I spend a lot of time on that and I can't get there from here with the US as currently constituted. We would have to ditch the Empire and probably divide the country.
Ideas have consequences, and ideas come principally from the universities. Didn't Ayn Rand make this exact point numerous times? I am sure she would have agreed with anyone who made this claim, Marxist or otherwise. It seems Rufo's fundamental problem is that he wants to seize the means of idea-transmission but doesn't have a coherent assemblage of ideas to transmit. Will the universities be the idea-transmitters of the future? "Bad Cattitude" has a good letter today: He says the elite universities are "over" but don't realize it. The best and brightest students are disintermediating the Ivy League, and this trend will accelerate. Call it "just walk away" at the university level. I remain open to this and other possible solutions. Worth a read, and you'll get a laugh:
I would like to share some of my own thoughts on where I think we are today.
The Self-Reliant Man: A Vanishing Species
Zoos exhibit species of animals that have been (and many still are) close to extinction. I am old enough to remember when Blue Whales became extinct (as a practical matter). Today Blue Whales are only endangered, but their population is reportedly increasing. (Source: NOAA Fisheries)
Sadly, the same cannot be said for the self-reliant man.
The self-reliant man may be no more extinct than the Blue Whale was in the ‘70s, but this species faces an uphill battle to change his status to endangered.
The founding fathers ever mindful that individual liberty needed protecting, produced the two greatest sources for the protection of the self-reliant man: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.
President Lincoln fought an internecine war that would finally fulfill the incomplete promise “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
But somewhere along the way America allowed itself to fall prey to the envies of inferior men, who want status and money without earning either—the sinecurist.
Such a job is conveniently called a
sinecure — “easy job, soft option; informal cushy number, money for old rope, money for jam, picnic, doddle, walk in the park, cinch, gravy train”. (Oxford Dictionary)
The sinecurist is not a new breed of man. This parasite can be found throughout the history of Western Civilization. Monarchs would reward such feckless men with titles and government positions that included generous emoluments with little or no actual responsibilities. Today we call this sinecurist among other things a bureaucrat.
But there are still other useless types of men who perform in posts and positions that require little actual skill or independent thought. Whatever entrance “requirements” exist have been deliberately diluted by what once were called guilds but now are labor unions.
There is also a more dangerous species of useless man: the intellectual. This man is not unintelligent like many sinecurist. The intellectual may be found to possess an impressive mind, which gained him entrance to the most prestigious institutions. The intellectual may find refuge in the top positions of the labor unions or other guilds of a sort.
Of course, a select, few, ambitious intellectuals will distinguish themselves and gain entrance into politics and government.
Why is this the pinnacle for such men? To quote the notorious bank robber, Willie Sutton, who when asked why he robbed banks said, “because that’s where the money is”. (Credit: Malcolm Gladwell's Revenge of the Tipping Point)
There was a day not so long ago when self-reliant men roamed North America. These courageous men settled this great country. Many men and their families went west to find good lands for farming and many became merchants and professionals as small towns were built along the way.
But never did such self-reliant men look for handouts or government jobs…..
Not until our Republic transformed itself into a Democracy. Not all at once to be sure, but little by little, our political parties and our politicians turned government into the “Aristocracy of Pull”. (Credit: Ayn Rand)
Politicians kept making more and more promises in exchange for support and votes. Somewhere along the way, government got into the business of being in business.
Today, Americans are reaping what they sowed. The national debt will soon hit $37 trillion and keep on growing. Most Americans don’t even realize that our country is already bankrupt. Our total outstanding obligations (including our unfunded promises to pay out welfare benefits) is really over $100 trillion. (Credit: Jim Brown’s A Black Hole in Economics)
We need to save the self-reliant man and hope his population starts increasing exponentially, each successive generation.
We need to embrace these timeless words:
“Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means enterprise, it means the capacity for doing without. The free man is one who has won a small and precarious territory from the great mob of his inferiors, and is prepared and ready to defend it and make it support him. All around him are enemies, and where he stands there is no friend. He can hope for little help from other men of his own kind, for they have battles of their own to fight. He has made of himself a sort of god in his little world, and he must face the responsibilities of a god, and the dreadful loneliness.” (From Notes on Democracy— H.L. Mencken)
None of this may matter. Trump's madhouse is invalidating MAGA by the hour, demonstrating far more effectively than the opposition could the incompetence and wrecking ball lunacy of the Establishment's opposition. Populism is being strangled in the cradle, and the Alt Right, the Far Right, the Almost Never Right will perish along with it. Gramsci Shmanci--young Rufo can say and do what he wants, but with human capital like this to work with, the Left has little to worry about.
