By Whose Right?

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

In most fantasy it’s relatively easy to know who the ruler should be:

He’s the one who pulls the sword from the stone. He’s the one whom the gods have decreed in prophecy will come. He has the magical birthmark, the ability to do things no other man can do. He is wedded to the land and knows her every need.

It’s a nice thought. I mean, if you could have it be true. It will all work out because it’s magically pre-ordained.

In fantasy it works precisely because we all wish it were like that, that clear cut.

But our newest generations — oh, forty and under — have been raised more in fiction than in reality, and our fiction has indulged entirely too much in this sort of nonsense. So has our news “government by the best people” “top men in charge of everything.”

I remember the media’s breathless, fly-swallowing open mouths describing Clinton’s administration of “wonks” and the pronouncements from the pulpit of the left’s expert “pundits.”

We (to the right of Lenin) in the counterculture immediately took the terms and ran with them and we have that nonsense to thank for names like Instapundit and Vodkapundit. (My poor mostly apolitical husband was so tired of hearing me say “I read on instapundit” that when I said “Vodkapundit said–” he answered with a laugh and “Stop making pundits up.” Later, of course, we became friends with Mr. and Mrs. Vodkapundit and miss them terribly.) But those of you old enough probably remember as I do “Wonk” and “pundit” being pronounced as if they were “master” and “Lord.” (Curiously no one uses wonk anymore. It truly was a horribly ugly word and everyone that used it as a license to put boot on American necks was equally ugly.)

But the kids don’t know that. They only retain a vague idea government should be by the “best” people and the most “expert.” Add to that their disillusionment with what has been done to our country these last 16 years or so (with a brief interregnum) and the fact they have no idea how the system is supposed to work, or only a fractured idea because they tried to learn, but it’s hard, and even online there are incomplete and contradictory bits and…

Yeah. I’ve been seeing a plague of monarchists and worse absolute monarchists among the young everywhere.

And they get very upset and disappointed when it’s pointed out that they have the wrong end of the wrong weasel tail.

In their heads, because of poorly absorbed history, they’re convinced that monarchism is the opposite of communism. And they’ve learned communism is bad. But this thing called capitalism that is talked about is mostly crony capitalism, and therefore equally bad.

So the way to do it all right is to have people who are born and educated to their roles, and are therefore the bestest people for the role.

They’re not wrong about something: feudalism as it was in the past was, in its platonic, ideal form (which is not the form it assumed) better than the feudalism we get when communism achieves its final form. (Looks at North Korea, and Cuba and yeah Venezula significantly. Or Russia which is sort of post communist, kind of, but really? Putin is still the product of communism and hankering for that sort of feudalism.)

You see, the people were raised to be servants of the role and to work at it honestly. In an intensely religious society where people believed they should fulfill their role or they’d answer for it to an eternal judge, it kind of worked. Sometimes. There were always people who didn’t believe, and you know, power is a sweet, sweet drug.

And yeah, the rulers who actually believed in doing the best for their countries were admirable. Heck, some of the rulers who only believed in making their country rich so they would be so were pretty good.

Both technically better than communists, where the “ideal” they serve fast devolves to “because I say so” so that Cuba, an island nation, has its starved people forbidden from taking seafood from the sea. For…. reasons.

But the difference is not as big as you’d think. There were plenty of feudal Lords who used their position to do whatever pleased them, sometimes at great cost in treasure and blood to their people.

Because it’s absolute power, and what are you going to do to them? Fight them?

The number of unreported peasant revolts under feudalism is immense, and very few of them were successful.

Once the boot is on the neck and the assumption of authority being by birth, it’s hard to dislodge.

And there’s no guarantee that birth will confer authority on the competent, let alone the moral.

So–

It is necessary once more to say this: Our system of government has revolutionized everything in the world.

We have fed the world, we have industrialized the world, we’ve taught the world to reach for the stars.

Yes, we’ve also done a lot less admirable things.

Because our system of government is corruptible and influentiable by people who seize it. And it is the worst. Except for all other systems.

Sure, I believe in foreordained kings.

The king of America is the people. Each and every one of them.

And yeah, there are usurpers who’ve seized our throne. They’re terrified of us even though we’ve been sleeping. You can tell from the way they sneer at populism and scream at nationalism.

Because the king and the nation are one.

