Submitted by CCRider
Guest Post by Jeff Diest
You do not defend a world that is already lost. When was it lost? That you cannot say precisely. It is a point for the revolutionary historian to ponder. We know only that it was surrendered peacefully, without a struggle, almost unawares. There was no day, no hour, no celebration of the event—and yet definitely, the ultimate power of initiative did pass from the hands of private enterprise to government.
There it is and there it will remain until, if ever, it shall be reconquered. Certainly government will never surrender it without a struggle.1
We enter 2022 with the hope and optimism made possible only by the most clear-eyed assessment of reality. Garet Garett’s remarkable words, published in 1938, are right at home in the new year. They are also liberating. There is no going back, no restoration, no “reform”—the America we thought we knew is gone. Tens of millions of Americans now believe both the US federal government and the major institutions in this country—from media to big corporations to universities to Hollywood to Big Pharma and the medical establishment—are actively working against their interests. They have no self-interest in defending a world already lost.
We can be melancholy about this or we can be happy and confident about the opportunities presented. Those same millions who no longer believe the system works are eager to build a new one. America is barely a country at this point, beyond a pure economic arrangement. Without material abundance (no small thing, of course), what really connects us? America certainly is not a cohesive nation in any meaningful way—and why should it be, given its vast geography and enormous (real) diversity? This reality, not pining for some fuzzy, long-lost constitutionalism, should inform us, as per Garett’s admonition.
A compelling and viable path forward starts with identifying and coalescing around the many de facto smaller nations which already exist within the US.
The covid regime, for starters, has allowed federalism to reassert itself in ways few of us could have imagined two years ago. Even hapless Joe Biden recently admitted there is no federal solution to a virus, that covid must be “solved” by the states. Governors now openly snipe at one another on social media, and encourage competition among businesses and families looking to relocate. The moving company United Van Lines happily provides with its annual survey. Those who can, given their economic and family situations, are voting with their feet. Regionalism has a new energy not seen for many decades.
Among those nations, two broad paths forward present themselves. One America intends to make 2022 another covid year, complete with business and school lockdowns, mask requirements, and vaccine passports. Another America wants to get back to normal as much as possible, and deal with the virus as a permanent but manageable part of the landscape (like existing flu viruses). This fork in the road forms a flash point simply because the two paths are incompatible, but also because they provide real-time opportunities to apply different policies (often de facto, such as when businesses simply disregard covid rules) in different states and locales. These opportunities in turn provide a blueprint for how intractable issues like abortion and gun control might be addressed more locally, rather than by nine black-robed superlegislators.
These two covid trajectories are almost metapolitical at this point, but they demonstrate the inescapable choice: organize society around the state or organize it around individuals, families, markets, and the institutions of civil society. We can live in a political world or in an economic world. Mixing the two is not working.
Politics won’t go away, of course. But it will remain a lagging indicator. The Left2 is hopelessly consumed by hatred and ingratitude, mired in identity, and animated by a desire to hurt and vanquish the Deplorables (Trump voters, antivaxxers, covid deniers, et al.) as an act of revenge. The Right3 is lost in Trumpian dysfunction, moving further and further from any coherent message about economics or opportunity while allowing neoconservatives to regroup and promote bellicosity toward Russia, China, and Iran. Libertarians, too, have lost the plot—navel-gazing over what kind of circumstances would justify lockdowns and mandates, cheering the deplatforming (even the debanking) of alternative and dissident voices by tech companies, and accepting progressive framing of “climate change” and the like, all while failing to focus on the threats of empire and central banking.
Both “sides” are led by deeply unserious people who are congenitally unfit to organize a sandwich shop, much less lord over 330 million people.
But if politics cannot be eliminated, it can be made more tolerable by an aggressive push toward subsidiarity. Americans already sensed this, but covid accelerated it. Giving up on political universalism is a bitter pill for the political class, but one that must be swallowed. It’s the pill Mises prescribed a century ago in his radically decentralist calls for “liberal nationalism”4 and the right of self-determination as the hallmark of a decent society. Does this mean America must break up into new political entities, as the Austro-Hungarian empire did? Not necessarily, but it does mean accepting a far greater degree of federalism and localism and a dramatically diminished national government. The way forward is apart.
