It’s apparent to all discerning observers that the present state of affairs in the United States, as well as other Western nations, will not be able to continue for much longer. As our “leaders” continue to grow more and more out of touch and disconnected from increasingly large majorities within their respective citizenries, the prospect of collapse, or at least some pretty severe dislocations, in Western societies grows increasingly likely. Honestly, if the American and other Western governments stay on the path they are currently on, I don’t see how they can avoid facing severe fourth generation warfare (4GW) challenges from their own people, much less from the various foreign elements which they are busy importing. Western governments are busy delegitimizing themselves in the eyes of the core elements which make up the backbones of their nations, and they won’t be able to stand a full-on loss of legitimacy for very long.
The question which naturally arises is, “What will replace these governments once they fall?”
Many observers fear that the current “democratic” governments (which are essentially transitional in nature) will be replaced by heavy handed totalitarian regimes. This may be a defensible notion for many of the Western European nations which have largely been successful in disarming their own citizens. For the United States, I find this less likely to be the case, though the last grasping elements of the current politico-financial cabal may attempt to go that route. However, and in spite all of the various federal police forces and any help from UN “peacekeepers”, it is doubtful that FedGov would have the personnel resources to sustain the sort of attrition it would face for very long. This is doubly so considering that it is not altogether assured that the remaining non-homosexualized, non-transgenderified, non-mercenaried portion of the US military would go along with FedGov attempts to establish a totalitarian state, especially if it means suppressing their fathers, brothers, and cousins back home in flyover country. Besides, forcing grown men to parade around in ruby red high heels so as to satisfy the revenge fantasies of fat lesbian desk generals is not the best way to assure their loyalty to you when you find yourself in the lurch.
So it’s not likely that a breakdown of federal legitimacy and power in the US will lead to a successful imposition of the total state by force.
However, we should also understand that those folks out there who think that such a collapse would inevitably lead to a “reset” back to the constitutional republic of Ted Cruz’s fantasies are labouring under a strong delusion. Collapse and dislocation won’t lead to a restoration of the pure constitutional republic of yore as founded in 1789. It’s increasingly apparent that it shouldn’t either.
While embodying many good ideas and serving as a worthwhile effort at self-government, the fact is that the Constitution suffers from some severe ideological defects that made its eventual negation practically inevitable. Though designed as an instrument for dividing power and restraining government, its “Enlightenment” origins meant that it would rest on a foundation which was inimical to these goals. The philosophical background from which the Constitution arose was one that assumed two essentially unproven and unprovable hypotheses: the inherent goodness of man and the primacy of reason in man’s intuitions. These fundamental bases always placed pure devotion to the Constitution in a somewhat precarious state vis-á-vis the concurrent claims to the Christian origins and foundation of the United States. These two currents – the Christian element arising from the Puritan foundation of New England followed by the spreading of evangelical, “enthusiastic” Christianity throughout the eastern seaboard by the Great Awakenings on one hand, and the Enlightenment, essentially rationalistic and deistic ideas underlying many of the assumptions made in the Constitution on the other hand – have always stood apart, even though many Americans have refused to recognize this and have tried to tie the two together intimately.
The problem with the Constitution, from a purely organizational standpoint, is that it lends itself far too easily to democratization. This democratization is a function of the inherent assumption that the people, from whom all power derives, according to Enlightenment theory, will act both nobly and reasonably. Yet, as American history has shown time and time again, neither of these have ever truly been substantiated. Indeed, American constitutional history since 1865 has been a tale of the steady march of democracy, with the attendant ability of the people to vote themselves largesse from the public treasury despite the detrimental financial, moral, and social effects this will always have.
