Tibetan religious tradition has it that when the Dalai Lama dies, the Buddha of Compassion leaves his body and incarnates in the body of a young child. The monks immediately go out in search of this blessed child, and when they find him – as they inevitably do – he is tested by a group of high lamas and enthroned as the reincarnation of his successor.
Imagine, however, if the lamas refused to recognize that the Dalai Lama was, in fact, dead. Suppose that instead of going in search of the Buddha’s new carnal home, they hooked the corpse up to a life support machine and waited patiently for the Holy One to awake and rise up. It’s not hard to see that they would be doomed to disappointment, and furthermore, would fail to find the next Dalai Lama as well.
This is precisely our dilemma today, for America, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, is dead. By every measure, large and small, the original vision of limited government by, for and of the people has been folded, spindled and mutilated beyond recognition. When one reads the Constitution, one simply marvels at the distinct difference between its words and our present reality.
Vox Day
July 12, 2004
You can’t fix a corpse
[The question, of course, is where/how do we find “New America” or reincarnate the spirit of the original? Day advocates voting for Libertarian or Constitutional parties. While I have (mostly) been doing that for many years I’m not convinced it is very productive. I think voting is a measure of the current status of the culture. Hence, I’m inclined to believe the correct answer involves changing the culture rather than voting. The voting will correct itself once the culture has sufficiently changed.—Joe]
My opinion, never re-elect an incumbent regardless of party affiliation. The proper term limit is one and it should be enforced by the voters, not by law, rule, or amendment.
The problem is “regulatory capture” of education. As long as the schools (both k-12 and higher ed) are dogmatically leftist, anti-truth, revisionist and anti-American in the history they teach, and schizophrenically focused on both diversity and a self-contradictory monoculture rather than “E Pluribus Unum,” changing culture will be very hard. Infogalactic will help. The Twitter replacement Gab will help. Any non-SJW infested social platform will help. What’s needed is a pro-American (classical American, that is) alternative education system. I have an idea, but it will not be easy to do, and I need a job with cash-flow in the meantime.
Joe wrote: “I’m inclined to believe the correct answer involves changing the culture….” Rolf, you nailed it.
The Left determined that in order for their side to win they had to destroy Western culture, and they set about doing it through the schools and the media. People who wanted to “change the world!” went into teaching and journalism in large numbers. See “The Frankfurt School,” “Critical Theory,” “Deconstructionism,” “The Long March Through the Institutions,” etc.
If you want to change the culture back, nuke the schools from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. The public education system cannot be reformed. It is occupied, top to bottom, with Believers who see it as their duty to lead us all to the Promised Land.
Personally, I think it’s too late to stop the crash. The Gods of the Copybook Headings are limping up to explain it once more.
I don’t know much about the Constitutional party; had never heard of it until a few months ago and haven’t heard of it since. The Libertarian party was a good idea at one time, but it seems to have been taken over by unprincipled charlatans like Gary Johnson, not to mention evil statists like Bill Weld. I don’t know if it’s repairable.
The very concept of political parties is a problem. They’re too small a target for infiltration, and their system of funding, donors, leadership and followers will always defeat principles.
There’s an axiom; any organization, once founded, immediately begins to lose sight of its original purpose. It’s main purpose is now to grow and maintain it’s membership and funding at the expense of promoting it’s founding principles.
What is always lost is the fact that promoting the right principles is the best way to engender support. But that statement is the problem, because it places engendering support above principles, as though the principles are only a tool (among other tools) for use along the path toward power and influence.
The problem then, could be described as a loss (or lack) of faith.
In practical terms that loss or lack stems from the desire of individuals to self-promote. The social climbers within any organization take over the agenda (they only got into it in the first place because they saw an opportunity for themselves, so they played it as a game, a career path), and at some point the founding principles come to be perceived as the enemy of success. The organization is now hypocritical in nature, and it’s leaders will defend that hypocrisy as “pragmatism” (it’s how they climbed the ladder within the organization, so they would know). It’s now an authoritarian system, pretty much like any other, and thus we descend into a gang verses gang, team verses team, scenario, where “winning” is more important than any stupid principles (after all; if you don’t win, then your principles don’t matter anyway, right?).
All political systems fall down that path, as do all organized “religions”.
In purely secular, practical, sensible terms, this can be readily seen in business. People may observe that a business which provides goods and services may become very wealthy. They see the wealth as the success, but they’ve got it backwards. Desiring that “success”, someone else will get into business, failing to understand the fact that success is not wealth. The success is in providing something truly valuable in such a way that makes people happy. Instead you might be going after the money at the expense of providing goods and services and making people happy. The business is thus corrupted.
Most people can see and understand that in observing the world of business, but In politics and government it’s far, far worse.
Jesus was actually very clear on this concept. Think of it in terms of concept, or principle. Any atheist should be able to understand it and accept it as a concept that can apply to everyday life. The quote (as translated into English long ago, when English was very different from today’s English) goes something like this;
“Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all other things will be added.”
It means, get yourself right, be aligned with the truth and the fundamental principles, first and foremost, because THAT is the only measure of success that matters. If you can achieve that, overcoming the distractions in life, all the other stuff will fall into place and in ways that you’d never predict.
The American founders expressed that same idea this way;
“…with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
That was the last thing they had to say to Parliament and to King George, after spelling out with perfect clarity the principles upon which they were acting.
They were able to prevail against the greatest military powder the world had yet seen, yes, but their success came first– It was in their adherence to the (clearly defined) principles over all else, including their lives.
Their military victory was a consequence of their success, not the other way around as many tend to assume.
If that concept could be understood by just a few more Americans, we’d be out of the weeds in relatively short order.
Sadly, I’d bet less than 20% of Americans understand, let alone agree with, what you just said. It’ll take a few more than “just a few more” to fix the problems. Maybe with the Great Orator Trump speaking at a level the average American can understand more people will figure it out.
I’d love to see Stefan Molyneux as Trump’s press secretary. Yeah, he’s Canadian, but he’s good with words. He gets it. If you are not familiar with him, go check out a few of his video pod-casts.