snowden may have seen and the remedy for his defense is not in Amendment IV, the basis for his revealing the program which he sees as problematical, but in Amendment VI:

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

This procedure in which the prosecution hands over all its collected evidence to the accused and opens those items up to further scrutiny by the accused is known as 'discovery'.  When getting a Warrant the Executive seeks to discover more information about someone and when it accuses them that information is then handed over.  That scrutiny is critical because the defense must be allowed access to exculpatory information in the way of witnesses and documents.

In this case the discovery would presumably happen on the PRISM program within the NSA.

The scope of it would be limited to those documents and procedures that detail the entire history of the program from its original emplacement in a Bill and authorized by Congress, to the implementation and creation of it, to how it functioned so that the Executive demonstrates that it is doing a responsible job in executing the program and properly informing Congress of it on a basis set by Congress.

The defense would not actually want much in the way of things like hardware, software, and who is running which piece of equipment as those would be a distraction and not relevant to the defense.  What is wanted is the high level Legislative enabling Bills and then how the Executive processed those to programs, with given scope and necessary high level overview of the program, and then how it proceeded over time.

The defense has multiple ways to demonstrate that Mr. Snowden operated under his Oath and duties to the Constitution and need but show how the scope of PRISM contravenes the power granted to the federal government in any single particular: with just one Constitutional problem he is vindicated.

An accuser has the power of the State behind them, but in this case it would be relatively open and shut if there is a strong belief that PRISM did all of the following:

1 – Is a Constitutional power granted to Congress.

2 – The Executive properly carried out the power that Congress enacted.

3 – The Executive properly ran the program within the scope of the power grant from Congress for the program.

4 – That no Warrants exceeded the Constitutional limits placed upon the NSA.

5 – That the Judicial branch did not improperly authorize any Warrant for the PRISM program.

6 – That the Executive branch kept Congress properly informed about the program so that Congress could give scrutiny to it so that the program was being run to their satisfaction.

Even though 6 is not a killer to getting a guilty verdict, it then opens the entirety of the reporting chain to prosecution.  And that opens up whole bunches of cans of worms because when the NSA goes rogue and lies to Congress, there is a huge problem in the National Security establishment, all the way up to the DNI who said that such programs didn't even exist nor collect data on American citizens.

So it is my dearest and most sincere wish that Mr. Snowden turn himself in because his worries of Triad contacts inside the US political establishment are valid, and drones are not the only thing in the clandestine arsenal that can take out an individual overseas.  And even Russia isn't safe, either, come to that.

If you are a supporter of the PRISM program then you want Mr. Snowden brought in for trial because you believe it will withstand Constitutional scrutiny.  Really, there is little to worry about in that instance if you believe that.

If you are not a supporter of the PRISM program then you want Mr. Snowden to come in on his own and then support him to get the best crack team of lawyers who know the security laws and how to dance them.  People used to chasing down bureaucratic paper trails, using documents to build a defense and showing just what the scope of the PRISM program actually is.  You don't get that with finger-pointing and argument, but with a court case.

And if you simply want Justice to be served, you want Mr. Snowden to come in or be brought in to trial.  If he acted properly in his assessment of the PRISM program, then he will be vindicated and the program shattered in public disclosure after he is found innocent.  And if he is guilty and the program is Constitutional and legally constructed and run, then the security apparatus will ensure that the information in the trial doesn't see the light of day.

If the entire process, including the Judiciary, has been corrupted thoroughly, then a trial will also show that, quite well.

Being on the run is only a temporary phenomena and you either find a safe haven, get brought in to trial or wind up dead because you know far too much and a trial would reveal that and possibly more.  If Mr. Snowden winds up dead, you will know that is exactly the case.  And then we have a real problem on our hands because someone no longer wants the process to preserve the system.

Sen. Paul's filibuster and the question

Congratulations to Sen. Rand Paul for utilizing the filibuster on a question that he has been asking for nearly a month and asked of the head of DoJ, Eric Holder, and the White House during that period: in their opinion does the President have the power to order a drone attack against an American on American soil without due process of law procedures?

This is not the question: can the President order someone stopped when they are in the process of attacking the United States?  That is an in-process question where someone is armed, known, dangerous, affiliated with an organization that has already attacked the United States or has otherwise made clear their intention to attack the United States on their own or in affiliation with others.

That, incidentally, is called Treason and has its own due process procedure set by the US Constitution.

And a single penalty after trial and being found guilty of same.

The White House, Eric Holder and Mr. Brennan, the man who's nomination for head of CIA has caused all of this to come out, have all given a big, hearty waffle on this question.  Do note that if this was the previous Administration that the Left, the MFM and all sorts of others would be denouncing that President and calling attention to this question.  Their complicity in partisan, tyrannical ends is demonstrated by their lack of doing anything.  Save Code Pink and the ACLU, I will grant those organizations and any others that have stood up to join with Sen. Paul and his fellow Senators that assisted on this that they have followed on an ethical and moral line of reasoning.  No matter how much you may not like what some of these organizations do, and how insane their motivations may be at times, they are consistent in their insanity.

As for me the question should be self-evident: no, the President does not have that power nor authority to go outside due process.  Going after those actually wielding weapons, planting bombs or hacking into the infrastructure of, say, a major sewage system to put its contents into the drinking water of millions of people, those people should be stopped with whatever force is necessary short of an indiscriminant missile attack.  Anything that has a warhead measured in pounds of explosives, launched from any platform including a shoulder fired weapon from an individual, is a bit much to go after an individual who is not in a tank, not in an APC, not in a hijacked aircraft about to hit a building or other infrastructure component, or in a known and designated bunker or other fortified area.  The potential for the innocent getting hurt or killed in a non-war zone is far too high to be using explosives outside of a testing range  or other designated safe facility utilized for the training of same.

And as to the question of being on a 'kill list', I have addressed that previously as something that has a lack of stated doctrine and procedure with legal framework attached to it.  The Congress can and should play a part in this using their Article I, Section 8 powers under the Letters language as that is the power that is granted to Congress to address and deal with the Private Enemies of the United States and the language allowing Congress the power to set the means by which the military forces of the US operate.  This would allow Congress to name specific groups that have attacked the United States as Private Enemies of the Nation, and that joining such a group is treasonous as it is one that has waged Private War on the US as defined in the Law of Nations.  Further it could tell the President that individuals of that organization, foreign and domestic, are to be publicly put on a list of those individuals to be brought in by any means necessary, apprehended when feasible overseas, and that these individuals are admonished to turn themselves in to any US Embassy or any US military base or organization for proper tribunal or trial.  Congress could place the general activities of 'terrorism' as those of 'piracy' and put forward, via legislation, that all such individuals are engaged in Piracy when they attack the US on their own and not as part of a Nation.  This would actually allow the removal of the cumbersome terrorist statutes and embrace the pre-existing framework of Piracy trials which are also a known part of the international framework of understanding between Nations.

These things would then set a basis for doctrine of apprehension for the Executive Branch and also define when private individuals who are actively part of an organization attacking the US may be attacked, and that other individuals or organizations, public or private, that are aiding and abetting such hostile groups or individuals are to be put on a separate list so that proper legal proceedings can go forward to freeze their assets whenever possible and seize them once proper legal recognition and status is done via trial.

Thus I applaud Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster.

I also humbly suggest that he start legislation to finally get a hard and fast set of legal understandings put forward to properly define and scope out just what a President can and cannot do with drones and other unarmed vehicles in the pursuit of 'terror' groups overseas.  Congressional input and designation of groups is necessary, and the President will then have to ask Congress to add or remove organizations to such a list as this is a WAR POWER of the Congress at work.  That would then set a methodology that is public and well understood on who is on such a list, and what recourse they have to turn themselves in for proper legal procedures be they citizens or foreigners, at home or abroad.  This would then involve all three branches of government and could even set up an initial tribunal system to find out just who is and is not a 'combatant', with the military running such under the Geneva Conventions and defining that 'terrorism' falls under the 'Saboteurs and Espionage' trials for military affairs.  Those trials are well known and understood, and have a single outcome when guilty, and it is immediate and summary in nature.  That would also clear out Gitmo and allow the US to shut it down once the last of the detainees are processed.

These things are things that can be done by a Senator or Representative and work with others to put legislation forward and move it through Congress.

That is how the entire thing is supposed to work.

Best to remind everyone of that while there is still time.

