Life requires communities. Men have always banded together because no individual has enough firepower to hold off a gang. This is even more necessary today, because modern life is so complicated; someone who understands markets fails to understand diet, someone who understands diet fails to understand self defense, and so on. Women love communities because they are fun: cleaning, gardening, sewing, and cooking are all more enjoyable in teams, and when you are done you can throw a fairy ball with your friends!
But if Christianity is the path to family and brotherhood, communities are the solution to all our problems, and the United States was founded almost entirely by Christians, why has everything gone to shit? The United States got bigger! In 1776, all 13 Colonies together contained only 2.5 million people. The new Federal government was a quarter the size of modern Sweden, one third the size of Houston, half the size of Ireland, or roughly comparable to the state of Kansas.
And size matters greatly here, because of the asymmetry of collective action. Imagine a pork earmark that would result in $50 million profits for MegaCorp at the cost of $150 million losses for taxpayers. The CEO who stands to make $5 million from his stock options will work hard to pass it, but since it would only cost each taxpayer $1, it doesn't make sense for any of us to even call our congressmen to protest. If the United States were a hundred times smaller, either his payoff would only be $50 thousand, or he would have to extract $100 from every tax payer, and the situation would be much more manageable. The Founding Fathers were actually quite aware of this problem; in 1776 each Representative's district contained barely over 30,000 people, and the Founders were already concerned they were too large. Today each district contains almost a million souls! Small wonder that studies have shown that public opinion is almost totally irrelevant to the Swamp.
It is possible for a large organizations to exist without being dominated by rent seekers, but free money is an irresistible magnet for them, and once they sink their claws in they never let go, so institutions only become more corrupt with time. With so much 'free' energy at stake, the rulebook goes out the window quickly. You must bribe and blackmail your opponent before he can do the same to you. Given enough time, the inevitable result is a series of overlapping cartels, including intelligence, mass media, banking, religion, oil, technology, medicine, government, organized crime and more, all held together by a desire to feed at the trough. At the bottom are the incompetent leeches whose primary purpose is to demand help so that the resulting positive energy can be siphoned off by those higher in the hierarchy. In the middle are the 'useful idiots' who have been promoted in exchange for loyalty. At the top are psychopaths who ruthlessly play the Game of Thrones. Greatest among these are the elite crime families, who have defended their power structures across many cartels for many generations, usually by practicing black magic.
Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, but life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron’s. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Enemy’s most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death.
The Swamp is so difficult to understand precisely because it is not organized with military precision. There is no Dr. Evil issuing commands to SPECTRE; there is only the Great Game being played by the Greater and Lesser Houses. Everyone is looking out for themselves, so alliances are constantly shifting and those at the top can only rule through fear and greed. No one, not even the Dark Lords, is really in control, because no one really knows what is going on! This would require understanding not only the actual state of affairs, but the limited information and competency of every other participant - who deliberately hide both - while the whole system changes far too rapidly for any human being to keep up. It is extraordinarily difficult to determine which actions are benevolent or malevolent, competent or incompetent, selfish or unselfish, legal or illegal, or patriotic or treacherous, which is why we now have so many conspiracy theories, most of which are partially correct from certain points of view.
I know all that was and is and is to come, Arjuna, but no one in truth knows me. All beings are born in delusion, the delusion of division which comes from desire and hate. But there are men who do what is good, and whose sins have come to an end. They are free from the delusion of division, and they worship me with all their soul.
But being a US politician with a strong moral compass is like being a participant on a particularly nasty reality show. Most politicians are there for the corruption anyway, but the more you attempt to disrupt the looting process the more ferociously the Swamp defends itself with sexual blackmail, media smears, debanking, well funded primary challenges, and even violence. No one wants to confront the full implications of public choice theory, so instead we are leaving our politicians in the driveway with the engine running and pretending to be shocked when they are taken for a joy ride. They must put on the Ring just to survive, and then they drown.
In fact this soul-crushing drama is constantly playing out everywhere at every level of society. As soon as we try to accomplish anything within our existing organizations, we find that they are all too big, too old, and too filled with rent seekers who will soak up any positive energy we put out. Regenerating America must be profitable. The people doing the hard work must be rewarded for doing so, or they simply won't do it. Conversely, once people see a clear path to improving their lives all of this blocked energy will explode. We cannot fight the Swamp, but we can plunder it back!
Personally I think founding small health care plans could work pretty well. The average American family spends $27,000 per year on health care when we include employer contributions that would otherwise go to salaries. Our current system is so catastrophically bad that just banding together to work out, cook real food, get outside, and reduce stress should massively cut costs. Anyone who can recruit a hundred families and cut costs by a third could make $1 million a year, enough to pay a nice salary and still reinvest in the community. The regulatory challenges are obvious, but so are the rewards. Our health care laws may be de facto designed by pharmaceutical industry lobbyists - we had to pass Obamacare to find out what was in the bill - but employers have a huge incentive to keep exploding health care premiums under control. Some combination of high-deductible health plans, health savings accounts, corporate wellness contracts, direct primary care, and accountable care organizations should be feasible.
As a bonus we can finally give the pharmaceutical industrial complex a taste of their own medicine after the covid lockdowns. I haven't forgotten being forced to wear a mask in the airport - Oh, how I've longed for this moment, Big Pharma! The day when I would have the cunning plan I needed to haul you out of your cushy lair, and expose you to light of justice as the monster that you are. A monster so vile . . . ahem.
Anyway, there are clearly many ways to be profitable by outcompeting enervated cartels. Scale is the key. Too few and you cannot accomplish anything, too large and your leadership will inevitably be bribed or blackmailed. In fact, heritage America was dominated by small organizations.
