"A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind"
Before we can emancipate mankind from the gradual descent into the modern slavery that is our fate under a free market motivated elite set of criminals, we must emancipate our minds from their poisonous and destructive ideology. These people are literally destroying the world and there will be no future for anyone if they are not stopped. The most successful way to counter their madness is to expose their fundamental ideas for the lies that they are. As Nadia Murad, the young Yazidi activist, told the collection of international gangsters who supposedly represent us at the United Nations, "life was not created solely for you and your families".
Ideas are the most powerful things in the world. Regardless of how bizarre some ideas are, there is always someone who is looking for a justification for their behaviour (or for comfort), which is fine, as long as they do no damage to anyone else, and use that idea to excuse doing damage! Ideas can inspire people, and can motivate people to do the bravest, most bizarre, most magnificent and most evil acts. They form hypotheses and provide the basis for all ideologies which people then develop into programmes and belief systems. However, if you proceed from a false hypothesis and do not submit it to critical analysis, but proceed on the assumption that your hypothesis is correct, then you will reach false conclusions. If your false hypothesis forms the basis for a political, economic and social programme, and this then produces public policy, the result can be disastrous and deeply damaging to the social fabric of society. As I have persistently told you since I began this blog, most of the hypotheses that form the basis of the free market neoliberal ideology that has been the dominant ideology in the western world for the past 40 years are false, but worse than that, many of them are a lie, because the people promoting them know that they are not true. This ideology is profoundly anti-social and damaging to both the social fabric of British society and to the political system of democratic accountability. It has produced a political class who increasingly believe they have the right to rule and the right to impose their ideas and beliefs on the rest of society without question, a political class who are completely out of touch with, and care less about, the society whose governance they are charged with. The more that politicians tell us that there is no alternative to their policies, the more aggressive they become towards dissent and genuine protest, and the more willing to use the coercive power of the state to uphold their policies and protect themselves from challenge.
So many of our problems stem from the level of social regulation being imposed on a society that refuses to regulate on economic matters because it is in thrall to a particular economic model that has brought the nation to the brink of catastrophe. In other words modern British government, like many other western governments, is genuinely schizophrenic. It is neither rational nor sane. It functions under a dominant ideology that leads government to practice radical deregulation in certain sectors and ferocious regulation in others. This ideology argues for small government, hands off government, a minimal and deregulated state in major sectors and areas of activity, but when it spreads its corrupting tentacles throughout society and the effects of its resultant policies permeate society, its disciples then insist that they have a duty to intervene and interfere wherever and whenever they please in others in order to try to control the disruption and disaffection caused by their policies. Its most obvious manifestation is of course the continuous war against working people and their representative organisations, and the unceasing attacks on any form of industrial action. This of course has the effect of raising the profile and activity of the very state whose activities they wish to constrain. In other words, an economic policy based on a minimal non-interventionist state produces a highly interventionist state with ever increasing powers and a political class who are determined that no challenge to the economic model will be tolerated.
Democratic governance and the social and economic crisis facing the United Kingdom demands that political control is re-established over economic power. Economic power, particularly within the financial and media sectors of British society, has achieved a significant level of independence. This has been achieved because of the deliberate decision by the political class to abdicate their responsibilities towards the proper regulatory control of such activities and to collude in these activities. Unhindered and unrestrained, this economic power has (quite naturally and predictably) exerted its power in its own interests and directly influenced decision-making and public opinion. It has influenced the law and the political process by corruption and coercion in the form of bribery and threats that amount to blackmail, and public opinion through incessant propaganda and its ability to control the opinion forming process. It has therefore produced a significant number within the elite level of the political class who are obligated to such economic power brokers in ways that limits their freedom of action and decision-making. In other words, our political system has become corrupt and serves the interests, not of the people who elected them, but the people who reward them and often control them. What is different today is the manner in which our political class has entered into partnership with the economic class in order to defraud the public and transfer wealth and privilege to a particular elite grouping.
If the roles and functions of the state are imposed from the centre without proper discussion or public consultation and without due regards to the real needs of the population. If that state then displays hostility towards and discriminates against particular groups, and the sovereign power refuses to be answerable or accountable to the ordinary people over whom they rule, or to their elected parliament. If they then quite deliberately remove centuries of hard won civil liberties thereby making justification and accountability meaningless terms, then the whole concept of liberty is rendered meaningless and the democratic state is destroyed from within. This is the lesson of democratic states throughout the 20th century. It is incremental totalitarianism, tyranny by stealth.
Remember, as I've written here before, government is derivative of the people. A government is only as legitimate as its authority. If it loses that authority, which derives from the support of the people, then it loses all of its legitimacy. It no longer has any basis for governing. That is what is meant by such institutions being derivative. They derive their existence from the people and are ultimately answerable to the people who can, if they so wish, abolish or replace them. I have already noted that Britain claims to be a liberal democracy. One of the great expressions of liberal democracy is the American Declaration of Independence which begins by stating that;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”
I ask you to note that this document begins with a statement of self-evident truths, these truths being that governments are instituted amongst people, that their function is to secure the people’s rights, and that they derive their powers from the people’s consent. I also wish you to note that only power deriving from the consent of the governed is considered just. Any other exercise of power is unjust. Should any government become destructive of these ends, then the people have the right to alter or abolish it. The main duty of government is to secure our rights, and to give effect to our safety and happiness. This is one of the great statements of the derivative nature of government. Governments exercise great power, but that power derives from the consent of the governed according to the American Founding Fathers. This is one of the main challenges facing us today because too many people are consenting to the discrimination and exclusion of their fellow citizens by the ruling elites on both sides of the Atlantic. Both England and America are being enchanted by the ruling class scapegoat narrative that their problems are all the fault of 'the others' the immigrant, the Muslim, the disabled and the unemployed. I say England because this is not applicable to all of Britain as the Scots are still able to exercise a modicum of intelligence and civility towards such problems and are not yet as poisoned. I asked you in the last post, why do you think that Marx, Adam Smith, David Hume, John Stuart Mill etc. are not taught today in modern economics courses? The answer my friend is written in the wind, and in my opinion, the history of opinion delivers a damning verdict on the dominant ideas that rule in today's world. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.
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