“We Will Win” is a ubiquitous hashtag on Twitter lately, code for the sense of change so many Americans feel but can’t yet articulate. We will win because socialism is incompatible with human nature and a productive material economy. We will win because the Fed’s crazed monetization of Treasury debt and its maniacal fetish for low interest rates are unsustainable. We will win because Uncle Sam will run out of (valuable) money. We will win because entitlements ultimately are unpayable, at least in real terms. We will win because war, empire, and nation building have exhausted themselves and Americans of all political stripes want us out of the Middle East. We will win because woke5 will fail of its own internal contradictions and infighting. And we will win because the digital age is inexorably decentralizing virtually every aspect of human life, and governments cannot escape this forever.
So, We Will Win. But how long will it take, and at what price victory?
No one can know. But great things are happening, and we should take good cheer with us into 2022!
—
1.“The Revolution Was,” a superb essay published in 1938, was Garet Garrett’s thoroughgoing explanation of the revolutionary changes in American governance and life which resulted from the New Deal period. It was, in Garrett’s words, a “revolution within the form”—a revolution which maintained the trappings of constitutionalism and federalism but in fact ushered in the total managerial state.
2.Here we mean the “political” Left, not good liberals such as Glenn Greenwald.
3.With notable exceptions, of course, like our friends at Chronicles magazine.
4.See Nation, State, and Economy (1919) for Mises’s remarkable discussion of the breakup of nations and boundaries following the end of the Great War. See also Liberalism (1927) for Mises’s exposition of a benevolent liberal nationalism, something very different from “nationalism” as it is conceived today (jingoistic, aggressive, expansionary, autarkic).
5.Admittedly, “woke” is on the cusp of becoming one of George Orwell’s “meaningless words“—words wildly overused to represent something exceedingly vague but bad. Here the term is used very broadly to represent strident progressive beliefs regarding race, sex, sexuality, equality, climate change, and the like.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Winning will involve a holistic approach to enhancing the human spirit, developing innovative problem solving, formulating plans that takes numerous factors and their consequences into account and a truly cooperative collaborative effort. Does humanity have the will, the vision, stamina, resilience and fortitude to accomplish such a task after being divided, bamboozled and abused by the psychopathic overlords and oligarchs for so many centuries? I say yes, by taking the first step of thinking for yourself, then seeking like minded people to build the necessary infrastructures for survival: to be able to feed, defend and support ourselves. The Matrix and zombie apocalypse are popular metaphors for our current predicament, the good news is they show what it takes to be a hero. We are all heroes in waiting.
Excellent observations. The greatest advice I ever heard came from Ayn Rand: Hold nothing above the verdict of your own mind. It has served me well for 4 decades including my decision to reject the jabs.
We will win by being who we are, Americans. We will not be remolded into borderless global slaves and own nothing and like it. We will keep our language pure, stop parroting the (((media))) line of BS and above all reject social media policing and mind control. Use your phone as a utilitarian object, not a guidebook on how you think, eat, live .
There is nothing in it for us to ” go along” with the constant barrage of commie mindfuk dished out in all forms of media. Discussing how we are getting screwed all day everyday is counter productive and never stops the takeover as can be seen by the last 60 years of controlled ops blathering while the country continued toward the socialist state.
This year, tell the elites, “They’ll own nothing and be very unhappy”.
2022 THE YEAR AMERICANS TOLD THE MEDIA TO STFU, make it so.
Agreed, when the fat lady sings Wagner’s Gotterdammerung, NWO sociopaths will own nothing and be unmasked for the ages.
We only await a moral paragon to declare our two swords enough.
Wagner.
Original German metal.