Freedom vs. Utopia

I've been continuing on with The Moral Foundations of Politics presented by Professor Ian Shapiro at Yale as part of their Open Yale courses and have now gotten into the post-Classical views on politics, leaving the 19th century behind as such propositions as Utilitarianism and Marxism are both seen as so flawed as to not offer a complete nor satisfactory means to remove politics from society.  Indeed, that singular goal of turning science into a means of replacing politics proved to be ill-founded, ill-thought out and when the scientific method is rigorously applied to either they both fall short of their goals of removing politics from the affairs of Man.  Simply put, you can't get rid of it due to the complexities of societies and individuals and the fact that valuations on such affairs cannot be rendered objectively but subjectively.  Both the maximization of social utility and the creation of the bureaucratic self-ending State prove to have so many problems as they are both a threat to human liberty because of the underlying principles involved.  Thus in the 20th century, while adherents to both ideals try to find a way forward with them, their ability to have good outcomes in the world lead to problems that show philosophies of Man that are unable to deal with Man as he is.

From that point Professor Shapiro moves to a late 20th century thinker called Robert Nozick, who proposed the utilization of subjectivity and Man's freedom to analyze just what sort of political system and results one gets starting from just about any point in the political spectrum.  Instead of trying to work through a mechanical system, like both Utilitarianism and Marxism that assert a methodology of approach to render objective means, Nozick proposes a subjective approach utilizing post-Newtonian conceptions in the way of Einstein's 'thought experiments'.  His goal is not to step outside of society and politics but to temporarily put it aside and ask a fundamental question: what is the purpose of the State?

The thought experiment entails having you, the individual, ask yourself what sort of situation you would be in if no State government existed.  Yes, it is an impossible situation but this is a thought experiment, not a real world goal to reach.  If every politician, judge, lawyer and political activist suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke along with every bureaucrat and every tome of laws and regulations they created, why would you need them?  What is their purpose?  And what would your reaction be in this case where the State, as we know it and as has been known to every generation of mankind, suddenly evaporated?  It is a profound question and the answers you get start to show major lines of thought in the 1980's and forward to today, but not in the mainstream of political thought until just recently.

In that Stateless state you would be back to your Natural Rights and Liberties and must rely on self-governance.  But that is no assurance against Man in that State of Nature (red of tooth and claw) and to protect yourself you must actually do that and also protect those things you create that allow you to survive.  Otherwise you would fall prey to Savage Man because that is the state of being you have entered into.  To protect yourself you might band together with others who are like minded with you to help, but then the burden of protecting all of those things you own as individuals and each of your individual lives falls to you, and you have more and better things to do with your liberty than that, don't you?  Thus you may find others who have decided on a division of labor as a means to achieve this end (remember how Marx hated that?) so that they can protect your belongings as you went about doing other things.  You form a Stateless contract with such a group as there is no one to enforce it other than each other, but you can work on a principle of accountability and of one's word being their bond, with proof of that only coming over time.  From that the basis of protective organizations starts and we could liken this to Mafia families or bands of Warlords and their personal followers.

What happens in this state of being without a State?  This is, perhaps, the Anarchist dream Utopia but it has a problem: there is no one to really enforce the contract.  Worse still is that to gain market and expand, as any organization must due to internal needs and requirements of administration and covering ever more people as they become popular, such bands then start to compete for market space.  What happens when rival protection rackets start to go after the same territory?  Conflict.  And that is what happens with these protection organizations, as they may start at a low-level of threats and intimidation to gain market (or go out of existence as stronger organizations prevail) until open conflict ensues.  In this way the more capable organizations will expand and flourish to cover more and more population until they cover a society.  At that point there is a power dynamic change as the legitimizing power to enforce protection can be used against a population, but that population also has some capability to withhold funding the organization at large to hold it accountable.  In either case you get the State. 

From a start of pure Statelessness you get the State and yet it is just that one power and function that has been granted to it: to protect one's life and property from others harming them.  This is a Utilitarian conception of John Stewart Mill and this is the State that protects it: The Night Watchman State.  And who watches these Watchmen?  All members of society.

Such a minimalist State allows maximum freedom to exercise individual liberty, protects all members of society and their property (although you never lose the responsibility, duty and right of self-protection), but otherwise does nothing else and is held in check from expansion by the population at large.  While not a new conception of such a State, it comes with a far different set of underpinnings than Enlightenment or Classical or even Ancient views of it since it is a State in thought experiment only, not a goal nor objective to achieve: this is not a rigorous methodology to create a new realm of morality in politics, but an analytical tool to analyze what is or is not moral in politics.

If one steps away, mentally, from their current society and asks if any idea is good or bad to each individual in society, then they must look at the greatest harm done as well as the greatest good generated on any political question.  This is not a means with an end, but a pure tool to wield in cutting away questions of their normal externalities and get to the actual propositions involved.  Thus something like, say, 'should there be a minimum wage?' or 'should there be unemployment benefits?' can be asked not by pointing out to the 'good' that can be done but also to looking at the harm it can do, and no political proposition or law is harmless.  Passing legislation to say that rabbits are cute is not the same as enforcing a taking of wages to fund the unemployed or to require redirection of resources directly to a minimum wage as a forced part of any contract: there is harm done and to a large number of people and then only to benefit a minority of the population by removing liberty or the fruits of liberty at the direction of government.  That is a moral question and an ethical one that brings home the actual question: is it right to take away money that represents a person's time spent in productive labor to give it to someone who has lost their job?  That is actually not a simple question to ask as it entails lost productivity of not only individuals and a society in an attempt to give temporary recompense to those who have lost a job.  That is a harm.  Anything done to an individual that removes their liberty or its creations is a harm as it is those very things that the State is supposed to PROTECT.  Why?  You just went through that thought experiment and can see that the best and most minimal thing a State is supposed to do is PROTECT your life and the artifacts of time spent with your liberty, not take them and give them to others.

As you are now outside the actual system (with thought experiments) and are not contained within it you also get to ask: how does this effect me without my knowing where I will be in the economic scale once I step back into the active society?  Remember this is a thought experiment and while performing it you have no attributes of the society involved: you have no class, you have no social standing, you have no religion, you own nothing and you are detached in all ways from that society that you can manage so as to try and render a moral judgment on a political activity from all parts of society.  Yes you will have difficulty doing that detachment, which is why such an analytical tool requires rigor in its use and you must self-analyze any bias you bring to the table.  It is a tool that cuts into not just political morality but into your own moral basis as an individual, and when it cuts it can cut deeply.

Now consider a real world example of a famous professional athlete who has put into his contract that every person coming to a home game puts a quarter into a box for the player to watch the game.  This contract is negotiated between the player and the team (as it is a team sport) and they are agreeable to it.  You, as a fan, get to decide if you want to go to those games and see a world famous athlete play in full knowledge that you'll be paying that athlete 25 cents.  This is a Pareto Perfect situation in which everyone gets to decide if this additional cost is worth the result.  It is also a form of promise from the player to play well as if he can get enough people excited with his play to fill the arena every night, then he makes more money over his career.  There is no force to enter into the contract, and yet it is agreeable to the player and the team.  You have a choice as to paying what amounts to a private tax that is a very small cost compared to the ticket price, and 25 cents isn't all that much.  The player makes millions of dollars in this method.  It also has the benefit of being a real-world example as this is what Wilt Chamberlain had in his contract, so you can't say that it isn't possible.

That player gains wealth beyond what he is guaranteed to get from his salary or wages from people just showing up to watch him play home games.  The team makes far more money from the increase in ticket sales and has a strange form of personal commitment from the player to continue playing at top form or even improve.  The fan gets better on-court play that is more entertaining to them from the player.  Does Wilt Chamberlain deserve all that money?  He did earn it after all, by utilizing a freely negotiated part of a contract acceptable to all involved.  Does anyone think that he isn't entitled to that and to be protected from its being seized in order to, say, give it to the poor?

This example is a powerful one as it demonstrates a principle of freedom allowing for the unequal distribution of wealth via freely negotiated contracts.  It is, perhaps, the largest game-changer in the approach to morality in politics that anyone has developed and is one of the keenest tools to pull apart redistributive systems.  Those on the Left would criticize Wilt Chamberlain and say that he did not deserve to have such accumulated wealth and that the State should have some say in how it is used (through taxation, say) even though these are negotiated payments to see an ephemeral activity for the temporary enjoyment of those watching a game.  It is a price paid for enjoyment and the social experience of a game, not productive activity which irks the social moralists even more.  The goal of those moralists is to reach a Utopian end-state (usually a Marxist one as it involves forcible redistribution of wealth) and they have just run into the worst kind of roadblock that can be put in front of them: the death of the Utopian end-state ideal.

With this tool a different Einsteinian 'thought experiment' can progress and it is one that can be used against a Utopian end-state.  Lets make that a State where everyone is exactly equal in material wealth, have all their needs met and contribute accordingly. 

Now put in place the freedom of contract. 

What do you get? 

Unequal results, the accumulation of wealth and the end of the level end-state which disappears in relatively short order as everyone makes subjective decisions on what to do with their freedom to exercise their liberty. 

