Sep 29, 2022·edited Sep 29, 2022Liked by The Evolved Psyche
Schmidt sez: If youze all partisans want to be "legitimate", youze all gotta do one of two things:
Youze gotta be openly allied with an already-legitimate foreign power.
Or youze gotta declare yourself the legitimate government, and the present regime criminals. This can be accomplished two ways: Youze can declare yourself the new revolutionary gubmint. Or youze can declare yourself the _real_ old-gubmint.
In this weird struggle against the new global regime, I've met exactly zero men who want to ally with some foreign power. And just as significantly, we're battling a _global_ regime - there is no "outside". So this option is out.
I've likewise met few Freedomists who are revolutionaries. Few indeed have a coherent vision for a new world, and fewer still (vanishingly few) are ready to declare our faction a revolutionary regime.
Many many Freedomists however are quite willing to assert the basic laws, the legal and social constitution of their nation, against the global Covid regime's coup. Although the word is a bit unsavory, this is the _reactionary_ position. We don't want a new gubmint, some imagined utopian Paradise on earth. No, but we'll be tolerably happy with the gubmint - with the whole macrosocial world - we had three years ago.
Thing about the Reaction is, when broad social sentiment reaches a tipping point, it can come fast & furious. Slowly slowly slowly... then all at once. No need to vastly restructure duh gubmint, no need to build a new regime from scratch. What we have now is just fine, thanks - we're only patching a particularly nasty bug.
Those people who embody the Banality of Evil may be surprised by the suddenness, rapidity, and _fury_ of the Reaction.
That article I linked to is not the best of expositions, and rather hagiographic, but it's the best I was able to find on the interwebs. Note that it mentions in passing that the Alter Rebbe actually organized his followers as partisans to help Alexander against Napoleon.
Schmidt sez: If youze all partisans want to be "legitimate", youze all gotta do one of two things:
Youze gotta be openly allied with an already-legitimate foreign power.
Or youze gotta declare yourself the legitimate government, and the present regime criminals. This can be accomplished two ways: Youze can declare yourself the new revolutionary gubmint. Or youze can declare yourself the _real_ old-gubmint.
In this weird struggle against the new global regime, I've met exactly zero men who want to ally with some foreign power. And just as significantly, we're battling a _global_ regime - there is no "outside". So this option is out.
I've likewise met few Freedomists who are revolutionaries. Few indeed have a coherent vision for a new world, and fewer still (vanishingly few) are ready to declare our faction a revolutionary regime.
Many many Freedomists however are quite willing to assert the basic laws, the legal and social constitution of their nation, against the global Covid regime's coup. Although the word is a bit unsavory, this is the _reactionary_ position. We don't want a new gubmint, some imagined utopian Paradise on earth. No, but we'll be tolerably happy with the gubmint - with the whole macrosocial world - we had three years ago.
Thing about the Reaction is, when broad social sentiment reaches a tipping point, it can come fast & furious. Slowly slowly slowly... then all at once. No need to vastly restructure duh gubmint, no need to build a new regime from scratch. What we have now is just fine, thanks - we're only patching a particularly nasty bug.
Those people who embody the Banality of Evil may be surprised by the suddenness, rapidity, and _fury_ of the Reaction.
I've been telling some of my friends how your latest writings on populism vs "liberalism" helped me understand this story: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/hasidic-rebbe-who-helped-defeat-napoleon. And now you just straight connected the whole thing to partisan resistance to Napoleon. Uncanny.
That article I linked to is not the best of expositions, and rather hagiographic, but it's the best I was able to find on the interwebs. Note that it mentions in passing that the Alter Rebbe actually organized his followers as partisans to help Alexander against Napoleon.
Good stuff.
I've written about how Populism is just a stepping-stone on the path to Authoritarianism (and that's a good thing). Any thoughts on that thesis?
This is a "brief little note" haha