Why You Should Oppose Public Transportation

Ask most people on the broad Right what they think about public transportation and they’d probably tell you that they don’t like it. And it’s not just because of the smell and the gum stuck to the seats. Most of us, deep down inside, at least in some subconscious way, feel that mass public transportation is just a little bit communist.

After all, we on the Right like our freedom. Now at this point, some readers might be thinking, “Whoa Theophilus, aren’t you a monarchist?? Doesn’t that mean you want some kind of totalitarian state where all of our lives are regimented by some king??” Most definitely not, and the history of monarchy in the western world (at least), and especially the Anglo-Saxon world, ought to put that objection to rest. Strong and unitary government is certainly not the same thing as totalitarianism or arbitrary despotism. Indeed, political liberty in the sense of republican-democratic forms is not actually necessary for economic prosperity or social benevolence. In fact, democratic forms themselves can just as easily lend themselves to the totalisation of sociopolitical life as much as an oriental despotism would. There is absolutely no reason why right-wing systems of authority should be assumed to lend themselves to excessive social controls, and in most western experience with monarchy they actually have not. As long as you’re not a communist subversive or weirdo pervert of some kind, you’re pretty much going to be left alone to live as you like. If you’re the kind of person who is comfortable under a system that maintains right order, you’re most likely the kind of person who values your personal liberty and who will enjoy it largely unhindered. Part of that involves your freedom of movement, something which we on the Right have traditionally valued.

Restoring the Compact Theory would be Vital to Restoring the Constitution

By now, most regular readers have probably become aware of the fact that I am a monarchist. Because of that, I normally wouldn’t be all that concerned about things like “restoring constitutions” and the like. However, as a neoreactionary who draws an ontological distinction between Mencius Moldbug and Curtis Yarvin, I would also hold to the principle of formalism which Moldbug expressed so long ago. Thus, while I may not think constitutionalism is all that effective and, as a form of democratisation, is prone to being hijacked by bad actors, I also believe that you should operate under the system you have in place until such a time as it can be formally changed via established processes.

Because of this, I would still definitely prefer the American constitutional system as it was originally intended over the sort of progressive, managerial, manipulation of procedural outcomes type of perversion we’ve been seeing since the end of World War II (especially). Indeed, being a “right wing normiecon constitutionalist” was a fairly integral stretch in the evolution of my overall worldview. Also, as I’ve noted previously, while I’d personally like to see any post-collapse American system(s) involve a move toward monarchism, I also realise that our national disposition and our history will make that very unlikely, so trying to roll back the clock to an earlier era in our republican history is a much more realistic goal.

Democracy as Regime Enforcement Mechanism

If you listen to Regime apologists, you would believe that democracy is both the single most important factor in all of existence as well as facing constant, existential threats from the forces of global evil. However, the astute observer can see that when the Regime talks about “democracy,” it does not at all mean the same thing that the average person understands by that term. Far from being some neutral political decision-making process that allows the body of the citizenry to participate in governance, democracy essentially is a sham, a way to apply a veneer of popular legitimacy to predetermined policies desired by Regime oligarchs. And if the occasion arises where the people get too uppity and start moving in directions the oligarchs don’t want, democratic results can always be…adjusted…to give the right answers. All in all, when the Regime talks about “democracy,” what it means is Regime-approved policies and personnel being implemented, and it’s been this way for decades.

We can see this to be the case with a story that was in the news fairly recently, which was the crackdown on violent criminal gangs by Salvadorean president Nayib Bukele. In a very short period of time, over 40,000 gang members were rounded up and incarcerated and, unsurprisingly, El Salvador’s rates of murder and other violent crimes plummeted. Village life became safe again once the fear of raids and shakedowns by these gangs went away. Salvadorean expatriates even spoke of returning to their country now that it’s safe. So this is a good thing, right?

Populism Needs Leaders

A couple of days ago I saw this tweet from one of my long-time mutuals,

The event which this is referring to is a recent fight that took place in Glendale, California between antifa scumbags and a group of concerned parents (primarily Armenians) who don’t like that the school district is trying to foist off even more troon propaganda onto their children.