The great thing is that Mr. Nozick lived to see this come about in the fall of the Eastern Bloc in such places as Poland and Czechoslovakia where State owned businesses were apportioned out by one-share per citizen.  Each citizen had equal ownership in these businesses to do with as they pleased with the shares.  Some put them under mattresses, others burned them, others used them as toilet paper and others started purchasing them.  Within 5 years those firms that actually had any productive capability had gained majority owners, and not through an original wealth imbalance (as was the case in Russia) but through the free play of a free market starting out in an egalitarian starting condition.  It didn't last long.  Nor does any equal distribution system of wealth as human freedom is its death knell when liberty is allowed to be freely exercised.

Any State that violates its minimalist being to redistribute wealth is thus in conflict with human liberty and freedom.  And even if it reaches some desired form of 'equality' across all of mankind, the moment that freedom is allowed back in, then the entire thing will evaporate in short order without the force of the State to back it.

You really can learn a lot just by wanting to find out about abstruse areas of thought like the moral basis of politics.

And, yes, this is also the death knell for any attempt at 'collective' humanity that isn't coercive and authoritarian, despotic in all ways to the individual.  The greatest tool to wield against it?  Individual liberty.

It was once a revolutionary idea.

And it still is.

Decade of war amidst unending war

There are two kinds of war, which is to say that there are two distinct and separate categories of warfare.  One kind that we know is that waged by Nations against other Nations and that is formal, legitimate war or war that takes place within the accountability structure of Nation States.  Nations are accountable actors and they are all equal as to type: while some are larger and more capable and others weak and less capable they are all Nation States as a category and represent a place on earth, a people living within that territory and even when inflicted by forms of dictatorship or despotism that government is one that is accountable to its fellow Nation States for its activity amongst them.  Accountable military actors represent that Nation, are held in an accountability structure by that government, fight under a banner and wear the uniform of that Nation and are amenable to the formal structure of war which includes cease-fires as a form of treaty (indeed the highest form, even when temporary) and can be officially ended by the governments involved, even to the point of extinguishment of one of those governments to end it.

Formal, declared war is a way for a Nation, large or small, weak or powerful, to assert its standing as a legitimate actor for its people to act with respect to them so as to assert their standing as a Nation amongst all Nations to be treated like any other Nation.  It is an understood venue of war that, even in the era of Total War, has limits to it which is the ending of one (or more) of the governments involved as institutions.  The people who had been under that form of government now have the right, as a people, to decide their own way in the world and settle internal problems and re-establish legitimate government.  Often that has not been the case in the history of mankind and the results can be ethnic populations that undergo unrest, cause civil war and otherwise seek to reassert their people's right to having a definite and defined government that is different than the one imposed on them.  When that government is defined, when it raises a banner, when those fighting to establish it put on uniforms and place their military actions as accountable to their rebel government and to the people for which they are fighting, they are performing an act of legitimization in seeking to establish this government to represent these people.  This, too, is legitimate and if but one Nation amongst the brotherhood of Nations recognizes and supports them then this organization is considered a Nation coming into being.

In summary that is one category of war and while war is a horror at least this type of war can end and reach a settlement.  That is desirable amongst the affairs of men.  No matter how many die, no matter the brutal logic that it entails, this formal form of warfare is desired when peace cannot be sustained due to the differences amongst men within the brotherhood of Nations.

There is another form of warfare, however, as war is not born amongst Nations but within the hearts of men as an inalienable right and power that cannot be divorced from individuals.  Indeed we recognize that this happens amongst animals who have a right and power to defend themselves against predation, and those seeking such predation we call predators.  The actions of such warfare is, then, depredation: that of acting like a predator upon others with no formal recourse against such actions.  This form of warfare, by its nature and source, is informal and takes place by men as individuals who can form groups but form no government and seek to establish no Nation.  If civilized man recognizes that Nations and the State system used to run a Nation are limits upon passion to which we submit so as to have a protection of our society as distinct from other societies and to be represented, then it is to be recognized that those adhering to this framework agree to quell their passions and allow for only accountable actors to declare war.  Those that seek to act with the power of war on their own, no matter their reasons, if they become an unaccountable actor amongst Nations, then we are to call their actions depredation.  By renouncing to utilize the civilized form of accountability, they reduce themselves to their savage nature, which is base in all regards, and that they have reduced themselves to savagery as they now put their actions into only one venue of accountability: warfare.

This kind of warfare is of a separate kind and nature from formal war and it is informal and illegitimate war.  If the formal kind is that done in public with accountability and, thusly, Public War, then this form done in private with no accountability is Private War.  These are distinct and separate categories of warfare and have been recognized as such since the dawn of mankind and the first Nations created by man to represent a people.  If a Nation is a creative framework to foster an understandable system amongst men, then those performing Private War are antagonists to this agreement and see that only the natural, savage predation structure is valid and legitimize that viewpoint by their actions.  We call these people by various category names, yet they all have the same underlying viewpoint to them: pirates, brigands, corsairs, freebooters, armies of thieves and terrorists.  That list is not all inclusive, but demonstrates that the supposed cause to perform such Private War is not limited to any ideology nor religion, but is universal in its scope.  Thus no matter what stated cause those performing such actions are claimed, their activity is, one and all, savage and against the structure of Nations in all regards.  This is not a 'clash of civilizations' as that puts forth that there is a structured environment for such a clash to take place amongst men to sort out their differences.  No this clash is amongst the civilized of all kinds and against those seeking to assert their will upon all mankind no matter if it be to plunder or booty, or just to become a warlord over a people and subjugate them to the will of that savage predation.

Private War can have many stated causes but its effects are the same, universally, and it is to tear at the civilized nature of man who works hard to put his savage nature aside and assert his positive natural rights on behalf of himself to his own betterment and, thereby, to the betterment of all civilized men.  Civilization is an agreed set of limits upon the actions of individuals to which we hold each other accountable.  Those performing illegitimate and informal war hold themselves and their sole standard as individuals up as supreme amongst men and will inflict it upon any they come across if they so like and have no limits upon their actions.  If civilizing oneself is an act of construction, then reverting to savagery can only result in destruction of the works of man both physically and as a mental framework that we agree to abide by.  Times can, indeed, change and bring forth great and new excitements and stimulation via the heights that can be achieved amongst the civilized of the earth.  Unfortunately the nature of nature does not change and is unchanging, and by being part of that framework and natural in all regards (no matter what we create it is all within this realm of nature) we are under threat of reverting to savagery.  While man does have a social instinct, as all animals capable of any thought so acquire, it can be put forth that if a single generation of man were to lose the ability of understanding what the limits of his actions are, then the entire edifice of civilization would collapse into savagery and that civilization would need to start all over again from that most base of states within Nature.

It is desirable, indeed part of the foundation of, formal war that there be an end to it and that a regularized course of affairs resume amongst Nations.  Nations and their governments called States are not permanent edifices amongst men, however, and it is sobering to see how often mighty Nations crumble under savagery.  Sophisticated systems of trade, discourse and intercourse amongst Nations can fall away as dust under savage man and his actions.  Building, construction and creation of artifacts and governments is a long and laborious process and yet, apparently, those that seek to end them can do so in very short order as depredation creates isolation from the very civilized structures created by men and those structures are seen as not safeguarding civilization itself.  Such governments can implode by ill moves (no matter how noble in cause) and their own weight causes them to implode, yes.  Such structures, even those that are lean and capable, can also implode at the slightest hint that they are no longer capable in safeguarding the very structure that allows them to exist.

From this it can be seen that those waging informal war can wage it not just on individuals, but upon the creations of those people in the form of States to run their Nations.  Informal, predatory and illegitimate war can be waged against Nations and by their very informal source there is no easy formal way to go to war against those doing this.  Military actions without an obvious object cannot be brought into being and only responses given to attacks as the only and defensive venue against those savages seeking to end a Nation and its State.  While war can be declared against those creating a safe haven for such actors, those actors are not attached to those people nor that territory and may basely flee to create a new predatory atmosphere for themselves elsewhere.  These ones flee the judgment of war against them and seek to inflict it upon the weak so as to weaken all of mankind and liquidate civilization at that most low of levels.  The power of any Nation, no matter how mighty, is brought low by such savages as they, by their chosen path, seek to remain unaccountable to anyone on this earth.   

Yet, for that, there is a venue that Nation States can take beyond the formal military means and that is to declare such actors who oppose them from the informal realm as being pirates, savages and an enemy to all mankind.  These are then not the Public Enemies of a Nation but its Private Enemies and a Nation State can then exercise specific articles against individuals and organizations that are in the Private realm.  Within this realm is the authorization of private individuals of that Nation State to be given papers and limits to their actions to predate upon the predators.  These are known as Letters of Marque and Reprisal, as they can be given not just to go after a particular asset of such savages, but to bring a fight to them wherever they are within the limits of warfare done by accountable actors.  Thus a Public action may be taken and authorized to put Private individuals into the role of accountable and self-organized military to go after the assets of those who seek and make war from the Private realm upon a Nation and its people.  Such counter-predation is under the oldest form of understandable warfare that is part and parcel of the savage realm: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  A simple dollar for dollar accounting in which every dollar of destructive cost that has been inflicted by an individual or unaccountable organization may be legitimately seized by them to yield up Private returns for those risking their lives to do so.  This, too, is limited warfare in that it does have an end once dollar amounts of cost value are reached: the score has been evened and settled with as much damage inflicted as has been given.  Amongst even the most savage of animals it is understood that the horn of an antelope may gore a lion, that a puffer fish may injure the mouth that bites it and perhaps even inflict a mortal wound where one is being administered.  That is savage justice and yet one that is comprehensible to civilized man as we are all creatures of Nature and see this form of reprisal as legitimate as it is not only codified into civilized law but is based in Natural Law.

