By the way, one of my hobbies is to investigate candidates - left- and right-leaning - to see how they "clean-up" their websites to remove the more radical statements - a personal historical revisionism (hoping nobody notices)- and appeal to a broader base. Then, if elected, I watch to see if and how they revert to their roots.
The problem they sometimes face - and I have witnessed this over the decades - is that they eventually are dealing with a broader voting constituency who are not happy with the results. And internally, with career government employees who can passively sink their great ideas in the quicksand of bureaucracy. And even their supporters, including in the media, become impatient - and horrified - when it occurs to them that they have been lied to.
I call it the "Alternative Whacko Theory of Government" as competing whackos from across the political spectrum are alternately elected to office.
What I would pay for is someone to track and document the campaign promises that helped get politicians elected, and then, after the candidate was elected, track and document the promises as they are broken.
This is one that I will always remember. Thinking of the people who died so this man could become elected. It is not about the policy, but how cavalierly he abandoned his promise, literally days after winning the election.
During his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton strongly criticized the Bush administration's forcible return of Haitian boat people (who were fleeing the political violence that followed the 1991 coup d'etat against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide). Clinton famously condemned the strategy as a "cruel policy of returning Haitian refugees to a brutal dictatorship without an asylum hearing".
Just days before his inauguration in January 1993, President-elect Clinton announced he would abandon his promise and continue the policy of interception.
His administration argued that they were dealing with a massive flow of migrants and instead encouraged Haitians to apply for political asylum "in-country" at U.S. processing centers within Haiti. Human rights groups and the United Nations criticized this forced repatriation as illegal and contrary to international law.
Maybe. And thank you for prompting this. I might republish the response later, because I think this is a crucially important thing for fellow travelers to consider when it comes to cooperating to reach a shared goal.
In that spirit, it depends on what you mean by 'fighting over.' Let's say we have two jurisdictions: One is called "North Korea and the other is "South Korea," and each has distinct forms of government (different sets of masters). While each jurisdiction involves *degrees of slavery,* it would not be silly for someone to choose one over the other. Likewise, within some jurisdiction, partisans are fighting over who rules, controlling the monopoly on force.
While I agree that elections are silly, those elections still have consequences. And their consequences are relatively more or less silly by degree.
Let's assume that you and I are both anarchists. Let's also assume that you and I believe anarchism is a condition in which there is a jurisdiction in which no governance function falls to a monopoly, i.e., those living in the anarchist jurisdiction can always contract with a competitor provider of some governance function. Agreed?
So for now the question becomes: Are you a gnostic anarchist or a directional anarchist? We live in condition Z, but we both want to get all the way to condition A (for anarchy). A gnostic anarchist imagines just how the desired end condition looks and declares that fighting over any other governance system is silly. He just zips from Z to A in his mind, because A is his preferred end condition. But a directional anarchist, though he keeps the desired end condition in mind, knows he's got to find a series of pathways to A, namely how to go from Z to Y or Y' to X to W and so on....
The directional anarchist knows that some of those pathways involve making tradeoffs. Some of those trade-offs might mean he has to accept, for now, a less oppressive ruler to create more opportunities -- pathways -- to A, because the "direct to A" pathway is not available. The gnostic anarchist has neither a plan nor proposes any set of tradeoffs for getting to A. Now, the gnostic anarchist might also be a directional anarchist who refuses to accept or fight for any tradeoff that involves ANY monopoly governance function. Indeed, he might even have a Z-to-A plan that involves subversive innovation or a startup society in some uncontrolled jurisdiction. If such a person exists, I want to meet him!
Otherwise, we have to operate in a context that requires both making trade-offs and blazing real strategic pathways to A (minimizing trade-offs that let government officials grow their power).
The difference between a "democratic socialist" and a "mainstream American politician circa 2026" is that the former openly admit they're socialists.
Sort of. I hope the degree to which you're right is the degree to which people see it for what it is and isolate it.