Well of course we will win, but our people are not suicidal. Our people are misled on purpose. The electric programming box is a curse, but our people are not cursed. It is going to take a long time to undo the wrongs, but we will keep fighting even after they have destroyed us individually. It is not bitching on the internet that saves us, but laboring for ourselves and our loved ones that saves us. All labor that we can capture for ourselves is stolen from them, in their eyes. So let us spend our energies on what they can not tax, which is each other and our selves.
Bl, “Discussing how we are getting screwed all day everyday is counter productive and never stops the takeover” exactly. The plural version of falling into the trap of self examination. Forever on the therapy couch discovering the latest reason why they behave like they do. All the while never putting forth more than a half hearted attempt at changing something they find objectionable.
How damn much do we have to know about the Covicaust to know it’s evil for instance. How much do we need to know about how the Fed shave the coin of the realm to know it’s killing us and needs to be stopped. Just to name a couple tbp favorites. We sure spare no effort on Friday Fail by comparison.
Yes. I am guilty. Identifying the problem is something intelligent people are good at, but executing solutions is entirely a different skill set. I am not wise enough to know where one begins and the other ends. Following through takes practice. Taking action takes practice. Meditation takes practice. It is called practice for a reason.
I think people haven’t taken much action as much because they are out of practice as for any other reason.
Well, some how the French are trying to figure it out. Not Americans. The French!
What I’ve been saying for years; Amerikans are “all talk and no action.”
Keyboard warriors.
“I think people haven’t taken much action as much because they are out of practice as for any other reason.”
Of course we haven’t taken action. We’re a nation of non-thinkers with no leaders. Too many specialists and very, very few with leadership skills. We’re a people who have had conformity forced on us and risk-taking discouraged. Most people lack passion and conviction. We need to be led and told what to do. We’ve been trained to follow instructions. The ‘war’ began long ago, and we did nothing about it. So…we suffer the consequences now. It’s deserved.
Something has to change Flea, we aren’t going to beat this dead horse another year. If we don’t ditch this insanity and return to common sense and human thought we are not worthy to take up space here on this plane.
Happy New Year! Glad to see you as a regular again.
Once or twice a day max. Just having a good week this week.
As Sean Connery said in The Untouchables, “How far are you willing to go?”. I believe the Resistance part of this debacle is just starting. More and more people are waking up to the totalitarian nightmare released. And that’s a good thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Prohibition
Sure Sean was the best character in that flick. But he was also with the gangsters that have always been willing to go further, always expanding the edge of the map that is the terrortory. Creatin’ Capone type problems, so they can solve em’, is just one specialty of Volstead Actors.
Parts of America might be alright, but Canada is fucked…
I’m afraid you’re right. Canadians and Australians have taught Americans a very valuable lesson whilst they’ve lost their freedom and dignity: NEVER give up our weapons.
Never ever compromise when it comes to the definition of the phrase, “shall not be infringed”. This says it all. No one, no body of individuals, no mandates, no statutes, no man made rules have the power or right to infringe on our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms. Every country that has allowed their governance to infringe on this basic right of self protection has become a tyrant over time.
Yea? Tell me why there is a single gun law in the USA? The lines have been crossed and re-crossed to the point our fathers left us a cage. It is time to hate our fathers, just as we love them. There are no more lines remaining that do not make us slaves in fact.
We will ultimately win as we yearn for freedom. The price to be paid is the fly in the ointment, as more is lost to tyranny more is gained by red pilling. When the vaxxed children are dropping from heart attacks and other unusual ailments, the game will truly be on!
Fly Island is the oikment, says Piggy, from heaven….
There are many that have never given up their firearms… MANY of us have experienced tragic canoeing accidents however.
However you know there are still aplenty because Justeen is trying to ban them all with an Order of Council… Like an EO in the states. Its moving its way thru the courts presently.
motor boats overturn, as well. the Mississippi River is dangerous.
Libtards like Kanada’s Truedope actually believe that the words of legislature are real, completely unaware how many so-called assault weapons and ammo were ‘lost in boating accidents’ after the Kanadian government telegraphed its move to ban them long ago.