And the people are the king.

And we’re waking.

220 thoughts on “By Whose Right?”

  1. “What’s your position on Communists?”

    “My boot on the communist’s throat.”

    (borrowed)

    …

    Proper terms:

    Pud-it, not pundit.

    Wonker, which any Aussie will understand.

    thusley:

    “Policy Wonkers”

    “Donk-o-crat pud-ists”

    Liked by 1 person

        1. TTTO: Ballad of the Green Berets:

          “Drooling Commies, from the sky.
          Dumb Comrades, who fall and die.
          500 more, we’ll drop today,
          Per the plan of Pinochet.

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  2. The king has the same right as anybody else – he (or his ancestors) were better at fighting and organizing than anyone else with the ambition to do it, and are at least competent enough to keep anyone from dislodging them.

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  3. Obviously, the king shouldn’t be the man who pulled the sword from the stone. The king should be the man who the woman-in-the-lake gave the sword to. 🤡🤡🤡🤡

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      1. Well, I don’t expect those “watery tarts” to THROW swords at the “Men To Be Kings”. That’s a bit dangerous to the would-be Kings. :lol:

        By the way, thanks for that full “watery tarts” phrase. I remembered hearing but couldn’t remember that phrase.

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        1. “I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!”

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          1. Strange women lyin’ about in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government!

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              1. That’s a depressing, and probably wrong, way to look at it.

                But I sympathize. I’ve joked before that I don’t regret that the January 6 protesters didn’t seize power, but I do wonder, maybe buffalo dude and lectern guy have some good policy suggestions?

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          2. “Moistened bint” That’s so funny, thank you! Somehow I have to use that phrase today in a conversation…

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  4. Just remember the folks who write the story of swords, stones, ladies, lakes, etc. are very much like the assistant to the undersecretary of nothingness from the DoD that James O’Keefe exposes today.

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  5. I am watching how badly a representative democracy works in practice, and I’ve been there to watch the representatives “work”, so I’m rethinking how effective it is.

    I’ve also recently spent time in Thailand which is a monarchy with a State religion and I have to say, the improvements over the past few decades are impressive. It’s still an “emerging country”, but it is doing well. I’ve been rethinking what I have been taught about monarchies all my life.

    Then there are all those countries where the US has gone in to enforce democracy at the point of a gun. They haven’t turned out well. There are a lot of people in this world who are neither socially or genetically suited to democracy.

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    1. A monarchy can be good. And it can be bad. Or it can be a mix of both. Sun Quan is renowned for being a wise and resourceful ruler of one of the Three Kingdoms in China. He is also notorious for making some *really* stupid decisions.

      A country needs an independent executive, which I think is one of the biggest problems with the Parliamentary system. And a monarch can solve that issue. But a monarch that can serve competently for all of his or her life is extremely rare.

      As for the Thais, I hope they do well. Any country in which the troops have to be ordered not to do jumps with their (American-made) tanks has something going for it. 😋😋

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          1. But there has to be a better way than turning the country over to people who have spent their entire lives burning with ambition to rule over everyone else.

            For our own good. 

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            1. Just look at the way the petty tyrants in an HOA or school board act. People drawn to the exercise of power are the worst.

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              1. I *think* it was Lois McMaster Bujold who said “It’s not that power corrupts, it’s that power attracts the corruptible.” Not a hard-and-fast law, but I’ve found it pretty accurate.

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                2. Power attracts those that crave power over others. That unhealthy trait is often accompanied by greed, vanity, envy and a vastly overinflated sense of self-importance.

                  To them it’s not corruption; they’re just collecting what they are entitled to.

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            2. >burning with ambition to rule over everyone else.

              Unfortunately, that doesn’t go away with an absolute monarch – a common failure mode of monarchy is the palace coup.

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          2. It has the advantage that you can train the individual in topics that will likely be of use to the future ruler. But the chance of getting someone who’s well-suited for it is haphazard at best.

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          4. ‘Tis; though what can be worse is when you’re born as one of a number of possible candidates to it, so end up fielding assassination attempts from a young age. Not a mindset conducive to a leader who cares about people….

            (Yes, I’m thinking about a few isekai’d characters and what ends up being most disruptive about them. Most people would say knowledge of science and technology. I say the Constitution and the Declaration….)