What this creates, and civilized man is one that asserts creative nature above base predation, is a two-fold system of justice to hold those waging war against Nations accountable.

The first is the martial realm in which such illegitimate actors can be put to death with only the most basic of trials to see if they are fighting for a government in a declared war while wearing a uniform and being accountable to a Nation State's government.  Fight without these things and you are subject to the laws martial and your end is summary execution.

Within the realms martial are also the private takings of goods and artifacts and despoiling the very things utilized by savage man to wage war upon civilized mankind.  Here the act is to be authorized to do so and then seek out and predate upon the predators, strike where they are weak and take anything of any value or destroy that which they use, and then yield it up for cash payments usually at auction.  Demonstrate that these are the goods of such savages and the payments begin to defray the cost they have inflicted in the private realm and the funds flow in from that private realm via the Nation's authorized and legitimate actors.  Once the dollar cost of inflicted damage has been reached, the Letters are then withdrawn and those actors formerly utilized go back to purely private concerns.

Together those are the complete martial or war track of accountability: end actors that you run across militarily or those actively waging war against the Nation, and send private actors out to start putting the pain of attacking the civilized upon the wallets and goods of those doing the attacking.  This is rough justice but it is the venue that the savages actively seek, thus a wholly vital realm that they will easily understand in their most base of states.

The other realm is that of public law in which the crimes of piracy are applied to those who are caught when not actively engaged in warfare or just at large in the civil venue.  Piracy is a simple charge to prosecute as it has a touchstone of waging war without any legitimacy granted by a Nation State.  War waged illegitimately can also fall into this venue, but rarely elicits a civil trial save when there are no authorized military actors to take such people into custody.  These savages caught in the civil realm an be put on trial and found guilty of their crimes and the proper punishment performed for their actions.

Unlike other forms of civil prosecution, the crime of piracy being both civil and military allows for trials in both venues to occur, although because of the savage nature of such actors the military is preferred as they are the ones best suited to sort out just what is and is not a legitimate military action.  Even those prosecuted by civil means for piracy can undergo a separate trial for military crimes associated with piracy: the civil penalties due to death and destruction of property is a separate realm of jurisdiction from waging war illegitimately and while the action may overlap those two realms they each are separated in the accountability chain for that activity taken.  There is no 'double jeopardy' between mere civil crimes and crimes of warfare, and both venues are open to civilized man against those waging war without legitimacy and predating upon civilized man.  An act of blowing up a building, say, can be both a civil crime (call it terrorism or simple destruction of private property with intent to kill or injure) and a war crime (that of waging war without legitimate basis).  Do note that while civil punishments may vary, the military punishment is without variance and must be so to uphold the formal and legitimate form of warfare: by putting such actors to an end there is a clear and decisive statement of what is and is not acceptable in the realm of war by a civilized military structure.

Upon informal war there is a value judgment but it is not one based upon the supposed causes brought forth by those actors, but a judgment that such form of war is illegitimate no matter what the stated cause is.  Thus the judgment upon why people revert to savagery is set aside to deal with the fact that they have decided, on their own, to reduce themselves to the savage state of being and become a predator and wage a war of depredation upon all mankind.  That martial realm of judgment is hard, nasty and justified as it is not we, the civilized, forcing men to act like savage predators but they who become predators forcing this realm of decision upon us.  Sad that they could not take up the myriad forms of civilized discontent to express themselves and create a better world, but that decision is not forced on them to become uncivilized.  No matter the supposed 'justice' of a cause, to take up savage war is to wash away all of those arguments and put the most base fact of savage war taken up by individuals into clear stark light.  Woe befall those who seek to muddy this starkness and they do no benefit to mankind and can even be seen as trying to debase man to a lower standard by trying to legitimize savagery.  No matter how noble the calling, there is not elevated basis for those that choose savagery willingly and no trusting them in the future to be reformed as they have so easily shrugged off the burdens of being civilized once and can easily do so again.  There is not a gray area to be seen between these realms, no hint of shading on the border: one is civilized and adheres to civilized formal war, or one does not.

It is a life and death decision.

One not forced upon any individual but chosen freely each and every moment of every day, and only once one steps from civilized action does the choice to return get barred. 

It is hard work to remain civilized.

Sad that there are those who seek to legitimize savagery.

No good shall ever come of that.

Liberty, security and those giving both away

“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security”

- Benjamin Franklin (via Thinkexist)

The rights secured against government are particular and many, especially with regard to the US federal government and by incorporation to the States.  Additionally those powers not granted to the federal government are retained by the States and the people.  These are not new securities, by any means, and many go back not just to the Magna Carta and the pre-existing contracts between the people and their sovereigns, but also through the works of the post-Westphalian West that helped to delineate the differences between Moral Law, Natural Law and Civil Law.  As Natural rights and liberty are granted to us because we are part of the natural universe, there is no way that those rights can be severed from people as individuals and we can only agree to not exercise certain rights and liberties when we create government at the personal level and then at every level thereafter.  Of all governments it is self-government that is the strongest since it starts with each individual.  All other governments must utilize exterior power to enforce any larger agreements upon individuals as governments.  As Tom Paine puts it, government is the Punisher and all governments are created from the bowers of the ruins of paradise.

Freedom of speech is one of the prime rights secured against government as it is the way we communicate our inner-most feelings and ideas with each other as people.  As a people we are guaranteed that communication via the freedom of the press so that all means to communicate with each other are open to us.  With these two is the freedom of religion, the right to communicate our inner-most feelings to the Creator.  Together these are all descriptive of freedom of thought, the freedom to be oneself to oneself as you are.  Individuals who secure these rights are known as citizens, others that do not secure them properly are subjects as they allow their interior self to be defined by exterior forces.  Yet, within the heart of every subject is a free man, a citizen, if they would but allow themselves the freedom to think as they will unfettered by exterior forces.  This is the most powerful of rights as it allows self-direction, self-creation and the ability to reshape the very world by daring to find a way to do the impossible.

In our world there are those threatened by citizens, by free men, who dare to express their own ideas freely.  This is not the mischievous negative liberty to scare others (the yelling fire in a crowded theater paradigm) which is an attempt to subjugate others to fear of physical pain so as to cause pain.  In that same category is the incitement to riot which is a calling on the fear and hatred of others of some object, person, people, race, religion, or other demonized other of the moment.  Nor is there a thing known as 'hate speech' as there are only hateful people, and such people deserve the right and liberty to espouse their inner-most self so others can see just how small and hateful such people are.  Such speech is not applauded, but is counter-acted by various means, including just pointing out how hateful and baseless it is.  Thus even the worst, most vile of speech is not remedied by censorship on the outside, but through reasoning of individuals to understand just what the impacts of such speech are and why it is not good for individuals to do it.  Either that or learn to cope with the effects of such speech, that choice is up to individuals, not governments.

Current events always bring forward Franklin and his wisdom is one to be heeded as he helped to bring so much common sense to our Nation and because it is common sense and easy to understand it accords within free people to abide by it.  Events are within a time frame or period, and yet how we decide to deal with them help to chart the course of ourselves, our Nation and all humanity.  Thus your decision on how to deal with speech you do not agree with is up to you.  Sadly, there are those who want to vest that into bureaucracy we call government.  Take Eric Posner, at Slate, in has article of 25 SEP 2012 The World Doesn’t Love the First Amendment:

The universal response in the United States to the uproar over the anti-Muslim video is that the Muslim world will just have to get used to freedom of expression. President Obama said so himself in a speech at the United Nations today, which included both a strong defense of the First Amendment and (“in the alternative,” as lawyers say) and a plea that the United States is helpless anyway when it comes to controlling information. In a world linked by YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, countless videos attacking people’s religions, produced by provocateurs, rabble-rousers, and lunatics, will spread to every corner of the world, as fast as the Internet can blast them, and beyond the power of governments to stop them. Muslims need to grow a thick skin, the thinking goes, as believers in the West have done over the centuries. Perhaps they will even learn what it means to live in a free society, and adopt something like the First Amendment in their own countries.

