Someone else recalled the Old Testament. I recall 1 Samuel myself, specifically where Samuel, led by God, told Israel they erred in demanding for a king, and warned of how the king would abuse his abilities (which, of course, ended up happening).

I know we're disillusioned with what looks like the failings of democracy with the manipulation of a population increasingly led on instinctive emotions, but I still wouldn't trade that for the centralized, singular power that people keep trying to implement, to the detriment of the respective populace, in country after country. I'm satisfied with the King I have on the heavenly throne already!

techno-ag said:

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It's a sad day when liberals think they can hire a king.

It's a sad day when Democrats equivocate the Executive Branch with a king.

Public schools have really failed our kids. It feels like a Monty Python skit sometimes.

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repressed...

I appreciate the irony of a guy that would prefer a monarchy who simultaneously is known for creating a decentralized personal server platform.

And I would argue we would be better off under a benevolent monarchy vs what we have now, but you obviously can't know that it would remain benevolent. Thus, it could go sideways pretty quickly.

Monarchy doesn't mean absolute monarchy. Yarvin advocates for the governmental equivalent to a joint stock corporation. An executive ("king" if you want) with near unlimited power, and a board of directors who can replace him. He has some weird (in my opinion) ideas about how technology can be used to lock out the military in order to enforce the "board's" decisions.

Yarvin has said whoever has the final say in your system is your "king" and in that regard he points to the US Supreme Court.

His critiques of democracy are spot on. Well, no, that isn't right - his critiques of the progressive experiment that we're living in, which is a unique combination of progressivism (what he calls Quakerism), western liberalism (the philosophy, not the political alignment), and the democratic form of government, are spot on.

And to be honest, I don't have any issue with it. Modern secular democracy is a totalizing state with no moral check to its power, and little to no practical check. It produces a government that is weak, a society with no cohesion, and is shaping up to be relatively unstable and short-lived from a historical perspective.

Godless communism is bad. Godless democracy is bad, too. When the words on the constitution don't have much relationship with what the government can and can't do, and even less with what it does, debating about form of government is a waste of time. In line with that his main point is that politics is pragmatic use of power, and the game has passed most people by. The person who picks up the crown lying in the ditch a la napoleon will be the "king" he's talking about, regardless of whether or not he is one in title or has a monarchical government.


Edit to add: I think a better way to read Yarvin is to say "the world is worse off being governed by modern western atheist democracies than it was being governed by the structures of government that preceded them".

You could point to Africa before and after colonialism as an example. "Democracy" - even a near copy of our constitution! - is insufficient to prevent Liberia from being a nightmare. Or to prevent Rhodesia or Belgian Congo or South Africa from sliding back into chaos.

The problem in the scriptures is not kingship as such. That's easily proven - Christ is our King, the title Christ itself is the anointed one, which is equivalent to a coronation.

The problem wasn't that Israel wanted a king in abstract, it's that they wanted to "be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."

There's a lot wrong with that. One, Israel was specifically -not- to be like the other nations. They were created to be separate (literally holy) and different.

But the bigger issue is Israel had a king to lead them and go out before them and fight their battles - God. God had been doing that for them, actually literally, since the Exodus.

The problem in 1 Samuel isn't "kings are bad" it's "Israel rejects God as their king".

Well; democracy is a failed system.

It cannot govern an immoral society. It cannot govern a society with heterogeneous morals. It cannot govern a people who don't value freedom highly - and we have proven that you cannot teach enough of society to value freedom who have not known a lack of freedom for more than two generations (it's impossible for people to teach their children to value freedom highly enough when they themselves have never had to fight for it).

Today's America is the perfect example. The votes of those who pay taxes are drowned out by those that don't pay taxes on economic matters. Look at the divergence of voting patterns by race, by gender and by age. Very few people are assessing options and voting for policy - it's all identity across identities with competing values. Look at the NYC mayor election and the voting splits of US born and immigrant voters. Look at the dominance of Somalis in Minnesota. Look at the policies being push in Chicago and NY.

Democracy can only work well in narrow circumstances and for limited periods of time, sadly.

Good thing we've got a Republic.

"Democracy: The God That Failed" is by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a leading anarcho-capitalist and libertarian political theorist.

Hoppe's central thesis is a radical critique of democracy, arguing it is inferior to a traditional, monarchical order. His core argument is that democracy inherently leads to higher time preference (short-termism), increased redistribution, and a general breakdown of social order and moral standards compared to a system of private property anarcho-capitalism or even a hereditary monarchy.

Key arguments from the book include:

1. Monarchy vs. Democracy: Hoppe contends that a hereditary monarch, as the permanent owner of the territory, has a long-term interest in preserving its capital value and social fabric. In contrast, democratically elected rulers, with short-term tenures, are incentivized to plunder resources and accumulate debt for immediate political gain, selling out the future.

2. The Destruction of Social Capital: Democracy, with its egalitarian ethos, undermines natural hierarchies, traditional morals, and the authority of the family. It promotes a culture where respect for authority, elders, and established norms erodes.

3. The Incentive for Redistribution: The democratic principle of "one person, one vote" creates a permanent incentive for the majority to vote for the redistribution of wealth from productive minorities to unproductive majorities, leading to an ever-expanding state.

4. The Path to Totalitarianism: Hoppe argues that democracy contains the seeds of its own destruction, inevitably moving toward socialism and totalitarianism as the state expands to manage the social and economic conflicts it creates.

Hoppe's proposed solution is not a return to monarchy but the ultimate privatization of everythinga society of completely private property, voluntary contracts, and covenants, which he believes would naturally recreate a more aristocratic, orderly, and free society based on property ownership.

Yeah I don't see how that's possible. You're really just arguing for some kind of tribalism or feudalism at that point. "Privatization of everything" means privatization of violence as well. Voluntary contracts and covenants mean war bands and warlords and small kingdoms, which lead to large kingdoms etc.

The critique of democracy is fine - the problem is that democracy doesn't have to mean universal suffrage. Universal suffrage combined with birthright citizenship is really the most absurd political concept. Completely foreign to the constitution and the mind of the founders, for good reason. It's self defeating nonsense.