Democracy is an inherently unworkable system of government. Many historians and political scientists make a fetish out of democracy, and laud the original Athenian democracy as an undiluted good in world history. This ignores, however, the serious issues which the Athenians’ contemporaries had with the democratic system of that polis and others like it; dissent which cannot merely be chalked up to envy or a lust for tyranny on the part of Athens’ enemies. Indeed, democracy’s classical critics tended to oppose that system of government specifically because it was dangerous and prone to abuse, instability, and unpredictable swings in behavior caused by the momentary passions of the ochloi, the masses. Let us not forget that it was the vaunted Athenian democracy which waged wars of aggression against its neighbors (including other democratic states like Syracuse), which murdered and enslaved nearly the entire population of Melos for refusing to pay a relatively small sum in tribute, and who eventually put to death Socrates, the father of classical-era philosophy, in a fit of childish pique from the masses.
Classical writers both Greek and Roman tended to divide the various types of government into three overall types of systems: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Depending on the particular writer, these types could be further subdivided in variants and mixed-mode systems. The intervening centuries have brought little substantial innovation to this system of classification, so it is the one I will use going forward.
Back to our question at hand – what is likely to happen should the United States collapse – we can see that democracy will most likely cease to be a going concern. Indeed, democracy is largely what created the problems that have led us to the point that we’re at. So the choice will be between one of the two other forms – monarchy or aristocracy.
The important thing to keep in mind is that you can’t have strong forms of both of these existing in a polity at the same time. It has long been noted that the enemy of monarchy is a strong aristocracy. After all, the king cannot exercise plenary authority when a bunch of little kings are running around dispensing justice and maintaining private armies within their own domains. Either aristocrats are strong and the monarchy is weak (perhaps an elective or constitutionally limited form), or the monarch is strong and aristocrats are reduced to being courtiers, to ornaments at the king’s court. The most typical examples of this would be the gradual reduction of aristocratic independence in European states such as France and Spain which was necessary before absolute monarchies could exist.
It necessarily follows from this that aristocracy is what we can consider to be the “traditional” form of government, while strong, centralised monarchy is the innovation.
Even in ancient Greece, one of the first things that tyrants did when they usurped control over a polis was to drive out or otherwise destroy the prominent aristocratic families in the city. There is always the example of Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, who sent his servant to Miletus to find out the formula for success from that city’s tyrant, Thrasybulos. As Thrasybulos and the servant walked through a field of wheat, the tyrant said nothing, but would reach out and snap off the heads of wheat which stood out above the rest of the plants. The servant soon got the point – to be a successful monarchical ruler, you needed to cut down anybody else who stood out above the masses of the common people.
Now, many neoreactionaries support a return to a monarchy. I would tend to disagree with them, instead favoring a return to some form of oligarchic republicanism, which I believe provides the best mix of a rule of law system and the division of power among several competing members who balance out each other’s ambitions. What I would have in mind would be a division of power similar to the old pre-reform Roman republic, or perhaps what was seen in the Dutch or Venetian republics – a small group of oligarchs whose interests are bound up with the success of the nation and the common people as a whole (unlike today’s “aristocracy” in the West, whose interests are largely inimical to the people constituting the nations in which they exist). In such a system, these oligarchs guide the ship of state in such a way that the nation prospers, which necessarily placates the common people, without hazarding the nation to the vicissitudes of democracy. The state is subject neither to the whims of one unaccountable man, nor to the whims of millions of morons who are just smart enough to figure out which circle to push the pin through so as to vote themselves more welfare and other largesse.
All of this is important because whenever an empire (such as, say, the United States of America) falls apart, it almost always devolves into a patchwork of statelets which originated because of the efforts of local notables to restore order and to regain a measure of the legitimacy formerly enjoyed by the now-defunct empire. This pretty much means that an aristocratic system will arise.
History records numerous cases of this, only a few of which follow:
- The collapse of major Egyptian dynasties would often lead to the restoration of independence to the various nomes up and down the Nile, which would have to then be reconquered before a new strong dynasty could be established.
- The fall of various Mesopotamian empires would result in a new city becoming the centre of power, while the peripheral areas would fall away and regain independence, again requiring reconquest if a new empire was to be built.
- When Alexander died, not only were large parts of his empire divided among the Diadochi, but many portions regained independence under native rulers or as free city-states with their own aristocratic rulers.