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              1. It’s going to be an ongoing element – one of the candidates is a good guy, and is trying to learn to be a good ruler… but he’s a concubine’s kid. Whereas there’s now an official Queen with her own (much younger) son, and you can imagine the mess from there….

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            2. Ah, I perceive that you have watched *Joy of Life*

              Or perhaps you haven’t, in which case I return the favor of all the Chinese costume dramas you’ve mentioned favorably and suggest that you add *Joy of Life* to your watchlist. 

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            3. The plot of quite a few Chinese period-piece dramas. A common story arc goes something like this – male lead is a virtuous Imperial prince. Female lead is love interest (the protagonist(s) can be either or both of these two characters). Prince is struggling with a corrupt half-brother over who will be the heir, and allied with one or more of his siblings. Halfway through the series, the corrupt prince is defeated, and the allied sibling suddenly becomes the new enemy. This lasts for the rest of the series.

              The male lead will get the throne at the end, but might not live happily ever after with the female lead (in at least one series she throws herself off of a cliff at the end, partially in acknowledgement of all of the blood on their hands, and the blood that they’ll likely have to shed in the future to hold the throne).

              Though an interesting divergence from that is “Longest Day in Chang’an”. It’s set in the Tang Dynasty, in the capitol city of (surprise!) Chang’an, and it’s written kind of like 24 with the way that the passage of time is handled (it’s 48 episodes that are about an hour long each, covering roughly one day of time in total). The protagonist – who is an absolute determinator – is a prisoner sentenced to be executed, but given a 24-hour reprieve of his sentence to help uncover a conspiracy in Chang’an. Unraveling the conspiracy is the focus of the plot. But the investigators are constantly tripped up by multiple schemes being triggered by the city’s elite, who are all scheming against each other (and may or may not be tied to the conspiracy that the protagonist is investigating). Even the investigators themselves are targeted by some of this scheming as they’re basically a new government faction, and some of the elite fear that the investigators’ organization is going to be just another part of the power struggle.

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          5. Being born to it is a horrible way to pick a leader, but worse it to let someone seize it by terror and deadly force. Someone born to it doesn’t start with that strike against him, and may actually hope to be rich by ruling a prosperous people whom he can leave to an heir. Those who seize the rule by terror and deadly force are less likely to see things that way.

            There are no promises either way, of course.

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        3. Well, if Emperor Cayleb had a Bad Day, then Seijin Merlin could be depended on “sitting on him until he recovered”. [Very Big Grin]

          (Oh yes, I rereading David Weber Safehold novels. How did you guess?) :wink:

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              1. Which in itself is a check or balance to power, the problem we are having is the checks and balances are all out of whack. The courts in one state, let’s just use New York as an example since HELL is already taken, can be so corrupted, that they bow to that power as well. There are places in this country where you can’t get a fair trial, New York, D.C., California, Georgia, Oregon, Washington, etc… they are all so corrupt there is no real rule of law. For you poor few living in those states I pray for you.

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        4. It’s even more than that. There are mental changes to most people as they get older, and I’m not talking about things like senility or dementia. I think that’s why Deng Xiaoping, who had just lived through Mao’s declining years, put term limits on how long one man could be Premier of the PRC.

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        5. As Sir PTerry once pointed out, Okay, say the head honcho is a good man. His second in command has to be a good man, too, because he speaks for the head honcho. And the people under him have to be good people, too, or it all devolves into corruption and favoritism.

          On the other hand, he also pointed out: If everyone got the vote, that meant Knobby Knobbs got the vote, too, and he could see the problem right there.

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          1. How can you get a Perfect Governing System when all the people in the Society, including the people that govern, are imperfect?

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          2. Then there are the matching pair of Heinlein quotes:

            Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

            Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides?

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      2. The Thais also refer to their country “The Land of the Free”, and in some ways it is freer than we are at the moment.

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      3. There were elected monarchs. The problem is they got to keep the job for life unless they abdicated.

        The great strength of our system is twofold: Peaceful transfer of executive power after elections, and limited Presidential terms. This allows for corrections and changes at other thane lifetime intervals.

        Any attempt to “improve” the U.S. system that touches those would be the obvious crossing-the-Rubicon event.

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        1. This is an important strength.

