Forgive for a moment the author's ideation of a human - a remarkable human for sure - which CW uses to give an emotional boost to an impassioned argument. But note the contradictions.
CW expresses a belief that democracy is the ideal we should strive for, but cites not a single example in which it has worked well. Pure democracy does not work well, which is why the Founders left us with a democratic republic. They also left us a government designed to be "of the People, by the People, and for the People" but incomprehensibly defined out of that meaning people who were "owned" by other people.
CW complains that we use too much coercive force through our invention of the "drug war." CW thinks we deprive too many people of their liberty for victimless crimes such as drug use. I agree. CW's solution, though, is to ramp up the use of coercive force. The underlying thought is seemingly "We'll get this right next time." I get it. There's an ideal in which smart, informed, good people win elections and take the best of actions with gilded intentions and create a world of justice and equality for all, even folks that take drugs and drink intoxicants and display all the other manifestations of human frailty. CW does not think this vision utopic.
CW's prescription:
King’s response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a re-evaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens. Well, sure, let's change our values, our public life and the ways we think. This is sure to work - if we all change our values and thoughts so that we think as the author does. If we do, his utopia will be manifest. In short, if we just do things like the author wants them done, we'll get a precise, effective and useful result from the use of coercion.
CW points to the crime of militarism, as do many libertarians, but misses the lesson - if a government is not limited, it will abuse the power it holds. CW wants more coercive action by government. There's no shortage of that now. CW thinks the coercive actions should be different coercive actions, not the ones that have delivered us to our present circumstance. By what means does CW think this may be accomplished? Is there any reason to believe that, by empowering men to coerce other men through the sanction of the state, men will do a better job next time? CW implies that it is not the use of force that is incorrect, rather that is was not used properly. "We just didn't pick the right horses." Instead, we should pick folks like the following, who really love to throw around government's monopoly on coercive force:
In concrete terms, this means support for progressive politicians like Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont and Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor
Does CW give us any reason to hope that power will not be abused? Does CW even have awareness of the issue? Has there been a case in which government power has not been abused?
Instead of articulating a radical democratic vision and fighting for homeowners, workers and poor people in the form of mortgage relief, jobs and investment in education, infrastructure and housing, the administration gave us bailouts for banks, record profits for Wall Street and giant budget cuts on the backs of the vulnerable.
The summary of CW's lament: IF I WAS KING I COULD MAKE IT ALL BETTER
This is what every tyrant thinks, and it is what I think. There's a significant discriminator between the notional Apollotyrant and other would be tyrants.
When elected "Master of Space and Time" I will force you to decide for yourself, be responsible for yourself, and suffer the consequences if you treat your friends and family like dirt and have nothing to fall back on. I will trust you to do the best you can for yourself and others, realizing that utopia is not an option, and that pain and suffering are here with us to stay. I will insist that your respect the lives and property rights of your fellow Americans, and prosecute you to the limit of the law if you do not. I will insist that, as Master of Space and Time, I limit my activities to the legitimate actions of the Supra State - which are to defend your rights and your neighbors' rights. There would be no coercive government "welfare", no coercive government "social security", and very little talk about how great our nation is. There would be no minimum wage, since you would be expected to decide for yourself whether to work and at what compensation level. There would be no connection between government and unions, except to ensure that no union could interfere with your liberty to enter into a working relationship with any employer. The government would not steal money from any citizen in order to fund another citizen's education, but given the passion most citizens have, I suspect each child would be educated, and likely in a better school than the ones we see now. No money would be coercively removed from one citizen's pocket in order to pay for another's health care. But given the same commitment to health care for all that Americans say they believe in, I have no concern, as there are any number of systems by which people could voluntarily support those in need, and for a fraction of the supposed cost of the present system of health care, which is completely divorced from any notion of value by the coercive interventions of the government into the provision of health care services today.
Not that I really want the job of MoST, but I have no doubt you'd live a better, fuller richer life with a limited government than were you so unlucky to be stuck in CW's tyranny.
Which narrative do you believe?
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