He is kidding, right? His response is just a joke? Surely he is not that dimwitted, not that malevolent. No? He's serious?
I am astounded that anyone with the capacity to write that excessively long, boring, and yet somewhat amusing (if taken as it deserves to be - not seriously) letter your correspondent has written could be so collosally naive and oblivious to the damage and suffering his proposals would cause. He is utterly devoid of empathy. His understanding of history is cursory at best. Organizational dynamics seem beyond his comprehension. He believes individual police officers will be under the direct control of the dictator? Has he forgotten how large this country is? His assumption that large numbers of military and police would just fall in line and support his tyrant is ludicrous. His proposed violation of the entire Bill of Rights is offensive. His glorification of tyranny is at the same time laughable and horrific, hideous, appalling.
But most of all he has no understanding of human nature (assuming the absolute monarch would be temporarily an authoritarian tyrant, then magically become a benevolent ruler without any outside pressure or legal limits to his power), or of the spirit of the American people (who by nature are rebellious, jealous of our freedom, our liberty, our rights, and willing to die in defense of our constitutional republic, our families, our property, and our way of life). Does he truly believe we will lie down and submit to this bullshittery? We fought wars with Great Britain over less. We fought two World Wars to defeat this disgusting philosophy.
How is the efficiency and order he seeks different in nature from the bureaucratic aims of the administrative state? He proposes replacing one bloated, inefficient, faceless, unfeeling administration with an unfeeling yet malevolent unlimited administration.
Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Yet, perhaps, it is better to laugh at the little clown. Derision is all he deserves.
I wish I could say yes, it's all a joke, but this exchange began when I reached out to him because I saw that he was a self-described monarchist and that he has made his case for monarchy in other places. I wanted to know precisely what he meant by this. Was he just playing with words and did he actually mean something more like a unitary executive, or did he literally want an absolute monarch? In his reply, he made it very clear exactly what he means, and so, rather than taking the time mount an argument against totalitarian fascism, I simply turned the highlights of his argument into this imaginary interview.
I agree with all your points about history, American culture, and human psychology. And, like you, I find the argument staggering, perplexing, and amusing. My remark at the end about slavery was not a facetious aside, either. He has previously written in support of slavery. In my initial letter, I asked him to defend or explain that position, but he declined to do so.
I'm unclear how anyone, at any level of intellect or knowledge can hold such ideas.
What incentive could anyone have to wish to live in such a world?
What problems that exist in the real world does such a world ameliorate?
Are you sure you're not arguing with an LLM the prompt for which was "describe and preted to favor in the most inane and nonsensical way possible a dystopian fascist nightmare".
usually in your conversations the person with whom you're speaking has some interesting take or nuanced point of view wherein I can see where I think they may be mistaken but then again I could be wrong.
Here it's just a parody or a caricature of a worldview where all the silent or in the best faith case misunderstood negative aspects of a system are presented as its most salient selling points!
In his letter, he explained that he thinks the current system is overly bureaucratic and the presidential office is too weak to do anything about it, therefore the president must be able to act without being held back in any way. Talk about the cure being worse than the disease.
Freddy Deboer made an interesting point in his conversation with Andrew Sullivan about a year ago. he noted as I recall that a system that everyone sees as being a slave to but having no human faces against whom to rebel... meaning a faceless bureaucracy that controls everything and against which it is impossible to protest because there is no single individual or group whom you can come running out with pitchforks is in many ways worse than a dictatorship where at least your oppressor has a face.
in many ways I think this is a very salient point and I agree with it but obviously Freddy does not propose an absurdist solution where one tyranny replaces another and we call it a day.
people who are adamantly opposed to the tyranny of mindless bureaucracies have a very good point and should be taken seriously but the solution is more checks and balances, not less.
It is possible to train for a better, more personal bureaucracy. I live in Israel, which, when I moved here 40 years ago, had a bureaucracy made up of unhappy power wielding narciscists who seemed to delight in creating Kafkaesque situations. Nowadays, that same bureaucracy is (with notable exceptions) friendly, more service oriented, personable, helpful.... I don't know if it was training or whether people are just happier than 40 years ago, but there has been a fundamental change. Of course, our governmental system is crap and its denizens are crap, but I don't fear going to government offices or my health clinic. Part of it might be living in a smaller country where a more intimate feeling pervades. The larger the country, the more likelihood (I would think) of an uncaring faceless bureaucracy characterized by abuse of power.
Interesting. I wasn't aware the bureaucracy had evolved in that way. When I lived there, though, the intimate feeling that pervades everything was readily apparent. Tel Aviv felt like a small town where everybody knows each other. I've never seen anything like it before or since.
He is kidding, right? His response is just a joke? Surely he is not that dimwitted, not that malevolent. No? He's serious?
