Feb
11
2012
For decades now the collectivists have used protests, sit-ins and other disruptive techniques to advance their cause. Largely, this has worked for them. But why? I believe it is because in the struggle between collectivism and individualism, otherwise known as the left and the right, liberal vs. conservative and big government vs. small government, there has been a lack of observation and analysis in the tactics used by either side. Why are those tactics effective? By what mechanism do they bring about change? What type of change do they bring about?
I think that in order to get an answer from those questions we have to understand how our society works, and why other societies have not worked.
Our society is politically a Constitutional Republic and economically a capitalist society. Now, I understand it can be debated about what it actually is vs. what it should be, but these systems were implemented as our core systems of political and economic mechanisms between citizens and government and between the citizens themselves. Both systems have one thing in common. That is that they bring order. Now, some may jump in here and say that all systems bring some sort of order. But lets see if that's true.
A monarchy is very orderly in the castle. Subjects must follow certain procedures to bring their case to the king. The kings orders must be followed exactly. To that degree, there is order. However, all laws must have the kings approval. All legal proceedings must follow the kings edicts, or be presented to the king for possible exceptions. The process of daily living is subject to the kings whims. Peasants may or may not find themselves at odds with the king if they try to better their lives. For the king, this type of government is very orderly, but for everyone else it is not. A dictatorship would also experience the same problems.
An oligarchy is where a few people govern the masses. In this government the group in charge tend to involve themselves in the daily operations of the citizenry. This degree of involvement causes uncertainty in business and leads to suppressed economic growth with large fluctuations in commercial activity depending on the political and philosophical beliefs of the people doing the governing. This type of government is also not very orderly. The governing body essentially micromanages activity and inhibits people from managing their own activities.
An ideal system would be one which does not involve itself in the daily activities of its citizens and allowed economic activity relatively uninhibited. This system would ensure that laws were enforced and that an individuals liberty was not violated and punishment was administered where necessary. This system would bring order because the people would manage their own lives and do what benefited them. As they benefit, the people they interacted with would also benefit through increased business activity. The wealth would get spread around as collectivists are fond of saying. Even if an individual stored up the wealth, they in essence would allow that money to be disbursed over a longer period of time and thereby bring a much longer term stability to the market, rather than wild short term fluctuations in the movement of money among people.
This ideal system is what our founding fathers had in mind when they thought about the systems our country should use. So we know that order is critical to the success of our country. Therefore, we know that disorder is extremely detrimental to our society. So activity that causes disorder, for whatever intention, causes harm to our system. Let's look at an example.
In the school room a student becomes disruptive because they got a bad grade. They don't think it's fair that other students got a good grade, but they didn't. The teacher explains to them the first day that they could have worked hard and gotten a better grade, but they aren't satisfied. The next day, a substitute teacher is needed and the same child acts out and becomes disruptive. This time, the substitute teacher agrees with the child and decides that everyone is going to get the same grade. Now, the other students have a choice. They can decide that being disruptive worked for the bad student and use those tactics in protest or they can decide to employ an orderly method that would not bring further disorder to the system that brought about the advanced learning they had experienced.
In choice A, they protest and use the tactics as the bad student. This brings chaos and the principal is forced to come to the room. Now, the entire school is aware of what is going on and other students are acting out. No teacher can teach because of the chaos and disorder that is happening throughout the school Parents are called and some of them join the protest. The parents and students have split into two groups. One group defending the bad student and one group defending the good students. Education has broken down and the police are called. Parents and children are getting arrested and chaos has destroyed the entire education system of that school Why?
In choice B, the students endure the mistreatment and after school inform their parents of what happened. The parents work together to get answers from the principal. The defiant principal endorses the actions of the rouge substitute teacher and the parents bring the issue to the school board. The school board passes the buck and says it's the principals discretion. This is where we as a country are now. We have a choice. Will we resort to choice A and use the tactics that brought disorder and broke down the best systems mankind had developed? Or will we replace the school board and thereby the principals and enhance the system by restoring order?
Some might argue that we haven't found enough people willing to put people in office that will restore the order our system needs. In that case, we educate people. Teach them to think and challenge people in the realm of their ideas. If we embrace chaos, then we further the lefts plan to bring chaos and destruction, we dishonor ourselves by implying that we can't change things without throwing a giant temper tantrum, and we leave a legacy that allows people to look back in history and declare that our system simply didn't work.
Another argument I might hear is that there isn't enough time. The time is too short and drastic measures must be taken. That argument has two failure points. First, in a system based on order, disorder will never allow you to achieve your goal. Second, dishonoring ones self because they waited until the last minute to try to fix a problem that started many decades ago is never a beneficial action to take. Dishonoring ones self is never beneficial, period.