          It’s also the reason I think that the federal gov’t won’t cancel elections unless they’ve completely collapsed – even the appearance of a transfer of power legitimates it in our tradition. Witness the number of people who claim ‘They voted for it’ regarding notoriously corrupt Chicago, for just one example.

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    2. The US has enforced democracy at the point of a gun in Germany and Japan, both of which are now at least reasonable facsimiles of free democracies. Most of the more recent interventions I can think of may have been sold as supporting democracy, but have instead been efforts to prop up a particular local political faction rather than supporting actual democracy. Those local political factions have ranged from flawed to horrible and have been chosen for real or imagined compliance with American interests. It seems to me that enforcing democracy at the point of a gun looks very different than most of the interventions of the last sixty years.

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      1. The Reader notes that the US has 2 other successes in the grow democracy category – South Korea and Taiwan. Both of those took several decades.

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        1. We didn’t occupy and rebuild the RoK and RoC like we did with Germany and Japan. Both countries basically got guarantees of independence against a highly aggressive enemy. After a few decades, the authoritarian governments reformed into representative ones.

          I sometimes wonder if the Republic of Vietnam would have eventually turned out the same way if it had been able to resist the Communists.

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          1. Allowed to resist. Given the air cover and ammunition resupply we promised the ARVN would have stopped the NVA tanks again in ‘75 just like they did in ‘72. The NVA used the same exact attack plan, after all. Most ARVN units that had ammo put up a good fight until they ran dry.

            Alternately we could have sold them a real air force and let them do their air cover themselves – but selling them F-4s would have let them bomb North Vietnam if sufficiently provoked, can’t let them have that capability, wouldn’t be prudent…

            Fair enough bargain until Teddy Kennedy got to run wild in the Senate.

            And it all could have been avoided if Nixon had disavowed the White House Plumbers and thrown them under the bus, like Reagan did when Iran-Contra became public. Make a speech about “I just discovered these bad people doing bad things, I’m as shocked as you are, I am appointing a blue ribbon commission, together we will get to the bottom of this…” He would have finished his term.

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              1. I’m (sadly) reminded of all the Rhetoric about the South Vietnam’s government being corrupt and thus not “worthy” of US support.

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                1. If you don’t want to hear incredibly horrible stories, don’t ask any of the “boat people” who survived what happened on those boats.

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        2. Heh.

          The Reagan Library is going to have simultaneous exhibits on both Star Wars (the movie franchise) and SDI (colloquially known as Star Wars).

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        3. I’d add the PI too. Similarly to South Korea, it was mixed results for a fair bit, fairly good recently.

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      2. When the other society has rule of law (or at least has the basic grasp that it’s a good idea), then enforcing a republic or democracy can work over time. If the whole idea of rule of law is foreign and in some ways in opposition to the culture? Nope.

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      1. Number 2 seems to be the lament of every red county in a blue state. Portland voters (whether human or fraudulantly created) run roughshod all over the rural counties. Ditto Chicago, NYC, and so on.

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        1. It sucks that states can’t use the Republic model too. Oregon the Portland Metro/Salem/Eugene, etc., counties probably would still overwhelm the rural counties. But it would appear closer.

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          1. This used to be the case, before the Warren Court decreed otherwise.

            The state senates used to represent the counties of the state, rather an arbitrary perimeter capturing a certain amount of the population.

            Warren declared it his proudest accomplishment.

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              1. But probably the Warren court’s most damaging decision, since it lets population centers impose their will and laws on the rest of the state.

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      2. Like usual, you are making a completely knee jerk response where you do not actually know what you are talking about.

        I KNOW how the Republican Party operates. It is intended to be a representational democracy, but the only people who actually show up do a terrible job of representing Republicans. I just ran my latest Precinct Convention. Only one guy showed up and he is a bit of a wingnut. There are approximately 5000 registered voters in my precinct, so that is less than 0.05% at the convention. If 1/3 of them are Republicans or Republican leaning, that is less than 0.1%.

        The county party is a mess, with the county chairman only wanting the position to enhance his political consulting business.

        The state party is also a mess. The State Republican Executive Committee is a bunch of blue nosed old farts who won’t stand up for anything, just a bunch of cowards and losers. The State Convention is the largest political convention in the country where everything is rubber stamped by the old farts who bother to show up.

        The actual elected politicians are also a bunch of cowards and losers. They are too afraid of being called a mean name to actually take a stand on what their voters sent them to do.

