Wednesday, January 20, 2021

What scares our political elite?


A book I strongly suggest right now is The Myth of National Defense, edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. From the year 2003, the series of essays that are included in it contains a strong warning about the current state we have reached in recent times. It's main thesis is on national defense and the neo-conservative abuse of national defense. But the essays that it includes are well worth the time to peruse. As I was reading it the other day, I came across in the essay titled "The Will to be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense" by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, the following:
"The famed zoologist Richard Dawkins has offered the intriguing proposition that ideas have striking similarities to genes. Many apparent paradoxes in biological evolution disappeared once biologists recognized that the process was driven by the success with which 'selfish' genes (rather than individuals or species) could replicate themselves. Dawkins suggested the term 'memes' be applied to ideas, whose capacity to replicate in other minds likewise determines their spread. No matter how useful this parallel between cultural and genetic evolution may ultimately prove, it at least helps to disabuse us of the illusion that an idea's validity is the sole or primary factor in its success. Those who doubt that false ideas can be tremendously influential need only glance at the worldwide success of so many mutually exclusive religions. It is not simply that they cannot all be true simultaneously; if one is true, then many of the others are not simply false, but badly false. ... The State, for instance, appears to have played no part in the birth and initial growth of Christianity, and the draconian efforts that many governments devote to the suppression of dissent testifies to the threat posed by that kind of autonomous ideological development. ... A people who have successfully fabricated the ideological solidarity necessary to overthrow their domestic rulers would be extremely difficult to conquer, as we have already observed." (291-294)
This scares our ruling class big time. Tucker Carlson compares what is going on in America right now similar to winning a tennis match in which the victors seek to smack the loser on the face. Biden won, the Democrats have majority control in both Houses of Congress, be happy! But it's a lot more complicated than that. The Democrats needed more than just to win. It's not like winning a tennis match 6-4, 1-6, 7-6, 0-6, 7-6. You just barely eked out a close victory getting decimated in a couple of rounds on the way, but you won, your opponent has no victory claim. It's not like that. For the Democrats, this is an ideological war. Ideas can spread like a wildfire and with increasing polarization, Democrats are well aware that an electoral college victory of 306-232 is not enough to win against the will of 74,000,000 voters that are charged against their ideologies. They need to make certain this ideology of "Trumpism" cannot spread ever again. They won't care about nullifying the Constitution on the way. They can interject their own interpretations after all. The goal is to win the ideological war and Trumpism has proven a most formidable opponent against the establishment philosophy of permanent Washington. For the establishment neo-cons, Trumpism isn't just something to beat in an election, it is something that needs to die out permanently. The damage to the establishment caused by this ideology isn't going away any time soon.

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