Now, I understand the sentiment being expressed. After all, if the large majority of the people want something (or don’t want it, as the case may be), then that should be determinative, right? Isn’t that the heart and essence of democracy, which our current Regime professes to love so much? And make no mistake, the transgenderism agenda, especially when it’s directed towards our kids, is very unpopular. No matter how much the Regime celebrates it with pride flags and political leverage, there’s no changing the fact that most people don’t want their children’s sexual organs to be mutilated in the cause of population control, or affirming mentally ill weirdos within the Left’s intersectionality alliance, or whatever other combination of things may be driving this agenda.

Democracy is not Better than Monarchy

One of the greatest ironies of modern non-mainstream politics in the West is the tendency on the part of libertarians (whose whole ideology supposedly centers upon the maximization of personal freedom) to eventually find their way into supporting much more authoritarian ideologies on the dissident and reactionary Right. Indeed, this is the general route that my own political convictions have taken – from libertarianism to monarchism. Many libertarians would recoil in horror at the thought, yet given the number of former libertarians in neoreaction and in the dissident Right in general, it obviously happens quite often. One of the reasons I would suggest for this is that the foibles and failures of democracy – the governing system most often associated with the libertarian view of freedom – are becoming increasingly apparent to thoughtful observers. The old propaganda used to prop up the democratic dogma in Western nations is becoming increasingly stale and unconvincing. It becomes more and more apparent that democracy does not equal freedom, just as it is becoming apparent that “freedom” is not always and in every sense something that is conducive to good government and stable society.

My purpose with this essay is not to seek to convince my libertarian or classically liberal readers to become monarchists. This may well end up being where they land, politically and ideologically speaking, but their experiences and growth may move them in other directions. What I do want to do is to try to get them started on that path by pointing out that democracy is not any better than other forms of government and may indeed be worse in some areas that we can see empirically. I want to plant a seed of doubt and encourage it to grow. If the thoughtful libertarian is to be convinced, it must be by convincing himself or herself.

Supporting Localism

The history of the West has, among other things, included a long, drawn-out conflict between two functional organizing principles – localism and centralization. The former involves the devolution of power to more narrowly defined provincial, parochial centers, while the later involves the concentration of power into the hands of an absolutist system. The tendency toward centralization began as far back as the high Middle Ages, during which the English and French monarchies began the reduction of aristocratic privileges and local divisions and the folding of this power into the rising bureaucratic state with a permanently established capital city and rapacious desire for provincial monies and personnel. The trend towards the development of absolute monarchy continued through the Baroque period, and the replacement of divinely-sanctioned kingship with popular forms of government (republicanism, democracy, communism) did not abate the process, but merely redirected power into different hands. The ultimate form of centralization, not yet come to pass, would be the sort of borderless one-world government desired by today’s globalists, whether they be neoconservatives or neoliberals, which would involve the ultimate consolidation of all power everywhere into one or a few hands in some place like Geneva or New York City.

Against these trends have always been the (often, but not always losing) forces of decentralization. In the Middle Ages, the nobility resisted the increased power of kings. Today, nationalist movements seek to resist one-worldism and global homogenization. Brexit, for instance, involved the efforts of British nationalists to stave off higher level control by the EU over the United Kingdom.

Localism is a noble goal for several reasons. Much is said about “diversity” – however, localism is the best way to actually preserve diversity of cultures, languages, and traditions. In many ways, it is much more culturally “libertarian” than are more “modern” managerial systems. Localism also works to provide circumscribed limits to the exercise of otherwise unrestrained power, distributing power more broadly while yet maintaining an aristocratic, non-populist framework. At the same time, localism is also, in many ways, a better system for the common man because it allows him the option to escape from oppressive rulers, something which is increasingly onerous for those who find themselves within centralized, uniform systems of governance. Below, I’d like to discuss three general areas relating to localism and contrast them with centralization.

How I Became a Reactionary

In this article, I would like to take a journey with the reader. This journey will be the one that I took throughout my intellectual life which eventually led to my becoming a reactionary. I hope that it may serve as an example and an encouragement to emulation for those who may find themselves in similar circumstances such as I was.

Pragmatic Conservatism

My “ideological” journey began in my undergraduate years when I started to become politically aware. At this time, I would say that I largely reflected the politics of my parents, which were essentially Midwestern, populist, and pragmatically conservative. In the first election in which I was able to vote (the 1994 midterm) I, of course, voted Republican and was elated when the GOP took control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In 1996, I was a supporter of Pat Buchanan during the primaries because his populism and nationalism appealed to me even then.