But there is another possible response. This is that Americans need to learn that the rest of the world—and not just Muslims—see no sense in the First Amendment. Even other Western nations take a more circumspect position on freedom of expression than we do, realizing that often free speech must yield to other values and the need for order. Our own history suggests that they might have a point.

Note that first part I put into boldface, about the means of communication and what is said: that is the power of free speech and the press, both.   I will repeat it as it is a complete logic construct in its own right:

In a world linked by YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, countless videos attacking people’s religions, produced by provocateurs, rabble-rousers, and lunatics, will spread to every corner of the world, as fast as the Internet can blast them, and beyond the power of governments to stop them.

Without a free press the ability to disseminate ideas to point out tyrannical moves to punish people to think freely is then put into the very hands of those who seek more power via government.  Indeed, if government has not the power to stop such speech, as Mr. Posner implies, then there is no governmental remedy for such speech.  That is pure and absolute logic and proposing to make law of any sort that intrudes into this realm is backward, not by my logic but by that proposed by Mr. Posner.

The second part I highlighted is a call for self-censorship in appeasement of those who cannot or will not handle other people's freedoms well.  That is, individuals must censor themselves so as not to arouse the hatreds of those who will find any reason or rationale to express rage.  If it is not a video it is cartoons.  If not cartoons it is a book.  If not a book, then a poem.  The point is that it isn't the medium of expression that is at fault, nor those doing the speaking, but those doing the listening or receiving of such information that they cannot stand you not thinking and believing as they do.  To censor oneself in the face of such barbaric rage that seeks to impose its beliefs on others by silencing it is to give up that most especial of freedom: the freedom to be oneself.

That is not a 'response' but appeasement in the face of barbarism.

This is inviting more barbaric activity by becoming silent and passive.

It is acquiescing to barbaric actions by silencing oneself about them.

And no free man would ever consent to doing that.

This is not an 'alternative': it is inviting the death of civilization via the veto of the violent and intolerant.

To ask people to give away such rights and the liberty to use them, after going through the vagaries of the Left and Right, Mr. Posner puts this up as a reason to become silent in the face of barbarism:

We have to remember that our First Amendment values are not universal; they emerged contingently from our own political history, a set of cobbled-together compromises among political and ideological factions responding to localized events. As often happens, what starts out as a grudging political settlement has become, when challenged from abroad, a dogmatic principle to be imposed universally. Suddenly, the disparagement of other people and their beliefs is not an unfortunate fact but a positive good. It contributes to the “marketplace of ideas,” as though we would seriously admit that Nazis or terrorist fanatics might turn out to be right after all. Salman Rushdie recently claimed that bad ideas, “like vampires … die in the sunlight” rather than persist in a glamorized underground existence. But bad ideas never die: They are zombies, not vampires. Bad ideas like fascism, Communism, and white supremacy have roamed the countryside of many an open society.

The First Amendment is a securing of our Natural right of freedom of self, which is independent of the US Constitution.  The so-called 'contingency' misses the fact that this right had become an established one under the common law, with roots dating back not just to the Magna Carta but to the earliest law frameworks worked out in the House of Wessex.  In fact the concept that is embodied in this framework of law is that known as a 'contract' between the people and their government.  Contracts have varied over time, yes, and the extent of the limits of government start with these very first contracts that stipulate a concept of there being no taxation without representation by the governed to agree to such taxes.  The changes in these contracts and the limits of government are not ones on paper as those only come after countless changes of government, kings, and virtual despots.  These agreements are written after the blood has been spilled, victors found, and then limits on victory also found.  This Anglo-Saxon concept of limiting government and getting representation into it can be dated back to the 9th Century AD.  Where other peoples were having their laws and taxes dictated to them by government, the Anglo-Saxons were putting government on notice that it is by the consent of the governed.  As a Swedish King acknowledges that the Crown cannot go where the people do not want it to go and that the head wearing the Crown is liable to the same laws as the governed.

The Universality of Natural rights only came after 1648 and the Great Peace of Westphalia that got government out of using religion to gain more power and prestige for the rulers via religion.  This post-Westphalian European concept marries up with the English Common Law very well, as the latter is based on low-level contractual assurance, checks, balances and agreement, not sovereign dictates from the ruler.  With the Enlightenment the Natural Law is seen as universal and, thusly, the rights and liberty that they endow go to every man at every time, if they have but the wisdom to see them for what they are.  This is not a dogma but a piece of knowledge that put to an end the Divine Right Monarchy concept and helped to install a concept of sovereign power being accountable to the governed.  It is not universal because of dogma, the dogma comes from the understanding of the self-evident universality of these rights.  Clawing out positive rights from the negative power of government has been a fight going on for nearly two millennia, not since 1787 or 1776 or 1648.

In seeking censorship, Mr. Posner puts forward that 'bad ideas never die'.  That is correct.  And censorship only makes them more attractive, not less, if the Banned in Boston booklist is any measure of such things.  Bad ideas need to be countered, discussed, and the reason they are bad refreshed on a continual basis so that people know why they are bad ideas.  Not doing so, not speaking out against the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and lesser tyrannical systems like the Ba'athists that grew from Nazism, ensures that you get lovely artifacts like a President having a Mao Christmas tree ornament in the White House, or children wearing apparel festooned with Che the torturer and killer on them.  You can't stop a bad idea by not talking about them, by not calling attention to how bad they are, by not seeking to show how bad they are by the fact that those you seek to talk to will call you racist, phobic or any of a million other names to distract from the fact they are unwilling to talk about how bad their ideas actually are.  Not talking about them allows them to spread because they are malignant and when not countered by simple logic their interior emotional venom allows people to justify all sorts of activities.

Like invading the grounds of Embassies.

Like killing Ambassadors and other protected individuals, which is an Act of War.

Like mass murder.

Like subjugation of the meek by tyrants.

In the end Mr. Posner puts this out:

The final irony is that while the White House did no more than timidly plead with Google to check if the anti-Muslim video violates its policies (appeasement! shout the critics), Google itself approached the controversy in the spirit of prudence. The company declined to remove the video from YouTube because the video did not attack a group (Muslims) but only attacked a religion (Islam). Yet it also cut off access to the video in countries such as Libya and Egypt where it caused violence or violated domestic law. This may have been a sensible middle ground, or perhaps Google should have done more. What is peculiar it that while reasonable people can disagree about whether a government should be able to curtail speech in order to safeguard its relations with foreign countries, the Google compromise is not one that the U.S. government could have directed. That’s because the First Amendment protects verbal attacks on groups as well as speech that causes violence (except direct incitement: the old cry of “Fire!” in a crowded theater). And so combining the liberal view that government should not interfere with political discourse, and the conservative view that government should not interfere with commerce, we end up with the bizarre principle that U.S. foreign policy interests cannot justify any restrictions on speech whatsoever. Instead, only the profit-maximizing interests of a private American corporation can. Try explaining that to the protesters in Cairo or Islamabad.

Again, note the bolded part of this.  Google, as a corporate entity (which is to say an incorporated person) exercised judgment and did what it thought was best.  This is a very exercise of the First Amendment right of Google which is a positive exercise of that right.  Of course this isn't what the government we currently have would have wanted, but so what?  Our rights do not come from government, we only ask that it protect those rights.  And the ability to exercise prudence, caution and adapt circumspection to individual actions is fully and completely within the realm of individuals.

But Mr. Posner decries that very 'profit making entity', which means that if Google were a charitable outfit, that its decisions would be OK?  Those are incorporated entities, as well, yet they do not seek a profit.  The implication is that the US government should impose laws on corporations to make them abide by the will of government policy.  Yet that is not a power handed to the federal government via the contract we call the US Constitution.  If the US government wishes to restrict all civil communications with certain governments then it can do so, of course, but that isn't what Mr. Posner is seeking via his construction of the equation.  He is posing that corporations should become an arm of government policy.  That means every religious organization, every charity, every small business, every thing that we do when we agree to work together and incorporate an entity comes under the control of the US government for speech and, by implication, all foreign policy.  Yet it has not the power to do so because we do not grant such powers to the government.  Nor to any government.

What you hear is the beg for totalitarianism under the guise of anti-capitalism.  Even worse it is a begging to destroy the meaning of our contracts writ small, between individuals, and writ large, between the people and their government.  Mr. Posner doesn't seek a trade in liberty for security, but a trade in liberty for tyranny with no interceding points.

Directions of political parties

USA Today is soliciting input on where the Republican Party should go in the future and, really, that is not my place to say.

What I can and do look at is the future of the entire political landscape over the next 20 to 50 years and when looking at that it does not look anything like our current political landscape much of anywhere on the planet.  As the United States has been a leader in many things, the direction that the Nation is starting to move in is one that is beginning to reflect some of the basics of why I started this particular blog: getting back to basics and seeing that the greatest power for the force of good for all mankind is the unchained individual.  To understand how this stuff works the back to basics part is necessary as I laid out in my very first post for this site.