- The fall of the Western Roman Empire saw statelets formed by various Germanic chieftains who occupied formerly Roman land, some of which eventually became the states of early medieval Western Europe. Notably, many native Roman notables also seized the opportunity to establish their own domains, especially in Brittany and wherever the Bagaudae were strong.
- The fall of major Chinese dynasties would result in the rise of smaller, petty warring states vying for supremacy. Confucius lived in one such time, during the fall of the decrepit Zhou dynasty and the reassertion of the various Chinese dukedoms.
So how does this apply to our current situation once America (and perhaps the rest of the West) collapses?
The first thing we need to understand is that, within the successor states to the United States, we will not likely see monarchy arise. Instead, we’ll see the country break up into component regions of various size and stability (some perhaps comprising multiples of the current states), under local aristocratic control. In Red areas, some pre-collapse legitimacy will remain because these states and localities were more successfully and legitimately governed. However, in most Blue areas, the trend toward their becoming complete basket cases – already quite evident – will continue and will contribute to their complete collapse and reorganisation, barring any outside interference.
Culture is enduring and America’s culture is and always has been republican. As a result, it is likely that following an initial bout of local strongmanship in the less successful areas which will be put down by the better organised successors, the aristocracies that arise will not take the form of quasi-kings exercising absolute rule over smallish statelets. Rather, the aristocracies that arise will likely be highly-restrictive republican oligarchies, with the franchise being restricted to white males who meet some sort of stringent property qualification. Our culture will not allow for absolute rulers to exist for long; hopefully it will also not allow for the foolishness of democracy to replant itself either.
While there will be many who want to restore the old constitutional forms, in the event of a collapse, it will likely be very apparent to most of the survivors that the US Constitution of 1789 cannot be reinstated, at least not without heavy redaction. For instance, unlimited religious liberty, with its penchant for being used to defend those who abuse its protections so as to destroy us, will be one of the first things on the block. In its place, we’ll see Christianity – probably without preference for a specific denomination – become the de facto state religion, with tolerance being extended to minority religions who don’t actively seek to kill us. The judicial branch – long the font of injustice and arbitrary political gamesmanship at the behest of the SJWs and other left-wing groups – will likely also find itself so thoroughly reformed that it would no longer be recognisable as the Article III institution of the old Constitution.
Obviously, I am not claiming to be a prophet, to see the future before it happens. What I’ve written here are merely speculations, ones which I readily admit are tinctured with my own personal preferences of what I think ought to be (but which, as a result, I do think would be the most likely). One thing that I do think is pretty clear is that the current course of the West cannot hold forever, and that when it does fall apart, the product will not be the neoliberal “end of history,” it will not be more democracy and secularism and equalitarianism and all the rest. Rather, the future will be less democratic and more authoritarian. And this will perhaps correct many of the errors into which the West allowed itself to be led these recent decades.
Seems likely in the long term, but quite likely not this century. Currently most US whites still believe in the USA and will fight to keep it intact.
@ Simon
You would be surprised to find that most whites believe in the old USA, and know the difference between the old one and the current version.
Which means their belief in the system is rapidly failing, which is empirically observable from the growth of the Alt-Right, Trump support, etc.
Those whites who follow the SJW and progressive paths don’t believe in the US either, except for what power, wealth, and social status the inertia of government can bestow on them.
I personally would not desire to remain in the same state with our blue coast; if the opportunity arises I’ll go with the Red territory. Also, take California. Please.
Just an observation I’ve made in my own personal ongoing journey. The viewpoint of a mechanical engineer.
The constitutional republic which the founders made was a machine. It had three primary parts, the executive which makes the whole thing work, the legislative which changes the programming or reshapes the cams, and the judicial which provides the feedback loop which corrects the machine when it goes out of control.
Any machine, like a gun, or a conveyor, can be used for good ends or bad. Franklin supposedly noted this with his “a republic if you can keep it” quote.