        The judiciary has shown itself to be utterly corrupt and untrustworthy.

        Oh, as far as countries being better off, no so much as I can tell ever since Bush the senior decided to start bombing countries. Many countries are much worse off.

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            1. Cool then. My blog. Stop being annoying.
              I don’t care what you think you’re saying, but monarchies have a record of sucking, and as for “oh, we so bad for the rest of the world” study some history. Real history.

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        2. So, to recap, you ran a convention, which you’ve mentioned you’ve done for quite some time, and it sucked.

          This is proof that everyone else sucks.

          That… is not the support you could hope for.

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    4. Thailand is a monarchy exactly as much as England is a monarchy; that is, not at all in practice. The king or queen may command respect, and if he or she makes a suggestion then people listen, but the actual government is done by an elected parliament headed up by a prime minister, while the king or queen is essentially a figurehead as far as political power goes.

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      1. Yeah, but one of our fellow SF folks, Somtow Sucharitkul, went to prison for lese majeste, because of an opera he wrote. And he is IN the royal family. (Far back.)

        So yeah, monarchies kinda stink, kinda sus.

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        1. Looking at the Ficus/DOJ freakout over a gamer posting about the woke Sweet Baby Inc, it’s pretty clear that somebody thinks lese majeste is back in style.

          (Saw my first Deplorable hat: “I miss the America I grew up in”. So do I.)

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    5. Democracy is not perfect because it is a human institution. I often think we would be better off if candidates where randomly selected like a jury pool. Then have a primary style process to weed out the idiots and sociopaths. let the new candidates run against incumbents. Term limits of course. 

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      1. Twelve years for every office, once twelve years is up, you either run for higher office or retire, permanently. You can never run for that office again.

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        1. My old next door neighbor grew up next to the jail in a rural Minnesota county. Her dad was elected sherriff for four of every six years. Then her uncle would be elcted for one term. Rinse and repeat.

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      2. I think we’d have a better government if we picked 535 people at random. In fact, we’d probably get a better government if we picked 535 people at random from lunatic asylums.

        Hell, 535 random criminals from maximum security prisons probably wouldn’t do as much damage to America as the entrenched political class.

        Congressional sessions would get a hell of a lot more interesting, though. :-P

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            1. I’d pay to see that. Come on? You know it’s true. Not to mention “We think the representatives from Oregon are roasting the representative from California. No, not… figuratively?”

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              1. Some of those Asian legislatures get pretty rowdy. There might not be knives or other weapons. But IIRC fistfights in Taipei’s legislative body isn’t uncommon.

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    6. Being fair, Thailand is arguably where the US won what we lost in South Vietnam and Cambodia: The Dominoes Stopped There.

      Given their long jungley border with places the commies overturned, one would have expected they would be the next to get infiltrated and fall, but they didn’t come close.

      Maybe the US should have kept Vietnam at the Green Beret Advisors only level that JFK had them at, pumped up and heavily contested Cambodia, and then, as was done, reinforced Thailand with money and equipment, since it was the least badly-run place in the neighborhood.

      But there was the whole French thing, which apparently the ex-OSS guys running CIA caught from their contacts from when they were dropping into Nazi-occupied France. I’ve also seen something somewhere that those ex-OSS guys also had heartburn for some reason over Uncle Ho over stuff that happened during WWII.

      And maybe they were right – perhaps Ho ‘s early overtures to the US would have ended up as fake as Castro’s fake I’m-not-a-commie-really face.

      But Thailand was always a better bet than anywhere else across China’s southern border.

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        1. Looking at the nesting, I think it did end up under mattc’s post, it’s just that there were so many replies that the fact isn’t obvious. But I’m pretty sure mattc got a WordPress notification of your response. (If he pays attention to those; hard to know)..

