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“There is nothing more difficult to execute than to introduce a new order of things; for he who introduces it has all those who profit from the old system as his enemies.” ~Machiavelli
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” ~Unknown
In the face of outdated politics, what is an updated and liberated citizen to do? That is, when a liberated citizen discovers that democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding on what to eat for lunch, how does he not use his liberty to become a well-armed lamb who contests the vote?
“Well-armed” doesn’t necessarily need to mean militantly locked and loaded. It can just as easily be a higher consciousness metaphor for knowledge. Indeed, a well-armed lamb is a knowledgeable lion. As Doctor Who said, “You want weapons. Go to a library. Books are the best weapons in the world.”
When you’re outflanked by people who can’t think outside the box of their political beliefs, you must be capable of being the bigger person and detach yourself from the box of your own political beliefs. Otherwise, you’re just another run-of-the-mill, close-minded, politically sycophantic sheep that doesn’t understand that democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding on what to eat for lunch.
The person capable of detaching themselves from the box of their own political beliefs is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
There is perhaps nothing more vital to our world right now than someone with this ability. It takes a leap of courage. It takes audacity and moxie. It takes the suspension of belief. When you suspend your beliefs, you suspend your political sycophancy long enough to see the big picture. You get power over the power that your political beliefs have over you.
In short: you get out of your own way long enough to realize that the partisan propaganda machine and the political claptrap clapping back and forth is nothing more than a culturally conditioned song and dance. You see the two-headed hydra of partisan politics playing itself out. You see how each side’s attempt to cut off the other’s head just leads to twice as many heads. You see how it just leads to further sycophancy and deeper political blindness. You see the bigger picture.
What is the bigger picture? It’s the fact that the two-party system of voting is an outdated farce; a cultural conditioning that must be reconditioned or liberty itself is doomed. The bigger picture is that we do not live in a democratic republic, but a plutocratic corporatocracy.
Because of this, we’re unable to maintain a healthy, direct, horizontal democracy. Instead, we’re forced into an unhealthy, indirect, vertical democracy which has the diabolical snakehead of two-party plutocracy with a corporate agenda.
It becomes all too easy to lose ourselves in the delusion that outdated politics led by power hungry plutocrats will somehow save us (or bail us out). But this just leads to political laziness, one-dimensional partisanship, sycophantic puppetry, and a weak reliance on uninformed voting through electoral systems grown corrupt because power can be bought and paid for.
Indeed, it leads to sheep incapable of contesting the vote. And in a world where elections have become auctions, contesting the vote is a superpower.
How have elections become auctions? For the same reason that they have become fraudulent. Money in politics.
So, what is the solution? How do we contest the vote? How do we act like well-armed lambs become lions? The only way to get money out of politics, and to flatten the two-party system, is to implement a direct democracy through political assemblies.
Money wouldn’t corrupt elections in a direct democracy where everyone checked and balanced everyone else. In a healthy horizontal democracy, everyone votes with their feet. There is a vital, face-to-face dialectic that keeps the citizenry healthy and politically robust. When everyone is a chief, there is no chance for a power-hungry plutocrat to arise because chief-checks-chief for the overall health of the “tribe.” This was Socrates’ vision.
One might ask how such a direct democracy could work today in our vastly populated society. The solution is local-to-global horizontal assemblies. Political assemblies could take the place of the electoral system altogether. Especially if these assemblies used a Socratic dialectic where your thesis and my antithesis could lead to a progressive synthesis.
These assemblies could begin locally and then branch out globally. Beginning with town assemblies, then county assemblies, then state assembles, then national assemblies (which would absorb the Senate, the House, and the Judges, and without the entrenchment), and finally the presidential assembly.
Each assembly would have built-in social leveling mechanisms. Vast assemblies where everyone’s voice can be heard, and where every chief has the chance to become a political leader through a simple and random lottery (otherwise known as sortition). No voting necessary. All voting would be assembly powers to vote out bad leaders. That’s it. Lottery-in, vote-out. It’s so simple. And it would rid us of the money in politics problem and the plutocrats who feed on it.
Of course, this would mean a complete overhaul of the current system. It would mean raising our children to be politically proactive adults who understand how power tends to corrupt. It would mean teaching our children the importance of community, face to face Socratic discussion, and fierce individualism that’s more cooperative than competitive. It would mean teaching them the detriments of the prior two-party system and how voting doesn’t work because money and power corrupts it and creates the illusion of a choice.
More importantly, it would mean teaching our children that the presidency itself is a red herring that distracts us from the real issues that plague our society.
Only a presidential assembly randomly created through a lottery of existing leaders can solve both the electoral corruption problem and the red herring problem that we all face in our country’s leadership.
We don’t need a president with power, we need a presidential assembly that understands the nature of power, and then outflanks it.
A presidential assembly, made up of three or five individuals, would be more likely to check and balance each other’s power and would dissolve the symbolism of the “crowned” figurehead, replacing it with a balanced team, more like the Judges who tend to check and balance each other.
Some might argue that the House and the Senate are already a fair enough checks and balancing system on presidential power, but this still doesn’t solve the red herring problem that hijacks our reasoning. Nor does it solve the partisan bias problem. Neither does it solve the electoral problem.
Only a presidential assembly randomly created through a lottery of existing leaders can solve both the electoral corruption problem, the partisan bias problem, and the red herring problem that we all face in our country’s leadership.
So, when it comes to being a well-armed lamb turned lion contesting the vote, all we have to remember is that there is more than one way to elect our leaders.
To elect means “to choose or make a decision.” The problem is that our choices are limited due to the bi-partisan monopoly on power, and our decision seems to be between a “greater or lesser evil.” This is perpetuated by state manipulation, cultural conditioning, and entrenched political propaganda with corrupt lobbying that creates divisiveness.
But there is a third option. We can “elect” to think outside the ballot box. We can “elect” to take money out of politics. We can “elect” to have a complete system reboot, to include, especially, the electoral system itself. We can “elect” to implement a sortition system that lotteries-in leaders from an assembly of authentic leaders and prestigious elders and votes-out bad leaders. We can “elect” to devise a system that uses impeachment more often than it uses aggrandizement.
Indeed. We can “elect” to not elect a president at all, because we don’t need a scapegoat who is hamstrung by lobbyists, corporations, and bankers for a “leader.” We don’t need a plutocrat propped up by money and monopoly. We don’t need a career politician puppet controlled by the deep state. We just need authentic leaders and prestigious elders—plural; chosen randomly from a meritocratic competitive assembly of other authentic leaders and prestigious elders. That will get the job done just fine, while also preventing scapegoating, power mongering, and the rise of psychopaths.
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About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (Nobody for President In 2024: A Well-armed Lamb Contesting the Vote) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.
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