When you take a functional machine and tie down the safety valves, and remove all the guarding, and you move it into places it was never intended to go, and neglect all maintenance, you will consistently wreak havoc.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the machine. But all machines wear out and eventually fail catastrophically. Our machine has worn out- like a rusty old car with no brakes and a broken driveshaft chopping into the passenger compartment, it simply needs to prompt attention.
Like that machine, it needs to be either replaced with a fresh copy, or taken apart into its components and every single one of them needs to be refurbished, or replaced with the lessons learned from the old ones.
One way or another, it is going to happen.
>I would tend to disagree with them, instead favoring a return to some form of oligarchic republicanism
The problem is that oligarchic republicanism inevitably degenerates into mass democracy after some demagogue figures out that he can extend the franchise to some new group in exchange for an implied promise that they’ll vote for him or his party. In the end, all you’re doing by restoring an oligarchic republic is rewinding the movie, then hitting Play and hoping it will have a different ending this time. But it won’t.
Can you think of any republic/democracy that ever expanded the franchise to everyone and then successfully managed to restrict it again to a select group? I can’t.
>Rather, the aristocracies that arise will likely be highly-restrictive republican oligarchies, with the franchise being restricted to white males who meet some sort of stringent property qualification.
We tried that. It didn’t work last time. Why do you think it will work next time? Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity.
>Culture is enduring and America’s culture is and always has been republican.
So was Rome’s. That didn’t stop Octavian. In the end, he kept around a puppet Senate and made up a new term for himself (“imperator” instead of “rex”) so that he could keep up a face-saving charade with the Roman people in which he would allow them to pretend that they didn’t have a king, when really they did. It wasn’t until five centuries later that Justinian finally decided the charade was no longer necessary and sent the last Senators home forever.
What replaces America may allow for some similar pretense, but a pretense is all it will – or can, or should – ever be.
I think that the people’s historical love of the constitution and its tenets will demand a reanimation of the constitutional republic, and with the safeguards that the founders warned of, which the first time were ignored, will, not see the same result the second time….won’t get fooled again by the who comes to mind
The biggest problem with current western government, especially the US, is that the Judicial branch has seized far too much power, and I speak as an attorney. So once SCOTUS became infested with SJWs, the game was more or less over…..
“You would be surprised to find that most whites believe in the old USA, and know the difference between the old one and the current version.”
I think they know something’s wrong. Trump’s views have majority support from whites (though he himself may not get majority support from the electorate if the media campaign succeeds). Outside the Alt Right I’m not sure most white Americans fully appreciate how far gone things are, how hostile the system is to them and their survival.
“Democracy” as such was roundly rejected by the US Constitution of 1789. The current aberration (or rather abortion) is entirely a modern pathology. Reference to same would lead to the inescapable conclusion that, even for those to whom the voting franchise was extended, one could only cast a single direct vote, for their own congressman. Not their senator, nor the President, and certainly not anyone in the judiciary.
It wasn’t until the originally Progressive visigoths laid waste to things with Amendments XVI through XIX, inclusive, that democratic (and Democrat) hell on earth was unleashed.
Undoing those would serve to erase the current problems, and reset things to US of A circa 1890, with hardly a burp of trouble going forward.
The trouble with it is quite simply, as observed by no less an authority than John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Failing that prerequisite, I suspect the organizing principle in almost every case will become “that government governs best which governs least”, enforced as ever in history by recourse to tumbrel and guillotine.
The problem as I see it is not which Government mechanism is the best to essentially control people, but people that need to learn to morally control themselves without depending on an external authority keeping them in line with a stick and carrot—and usually its more of the former.
Referring to poster Aesop quoting John Adams, we need a better people, not a better mousetrap. Any centralization of power to a small group of rulers will always lead to corruption of power. Mass democracy is just a bunch of ignorant and decadent people voting everyone’s inalienable rights away for the sake expediency “to save the children” and “get something done” without understanding the long term unintended consequences to future generations.