The concept known as Federalism is embodied in the US Constitution and it depends on a moral people who will do the heavy lifting of creating society to do their job at the lowest, most accessible level to them.  That is not the government of the Nation State which is far too gross and coarse a level to deal with local matters.  There is nothing as important as moving away from the idea that a 'social contract' is embodied by any law at the Nation State level and that the 'social contract' is the agreeable form of government that the people have instituted amongst themselves as upheld in spare, even sparse, written form that delimits power to the Nation State and reserves powers to the State (the interior unit of the United States equivalent to provinces in other Nations) and the individual.  Beyond that it is a Do It Yourself concept at play that revolves around republican form of government.

A republican form of government (as opposed to the Republican Party that seems to have forgotten what a republican form of government actually is) is one that divides power internally amongst branches of government and gives them each separate and sovereign domains of power (not rights) that serve the people and act as a check and balance amongst themselves so that no branch dares to over-reach its power domain to swallow up all of government.

Future political parties are wise to mirror this system of federalism with checks and balances internal to their party structure so that no single body ends up being the 'deciding' organization and that the organization, as a whole, is led by its membership, not by party officials.

That is a very stark direction to go that is distinctly different from anything on the political landscape much of anywhere on the planet today.  Yet it is not a radical proposition, at all, as if you acknowledge that federalism is the best way to put power into mutual check with final over-ride by the people of a Nation, then it is a good direction to go for any political party of such a Nation to model itself on that objective, directly.  This is known as 'Do as You Say' and is a part of the concept of Honor:

Do as You Say.

Say what You Mean.

Mean what You Do.

If you espouse 'conservative values' and uphold the Founding era documents and the Founders, then you must back federalism to the hilt and admit that individuals are the greatest moral actors in this life and that Nation States are a mere and shallow reflection of them.  Any system for any form of human activity that vests unchecked power and authority into few hands without immediate and stiff checks and balances, with limitations, is an authoritarian one.  Political parties that become authoritarian, that have governing organizations that create rules to reflect the impetus of those doing the governing is no longer trusting the members of the party for direction and living by an example that admits that power must be recognized first and foremost at the lowest levels of the organization.  That is going Back To Basics and putting Honor into what you espouse.

I've given outline as to how this works in the modern era in Dawn of a New Era and this means that modern ideas must be incorporated into a party so that its membership can better organize at the lowest levels so as to tell the highest levels what to do based on local concerns.  Most of that will be: Mind Your Own Business.

The drivers for the New Era are ones that address the capability of the individual to process information and network with each other so as to shift data to information to knowledge and personal wisdom at an increasing rate of speed over time.  As individuals do this they will remove older power structures between themselves and higher levels, sharing information with their like minded fellows and from that process will emerge a new and slimmed down, less powerful party system.

An end result is one that I outlined within my first ten posts in what such a party will look like (called The Jacksonian Party as there is no other name I could actually put on it at the time).  This is a party concept that doesn't follow President Jackson, but follows what those who put him into office had to deal with on a daily basis and how that social idea became something that spread and prospered in the United States.  This is a cultural phenomena and it leads to end-states driven by multiple factors to reduce the size, scope and power of political parties over time.  A result is a decentralized, disintermediated political structure in which a political party is a mere framework of ideas that helps individuals as candidates to run for office.  A requirement is that the actual party structure, and those helping to govern it, are given very little money and no say in individual candidates at all.

Again, to repeat that: the governing organs of a party are given no say in individual candidates and no money to back 'preferred' ones at all.

Such a political party is run via the agreeable laws and by-laws that members agree to adhere to. Those are created at the most local level and use a federalist form of system to find across-the-board topics suitable to higher power levels of office that do not infringe on the rights and powers of individuals nor upon lower government structural levels.  Inherently federalism recognizes the sovereign power of the people through its compacts to create government and when government is created at any level it is given a separate and sovereign domain within that sovereign power that may be checked and balanced, but cannot be repealed by, other parts of government or other governments at different power scales unless agreed-to by the people.

We call these social contracts Constitutions and within the United States each State has one.  All States agree to the powers granted to the Nation State government as they are the signatories to the US Constitution, and that sign-off is backed by the people of that State as voiced not just via their government but by themselves in the majority.  Similar is done at the State level although States may have different requirements for amending their constitutions so long as it is in a republican form of government.

Adhering to such structures is something that is done by individuals as part of their daily lives, and to that end the political parties they form will reflect that individuals are capable of leading their own lives with minimal outside government interference.  When citizens are trapped by a web of laws, rules and regulations, the object of the rule of law is lost which is a self-ordered society that has citizens holding each other to account for their actions.  Laws are a framework of accountability for actions, not a coercive means to force people into certain behaviors but as a system of punishments against behavior destructive to the social order.

This does not create the modern socialist/progressive concept of 'the personal is the political' but leads to an understanding that politics is driven by individuals and is reflective of them, and that such politics as are necessary are just that: necessary and not a force for good.  Positive morality is created by individuals and political parties must respect that and must not seek to foster the use of negative powers to that end.  Punishment is punishment, it is not the moral and social good in and of itself and only through the use of the positive powers of individuals is that positive moral life created.  Removing negative actors from society for punishment is the necessary function of that organ of society we call government and it is not the brain, as organs go, but the more process oriented ones that remove unwanted or dangerous items from the body for the overall health of the body of society.  The idea of making the personal into the political creates a cancer within the organs of government as it seeks to cater to each and every individual want, not address the needs of the body, and soon those organs are crowding out the functioning of the body of society and killing it.

As all of these things are based on self-evident truths, that all men are created equal and endowed with their Creator with certain unalienable rights and amongst these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Indeed all rights and powers start with the individual and none accrue to higher orders of government that are not already within individuals.  There is no power or right that accrues to any government of any society and that society is, itself, created when individuals agree within themselves to forebear the use of negative powers and rights to save protect their families, their homes and their very selves.  Society must reflect this self-governance, abide by it and recognize that self-government is the highest of all forms of government invented amongst men as it is the most powerful as it uses the power of restraint to create good amongst men.

In less than a century (indeed, perhaps less than two decades) it is this power, unleashed by the distributive forces of knowledge amongst men that will reshape the political and social structure not just of the United States but of the world and all mankind.  As we step into an era where the power of the individual to self-govern becomes paramount, this puts the positive liberties of man to create a moral and just society with limited government as an end product of this recognition, not a goal or end-state by any means.  Our politics will remain as divided as ever amongst Nations as all Nations have the sovereign right of their people to have a free and independent society that has, amongst the powers of the Earth, the ability to create government to suit them.  These things that are representative of such differences we call Nations and they start not at the Nation State level but at the level of family, home and hearth.

Any political party seeking to create a power over all men that isn't God but mere government is seeking an Empire and tyranny.

And their day is drawing to a close as the Dawn of a New Era begins.

My advice to the Republican Party, indeed all political parties: get with the program or your days are numbered.

The Process

From Rudyard Kipling's The Gods of the Copybook Headings:

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

A simple beginning going from water being wet, fire burning us and 2+2=4.

Do note that bound up in these are some of the major tenets of modern Progressivism:

- Handgun control will help everyone... not make us all victims for criminals.

- Loving thy neighbor allows free love... and then you end up loving his wife.

- Birth control, abortion and all those lovely things will free women in the name of population control... and soon the demographics will show that the Nation will not survive.

- A 'social safety net' will 'help' the old and poor... which means you must rob the young and rich to get it destroying the very fabric making up such a 'social safety net'.

- Really there is plenty of money to go around... just print it until the leaves of the trees are worth more than the paper in your pocket.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings are very real in that they are the way in which the world works once man attempts to create society and Nations, for these two go hand-in-hand.  Without restraining ourselves by utilizing reason to control our actions, we become savages towards ourselves, firstly, and our fellow man.  When this happens man moves ever closer to villainizing the few for personal gain and, by that discontent, upsetting the social order and process which then corrodes society.

With the establishment of reason and willing to love our mates and our children, we create the first bond of society that creates the Nation: we agree amongst those we love to put aside savagery and care for each other not as a collective but as individuals.  All our freedom and liberty is within us, no Nation holds any single thing that we do not as individuals and any government created is to look after our negative liberties and utilize them only to protect us. 

The personal form of 'wealth redistribution' is called robbery when done by individuals, and taxation when done by governments.  We agree to this minor evil to create the few things necessary to oversee those individuals who will not self-govern and become a threat to us all.

The personal form of offensive warfare when done by individuals is called piracy or terrorism or brigandage, when we put together a means to utilize it to go after a common foe we turn it into public warfare which requires a declaration if we are to attack and the reasons to do so.  Individuals cannot draft up articles of war as they do not hold themselves to be judged by any other entity, they assume full power for all actions against all mankind.  They can win only by pulling all of mankind down to their level, and then a long, long road back to being civilized ensues.

