third world county

This is an open trackbacks post, opoen all weekend long. Link to this post and track back. (Posts that actually mention/discuss the subject–below–will be hard-linked later in the post body).

“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Another one of those pithy statemments often attributed to Napoleon. The Corsican had a point. And I’d like to keep it in mind as I very briefly consider anarcho-tyranny.

The sorry state of public education. Borders leaking like a swimming pool made of chicken wire. Thousands Standing Around (enough said). A Byzantine tax system that punishes targets only the productive people in society. All of these assininities and outrages have a common link, and it’s not contemporary faux liberalism.

It’s anarcho-tyranny.

Let’s let the guy (Samuel Francis) who coined the term describe it:

What we have in this country today… is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny—the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through “sensitivity training” and multiculturalist curricula, “hate crime” laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny.

Now, Francis ascribes the condition of anarcho-tyranny as something deliberate, intentional, planned (do read the whole article). Maybe, but I’d rather posit a mixed state of anarcho-tyranny which seems to fit with my observation of human nature in general and people in groups, particularly.

As one baby step away from a massive conspiracy theory (which is what it seems Francis is pointing to in his article, ) consider once again

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Also stated as,

…in any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, so that those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

IOW, there’s a natural tendency in folks to lose sight of organizational goals and/or subordinate those goals to their personal desires, goals, wishes and aspirations. Particularly stupid people (no matter how intelligent) who can’t see beyond the end of their own nose or who simply refuse to take a long view. It’s the “I’ve got mine, and I want more. Who gives a sh*t about anyone else” mentality.

It’s the kind of mentality that leads to turf-building (or “career-enhancement”) among feddle gummint bureaucrats resulting in such abortions of justice as the infamous Martha Stewart travesty, Ruby Ridge, Waco and a vast host of other feddle gummint wrongs committed upon citizens. Whoa! Perhaps I should simplay have said “IRS” and left it at that…

It’s the kind of mentality that leads to gummint school “administrators” (who individually average out to have about the intelligence of a head of cabbage and collectively are dumber than a bag of hammers) placing stumbling blocks mandated by remote gummint educrats in the way of YOUR children learning anything useful or interesting in our increasingly infamous “prisons for kids” (infamous for what? For turning out kids who end up graduating from college still unable to read, for one among a myriad of other “failures”).

As someone has said, “If a foreign nation had imposed this system of education on the United States we would rightly consider it an act of war.”

Note: I typed the above quote from (poor) memory. The correct quote is taken from the preface to a 1983 study commissioned by the feddle gummint assessing the state of public education in the United States at that time. The preface was titled, “A Nation at Risk” and here’s the correct quote:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

Are things in public education substantively better today than 23 years ago? Bluntly, no.

Border security?

The federal government invaded Iraq, although Iraq never harmed or threatened us, but it does virtually nothing to resist the massive invasion (and eventually the conquest) of its own country and the deliberate violation of its own laws by Mexico.¹

Is this because of some massive conspiracy to overthrow the United States? Not likely. But if one were to posit some very bright people doing some very stupid things (President Bush, are you listening? Of course not *sigh*) because of extreme short-sightedness, personal ambition, greed, etc., then building a border with a big “Walk All Over US” sign, handing JUan and Maria and their ten kids the keys to the country, etc., makes a little twisted sense. After all, the folks who refuse to enforce our laws, our borde4rs all pretty much live in gated communities, have plenty of resources socked away for themselves and their progeny, and they have legions of useful idiots and quinto columnistas who will support them.

Thinking of the various failures of our various governments in law enforecement brings this portion of Francis’ article to mind:

Anarcho-tyranny, then, is not just a deformation of the traditional system of government nor a symptom of “decadence.” The state today is perfectly capable of enforcing laws against illegal immigration and catching and deporting the illegals who are already here. It is also entirely capable of catching and imprisoning or executing the killers, rapists, and robbers who continue to haunt our streets and neighborhoods, just as it is entirely capable of catching speeders and red-light runners. The conventional conservative explanation of such “failures” on the part of the state, as the result of “weakness of will” or something, does not wash. The state and those who control it clearly have the will to enforce those laws they wish to enforce. The state does not “fail” to enforce the rest; it has no intention of enforcing them nor any desire to do so.

I’d submit once more that the reason for the behavior described above has more to do with a lack of moral fiber than Francis would allow, but his reasoning has a certain appeal. Among the minions of various governments there are surely many who know what they are doing is wrong, but they continue to use laws and bureaucratically-generated regulations to beat up regular citizens for exercising liberties the Founders and Framers would have considered fundamental instead of going after real outlaws.

But, as Shaw observed through the mouth of a centurion in Anthony and Cleopatra, “When a stupid man does something he knows is wrong, he always calims it is his duty.”

Large organizations make smart people stupid (or make them do stupid things—same difference ), enable corrupt, greedy, short-sighted people to do deliberately (or unintentionally) harmful things for their own short-term gain, empower petty, vengeful people inj their quests to “right” the “wrongs” of their lives, etc.

And large organizations, as Pournelle so wisely observed, have a way of gravitating to the lowest common denominator of human morality characterized by greed.

Anarcho-tyranny: oppression of otherwise law-abiding citizenry through a proloferation of laws and regulations and selective enforcement of those laws and regulations resulting in limiting the freedom of ordinary citizens by means of both governmental oppression and freedom of outlaws in their predations.

After all, for one thing it’s easier (and safer) to “catch” an ordinary citizen who has no intention of doing wrong violating some obscure regulation (or even just making a safe “rolling stop” or whatever) than it is actually going after real bad guys.

And when folks who do have guns or whatever are just minding their own business, it’s apparently safe to pull a Ruby Ridge (ask Lon Horruichi how easy it is to shoot an unarmed woman and get away with it; real kicks, eh, Lon?) or barbecue children a la Waco.

Safe as houses.

Assignment for the weekend: catelog three examples of anarcho-tyranny not mentioned above. Posts doing so that track back to this post will be hard linked here.

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Noted at Stop the ACLU and TMH’s Bacon Bits