Myself, I am looking forward to the King of Kings to come. And soon. I don’t see a Gene Roddenberry transhuman future where a Star Trek Federation arises from the ashes of WWIII and anarchy. Where mankind transcends by itself from it’s violent nature and heads for the stars. Only the Messiah coming to rule and reign and insuring none will hurt or make afraid will save us.
I’m sure many think I am being too impractical, to say the least. But if we with the greatest experiment in human history for freedom created by the best minds in 1776 were unable to make a go of it today, what chances do we have from a post-apocalyptic world we can do better with remaining surviving savages to rebuild?
I like your machine analogy. Holds up in many respects. Human use and abuse of the machine is causing aberrant performance. Aftermarket parts have been bolted on by those wishing to use the machine but change what it does, move it out of its original operational parameters. Added to that, the fundamentals of the original intent have been discarded and new operating parameters have been imposed, re-defined and codified. I’m inclined to believe that the machine, properly upgraded and refurbished can perform quite well, IF it is operated responsibly as it was originally intended. Architect in agreement.
What nobody seems to understand is that ANY government is bad. Government was invented so that small groups of men could control and steal from larger groups of men at the point of a gun. Government of any kind has no right to exist, and the people do not need a government despite the brainwashing we have all received by, drum roll, the government.
The “indians” lived in small tribes, peacefully among themselves and in harmony with the earth, for centuries before the “white man” came to overrun them with their governments.
Smart people left after the government caused disasters to come will return to tribes with voluntary membership. Those who do not come together voluntarily for their own protection from “government” will be terminated or shackled by those who refuse to let go of their illegitimate power.
The solution is not a new or different form of government. it is the dissolution of government and the idea that one small group of people have a right to authority over anyone or everyone else.
@Simon_in_London:disqus
What happened to thisblogisdangerous?
I personally think we will collapse into tribal elements at first to protect our local environments. What comes after that is up in the air since tribal systems tend to depend on a warrior class to maintain its existence. This gives credence to the strongman theory since the tribal system in a microcosm depends on that structure. Humans cannot survive without some form of structure history has taught us that. Governments thrive because the majority of humans desire it for protection. The problem is that governments always over time become despotic.
It is up to the population to then cast off the chains. We are a unique society with many citizens armed with weapons of war which will allow a tribal system to evolve very quickly and the broader government much more slowly. In my opinion we will eventually form into regional areas made up of the former states.
Great article, thanks! The choices are few indeed.
Second son’s rant: I loath people who have inherited money, power, and influence, and think they have more authority than a common man (Nicolaism?). One example is the mega-churches on TV; where a preacher’s son or daughter fails in the secular world and is handed their daddy’s church; take over as “pastor”…..? Total B.S. on sitting there and paying tithes, they could walk out, but who would walk off their land?
The thought of an aristocrat’s heir being pre-ordained to assume authority over me makes me sick! As much as my heart aches for our Republic, I will not stand for illegitimate authority of any kind…..nepotism is bad enough already. The heirs to wealth around here are disrespectful punks!
But if it does re-key, let’s hope the “big shots” (who already control us behind the scenes), would conduct themselves in a morally-straight manner.
Money, large amounts of land, political power, influence, or “lots of subordinates” can be a good thing; if and only if the leadership earned it…. Those who are born into power rarely ever have the same regard as those who have earned what they have.
No wonder why Hobbes left us with a similarly gloomy outlook.
Sadly, once a smidgen of power is obtained, the holder will be unsated and grasp for more. That is a quite common human trait, just look at the Clintons. What we have now is demos, but when the Constitution was written, it was not. It was designed as a republic. Put the judical branch on public review every decade. Purge the 13,14,15,16,17, 19 amendments. Yes I would reinstitute slavery. We already have slavery to the State/penal system. Might as well abolish that and have the perp serve the victims of the person they killed.
There’s nothing really wrong with the Constitution as was originally envisioned by the Founders. The problem is that it has been subverted, perverted and interpreted by those enamored with globalism, and “democracy” was the perfect weapon.
(Allow me to delve into my archives and bring back a relevant, if somewhat dated, essay.)