The political associations which exist in the United States are only a single feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of associations in that country. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds – religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive, or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found establishments for education, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; and in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it be proposed to advance some truth, or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever, at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in America, of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions of a great many men, and in getting them voluntarily to pursue it. I have since traveled over England, whence the Americans have taken some of their laws and many of their customs; and it seemed to me that the principle of association was by no means so constantly or so adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great things singly; whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings. It is evident that the former people consider association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to regard it as the only means they have of acting.
Government generally functions best at the smallest feasible scale, where corruption is most clearly perceived and easiest to clean up. Breaking up all of our unconstitutional Federal progams and composting them at the state or city level permanently eliminates the feeding trough that sustains the Swamp, and changing the discussion from what should be done to where it should be done at forces the wolves to take off their sheep's clothing. They cannot just claim that someone who wants universal healthcare at the city level rather than the Federal level is a heartless bastard, and once they are forced to abandon their virtue-signaling pulpit, their personal avarice and practical incompetence will be revealed.
What really matters is the relative sovereignty of the parts versus the whole and correctly matching rights with responsibilities. The Founding Fathers understood this very well, which is why they were so insistent on a Republic rather than a Democracy, States Rights, the Electoral College, and restricting suffrage to gentlemen with property. Restoring this delicate balance is hardly a trivial conversation; we will want to both restore and improve their system. But at the moment we cannot even begin because the local level, where the vast majority of things are supposed to happen, has been so gutted. The good news is that as soon as we rebuild it, a considerable fraction of our Republic will reappear instantly. Local organizations greatly reduce the asymmetry problem because each can afford to have one delegate who does nothing but monitor the situation and compete with each representative's AIPAC person, exactly the way the Senators were originally supposed to work. Voting is free! There is no reason to stop just because voting by itself is not enough to solve our problems. Local communities will also be able to trade among themselves without central bank notes and temper the power of the money cartel.
Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.
To understand why founding small organizations will be so devastatingly effective, we must remember that our enemies are rent seekers. They are not true kings, because they are not willing to wear the crown of thorns. Personal loyalty requires personal sacrifices that they do not wish to make. Consequently they are not and can never be in real control of anything, because any system designed to harvest 'free' energy must run semi-autonomously, and this requires a positive mission and members who believe in it and sacrifice for it, not the elite crime families who technically control the system. No one even knows who they are!
If in blind rage you attempt to destroy the rent seekers embedded in an organization with negative energy from the outside, it is quite easy for them to convince the whole organization that it is under attack and must respond. In fact, this strategy is so effective that our governments periodically conduct false flag and green flag attacks on their own citizens in order to tap war profits.
But if you build rather than conquer, it is surprisingly difficult for them to convince their organizations to attack you. Most of their members would rather sit in the office sipping pinot noir than drive out to the countryside to go full Nazi, and the more altruistic or energetic members may even periodically assist you! Of course the sociopaths at the top can and will attack you in the mass media, but even the best propaganda cannot turn up into down or white into black. Gandhi was able to eject the British Empire with satyagraha so successfully precisely because the British were not attempting to enslave the Indian people. His strategy would have failed disastrously against Montezuma and the Aztec cannibals.
Now, there is a mailed fist inside the velvet glove. You cannot overthrow the Swamp without being canceled, debanked, and eventually killed. Neither can I. But we can. All we have to do is not put on the Ring. It is altogether evil. The weapon of the Enemy can never be used against him. If you are leading a small HCSM there is simply no point in assassinating you. It won't move the levers of power, only expose organized crime to an increasingly infuriated populace.
‘No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.’ He went to the window and drew aside the curtains and the shutters. Sunlight streamed back again into the room.
The position of the elite crime families feels so incredibly strong because they have had centuries to design, build, test, and improve their energy harvesting systems, which now feel unassailable. But in reality, their systems are extremely fragile, and have only endured because technology has produced such incredible amounts of wealth that the Houses did not need to seriously compete with each other. As conditions worsen, they be forced to turn and rend each other ever more fiercely to preserve their 'free' slice of an ever shrinking pie, and they will remember just how brutal the Game of Thrones really is. The Red Weddings are coming. They always feared and hated each other, and only appeared to be united by their common desire to plunder the American people. In The Lord of the Rings, Saruman was not killed by the Elves or Rangers; he was stabbed from behind by Wormtongue, who could no longer endure his endless abuse. In the same way, the elite crime families will indeed be exterminated, but by the weapon they have themselves raised, not by us.
I am not the only one looking for the exit. Noble men across the country are founding fun and profitable organizations that will rapidly recruit the virtuous out of enervated globalism. But the incompetent, greedy, and psychopathic will refuse to join any association that values them at their real (read: low to negative) talent level. The more the competent and virtuous opt out, the weaker and less profitable the Swamp will be, and the more the competent and virtuous will opt out. We do not have to fight; we just have to endure until the Swamp implodes and we win. This is actually an incredible opportunity for ambitious men to do glorious deeds and found their own Houses. All we have to do is keep their size under control; it is far better to be surrounded by other strong, intelligent, hard-working, noble men than to be a despot living under the Sword of Damocles.
It will be a lot of hard work for a decade or so, but Americans have never shied away from difficult tasks, and it will be quite an adventure! That's why I like the pirate LARP so much. I think One Piece is very American. What is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if not piracy? And when virtue-signaling rent seekers complain, I can just reply ‘Sir, I am a Pirate!’