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      2. Communist guerillas in Cambodia and Laos (i.e. the communist country people usually forget about) got a lot of support from the fact that Vietnam was next door, and the NVA was regularly sending troops and supplies through both countries via the Ho Chi Minh trail. Thailand was on the other side of both of those countries, and thus had a rugged buffer between it and the primary source of supplies for Communist guerillas. By the time the communists took over the two countries, the Vietnamese and the Chinese were no longer talking to each other. And one of the first things Pol Pot did after taking power was to start causing border incidents with the Vietnamese. Given that Vietnam had just reunited, and the Vietnamese troops were very experienced veterans, this didn’t work out well for Pol Pot (though it did help those Cambodians who weren’t part of the Khmer Rouge). Apparently the surviving members of the Khmer Rouge escaped into Thailand, where they launched cross-border attacks against the Vietnamese puppet government with tacit Thai support until the restoration of the crown and the subsequent Cambodian amnesty. During that time, smuggling weapons from Cambodia into Thailand in order to overthrow the Thai government was probably very risky…

        Laos was a Vietnamese puppet, so it wasn’t going to smuggle Chinese supplies to Thai guerillas even after the Pathet Lao took over. And Vietnam was likely too busy recovering from what the USAF bombing campaign did to it (yes, contrary to what many in the West will claim, it did have an effect) to worry about aiding guerillas in Thailand.

        Also, Thailand is in the rather unique position of having not been colonized by the European powers (something I’ve heard they’re very proud of). It also avoided the usual Japanese atrocities, as it was a member of the Axis during the war (fun WW2 fact: the Thai ambassador to the US decided on his own not to deliver the Thai Declaration of War; the US reciprocated by not declaring war on Thailand, even though Great Britain did, and apparently helped the ambassador with resistance operations against the Thai government). So it survived the war in much better shape than the other countries in Southeast Asia. That’s likely also part of why the communists never did very well in that country.

        Another fun WW2 fact – Thailand’s only real military action during the war was to seize part of French Indochina… which it then was forced to return when Vichy France joined the Axis.

        It’s anyone’s guess how closely Uncle Ho was tied to the USSR. I’ve heard that you can find people to argue for or against supporting him after World War 2 (though at the very least, I don’t think we should have supported the French). But it appears that he did take notes from the US Constitution regarding checks and balances. The Vietnamese government has reportedly avoided some of the worst excesses of one party communist rule due to a more careful balance between the leader of the country, and the governing bodies. Supposedly, this was inspired by Ho’s study of the US Constitution. And as a result, there hasn’t been anyone like Mao or Xi Jinping so far in Communist Vietnam.

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  6. I contend instead that the King of America is the Constitution, not the people. The people are always the people, but the King remains, until the Ard Rí returns.

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      1. Warning, Chesterton quote, and it’s not half a line.

        From a bit over 100 years ago.

        :wide load sign drives past, flashing:

        America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.

        Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing in the world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for a brotherhood of all men. In its nature it is limited by its definition of the nature of all men. This was true of the Christian Church, which was truly said to exclude neither Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute something else for Jewish religion or Greek philosophy. It was truly said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a certain pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And this is true even of the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow touching theology, it could not confess to being narrow about nationality or ethnology. The Spanish Inquisition might be admittedly Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. Such a Spaniard, even when he was narrower than his own creed, had to be broader than his own empire. He might burn a philosopher because he was heterodox; but he must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox. And we see, even in modern times, that the same Church which is blamed for making sages heretics is also blamed for making savages priests. Now in a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, there is something of the same idea at the back of the great American experiment; the experiment of a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, so far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness is religious because it is not racial. The missionary can condemn a cannibal, precisely because he cannot condemn a Sandwich Islander. And in something of the same spirit the American may exclude a polygamist, precisely because he cannot exclude a Turk.

        Now for America this is no idle theory. It may have been theoretical, though it was thoroughly sincere, when that great Virginian gentleman declared it in surroundings that still had something of the character of an English countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. 

        https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27250/pg27250-images.html

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    2. A reasonable interpretation. I’ve also read that the US is effectively a Constitutional monarchy, where the monarch, with strictly delineated powers, is elected by representatives of the people (at twice remove, until the recent “improvements” starting with the 16th Amendment) every four years. Whatever it actually is, it’s the best workable *concept* of government to come along yet, no matter how the current noisemakers try to screw it up.

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      1. Yep. And things have literally gone to hell in a hand basket since they decided that Jesus was just some Palestinian guy you don’t really have to take seriously.

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    4. The constitution is the peace treaty. And the social contract, to the extent that that concept can have any meaning.