I am astounded that anyone with the capacity to write that excessively long, boring, and yet somewhat amusing (if taken as it deserves to be - not seriously) letter your correspondent has written could be so collosally naive and oblivious to the damage and suffering his proposals would cause. He is utterly devoid of empathy. His understanding of history is cursory at best. Organizational dynamics seem beyond his comprehension. He believes individual police officers will be under the direct control of the dictator? Has he forgotten how large this country is? His assumption that large numbers of military and police would just fall in line and support his tyrant is ludicrous. His proposed violation of the entire Bill of Rights is offensive. His glorification of tyranny is at the same time laughable and horrific, hideous, appalling.
But most of all he has no understanding of human nature (assuming the absolute monarch would be temporarily an authoritarian tyrant, then magically become a benevolent ruler without any outside pressure or legal limits to his power), or of the spirit of the American people (who by nature are rebellious, jealous of our freedom, our liberty, our rights, and willing to die in defense of our constitutional republic, our families, our property, and our way of life). Does he truly believe we will lie down and submit to this bullshittery? We fought wars with Great Britain over less. We fought two World Wars to defeat this disgusting philosophy.
How is the efficiency and order he seeks different in nature from the bureaucratic aims of the administrative state? He proposes replacing one bloated, inefficient, faceless, unfeeling administration with an unfeeling yet malevolent unlimited administration.
Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Yet, perhaps, it is better to laugh at the little clown. Derision is all he deserves.
I wish I could say yes, it's all a joke, but this exchange began when I reached out to him because I saw that he was a self-described monarchist and that he has made his case for monarchy in other places. I wanted to know precisely what he meant by this. Was he just playing with words and did he actually mean something more like a unitary executive, or did he literally want an absolute monarch? In his reply, he made it very clear exactly what he means, and so, rather than taking the time mount an argument against totalitarian fascism, I simply turned the highlights of his argument into this imaginary interview.
I agree with all your points about history, American culture, and human psychology. And, like you, I find the argument staggering, perplexing, and amusing. My remark at the end about slavery was not a facetious aside, either. He has previously written in support of slavery. In my initial letter, I asked him to defend or explain that position, but he declined to do so.
I should have made this connection before - but is he perhaps an acolyte (or even on the payroll) of this asshat: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-media-oligarch-konstantin-malofeyev-putin-nuclear-ukraine-trump-musk-2025-2 ?
I'm unclear how anyone, at any level of intellect or knowledge can hold such ideas.
What incentive could anyone have to wish to live in such a world?
What problems that exist in the real world does such a world ameliorate?
Are you sure you're not arguing with an LLM the prompt for which was "describe and preted to favor in the most inane and nonsensical way possible a dystopian fascist nightmare".
usually in your conversations the person with whom you're speaking has some interesting take or nuanced point of view wherein I can see where I think they may be mistaken but then again I could be wrong.
Here it's just a parody or a caricature of a worldview where all the silent or in the best faith case misunderstood negative aspects of a system are presented as its most salient selling points!
🤦🤷♂️
In his letter, he explained that he thinks the current system is overly bureaucratic and the presidential office is too weak to do anything about it, therefore the president must be able to act without being held back in any way. Talk about the cure being worse than the disease.
Freddy Deboer made an interesting point in his conversation with Andrew Sullivan about a year ago. he noted as I recall that a system that everyone sees as being a slave to but having no human faces against whom to rebel... meaning a faceless bureaucracy that controls everything and against which it is impossible to protest because there is no single individual or group whom you can come running out with pitchforks is in many ways worse than a dictatorship where at least your oppressor has a face.
in many ways I think this is a very salient point and I agree with it but obviously Freddy does not propose an absurdist solution where one tyranny replaces another and we call it a day.
people who are adamantly opposed to the tyranny of mindless bureaucracies have a very good point and should be taken seriously but the solution is more checks and balances, not less.
Yes, the critique of bureaucracy is where Curtis Yarvin's argument begins, and where we agree, but also where our agreement ends.
It is possible to train for a better, more personal bureaucracy. I live in Israel, which, when I moved here 40 years ago, had a bureaucracy made up of unhappy power wielding narciscists who seemed to delight in creating Kafkaesque situations. Nowadays, that same bureaucracy is (with notable exceptions) friendly, more service oriented, personable, helpful.... I don't know if it was training or whether people are just happier than 40 years ago, but there has been a fundamental change. Of course, our governmental system is crap and its denizens are crap, but I don't fear going to government offices or my health clinic. Part of it might be living in a smaller country where a more intimate feeling pervades. The larger the country, the more likelihood (I would think) of an uncaring faceless bureaucracy characterized by abuse of power.
Interesting. I wasn't aware the bureaucracy had evolved in that way. When I lived there, though, the intimate feeling that pervades everything was readily apparent. Tel Aviv felt like a small town where everybody knows each other. I've never seen anything like it before or since.
well the silver lining is that there is consensus on the nature of the problem, then.
a clear eye examination of his proposed solution will quickly relegate it to irrelevance and we can focus on more promising options.