The personal form of restraint of others is called bondage or slavery, while the public form is called incarceration or imprisonment, and it has controls over it to protect the innocent from it.

In all of these things, and many more, government is described thusly by Tom Paine in Common Sense:

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

We form society with our fellow man and agreement with him on how to protect each other.  This simple means of agreement creates government which is then bound up in the Nation we have already created by ourselves.  We create government not to uphold the good but to restrain the wicked.  Morality in government is only in that wickedness and predation are kept at bay from our positive discourse and intercourse that creates society.  When government becomes the upholder of virtue and promulgator of that which is good, it then is given power to not only restrain the wicked but to punish the good to the dictates of said government which we call tyrannical: that which should be a boon to all is provided the whip and the carrot so that we are molded into what government wants us to be, not allow us to become the best people we can possibly be.

How can government become a pure evil?  By men putting aside their desire to practice good on their own and wish to make it something that government does.

In his farewell address George Washington first reiterated what had come before:

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

Our union is made up by individuals which is stated via We The People.  While this is a collective it is not a collective that seeks to abolish individuality so that there is only a collective self, but that which is a collection of like-minded individuals that are willing to look out for each other and seek common governance and to always hold such governance under scrutiny.  The collective cannot perform such scrutiny, only individuals have that power and that right to do so.

In creating a republic George Washington then seeks to ask a most pertinent question that had vexed all of those who reviewed history because republics were prone to fail via their very size when grown large:

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.

Here the warning is against not only differential favors that others would seek to bestow so as to turn States against each other, but to warn that the holding of an ongoing military establishment at the national level is also a threat to the republic and liberty.  The form of militia the States utilized were, thusly, a bulwark for the citizenry to express dedication to the union, and a benefit to the union during wars in that the voluntary citizen soldier would be summoned to perform for their nation and their fellow man during times of trouble.  States would not have the ability for external military ventures and as the forces were all volunteer operating under guidelines, the States would have no standing army to threaten its citizens.

From this system of making the national government weak in this realm and the States strong, but not overbearing, the nation would have the capability for local self-governance and direct means to hold the national government accountable via the militia structure.  The right to keep and bear arms goes far beyond the positive aspect of personal warfare (self-defense) and the derived right of property (defense of property) but here is given a further positive aspect as defending one's State against tyrannical national government.

From Kipling the lash is implied, from Paine it is seen as a necessary instrument and here George Washington points out its positive valuation in upkeep of liberty and republican form of government to allow a wide-scale support of a republic by its component parts.  From that the responsibility for national defense lies not in the national government, which only declares or responds to war, nor in the States, that only provide for guidelines and supervision of militia, but with the citizenry that must be armed and know the means and methods of warfare.  This describes a pyramid of troops that has a small cadre at the national level, an intermediate cadre that is formalized at the State level and all citizens for defense of the nation at every turn and place.  This is just as it should be as those rights and liberty to have a nation start with the individuals and they, therefore, are depended upon to exercise those positive liberties and freedom in defense of the nation.

All ability to have a nation that defends liberty then rests not upon government at the highest level but at the lowest level of self-government.  This is the premise of how to make a large scale republic work.

Within the next paragraph the problems that can cause this to fail are then reviewed:

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

The warning against the parochial geographic advantages is not even put just at the State level but that of the districts within States.  Here corruption is seen as starting not on high, at the national level, but at the lowest level, that which is most local to you.  A corrupt system does not arrive with an instant dictator but through a corruption of normal processes that allow for the corrosion of trust between the citizens and their government via partisan favoritism displayed by those elected to office.

Beneficial government at the national level prevents external gaming of the republican system at the lowest level, but this is no sinecure against the gaming from within.  Here, too, corruption is a source of problems:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

Here the full-blown context of the problem of local government at the district level is played out as it leads to larger scale corruption at the highest level.  This is done by factions which we come to call parties political, that seek to divide the common interest into special interests and by that means co-opt a portion of the whole from the whole for partisan gain.  Government is via the delegates who are representative of the will of the people, not the actual organs of government.  When political faction seeks to make such organs that are not directly accountable to the people and that can be swayed by political faction, then ideology is put before the common good by the minority through the offices of government.

This is what Tom Paine meant when he said "our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."  The co-optation of government by the minority for their will done via the delegated means then becomes a system of unprincipled use of government power against the common good and the common man.  From this the corruption spreads from its lowest point, in districts seeking partisan favor and gain for factional supporters, upwards into the national government by seeking the means to put in unaccountable organs that are then swayed by delegates who are partisan.

Cunning and ambitious ideologues will seek to sell factional gain as a benefit to all and establish, as their means, changes to the Constitution.  This then changes the power and accountability structure of the Constitution, itself, to be amenable to partisan means rather than the common good.  Direct differential taxation was restricted away from federal powers by design, and by design that was changed in Amendment XVI which was promised never to create an income tax above 7% and which, within 7 years of enacting it, this had jumped to 70%.  This also removed the check and balance to federal spending by having the States act as intermediaries for collection of taxation apportioned by population size.  Similarly Amendment XVII had changed the structure of the Senate away from that of appointments by State government so as to form a State governmental check on the federal government, to one in which the popular vote was substituted so as to remove the balance of State input into the national system.  These two amendments, along with Amendment XVIII on the Prohibition of Alcohol, are all amendments pushed by the Progressive movement in America.

These Amendments have garnered the population a tax code filled with favoritism and partisanship, a rubber-stamp Senate for expansion of government bodies and power, and the requirement of some sanity to say that trying to stop alcohol use is too far, but to then say that use of other drugs  can be restricted as they are used by a very small faction within the nation.  Here the will of the majority is now played upon, beset by regulations and then utilized to demonize the use of medicinal agents that can be abused and are addictive.  Yet substances agreeable to the majority that also have those characteristics are left with only minor inflictions of power via taxation upon them.  This last is the imposition of morality via the tax code and taxation is, in every instance, a necessary evil only and not a moral good.  From such a tool no moral good can arise and only the demonstration that going against morality is punished be derived.  Do as you are told or else, not do what is good because it is good, is the maxim and it is used upon children.  Adults are moral agents for themselves and society and should know better and see punishment as the only recourse from when they can no longer govern themselves and protect society from their negative liberties.  If government could instill morality, then the prevention of the ability to distill liquor would have been a final and ending point to its use and abuse, and yet just the contrary happened.

Changes in government structure and power are, therefore, things to be done slowly and with due deliberation not only at the highest level but at the lowest: not something to be pushed forward in 7 years for political and factional reasons but something to be deliberated for decades, if necessary, to see if the necessary instrument for change is truly government or if it can be satisfied by some other industry by the people as a whole.  The positive liberties of the people are far more numerous and far more powerful than the oversight of negative liberties that we empower government to perform.  Government, then, is the last and least of our common tools to help society to flourish and to care for the sick, elderly and needy, not the first.  Government can only create via the subtraction of power and wealth from the people, while the people who are creative, can generate more power for good and wealth via their industry which is a benefit to all of society and allows others to flourish and prosper.  Prosperity is the absence of governmental oversight upon our selves, our bodies, our property and our work which is the manifestation of our liberty. 

Having freedom to work, alone, is of little value if government regulates the liberty at all turns and then determines what it is you may keep by your own work and what must be handed over to government as its due.  This is an ill when considering taxation, and needs to be restricted.  When it is used to determine when you work, how long you work, for how much you can work and what your working conditions are, then you are no longer the responsible actor in your own working life and government has usurped that role.  Tyranny does not come stamping in and crashing through the doors, but is invited in as a means to 'help' others by restricting them: the boot to the face forever starts with the helping hand which is also that of the pickpocket of government.  Once you gladly accept the petty tyranny upon an employer, you then make yourself the target for the greater tyranny of restriction of all your other liberties because you have handed over the means to do so to government via your personal and factional ideologies that see the restrictions of others as fine and never realize that they also are a restriction upon you, as well.

Would that this was just a particular problem and could be easily solved!  Unfortunately George Washington goes on from there to describe just where this arises:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

Here the cause is laid out for all to see: human nature.

When we create parties and factions along with that comes factional conflict of the civil form.  Civil factional conflict is known by many names over time as the faction types and societies change:  the War of the Roses, the Praetorian Guards, the Houses of the Hapsburgs, Sultans against Emirs, Emperor against Governors, Stalinists and Trotskyites, National and International Socialists... on and on and on throughout history all the way to Democrats and Republicans.  When factional ideology represented by a minority gains power it then rubs the other party the wrong way which has its own minority viewpoint.  In theory the common good should be represented but, in fact, both minorities have views of what is right and wrong via the institution of government and then seek to place their own priorities down upon them so as to inflict them upon the common people.   This doesn't matter if it is a Sun Emperor seeking to play favorites amongst relatives and Governors or the shifting alliances of Nobles during the 30 Years War or the imposition of Party Machines via the electoral process everywhere from Weimar to Tammany Hall.  The result of factional conflict is the spirit of revenge.