Like a precocious teenager who envisions himself so much smarter than his “old-fashioned” parents, only to learn after wrecking the family car that old dad isn’t so dumb after all, so it is with contemporary American society.
Contemporary American society, through what could be described as an arrogance of wisdom, has disregarded of the tenets of republicanism established by the framers of the Constitution (Article IV, section 4), and has succumbed to the annointed’s lofty rhetoric extolling the virtues of democracy. Problem is, the arrogance of wisdom has prevented many from yet recognizing that the Founding Fathers weren’t so dumb afterall.
America’s experiment with democracy, that the Founding Fathers warned against, can be traced directly to the post Civil War era of Reconstruction. The primary objective of Reconstruction was to reduce the independence of the states by moving away from the principles of republicanism in favor of federalism.
Beginning in the latter nineteenth century and carrying over into the early twentieth century, when President Woodrow Wilson lead America into World War I with the slogan, “to make the world safe for democracy”, the idea of democracy became inculcated into the mindset of most Americans as the ideal political system. The democratization of America culminated in 1913 with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, United States Senators were not elected by popular vote, but rather, were appointed by the legislatures of their respective states. This system allowed the states leverage to limit the power of the Federal government and prevent it from evolving into the bloated bureaucratic beast it is today, with it’s tentacles entangled into every facet of our individual daily lives.
The Senate is the most powerful deliberative body in the United States. Without Senate approval, proposed legislation cannot become law, presidential appointments cannot hold office and, most importantly, treaties with foreign nations and global entities such as the United Nations cannot be enacted. When the state legislatures appointed their representatives to the United States Senate, the states both retained their independence and restrained the federal government with Senators that held an allegiance to their states.
The state legislatures, in handing over their senatorial appointments to “the will of the people”, have shifted the balance of power to the Federal government and has, in effect, transformed the Senate into an extension of the Exectutive Branch of government.
This metamorphosis of the Senate has aided in the passage of “progressive” legislation and social programs deemed popular with the voters, which, in turn, has transformed highly populated urban centers into partisan voting blocks that wield their influence on both the state and national levels and, in general, has facilitated the incremental socialization of America.
Perhaps, it is time to consider the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. Were Senators appointed by the state legislatures, as originally intended, several benefits would be immediately recognized.
First and foremost, a senator’s allegiance would be insulated from campaign contributions. This alone would go along way in solving the problem of “campaign finance reform” and the undue influence of lobbyists, both foreign and domestic, that do not have America’s best interest at heart.
Other perceived benefits of senatorial appointments would be that personal wealth could not buy a seat in the Senate, a la Jon Corzine and personal celebrity, a la Hillary Clinton, would not be a qualification for office. As an added bonus, a president would actually be removed from office for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
However, it will probably be a difficult task getting the genie back inside the bottle. Barring a constitutional convention, which would leave the potential for the altering of the Constitution as a whole, it would require two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. As the situation currently stands, there just doesn’t seem to be that much integrity in the Senate.
The Indians lived in small tribes with a chief. The only way to not have government is to live alone. Even within a family you have parents. What we desire are utopian governments which we’ll never get because each of us has a different idea of what utopia is. Humans are involved and we’ll eventually muck up whatever we’re given.
This was good, well thought out and it makes some sense. As it is, I’m ready for something else. If we could just skip over any deadly conflict and misery the future would hold some hope.
I’d never heard of it but Google turned up http://www.thisblogisdangerous.com/
I thought you may have been the same Simon who wrote the blog.
My mistake.