By the way, one of my hobbies is to investigate candidates - left- and right-leaning - to see how they "clean-up" their websites to remove the more radical statements - a personal historical revisionism (hoping nobody notices)- and appeal to a broader base. Then, if elected, I watch to see if and how they revert to their roots.
The problem they sometimes face - and I have witnessed this over the decades - is that they eventually are dealing with a broader voting constituency who are not happy with the results. And internally, with career government employees who can passively sink their great ideas in the quicksand of bureaucracy. And even their supporters, including in the media, become impatient - and horrified - when it occurs to them that they have been lied to.
I call it the "Alternative Whacko Theory of Government" as competing whackos from across the political spectrum are alternately elected to office.
Something makes me think you could make good money doing this sort of research. :)
What I would pay for is someone to track and document the campaign promises that helped get politicians elected, and then, after the candidate was elected, track and document the promises as they are broken.
This is one that I will always remember. Thinking of the people who died so this man could become elected. It is not about the policy, but how cavalierly he abandoned his promise, literally days after winning the election.
During his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton strongly criticized the Bush administration's forcible return of Haitian boat people (who were fleeing the political violence that followed the 1991 coup d'etat against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide). Clinton famously condemned the strategy as a "cruel policy of returning Haitian refugees to a brutal dictatorship without an asylum hearing".
Just days before his inauguration in January 1993, President-elect Clinton announced he would abandon his promise and continue the policy of interception.
His administration argued that they were dealing with a massive flow of migrants and instead encouraged Haitians to apply for political asylum "in-country" at U.S. processing centers within Haiti. Human rights groups and the United Nations criticized this forced repatriation as illegal and contrary to international law.
Fighting over which form of government we slaves will be ruled under is silly. No form of government ever allows the slaves to be the masters.
Maybe. And thank you for prompting this. I might republish the response later, because I think this is a crucially important thing for fellow travelers to consider when it comes to cooperating to reach a shared goal.
In that spirit, it depends on what you mean by 'fighting over.' Let's say we have two jurisdictions: One is called "North Korea and the other is "South Korea," and each has distinct forms of government (different sets of masters). While each jurisdiction involves *degrees of slavery,* it would not be silly for someone to choose one over the other. Likewise, within some jurisdiction, partisans are fighting over who rules, controlling the monopoly on force.
While I agree that elections are silly, those elections still have consequences. And their consequences are relatively more or less silly by degree.
Let's assume that you and I are both anarchists. Let's also assume that you and I believe anarchism is a condition in which there is a jurisdiction in which no governance function falls to a monopoly, i.e., those living in the anarchist jurisdiction can always contract with a competitor provider of some governance function. Agreed?
So for now the question becomes: Are you a gnostic anarchist or a directional anarchist? We live in condition Z, but we both want to get all the way to condition A (for anarchy). A gnostic anarchist imagines just how the desired end condition looks and declares that fighting over any other governance system is silly. He just zips from Z to A in his mind, because A is his preferred end condition. But a directional anarchist, though he keeps the desired end condition in mind, knows he's got to find a series of pathways to A, namely how to go from Z to Y or Y' to X to W and so on....
The directional anarchist knows that some of those pathways involve making tradeoffs. Some of those trade-offs might mean he has to accept, for now, a less oppressive ruler to create more opportunities -- pathways -- to A, because the "direct to A" pathway is not available. The gnostic anarchist has neither a plan nor proposes any set of tradeoffs for getting to A. Now, the gnostic anarchist might also be a directional anarchist who refuses to accept or fight for any tradeoff that involves ANY monopoly governance function. Indeed, he might even have a Z-to-A plan that involves subversive innovation or a startup society in some uncontrolled jurisdiction. If such a person exists, I want to meet him!
Otherwise, we have to operate in a context that requires both making trade-offs and blazing real strategic pathways to A (minimizing trade-offs that let government officials grow their power).