Again the corruption of the people starts not on-high but with the petty struggles between parties and factions, so that there is an emotional investment of individuals in their party above the common good.  When the seeking of power becomes an end in inflicting one's ideologies upon the public and to punish one's adversaries, then no matter how 'good' the rationale that is put forward it is always, and ever, the welcome of the tyrant to dinner.

Class warfare is just such a means, as it attempts to pit the putative rich against the desperate poor, and yet if the rich are pulled down where will jobs come from?  If prosperity for the individual is not protected, then how is wealth generation sustained?  And if there is not a diverse economy but one directed to the ends of government, how can that adapt to new events and times without having the benefit of depth of diversity within it that allows for adaptation at the lowest level of concern?  At each and every point when the power of government is utilized it is a negative factor as it impedes growth, diversity, and personal achievement and impoverishes all through the restriction of liberty and factional redistribution of wealth to no long term good ends at all.

How are these organs of government turned from those of the common good to such despotic and tyrannical ends?  This subject is simple due to the increasing complexity of government that is forced upon it by each faction, in turn:

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

In our time we have seen the consolidation of numerous government agencies into larger ones.  The Dept. of Homeland Security is one such, the Department of Justice another, and while the Director of National Intelligence is not created as being powerful it has its ability to direct large swaths of the Intelligence Community both towards foreign problems and domestic ones.  Where there were once numerous and restricted agencies and departments there are now larger ones with less well defined purposes and goals.  It is this that erodes the distinction between what is legally constituted as a restricted set of powers and what is agglomerated to become something that has no proper Constitutional basis.  Government is given very few and special powers that are each of them distinct and defined: when those lines are blurred they become indistinct and oppressive in size, scope and nature.  In a prior post I went over this by utilizing a fictional setting created by Fred Saberhagen that described what this means via his Swords books and what it means to have discrete powers that are sovereign.  Here is the poem in that series that describes them:

THE SONG OF SWORDS

Who holds Coinspinner knows good odds

Whichever move he make

But the Sword of Chance, to please the gods

Slips from him like a snake.

 

The Sword of Justice balances the pans

Of right and wrong, and foul and fair.

Eye for an eye, Doomgiver scans

The fate of all folk everywhere.

 

Dragonslicer, Dragonslicer, how d'you slay?

Reaching for the heart in behind the scales.

Dragonslicer, Dragonslicer, where do you stay?

In the belly of the giant that my blade impales.

 

Farslayer howls across the world

For thy heart, for thy heart, who hast wronged me!

Vengeance is his who casts the blade

Yet he will in the end no triumph see.

 

Whose flesh the Sword of Mercy hurts has drawn no breath;

Whose soul it heals has wandered in the night,

Has paid the summing of all debts in death

Has turned to see returning light.

 

The Mindsword spun in the dawn's gray light

And men and demons knelt down before.

The Mindsword flashed in the midday bright

Gods joined the dance, and the march to war.

It spun in the twilight dim as well

And gods and men marched off to hell.

 

I shatter Swords and splinter spears;

None stands to Shieldbreaker.

My point's the fount of orphans' tears

My edge the widowmaker.

 

The Sword of Stealth is given to

One lonely and despised.

Sightblinder's gifts: his eyes are keen

His nature is disguised.

 

The Tyrant's Blade no blood hath spilled

But doth the spirit carve

Soulcutter hath no body killed

But many left to starve.

 

The Sword of Siege struck a hammer's blow

With a crash, and a smash, and a tumbled wall.

Stonecutter laid a castle low

With a groan, and a roar, and a tower's fall.

 

Long roads the Sword of Fury makes

Hard walls it builds around the soft

The fighter who Townsaver takes

Can bid farewell to home and croft.

 

Who holds Wayfinder finds good roads

Its master's step is brisk.

The Sword of Wisdom lightens loads

But adds unto their risk.

(end of the song)

Each Sword is Sovereign within its domain with only one Sword able to cancel all, but one, itself.  There are checks and balances between Swords as there are within powers of republican government: each has its domain that is defined and cannot cross them without losing the cause and meaning of its direct power.  Even the most Omni-canceling Sword has, itself, a foil that will take it down as well, so that even the mightiest has counter and there is no counter to that one as its power is only positive, not negative at all.  Each negative power must have a domain as, at first, a sovereign power which is part and parcel of national government as seen in Law of Nations, and by republican form which casts separate powers into separate areas within national government.

Unlike other books on law, Law of Nations is a descriptive set of laws, not a prescriptive nor proscriptive set of laws. Law of Nations is universal to mankind by being man and having the ability to set aside negative liberties for common oversight and accept the necessary evil of government that forms the State to uphold the Nation.  Because it is universal, every government formed by individuals resides under it without regard to region, time period, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or any other thing.  You get Law of Nations by having marriage and creating families, not by having someone administer it to you.  Each of the sovereign powers we delegate to the nation is described in Law of Nations which is amenable to any form of government as they all have the same set of powers.  All of the Presidents at least up to Abraham Lincoln and, arguably, up to Teddy Roosevelt, understood the concepts embodied by this concept.

Washington sees that these powers are ones that are not just tools but weapons and they, like Saberhagen's SWORDS, can be used for ill within their domain and used by the few to subjugate the many.  We can not get rid of these powers unless we become savages and find ourselves willing to kill our loved ones and children for base personal desire.  Government is the organ of society that is created to stop this from happening, and yet when that organ turns toxic it becomes the weapon that is the ill to the body as a whole.  Once it starts to grow it can become cancerous and over-run the body and, finally, destroy it which requires the regeneration of a fresh body and set of organs by those who remain.

The main protection from this happening?  Knowledge.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

First off Washington performs the cart-horse order agreement by putting the horse, that is virtue or morality, before the cart, which is popular government.

The means of safety against corrupt and factional government?  Knowledge dissemination.  Here it must be noted that the institutions are not being delegated to the necessary evil, which is to say government, but to those things created by the people to create public opinion.  Public opinion cannot be created by government and the people remain free and with liberty as once it becomes the fount of opinion creation those who are in power will bend that opinion system to their will.

Edward Bernays in Propaganda (1928) put it like this in pp. 11-12:

It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must find a way to make free competition function with reasonable smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.

Some of the phenomena of this process are criticized— the manipulation of news, the inflation of personality, and the general ballyhoo by which politicians and commercial products and social ideas are brought to the consciousness of the masses. The instruments by which public opinion is organized and focused may be misused. But such organization and focusing are necessary to orderly life.

As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.

With the printing press and the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes, ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously over the whole of America.

The 'invisible government' are those who promulgate messages and ideology inside and outside of government to sway public opinion.  Previously described are political parties to give 'order' to our political choices otherwise we would be left choosing a multitude of people and then have this messy process to narrow down who is to represent us in government which he describes just prior to this:

It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government, and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence in our national politics of anything like the modern political machine. But the American voters soon found that without organization and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens or hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.

What George Washington describes, however, is just such a political machine and how it comes about and what it does.  The concept of 'political machine' is seen as new and progressive in the time of Bernays, and yet describes the machinations of every dictator, tyrant and monarch in history: they each promulgated propaganda to further themselves, their cohorts and their factions from Mayan stelae and temple inscriptions to Egyptian hieroglyphics that always tended to portray the current ruler as the greatest and closest to the deities to the politically directed religious dogmas of the 30 Years War amongst various sects that changed by whoever was in power all the way known to Washington (in whole or in part).  Indeed the most depressing thing reading Progressive Era ideas is how backwards they seem when they refer to political machines as modern institutions.

These tyrannical and despotic ideas were given a new set of clothes in the Progressive Era, but the nature of what they were put on soon seeped through them so that their horrific effects could be seen, anew.  These are not brand-new ills, just the same old ones visiting us with a different pitch-line supplied to them by those who seek to endow themselves at the cost of the public and to the benefit of the factional, chosen few.

It is this corrosive concept that the few need to herd the many and make basic decisions for them that now is the problem in modern life: not only are the political mechanisms not adapting they are not made to adapt to such rapidly changing circumstances while individuals are.  Indeed you are reading this through a system that allows access to either source documents either directly (via online content) or indirectly via purchase link.  The Bernays text, itself, has been pirated numerous times so only a bit of searching can help you find it.  Do note that this is necessary as the government has been used by partisan interests of corporations to extend the copyright beyond an original 10+10years or semi-modern 16+16 years to now go to life+some years, putting such texts outside of the public domain that Bernays said was insufficient to garner information.  If you don't think an author can or should benefit beyond their natural life or a very modest set period of time, then you have the influence of Edward Bernays to thank for that as these are the 'invisible governors' showing their hand.

This then moves me to where the article began and to give the last few lines of Kipling:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

We are not destined to repeat history if we but bothered to learn it.