“All while failing to focus on the threats of empire and central banking”.
That was a sentence that jumped out at me…all of their power and control has come from their ‘magic money’ they create out of thin air.
That is how they can/should be taken down.
Of course that fiat/currancy collapse is coming but the problem is 90% of American will be taken down economically with them.
Fractional reserve banking and its handmaiden fiat are nothing but hoover vacuum cleaners for the bankers to steal our sweat and blood.
And then buy/bribe all the politicians they haven’t already blackmailed.
Yea. It is almost perfect from their perspective.
Everthing this article says about America is true also of Canada. Canada might be worse because its prime minister is so malevolent. Actually most of the worlds nations are in Americas reprehensible circumstance. Australia and New Zealand worst of all.
Step one is utterly rejecting the false moral framework of the left (it’s the same one used by the fake right). Liberalism is poison.
We need a candidate who’ll ban gay marriage. Also, straight marriage.
Menage a tricycles…him, her, church-of-state:
I try to burn a tire or a brush pile for Greta every once in a while.
Jesus Christ gave the code to destroying empires, because there are no good empires. There has never been and never will be a Christian empire.
I have read the book and know we will win. Our leader cannot be defeated.
TN Patriot, don’t give away the ending for those who haven’t read the book yet.
Nobody wins if nobody fights. Courage is required, the spineless need not apply.
We need to create a coherent governing philosophy and draft people to represent it. We know what we are not. Not Progressive, not Libertarian, Not Neoconservative, Not Abstract Constitutionalism, Not Universal Socialists or Communists. Federalism does not go far enough, and it is a reverse description. Civic Nationalism requires some legal nation to love. There is none.
You need to write this up as a stand alone post.
Win/ge: The hinge that the door of uncleansed perception hangs on & sees as trophy proving win.
1938? And that same door is still creaking on that same hinge.
When oh when will w•hens be cocks o’ the walk?
Quoth the Raven: “Neverwere don’t even have a way to get to nevermore….”
“We” – all of ‘em – synonyms “lose” … despite what that old Queen song sings…& what that older Queen Momma Nature coos…cuz she wants ya’ to weus & so to lose. Self sabotage is the designated desi•gnu slurping to slake down at the croc infested waterhole.
But that must be like water to youngster fish…we is to domesti-people like water is to fish…like polluted, toxic, water is to fish…& frogs (no need to bring up to slow boil at all…better killin’ thru chemistry…that ol’ we got chemistry chemistry…we’s innocent – it’s those damn chemicals that are guilty).
We is the w(hit)e flag, camo-coated with colorful lies of our fathers…mothers, too.
Thinkin’ ain’t action & followin’ leaders ain’t either.
Action ain’t thinkin & followin’ leaders ain’t either.
We is distributed responsibility, diluted to tasteless, odorless, zero-cal symbology poison.
We is the original fookin’ metaverse that eraserhead’s plagiarizing & sellin’ back to the plagiarizing monkey-see-do plagiarized.
We is the Thoreau tree root.
Best time to chop a we•tree root was twenty years back. Second best time is…what time have ya’ got? But most really ain’t got the time at all…that Chicago tune.
You were born into war. So was your entire family tree. All are born into the waroot. And most will stay with that tap til the taps bugler taps those exit notes.
Yes. Wages of weus•in are earned. But that’s a design feature. Not a chosen bug. (Nor did bugless ones that bugged out choose.) “This is our fate…I’m yours.” ~ Jason Mraz
There’s nothing to be done. It’s a fired catch-22 inside Plato’s Plinkin’ Cave…which means it’s mostly never caught (apprehended, comprehended). It just goes on ricocheting & tale chasing/wagging Cerberus-reverberating forever. Weus•hadows on the walls is schizo-reality. And meta-reality.
I forget ever met’in’ a reality like that I didn’t dislike.
Rock ‘em sock ‘em fix is in shadows on the wall is how weus wins. Cuz winning is just another one of those “social” constructs theyus likes to blather on about.