Nov 9, 2004
Anarchy Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
As a follow-up to my earlier post on the disenfranchisement of the world under American hegemony, check out this site. (Thanks to Cameron for the link.)
Telling the world"sorry" is fine, but what next? Most of the opponents of our Prince President don't fundamentally question the electoral system itself. They've been taught that the only alternatives to"democracy" (and by"democracy" they mean this ritual whereby the populace gets to pick between two marginally different doofuses every four years) are various forms of dictatorship. Few of them yet recognise that there are -- to put it somewhat paradoxically -- forms of political order more democratic than"democracy." As long as the"other 49%" still accept the basic legitimacy of the electoral system, their expressions of regret, however sincerely meant (and I do appreciate the"Sorry, Everybody" site -- particularly as a counter to the prevailing international tendency to view the entire American populace through the lens of that blood-red electoral map), will ring objectively hollow.
Herbert Spencer argued for the citizen's right to ignore the state. Now that"democracy" apparently means that 51% of the American electorate gets to rule the other 49%, plus the rest of the planet, what the world most urgently needs is the right to ignore the United States.
As a follow-up to my earlier post on the disenfranchisement of the world under American hegemony, check out this site. (Thanks to Cameron for the link.)
Telling the world"sorry" is fine, but what next? Most of the opponents of our Prince President don't fundamentally question the electoral system itself. They've been taught that the only alternatives to"democracy" (and by"democracy" they mean this ritual whereby the populace gets to pick between two marginally different doofuses every four years) are various forms of dictatorship. Few of them yet recognise that there are -- to put it somewhat paradoxically -- forms of political order more democratic than"democracy." As long as the"other 49%" still accept the basic legitimacy of the electoral system, their expressions of regret, however sincerely meant (and I do appreciate the"Sorry, Everybody" site -- particularly as a counter to the prevailing international tendency to view the entire American populace through the lens of that blood-red electoral map), will ring objectively hollow.
Herbert Spencer argued for the citizen's right to ignore the state. Now that"democracy" apparently means that 51% of the American electorate gets to rule the other 49%, plus the rest of the planet, what the world most urgently needs is the right to ignore the United States.