Excellent article, Professor. I have one clarifying question:
“Second, the Establishment has been coming to the fight club of American politics using the Marquess of Queensberry Rules while the left comes to every fight with switch blades and guns. The Establishment has not been willing to play hardball.”
When you say that the “Establishment,” meaning Conservative - Libertarianism Inc., hasn’t been willing to play hardball, what you mean concretely is that they aren’t willing to try and influence and control the ideas behind certain cultural groups such as “MTV and the Boy Scouts,” as well as schools and other organizations/institutions, correct?
Thought-provoking, as usual! My own summary of Russo's work would be this:
When dealing with nature, "ends" certainly justify "means." When dealing with other humans in the sphere of politics, however, the "means" ARE the "ends!"
Two observations. Pleased to see your reference to the Marquess of Queensberry. My most frequently deployed epithet for a decade or more has been 'Queensberry Rules Republicans' for those Republicans who constantly reach across the aisle to concede their position as a concession to bipartisanship. Republicans might have been the House minority for 40 years, but that ended in 1994, yet they continue to operate as if a 'go along to get along' party. Not a good look if intent on winning, as voters will have the tendency to vote for the real thing, rather than for the politicians that keep conceding ground to the opposition.
And since Saul Alinsky's 1971 release of "Rules for Radicals," RfR has essentially been the ground rules for tactics Democrats deploy in politics. It would be nice, were Republicans to get in the game, to at least play the game that's being played. Rufo appears to understand this, if not explicitly saying as much.
Once again, an excellent essay, Brad!
It would be interesting to hear a discussion between you and Mr. Rufo (among others of similar ilk), as it relates to these issues.
Keep up the great work!! 👍👍
Thanks, DJ.
You more correctly identify the villains but Rufo has the tactics. As to the strategy, time will tell
Like you I have an affinity for the Founders but I fear that ship has sailed.
Then let us think more seriously about how we can restore the founders' liberalism for the 21st century!
I spend a lot of time on that and I can't get there from here with the US as currently constituted. We would have to ditch the Empire and probably divide the country.
Ideas have consequences, and ideas come principally from the universities. Didn't Ayn Rand make this exact point numerous times? I am sure she would have agreed with anyone who made this claim, Marxist or otherwise. It seems Rufo's fundamental problem is that he wants to seize the means of idea-transmission but doesn't have a coherent assemblage of ideas to transmit. Will the universities be the idea-transmitters of the future? "Bad Cattitude" has a good letter today: He says the elite universities are "over" but don't realize it. The best and brightest students are disintermediating the Ivy League, and this trend will accelerate. Call it "just walk away" at the university level. I remain open to this and other possible solutions. Worth a read, and you'll get a laugh:
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/elite-universities-are-over?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=323914&post_id=161310209&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=bfni4&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
You again hit the nail on the head. Great post!
I would like to share some of my own thoughts on where I think we are today.
The Self-Reliant Man: A Vanishing Species
Zoos exhibit species of animals that have been (and many still are) close to extinction. I am old enough to remember when Blue Whales became extinct (as a practical matter). Today Blue Whales are only endangered, but their population is reportedly increasing. (Source: NOAA Fisheries)
Sadly, the same cannot be said for the self-reliant man.
The self-reliant man may be no more extinct than the Blue Whale was in the ‘70s, but this species faces an uphill battle to change his status to endangered.
The founding fathers ever mindful that individual liberty needed protecting, produced the two greatest sources for the protection of the self-reliant man: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.
President Lincoln fought an internecine war that would finally fulfill the incomplete promise “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
But somewhere along the way America allowed itself to fall prey to the envies of inferior men, who want status and money without earning either—the sinecurist.
Such a job is conveniently called a
sinecure — “easy job, soft option; informal cushy number, money for old rope, money for jam, picnic, doddle, walk in the park, cinch, gravy train”. (Oxford Dictionary)
The sinecurist is not a new breed of man. This parasite can be found throughout the history of Western Civilization. Monarchs would reward such feckless men with titles and government positions that included generous emoluments with little or no actual responsibilities. Today we call this sinecurist among other things a bureaucrat.