WONDERFUL IDEAS,…Not going to happen,any of them,Your dreaming of a future where there are no invaders,OPEN YOUR EYES,or have them gouged out,THE RUSSIANS and CHINESE have plans for you and your children,and Especially your young female children,THEY have been given permission to loot your country and KILL anyone they want,NOW this could be defeated but,LIKE usual theres a fly in the iontment,,THE PEOPLE don’t want to be saved and the police gangs and military don’t want to give up their power,SO the chinese and russians will kill everyone of them,and that says nothing of what they plan to do to the people,AMERICANS have been brainwashed to love slavery,so 90% of the population will die fairly fast,and the LORD will take his 10% leaving VERY FEW ALIVE,the dreams of this country coming back are just that dreams,after the pole shift,this country will be unrecongizeable,just a group of narrow islands,owned by a handful of surviviors,everything worth anything will have been taken by the russians and chinese including the kids,and young adults,AMERICA WILL BE STRIPED CLEAN of everything……not as rosey as you hoped huh,ITS you own fault,you let the whores turn your fighting men into queers and pussies(jeremiah 51:30)and the future was trashed by that,all hope of saving this country went into the trashcan..and you still can’t see whats coming…DON’T worry you will……..
OH,I forgot to mention this,America will be softened up ,they plan to bomb the crap out of you, then invade,your military won’t fire a shot back either,THEIR ALL in bed with the russians and chinese,IF YOU THINK their going to protect you, YOU ARE DREAMING..almost all of you will be leaving this world soon,STICK CLOSE TO THE LORD so you’ll get into heaven,cause the great majority of americans hate him,and they won’t be saved..OR get into heaven……
In the post-apocalypse there will be government one way or another. The author of this essay has a big brain and I admire the well thought out approach, including the appeals to history regarding the fracturing of kingdoms. I would actually agree with the author, if (and only if) our current 4th Turning (Strauss & Howe) was happening in a technological void. Unfortunately, we live during the Age of the Technocrats.
Plato claimed good government occurred only when leaders had wisdom and virtue but any absence of these qualities welcomes hell on earth. The philosopher John Locke claimed human reason and wisdom arrives only via Biblical Distributions from God in the form of fundamental human rights and Law. Furthermore, Locke claimed mankind has the right to acquire property and this allows him to survive. Therefore, this requires Law and without it there can be no Freedom. Thomas Hobbes, in part, somewhat agreed with both Plato and Locke except he seemed to favor a benevolent monarchy in lieu of a tyrannical empire.
The conservative thinker Russell Kirk once claimed the dividing lines are not right or left, per se, but rather as follows:
“No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.”
And therein lies the rub.
During the post apocalypse there will be no age of enlightenment. The main concerns will be survival and temporal affairs. It will be no different for leaders of any tribe. What will separate this 4th Turning from those in history, I believe, will be a sort of “technological continuity” that will remain in place even as sovereign governments disintegrate.
There will be law and it will be enforced in brutal ways through the use of technology. The iron fist will rule from afar with eyes that see with extraordinary surveillance capabilities and will dispatch drones to dispel any notions of defiance. The new rules will also apply to any tribal chieftains aspiring to a career in middle management.
So, there may be an aristocracy after all? Even some crazy Christians believe there will be ten kings, and ten kingdoms, eventually. And, in that day, both rich and poor may have to kneel before some lunatic with a credit card reader in his back pocket.
I guess we’ll just have to see about that.
I have taught my 4 sons that Only 2 Amendments count: 1st Amendment – Freedom of Speech & Assembly & 2nd Amendment -The Right to Bear Arms. The US Supreme Court of Idiots has Already Wiped out All other protections – We Can Be Stopped for No Good Reason, Searched, Spied On, Tortured, Killed, Taxed, Have our Doors Kicked in & Have Our Property Stolen & On & On – All for the Good of Uncle Fascist Sammy & his Satanic Minions. Ultimately Killing Almost All of the Federal Government for Treason & Tyranny Wiil be Refreshing – can’t Wait to See it – Hopefully Soon!
This is what Obama’s council of 13 Governors is all about. No more federalism. No money for all the 50 states to operate independently and will functions as 13 cooperative units, under 50 governors who rotate power for the 13 chairs on this council.
