After the Age of Politics

how about the Age of Commoners...

Thank goodness. The FBI was not censoring ordinary Americans since 2015. It was just fighting against “conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”

Yep. That was it! But whatabout “armed insurrectionists?” Don’t they get a mention?

But I tell you what I don’t like. I don’t like the eerie parallel with the Soviet Union. Remember them? After the collapse of Communism the remaining state was inherited by a chappie, name of Putin, that worked for the KGB. Or whatever its current name is.

Because when the current regime collapses when it runs out of other peoples’ money, guess who will be stepping up to keep everyone “safe.” Yes, but someone has to do it. That is the one and only job of government. To keep the people safe from foreign invaders and domestic criminals. Oh, and “armed insurrectionists.”

The problem is that, since we are all pretty safe from foreign invaders — and would be safe from domestic criminals is not for the world famous Soros prosecutors — our rulers have to invent enemies. Otherwise we don’t need them. The rulers, that is. That is why they have gussied up 1,001 different things to do. Because they are faking it. We really don’t need them. In fact, they are Making Things Worse.

Here’s Sarah Hoyt listing a few Things that are broken, that our rulers are Making Worse. Sez she:

• Our education system is broken. We really don’t teach much of anything.

• Our distribution is broken. As in just-in-time and outsource production to slave states.

• Our production is broken. Our people need a purpose: making things.

• Our commerce and service industry is broken.

• Our thinking jobs are broken.

Hoyt mentions the problem of “that our ‘governing’ classes are mentally damaged morons trying to run this according to the always idiotic philosophy of a guy who died at the edge of mass industrialization.” I wonder who she means?

You know my line on this. It is that politics is only good for fighting the enemy, dividing the world into friends and enemies. But you ain’t going to have a very good education system if it is subject to politicians that think in terms of friends and enemies. Guess why.

Education needs people with all kinds of different ideas that work together in a culture of trust. It needs people who respond intelligently when something goes wrong, and get together to fix it.

But in politics you can never admit you are wrong. That works when you are Shakespeare’s Henry V at the siege of Harfleur nattering on about “once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” Notice he doesn’t say anything about a cock-up on the disease front, where his army is melting away because of soldiers dying of disease. What happened to the “fact checkers” at the Globe Theater? That’s what I want to know.

And the same with distribution, production, thinking.

Oh, and finance.

Yes, but whatabout fraud and monopolies, and robber barons and greedy bankers, and all? Don’t we need government for that?

Well, maybe. But I give you Bernie Madoff. Did government stop Bernie? I give you Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto fraud. Did government stop that?

Oh, and by the way, did government stop the greedy bankers that everyone knows were responsible for the Crash of 2008? How come government didn’t stop that? No! You mean to say that government and its low-down liar loan policy and free money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were responsible for the Crash? Noooo!

Yeah. That’s the point. It’s always a real question whether government is part of the problem or part of the solution. And the fact is that government has its oar in just about everything. And it is always saying, are you our friend, making suitable contributions, and getting suitable regulations and benefits, or are you a hater and a bigot?

And I suggest that practically everything to do with human affairs is a social question that relies on people working together in a trust relationship and making thing work.

You know, of course, about the fabled Prisoners Dilemma in which it turns out that it pays people to cheat on the last transaction between them, but it pays them to be honest on transactions where another transaction is anticipated.

Anyway, my belief is that we have got to put the current Age of Politics in the trash can, because there really isn’t too much in this world that needs a “once more unto the breach” kind of action.

And that’s why I am calling for an Age of Commoners. And do you know why? It is because Commoners have this curious characteristic: they are not that interested in power.

And if we are to have a successful age after the Age of Politics it must be an age that is not that interested in power.

I wonder how that would work. Any thoughts from you deep thinkers?