      Which is why people who think they are being so very clever in going around it are not nearly as clever as they think.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Posting this here, because it is along the same lines, delineating part of WHY the country is in the straits it is in: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/how-mother-cabrini-saved-america-5605038?src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign

    We are NOT a democracy: we are a REPUBLIC. Democracy was substituted as a synonym for republic but the two ARE NOT the same thing. There were republics in the Medieval era, and yes, they weren’t always or even particularly great. I wouldn’t trade them for what we have here for all the tea in Japan.

    But anyone who focuses on the monarchies of the Medieval period misses that they weren’t ubiquitous even then, that rebels as far back as the 1300s wanted the kings to do their jobs and got hung or otherwise killed for it. Jack Cade’s memory had the British shivering in their boots in 1775-1776: https://infogalactic.com/info/Jack_Cade. Several of those peasant revolts in the Middle Ages had knights, merchants, and lordlings among their number. It wasn’t just “ignorant rabble” (and ignorant meant “couldn’t read Latin,” not “couldn’t read at all”) who wanted the ruling class to stop holding them down. There were plenty of educated people even then who wanted feudalism gone because it wasn’t needed anymore and it was hurting more than helping.

    Feudalism was supposed to be a stop-gap. A way to preserve and bring forward the civilization of the past (Rome, primarily); it was never supposed to be permanent. But it lasted so long that the people who benefited most from it didn’t want it to end. Sounds familiar today, doesn’t it?

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        1. I am not sure FDR was any worse, just different.  But disposing of the mess he made of America is essential, yes.

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            1. Maybe. As the villain of the piece, FDR was probably worse. I am not sure the overall regime was any worse. I think the percentage of socialists and anti-Semites and other enemies of the Constitution in the present regime is actually higher.

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      2. We ain’t dead yet. I would say yes, we’re still a Republic. Right now we’re just a Republic with a fever that’s about to break. Depends on which way we go when the fever finally breaks.

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        1. Are you certain that isn’t just normalcy bias, though? Does the Republic continue to exist until Darth Brandon’s lackeys declare that the last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away?

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          1. ABSOLUTELY SURE. We’ve been occupied for 100 years. We’re finally resisting, and NOW y’all want to abandon all.
            NO. Get out of the way. We’re fighting. Hopefully we don’t need to go to literal fights, but resistance is fighting.

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            2. Abandon, no. I just want more people to wake up and realize that despite some recent wins, we are practically speaking living in a post-Constitutional, post-Republic world. To realize that the Constitution, while a wonderful aspirational ideal, is just a piece of paper. While it recognizes our rights, it doesn’t physically protect our rights, and for every victory I see reported over government infringement of rights, I see two more losses – often because judges refuse to hear the case. Our Bill of Rights isn’t protecting us, and I am starting to think the Anti-Federalists were more right than the Federalist, about the potential for government tyranny. The checks and balances seem more in abeyance than ever before.

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              1. Hell NO. We are WINNING. Don’t let the black dog and the media deceive you. The culture is turning. Slowly and ponderously like a large boat, but this is something judged impossible 50 years ago.

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                1. Yes, this and all of this.

                  Anyone who thinks different, look at all the ‘of course’ things from the 1940s etc. — world government is the solution, leftism is The Future (TM and R), ‘rule by experts’ is the only ‘enlightened’ way to go — or worse, the all-but-in-name fascist [stuff] from King Franklin I’s decade or so on the American throne… that we now just either quietly roll our eyes at, or else actively point at and laugh out loud.

                  It’s gone from widespread conventional wisdom, to ‘no one sane will ever believe that crap again’ — and it’s done it so softly that many of us have not even fully noticed it all yet.

                  Just because the centralist / top-down / crypto-Marxist ‘world of the future’ hasn’t finished falling below its own event horizon, yet, doesn’t mean their collapse can be halted. It simply means they haven’t quite noticed the walls closing in on them… so far.

                  But, of course, the fall is ongoing. And I’m deeply in awe of just how amazingly efficient those (once) Masters of the Future are at ensuring their dream will never become our enduring nightmare. (Fools, drunkards, and the United States of America?? Yes, it often looks an awful lot like that to me.)

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                  2. This post is helpful to me. I have been telling people the metaphor about my relationship with God is I am an old knight rusting away and the King knocks on the door to invite me on an adventure.

                    I got challenged to take that metaphor, and make it a story. So I am in the process of creating the world of 2429, after the crash, and further fall. King Mark the 23rd knocks on your door. Will you accept his invitation?