But there are still other useless types of men who perform in posts and positions that require little actual skill or independent thought. Whatever entrance “requirements” exist have been deliberately diluted by what once were called guilds but now are labor unions.
There is also a more dangerous species of useless man: the intellectual. This man is not unintelligent like many sinecurist. The intellectual may be found to possess an impressive mind, which gained him entrance to the most prestigious institutions. The intellectual may find refuge in the top positions of the labor unions or other guilds of a sort.
Of course, a select, few, ambitious intellectuals will distinguish themselves and gain entrance into politics and government.
Why is this the pinnacle for such men? To quote the notorious bank robber, Willie Sutton, who when asked why he robbed banks said, “because that’s where the money is”. (Credit: Malcolm Gladwell's Revenge of the Tipping Point)
There was a day not so long ago when self-reliant men roamed North America. These courageous men settled this great country. Many men and their families went west to find good lands for farming and many became merchants and professionals as small towns were built along the way.
But never did such self-reliant men look for handouts or government jobs…..
Not until our Republic transformed itself into a Democracy. Not all at once to be sure, but little by little, our political parties and our politicians turned government into the “Aristocracy of Pull”. (Credit: Ayn Rand)
Politicians kept making more and more promises in exchange for support and votes. Somewhere along the way, government got into the business of being in business.
Today, Americans are reaping what they sowed. The national debt will soon hit $37 trillion and keep on growing. Most Americans don’t even realize that our country is already bankrupt. Our total outstanding obligations (including our unfunded promises to pay out welfare benefits) is really over $100 trillion. (Credit: Jim Brown’s A Black Hole in Economics)
We need to save the self-reliant man and hope his population starts increasing exponentially, each successive generation.
We need to embrace these timeless words:
“Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means enterprise, it means the capacity for doing without. The free man is one who has won a small and precarious territory from the great mob of his inferiors, and is prepared and ready to defend it and make it support him. All around him are enemies, and where he stands there is no friend. He can hope for little help from other men of his own kind, for they have battles of their own to fight. He has made of himself a sort of god in his little world, and he must face the responsibilities of a god, and the dreadful loneliness.” (From Notes on Democracy— H.L. Mencken)
None of this may matter. Trump's madhouse is invalidating MAGA by the hour, demonstrating far more effectively than the opposition could the incompetence and wrecking ball lunacy of the Establishment's opposition. Populism is being strangled in the cradle, and the Alt Right, the Far Right, the Almost Never Right will perish along with it. Gramsci Shmanci--young Rufo can say and do what he wants, but with human capital like this to work with, the Left has little to worry about.
Hey, Bradley, I sent you messages on Facebook. I would like to have you on my podcast to talk about this stuff. You can also email me at:
chris(at)chrisbaker(dot)net
Excellent article, Professor. I have one clarifying question:
“Second, the Establishment has been coming to the fight club of American politics using the Marquess of Queensberry Rules while the left comes to every fight with switch blades and guns. The Establishment has not been willing to play hardball.”
When you say that the “Establishment,” meaning Conservative - Libertarianism Inc., hasn’t been willing to play hardball, what you mean concretely is that they aren’t willing to try and influence and control the ideas behind certain cultural groups such as “MTV and the Boy Scouts,” as well as schools and other organizations/institutions, correct?
Thought-provoking, as usual! My own summary of Russo's work would be this:
When dealing with nature, "ends" certainly justify "means." When dealing with other humans in the sphere of politics, however, the "means" ARE the "ends!"
Dave
Two observations. Pleased to see your reference to the Marquess of Queensberry. My most frequently deployed epithet for a decade or more has been 'Queensberry Rules Republicans' for those Republicans who constantly reach across the aisle to concede their position as a concession to bipartisanship. Republicans might have been the House minority for 40 years, but that ended in 1994, yet they continue to operate as if a 'go along to get along' party. Not a good look if intent on winning, as voters will have the tendency to vote for the real thing, rather than for the politicians that keep conceding ground to the opposition.
And since Saul Alinsky's 1971 release of "Rules for Radicals," RfR has essentially been the ground rules for tactics Democrats deploy in politics. It would be nice, were Republicans to get in the game, to at least play the game that's being played. Rufo appears to understand this, if not explicitly saying as much.