However, most of my beliefs were still essentially based upon the habits of my upbringing rather than on any well-grounded philosophical worldview. I was pro-life because my family was, I was against high taxes because my parents were, I supported Republicans because that was who my folks had always voted for. I grew up in a household where “ultra-liberal” was (rightly) a swear word. Yet, none of this was rooted in any type of philosophically consistent weltanschauung.

A Primer on Manipulating Procedural Outcomes

Over the past decade or so, many folks on the broad Right have noticed that practically all of our institutions don’t really work as they should. The natural tendency on the part of normie conservatives is to chalk this up to incompetence and corruption. Granted, those do come into play – and will continue to do so increasingly. Yet structurally speaking, our institutional dysfunctionality runs a lot deeper than a little graft or some skimming off the top. Our institutional failures are both purposeful and towards a specific end.

Normies can perhaps be forgiven for not immediately coming to this conclusion. After all, as the name suggests, they’re the norm. They’re the mainstream. They’re not out on the “fringe” somewhere, for better or for worse. These are conservatives who have been conditioned by decades of playing by the rules to trust the rules and the processes under which government and institutions operate (even if they think they “distrust government” or whatever). They’re the ones who believe we have to keep voting harder because voting is the only “proper” way to act in our system. And yet, many times they end up being mystified that not only do the institutions and procedures not “work right” but that nobody in power (even their own so-called representatives) seems the least bit bothered by this.

If It Seems Like the Republicans Are Trying to Lose…

Being a Republican voter has got to be one of the most frustrating things a person could imagine. Having an easily winnable midterm election be stolen from you via vote fraud is bad enough. But then having the large majority of the elected officials who are supposedly on your side just treat it like it’s no big deal while they try to undermine the one person actually trying to contest the fraud and bring it out into the open is even worse. An increasing number of rank-and-file Republicans are starting to get the impression that their own party isn’t really serious about winning – and one can hardly blame them for thinking this.

After all, even aside from their refusing to contest obvious fraudulence in elections, the power brokers within the Party actively try to undermine and fragment their own side. They spent millions against genuinely pro-American candidates during the primaries. In Alaska, the establishment GOP instituted a new ranked-choice voting system designed to allow Democrats to help them suppress non-approved conservatives. A critical mass of elected Republican insiders consistently works to squelch genuinely conservative legislative priorities when the GOP “holds power” (LOL) while helping to advance unpopular and destructive Democratic initiatives (such as the recent, unread $1.7 trillion goodie bag bill) so that they can be given a “bipartisan” veneer in the media.

A Bumper Crop of Democracy

If the reader might bear with me for a moment, I’d like to tell you all a mystery story. There was once a country that was having an election. Going into this election, one party – the party in power – was unpopular, trailing in the polls, and led by a president with abysmal approval ratings and who is widely understood to be senile. This party’s policies had resulted in widespread economic damage to the nation, creating rates of inflation unseen for forty years, doubling gas prices, and harming the broad middle of the country financially. Further, this same party was pursuing social policies that created a widespread backlash against its radicalism and had already been contributing to electoral problems for it in previous local and off-year elections all across the land. Even in swing states, this party’s candidates were behind in the polls and the widespread expectation from all quarters was that it was going to suffer a wideout in the upcoming election.

Yet in a baffling and practically inexplicable turn of events, when the day of the election came, this party became the beneficiary of an astoundingly fortuitous chain of events that rescued it from certain peril! Voting machines curiously broke down or otherwise became inoperable in precincts where the other party made up a majority. Meanwhile, in swing state districts which this party coincidentally happens to control, voting didn’t end on election night, but box after box after box of ballots kept coming in, being counted by officials in secret with no outside oversight. In one state, in a race in which two ladies were running for governour, the one lady who belonged to this party (and who also happened to be in the office that oversees elections), benefited from the mysterious breakdowns and never-ending counting that was carried out in an especially cryptic manner, allowing her to certify herself as the winner. By this same formula, the party in question managed to eke out narrow wins in basically every contested governourship and senate race that they needed to retain their political control.