We have plenty of fake revolts, and none of them will really make anything better.
Let’s establish one thing from the start: I don’t expect to lead a revolution in the usual sense of the word. Indeed, I proclaim loudly and repeatedly you can’t fix anything that way. All you are doing is replacing one bad government with another, which will eventually go bad in its own way. Most Westerners are so fixated on trying to stay within some mythical rules of democratic social structure, and a fantasy about the will of the people, as if this would fix anything. The definition of insanity includes refusing to recognize the problem is not a failed implementation, but a failed system which ignores reality.
I’ve written here often, sometimes at length, on what I insist is the only proper moral foundations for governing fallen humanity. I summarize the fundamental point of departure as: No one has any business poking around in your life who isn’t related to you by blood or covenant. The only government God approves of is your own family relations. This is particularly true regarding matters of social welfare. Thus, the proper academic label for my political agenda is “tribal.”
Without hashing once more what that means, if you are just now stumbling across this blog or you haven’t seen enough of my stuff to understand, you can find more in this overview, and this discussion of laws (site closed).
So let’s pretend we have a group of us who would like to implement some of this. Not because we are stupid enough to believe any significant portion of humanity will join a political movement, or that we could somehow create a foundation upon which to build a new nation, or anything so ambitious. All we want is just however much of the good life as is possible from the hand of God in our very real circumstances today. Yes, the West is crumbling, and as it does, there will be power vacuums of various types and sizes all over the place. When one oppressive and overbearing government run by psychopaths breaks down, you don’t have liberty, you have a fresh crop of psychopaths trying to seize the opportunity to create a new order to benefit themselves. They would be hindered by the rise of some other form of social order.
That’s our starting point: We are not trying to create a new government, but to prevent one. We are striving to weaken all governments because all governments likely, or even vaguely possible, will be inevitably evil. Granted, there has to be some sort of organizing principle of social order which would define resistance to bad government, but there need not be a government, per se, only something which prevents it by removing the need for it. Most emphatically, the current Western libertarian visions of orderly anarchy will not ever be possible with fallen man. Somebody has to be in charge, because it requires a warlord to resist threats. That’s purely human nature. If no one gives the battle order, there won’t be any resistance to the onslaught. Nor is it a question of how the resistance is organized and deployed, but what becomes the motivation to resist in the first place, and how that warlord is chosen, on what basis. It has to match the genuine needs of a very real human nature, not some imaginary construct, a silly Aristotelian dream.
What basic and fundamental human motive never fails, is always there, is the one which manifests when all else does fail? The tribe. Even the whiniest wimp will offer at least a token resistance for his tribe. See the news about the gang defying all sense in their fight with the police? That’s a tribe. It’s an artificial one, and it will come apart if you hit it long enough and hard enough, but it will take more than most governments are willing to do, or at least do well.
Take a hint: How did Hamas “take over” the Gaza Strip? You probably know Hamas arose from the murky political mists of the Islamic Brotherhood, a movement which is hardly easily defined, and not all that cohesive by Western standards. However, the driving force to make it into a viable political organization in Gaza was actually the funding and protection offered by Mossad, simply because it was a way of weakening Arafat and the PLO. The problem is, Hamas was pretty successful. Not just able to shoot more of their enemies than they lost in running gun battles, Hamas actually won the hearts and minds of a majority of voters. Nobody can dispute with any degree of rational seriousness that Hamas is truly the chosen government of a majority of those living in Gaza. It wasn’t through arm twisting, but through social welfare. Hamas earned the loyalty and trust of the people.
It won’t matter whose propaganda labels Hamas a “terrorist organization.” Hamas is the genuine, valid democratic choice of the residents of Gaza. It’s their government, the one they want. It’s democracy in action. Unless someone is willing to depopulate Gaza completely, Hamas will not be going away, so long as they continue the policies that got them in power. Israel is wholly unwilling to offer anything better. Most Gazans belong to the Hamas Tribe.
If you are going to rely on force against some group, which has occupied a territory long enough for them to believe they belong there, you have to go all the way, or don’t bother. It’s a very real fact of human nature the only way to really win a war is not remove the means to resist, but remove all resistance itself. Most of the time, that honestly means removing the people. As you might expect, I’m hardly in favor of that, but it’s the reality even I am forced to admit. Please note, resisting an occupier is a different game than conquering a resident population. Driving off an invader is always easier than conquest. Hamas only has to do what they do for their constituency; Israel would literally have to kill all of them.
