- One half of one sentence in a recent e-mail from political
columnist SARTRE (James Hall) to me, which read, "...what's with the
Progressives?" roused me from my months-long sloth. SARTRE tends
to get the creaky wheels squeaking that way.
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- SARTRE and I have known each other, virtually, since
1998 or so, have performed strategic service to several notable Right/libertarian
Web sites; we are of like-minds on most political matters (temperament
aside--being older, he's a bit more patient than am I). We've also been
similarly disgusted by so-called "conservative" venues taking
up the hue-and-cry of state-sponsored extortion. & so, when a question
such as the one he posed comes down the pike, I listen.
-
- To the crux of the biscuit: There's been a rush of articles
at so-called Progressive web sites which, in the olden days, before the
Great Confusion that was 9/11, would be mistaken for either hard-Right
or genuine libertarian thought. Such a paradigm shift tends to put a spin
in ones skull. Things get confusing when sites which pushed Nader in 2000
begin publishing preacher Chuck Baldwin's columns ("Johnny Ain't Never
Marching Home: Throw Away the Yellow Ribbons"), or that of Texas Congressman
Ron Paul. But these are strange times...
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- When I was young, and given to listening and believing
my elders, just because they were my elders, I learned that the political
spectrum is a left-right continuum. On the left, was pure totalitarian
communism (Stalin); on the right, fascism (Mussolini) or Nazi-thought (Hitler).
No one questioned this model. It just was.
-
- When I joined the John Birch Society in 1985, I was introduced
to a far more logical, rational and comprehensible model: that being, that
the spectrum is that of a horseshoe. On the left is still pure totalitarian
communism (Stalin); but on the extreme right, instead, is pure anarchy--the
complete lack of government. & the chasm between both is very narrow--anarchy
being essentially a vacuum (impossible to sustain, largely theoretical
in nature, leaderless, chaotic, until a forceful leader takes hold, which
is inevitable, and the cowering sheeple succumb to his/her wiles). No
longer a dues-paying member of the JBS, the model made sense to me then
and still does.
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- In this horseshoe spectrum, the American constitution
is "slightly to the right"; the Articles of Confederation (pre-1776)
would be even further to the right (and more favorable, to my tastes).
Someone like Texas Congressman Ron Paul (a libertarian) would be about
3/5ths the way to the extreme right (perfect, to my view). But Mussolini?
Hitler? Pure, calculated propaganda on the part of the historians and
state-sanctioned political pundits. Bullsh*t.
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- At the core of this conundrum is Free Will. After which,
all is crystal clear.
-
- In the Stalinistic model (as in the current North Korean
regime of Kim Jong-il), there is none (Free Will); all action is determined
by the State; all choices "given" to one by his feudal master,
largely under penalty of harsh judgement, even unto death. In a pure,
anarchist model (& I've chosen Aleister Crowley as the model for this--the
early 20th-century warlock), "do what thou wilt" is the siren's
cry; a purely hedonistic exercise in self-indulgence, absent societal conscience.
The bitch--for State theorists--is, that there is no current nation-state
that espouses pure anarchy. It is only theory, and which is why the "traditional"
left-right linear continuum is so fallacious.
-
- There has never been a nation based on anarchy--for more
than 3 weeks, until such time a strong-man or team of strong-men emerges
to take over the dizzied Masses.
-
- Mussolini, it is said, "made the trains run on time,"
by nationalizing Italy's railways system; & perhaps he did. At what
cost, to those private investors and innovators of Italy's railways systems,
I don't know (such is beyond my expertise and allotted time-table). Hitler's
regime introduced the system of eugenics, which--given enough time--will
deprive every human being of his/her basic rights (of free association,
of marriage, of birth, even--not dissimilar to Red China's "one-child,
no girls included" forced-abortion policy). Crowley may have called
himself "The Beast 666," but he was a freedom-fighter in comparison.
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- And even of the horseshoe model, there are anomalies:
arranged marriages of Japan (forced, and mostly loveless engagements, suppurated
by relentless adultery following said marriage); the Confucian elder-is-always
right model of Korea; the caste-system of India. Polygamous dependencies
in Utah and elsewhere. Untold oddities in Africa.
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- When American "Progressives"--which has meant,
historically, "socialists," of the stripe of long-ago Presidential
candidate and Wobbly/union leader Eugene Debs--begin running articles by
die-hard Jeffersonian anti-federalist (Ron Paul's ideological ancestors)
writers such as SARTRE and Chuck Baldwin, the smart money should know that
we're just about at boiling point.
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- In the words of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats,
"the center cannot hold."
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- And thank God for that.
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