Historian has another of his remarkably philosophical blogs, new today. This one is on who are the guilty in the present mess we’re in.
Historian’s writing is powerful and true and just a little bit poetic. As it tells a truth this piece carries a drumbeat of both terror and triumph. Absolutely be sure to read it; it isn’t long, but it’s packed full.
It made me think of something related. We, you and me, out here on this blog in the early winter of liberty, are not responsible. We may have been at some time in some miniscule scale within the political universe. Possibly we will be again in the future, against our own will. But we are trying to stay out or slog of out this — this Slough of Despond that’s our political world.
During this election it’s been common to hear people say, “If you don’t v*te for Trump you’re as good as v*ting for Hillary.” Sometimes worse. It’s all or nothing, my way or the highway. If you’re a Trump skeptic, you’re a Hillary voter. Which everyone knows is a cloven-footed, red-skinned two-legged animal with horns carrying a pitchfork with burning babies pierced on it.
I haven’t had any friendships break up over political questions this season, and pray we all have better sense and toleration than to let that happen. But I’ve known people it’s happened to. The stories have been heartbreaking. And it always begins with some Trump supporter and the “If you don’t” thing.
Some people have been the subject of loud online breakups. But the worst is when a friend just cuts you off. Boom! You are a non-person.
All over some pretender to a monumentally toxic throne.
We’re going to hurt, no matter who wins. I totally understand why people are desperate for Trump now. But even if by some miracle he ends up wearing the purple, he’s just going to disappoint, betray, and endanger. And even if he didn’t, we’d be on the brink of uncivil war with the leftinteligencia and their storm troopers. Because they wouldn’t take a Trump victory lightly.
Whatever happens, please, please, please do not break with friends over this if you can help it. I have lost friends over freedom questions and I know how destructive it is. The friend I lost at 9/11 later sent multi-page letters filled with crazy-person threats. Threats that were sheer nonsense but she seemed to think would scare me. People get strange when they hate their old friends.
But worse than losing our individual friends is losing allies. Allies we’re going to need.
We are not the guilty. We didn’t create the political parties. We didn’t set up the crooked deals. We didn’t invite our dead relatives to cast their ballots. We didn’t scorn the little people. We are the little people. The wealthiest and most influential person reading this blog couldn’t even get a meeting with Hillary Clinton’s secretary’s secretary’s part-time assistant. You want to be near Trump, buy yourself a night next to the neon sign on one of his hotels. We aren’t the R or D convention delegates. We’re not the brown-nosed media. We’re not the million-dollar bribe-offerers.
So no matter what you think, you had zero influence on setting up the oozingly tawdry situation we’re in and the mortal dangers that go with it. And that friend who disagrees with you is no more responsible. And you’re going to need your friends, no matter what the outcome. So please. Don’t let the real guilty divide you.
I’ve avoided as much of this circus as I can. But a circus it is. The primaries were Act I. The election is just the end of Act II. Act III is the fight afterwards to see who actually gets to sit in the office. Gore v Bush was tame compared to what I expect this time.
I keep hearing about all the rabid Hilary/Donald folks, but I’m not finding them in the wild. I can count the yard signs and bumper stickers I’ve seen displayed with my shoes on.
My friends who bring the election up are like, “Vote Hillary, get Armageddon over with” and “Vote Trump, but build his wall around D.C.” and “Vote Johnson, so you can say I told you so.”
So I think I’m not losing friends or allies. Meanwhile, our local prepper meetings are SRO.
If you’re going to cast New Class Traitor’s statement (in its entirety: “Pity the nation that’s reduced to such a Hobson’s choice.”) in Randian terms, I think the following scene in The Fountainhead is more applicable:
[snip]
He handed to Roark six of his canvases.
Roark looked at them, one after another. He took a longer time than he needed. When he could trust himself to lift his eyes, he shook his head in silent answer to the word Keating had not pronounced.
“It’s too late, Peter,” he said gently.
Keating nodded. “Guess I … knew that.”
When Keating had gone, Roark leaned against the door, closing his eyes. He was sick with pity.
He had never felt this before – not when Henry Cameron collapsed in the office at his feet, not when he saw Steven Mallory sobbing on a bed before him. Those moments had been clean. But this was pity – this complete awareness of a man without worth or hope, this sense of finality, of the not to be redeemed. There was shame in this feeling – his own shame that he should have to pronounce such judgment upon a man, that he should know an emotion which contained no shred of respect.
This is pity, he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.
[snip]
I guess it’s time for me to pipe up again… If you’re feeling a little guilty, it may be because you’re paying taxes that President Trump or President Clinton are going to spend on their demented, dangerous designs.
You’ll feel a lot less guilty when you stop providing financial support to President Whoever. It’s very satisfying to put down the oar and stop rowing the ship of state… even if you’re just another galley slave and can’t get anywhere near the helm.
If you want to find out more about how to go about it, your best bet is probably to get in touch with the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, whose members have been refusing to pay U.S. federal taxes in a variety of ways for decades. (http://nwtrcc.org/) They’ve got the goods on which techniques work best, depending on your goals and your risk tolerance and your circumstances. As the name suggests, they’ve got a very anti-war/anti-military-spending focus, but their techniques are adaptable to people who have other concerns.
And if you think you’d like to make tax resistance more of a widespread thing, an actual threat to the status quo, you can’t go wrong by starting with my book: 99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns (http://sniggle.net/99Tactics). Claire Wolfe says it’s “a goldmine of research and is very readable, besides” … “a fascinating, inspiring read.”
Trying 2B amused:
A powerful scene, no doubt. And I understand the feeling Rand sought to evoke by it
Was Peter Keating an innocent individual, or a guilty one?
Rand’s description of what Roark felt was what happens when an honorable man pities those who earned their fate, the GUILTY.
Are those who are overtly trying to destroy the ideals of these presently united States innocent or guilty?
Pity is not what I feel when I look at what is being done to that which was the united States of America, or when I consider the motives and acts of the perpetraitors.(intentional mis-spelling) Sorrow, yes. Determination, yes.
Not pity.
My point was that a nation is a grouping of individuals, not a collective mass. I save my pity for the innocent individuals.
“Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.” Have no pity for the guilty, and when the time comes, show them no mercy. They will do no less to you.
Historian:
Rest assured my disinclination towards mercy for the perpetraitors, as you aptly put it, is of a degree best not elucidated in a public forum. And you are absolutely correct, of course, that collective guilt (or innocence) is an invalid concept. But my point about NCT’s statement, in the metaphorical context of that statement, still stands. Is Keating guilty? Yes. But so is Ellsworth Toohey, and there is no trace of either pity or mercy in Roark’s reaction to their encounter. Why the difference? Also consider the only other occasion – I trust you are familiar enough with the story to know what that is – that Roark feels pity.
[…] http://www.clairewolfe.com/blog/2016/10/11/we-are-not-the-guilty/ […]
Any friends that were going to cut off contact with me over politics, did so several elections ago.
It is truly terrifying to see a once-logical person turn to an instantly-rabid brownshirt. I miss the person they used to be. But they’re not that person anymore. They forgot how to be. And that makes me miss them more.