The same goes for our idiocy in Afghanistan. Want to stop the Taliban? Kill them all, and anyone who shows the slightest inclination to support them. Once that’s done, it means colonizing the land with a different sort of people, folks who share the invaders’ culture. Of course, the US military lacks the intellectual honesty to adopt the tactics and strategy that would actually accomplish that. The other viable option is offering a better deal than the Taliban. Of course, that would require getting inside the heads of the Afghan population, knowing what they really want. It means offering the social stability and quality of life that would make the Taliban appear evil. I don’t have room to describe in detail what that requires, but it’s enough to note no one in the US government has a genuine intention of actually winning in Afghanistan. Our government’s intentions, a poorly kept secret the majority prefer to ignore, has nothing to do with making anything better for that population, nor the one here.
On a much smaller scale, if you were to see a genuine need to counter the predations of the current official system of government, and those which will arise when that government collapses in the near future, you would have to create a social stability currently missing. It really wouldn’t take that much in terms of resources, but it would be very time intensive. Do you want to lead such a move? You are probably morally unfit. Do you think it’s necessary, but are reluctant to get involved? Then you might be a good candidate. If you see it as the only way of protecting your own family from predators, you at least understand what’s at stake. Create your own tribe.
Not your own gang, and certainly not some neighborhood watch society or whatever — those are poor substitutes. You’ll have to toss in the trash everything you learned in Civics class, because the moment you organize in that fashion, you are ripe for hijacking. No, simply create a family bonding, a sense of kinship. It must be entirely voluntary. It is the ultimate in non-organizational bonding. The amount of time you must devote is staggering. You’ll have to be so very patient with everyone in all their vast array of differences, taking them where they are, offering only what they will accept, on whatever terms they accept it. They have to know more than anything else you actually love them, even if they don’t think in those terms. If you care, they’ll know at least subconsciously. That’s because the bond is not primarily conscious, but subconscious.
It has to be the sort of thing they’ll seize upon when they panic, when conscious intellect fails. Maybe you don’t have much of anything that helps them with their needs right now, but if you don’t establish the willingness to sacrifice what you do have, you can’t gain any ground at all. However much they open the door, come on in and pour out some genuine positive regard. Though you know sure as the world some of it will come back to you in one way or another, don’t ever think of it as an exchange. It’s all one way until the horrifying moment when they have no other place to turn.
If you are a Christian, that’s called “evangelism” as the Bible intended it. If you don’t embrace Christ, you can call it what you like. The underlying principle is the same; it’s something fundamental to human nature. All it takes initially is something like, “Howdy, neighbor!” Do it consistently. Smile, make jokes which poke fun at yourself only. Disarm their resistance, yet don’t ever be suckered by their games. At least one of my neighbors is a manipulative charmer, a fairly attractive divorcée two decades younger than me. She’s used to getting certain things certain ways; I doubt it’s entirely conscious on her part. She’s not evil, just very badly conditioned, having absorbed too much of the perverted modern American culture. I call her “neighbor” and try to help, but I consciously resist the charm stuff. It’s not in her best interest, and certainly not in mine. She knows consciously I’m a deeply religious man, that I am otherworldly, but probably not much more, and probably not interested. But when disaster strikes, she’ll know where to turn. That’s enough. There is no programmed plan to “convert” her, because I’m not selling my religion for rational consumption. When she needs my faith, she’ll be moved to ask, because she’ll need it on a level where it counts. Until then, she’s not capable of absorbing my faith.
Meanwhile, there is this matter of consciously working to resist bad government. There most certainly is a type of salvation which applies only on this level of existence. That’s what the word “religion” is really about. It’s the combined pattern of behaviors, along with a range of rituals and symbols and ideas, which together give shape to something which cannot be explained. My religion reflects my faith; they are not synonymous. You can adopt my religion without having any part of my faith, and it must of necessity be voluntary in the same way. In this case, my religion is this revolution I’ve been describing. The most revolutionary part is you take only as much as you can tolerate. Slice and dice; pick and choose. It works out the same for me any way at all, unless you become an outright enemy. As Jesus said, real religion is caring for those in need. I don’t want more of you than you think you can afford to offer at any given moment, and I don’t expect you to take more of me than you want. I don’t want control at all, and I don’t want anyone else to have it.
But it’s not the libertarian Nirvana of anarchy, either. You can give it whatever name you like, but by taking the initiative to show I care, the tribe is formed. It exists on a level no human government can touch. In case it didn’t occur to you, when I really need something from them, they’ll bring it if they know about the need. But as the external order weakens, the doorway for me is wider. It won’t be me taking charge; anyone who has the right answer can take charge for the moment of need. It’s not about me. It’s about surviving the disaster because someone has taken the time to build up the sense of community. The more I pursue this, the more others will do it, relating to each other independently of me. It’s all good; it doesn’t have to come through my hands. It’s not based on everyone being on the same sheet of music at all. There are no principles to teach; it’s entirely a matter of real human nature and instinct.
The genuine revolt is when nobody needs government.
