"Rehearsals"

(The following just out in e-mail to a blogger who can identify himself on his discretion. I blockquote him, here.)

1) I've been watching the news [and web] pretty closely since the elections, following our discussions on the possibilities of upcoming massive civil unrest from the Left if Bush won. Aside from small, relatively isolated bits of violence, and a lot of verbal insanity on the 'Net and news, haven't seen much yet. You still see us as coming into some pretty heavy shit in the near future?

First thing: I have never said, nor seriously thought, that the term "near" was useful. That's because I don't see how anyone could precisely predict or identify what might be a precipitating event. The logic of that still seems valid to me, today. Maybe there are things that I don't see, but I wouldn't attempt to explicate the incipience of such a thing.

Conversely, I have always understood that we are never more than about 60-90 days away from complete disintegration of American social fabric as we now know it. Try to imagine the broad implications of, say, catastrophic disruption of retail distribution. (People old enough have seen glimmerings of all this in the gasoline lines of the mid-70's.) Did you see the movie "The Postman"? Never in our industrialized history have we been more than a couple of steps away from something like that in potential. That's how fragile is the whole economic structure allowing us to live as we do.

The thing that we're actually talking about is the relationship of politics to such an economic structure. Bear in mind Clausewitz's admonition that "war is politics by other means". In the current context, I cite that in order to point out that very few people understand the nature of politics, which, in classical philosophy, is the study of social organization: how human beings should treat each other in a social context. Today, we're ass-deep in morons who think that "politics" is merely about election campaigns and going to the polls. This myopia -- this abject ignorance -- is why they don't understand that their economic well-being is directly consequential to the state of politics.

This is the essential reason why I'm not interested to attempt to say how near or far we might be from some sort of a cataclysmic political event with disastrous economic consequences. Essentially: if it happens, we'll stumble into it, as the result of some random spark somewhere. Consider something like the Rodney King verdict in L.A. Nobody could have seen that arrest coming, in the fullest extent of its consequences.

However, this much is obvious to me: things simply cannot proceed the way they do now, with two philosophical opposites (the drive for socialism vs. the deep -- albeit waning -- American cultural affinity for individualism) facing each other across the "moderate" line of compromise between them. For reasons having to do with the nature of principles and compromise, this simply cannot go on forever.

It's just that I don't know exactly how the issue might be resolved, or when.

Nothing about the noise the left is making now, however, is surprising to me. It only remains to be seen how serious they are about it all.

2) I know that you and I both see the divide as rehearsal for a civil war. In your opinion... will that be a Bad Thing, or similar to lancing a boil: the potential catalyst for something good?

(Have to say I have mixed emotions. I've seen too much of the results of political warfare in South America when I was a hired gunsel. I'm fraid that it'll just kick the endarkening into high gear. I am tired of holding my breath waiting for the boom to drop though.. it'd almost be a relief.)

You know what? To my mind, the only sensible thing Stalin ever wrote was his thinking on "intensification of struggle". He understood the nature of compromise, and that it was impossible between the two opposites of socialism and individualism.

That said, I have to say: No. Civil war will not be a good thing.

I know what you mean about "relief". I've often said: at least, at that point, the issue would be obvious to everyone with a brain in their head.

However, for reasons that I outlined in my "Too Late?" essay, I maintain that massed passive civil disobedience is the last best hope remaining before a clash of arms.

I could be wrong about that.

3) I think I can answer this one for myself just from reading your writings, but what the hell: do you see any real possibilities in the Libertarian Party?

Absolutely not. None whatsoever. This is because of the fact (the existence) and power of principles. Frank Chadorov once put it like this to the Party: "Your problem is that you're trying to clean up the whorehouse in order to keep the business."

It doesn't get any plainer than that. The whole position of the party is one of stipulating to the premises of democracy in order to do away with its consequences come down two hundred years. This is a basic contradiction -- a principal philosophical conflict -- that simply cannot be resolved.

Or is it safe to say they're writing themselves off as irrelevant?

That irrelevence is built-in to their whole project, from the ground, up.