Sorry, but there will be a bloody civil war and the losers will the Bolshevik Marxist democrat jerks, and Washington DC will be cleaned out as well as the entire bureaucracy which has been loaded down with democratic Marxist fanatics and gangsters. there will be blood in the streets and there will be nothing you nor I can do stop it. remember the people kept warning there leaders to stop what they were doing and they refused to stop , so there will be war. how much blood shed and how long will this war be, I really cannot say, I don’t know. but there will be many shot dead for treason for there destruction of the constitution. All I can say if I was in the judiciary I would seek retirement now,because these fools have done the work for the Marxist Islamic democrats and people will not forget it. the second group needing to retire is the media WHORE elites who take there marching orders form the democrat Marxist Bolsheviks, this group will be hanged on site. no need to mention names we all know who these traitors are. and lastly our political leaders whom are WHORES for the new world order. there wont be new world order , it will be disorder until all the globalist like Soros are removed for ever. run to your bunkers you rich men and hide yourselves, because the wrath of God is just about to fall on all of you.
Hi, I don’t claim to be a scholar, but I thought the separation of branches of government were to protect the people from a dictatorship; because the founding fathers recognized the sinful nature of man. Not to provide an enlightened way for the goodness in man to govern.
By citing the transformation of ancient civilizations and their fall – the author failed to take into account the fact that in present time, there are competing empires with destructive weaponry that can alter the transformation in the blink of an eye – China, Russia, even the EU…so, to think the USofA can go about it’s “collapse and subsequent transformation” into a a hybrid Oligarchy (competing territories) WITHOUT the interference of powerful states like China, Russia etc is naive and dangerous.
“I would tend to disagree with them, instead favoring a return to some form of oligarchic republicanism”
Uh, isn’t that what we already have? Many have made the point that the true rulers are oligarchs, not the people via Congress.
Much of the whacking of democracy (roundly deserved) also belongs to representative government, which also does not stand up to any close scrutiny. How can one individual represent only two constituents of completely opposite views, never mind hundreds of thousands of them? The word “represent” becomes meaningless.
I see a breakup because a nation this size and such diversity is inherently unstable. Everyone will tire of bowing to the District of Columbia, and we will have a 50-state secession eventually. Each state or group of states will try their own version of governance, some more successfully than others. I think 50 Americas is better than a single, one-size-fits-all homogenized America. Even anarchists may find a state to live in.
Extremely well said BillRind. I couldn’t possibly agree more.
That’s a good point but I think there is a gradual but a steadily increase of whites who see a hopeless situation with our fully corrupt current government.
Other than that, I have no idea how it will work out.
“The question which naturally arises is, “What will replace these governments once they fall?”
Protocols 5:11 “…By all these means we shall so wear down the “Goyim” that they will be compelled to offer us international power of a nature that by its position will enable us without any violence gradually to absorb all the state forces of the world and to form a SUPER-GOVERNMENT…”
Protocols 1:24 “…For the sake of victory, we must keep to the programme of VIOLENCE AND MAKE-BELIEVE. The doctrine of squaring accounts is precisely as strong as the means of which it makes use. Therefore it is not so much by the means themselves as by the doctrine of severity that we shall triumph and bring all governments into subjection to our SUPER-GOVERNMENT. It is enough for them to know that we are too merciless for all disobedience to cease.”
An American citizen, not US subject.
Simple questions, Hard decisions for many Feral and State Gov. “employees” or more accurately apparatchiks. Their hubris blinds them to even considering this conversation has any basis in the near reality. My concern is that the 3rd War for Independence follows the 1st in avoiding a French Style blood after-bath, and most essential is successful in deposing the Elitist ProgreSSives, and/or separating ourselves from them. I can not live with these Progs, it is as impossible as mixing oil and water. Their arrogant tyranny is insufferable. It must end by any means necessary.
Inevitably, it will end in tears and blood.
We only halfway agree. I went into it a bit more, over at my place, if you are interested to give it a read:
http://thehirschfiles.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-kingdom-of-catolica-america-part-2.html
Yup, Titus. I gotta disagree with you, more now than before. http://thehirschfiles.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-kingdom-of-catolica-america-part-3.html
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