                    This is a world of evil. With 6 themes so far.

                    You are invited to join an adventure.

                    Will you trust the King?

                    Will you help restore the fallen kingdom?

                    This is a world of takers, no builders. How to build?

                    Those who are worthless are useful.

                    Ignorance is valued, not knowledge.

                    After 400 years all electronics don’t work. So people worship cell phones trying to get Siri to speak again with the proper sacrifice. The wires used to propel spirits, how to restore them? Almost all paper has been burned for its warmth, not its information. A man called president is another name for thief. It is a world of tribes, no one trusts. How do you rebuild trust? How do you rebuild civilization? Will you trust the king at your door? 

                    My working title. “Thy Kingdom Come’,

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                2. It’s not just that. When Reagan said the scariest words were “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you”it was new, revolutionary, shocking. Now? Accepted wisdom. And getting more so everyday.

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            1. I read his biography in elementary school and it was one of my favorites. I was the only kid in that section of the school library on library days, but I got to read his and Henry Ford’s and George Washington’s and some others without having to wait for the books to become available.

              I’m assuming we’re talking about the naval officer and not the bassist (although the bassist is awesome, too).

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            2. “Don’t give up the ship!”

              And when you are done fighting for one ship and have left nothing but little fighting splinters of deck, you move along to the next ship and start fighting for that one. And eventually you win.

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          3. The existence of the USA is not up to Darth Brandon. They can make a mess of it, but they cant kill the Idea of it, thus they cant kill the reality of it.

            Unless they manage to kill us all, every last GD Swinging-D one of us, we, those who love this Country and swore to uphold it, will ensure it goes on, be there but one of us left.

            Those conniving sonsobitches don’t have a clue, or a chance. They may win a few votes, but ultimately, they will be defeated and join their fellows in the dust-bin of history.

            Victory -and- Liberty.

            Liked by 1 person

      3. This is more like a dystopia of an Orwellian dystopia. In a real Orwellian dystopia the tyrants would at least be minimally competent at running the government.

        “What has Joe Biden accomplished?”

        “Besides flushing the country down the toilet? Nothing I can think of.”

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        2. Untrue.
          In Orwell’s dystopias, the tyrants are *not* minimally competent at running the government.
          They *are* ruthlessly competent at maintaining power.
          These are not the same.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. I have to argue with the assertion that feudalism was supposed to be a stop-gap.
      I’ve never seen any evidence of that, and the legends surrounding the Assizes of Jerusalem strongly contradict the argument. (But the bits cobbled together centuries later provide great fuel for a conspiracy theory about the Kingdom of Jerusalem being allowed to fall because the Assizes threatened the power of the European monarchs.)

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Side note: Cabrini is a beautiful movie, both in its topic and in its filmography. I recommend it (and it needs eyeballs to make back its $50M budget, most of which must have been the historical set recreation.)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Also note that this is not a Hollywood studio. So supporting this movie means supporting folk who are actually interested in telling stories rather than what Hollywood has been doing of late.

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    1. That’s what they were billed as, anyhow. But the Edsel suggests that it was a case of false advertising.

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      1. One of my roommates in college was a business major. He had fun telling us of the complete hash that was done with the Edsel. From concept (“Let’s make a car and market it to junior executives, emphasizing the “junior” part.”) to marketing (“as God is my witness, I thought dropping plastic Edsel models would go over well”), it was, er, interesting. Much laughter.

        As a little, Edsels were the butt of a lot of elementary school-kid jokes, and this was in a neighborhood where half the dads worked the Big 3 assembly lines.

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        1. I always thought that the common description of the first Edsel was right on the mark, “It looks like an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon”. 😜

          That said, and tortured bodywork aside, it was actually a pretty good car. No worse than most other Ford (or GM, or Mopar) products, anyway.

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          1. When I was a kid, it was a Mercury instead of an Olds. OTOH, Chevys and Fords dominated our block, though the Isetta the fried chicken place used for deliveries got attention.

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            1. Gawd, I’d completely forgotten the Isetta! A door that opens to the front; what a *wonderful* concept!

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    1. My older and can’t be updated computer won’t allow me to log in. I get the blank screen. The newer OS is OK, and the Win10-adjacent machine at Day Job can log in. It started two WordPress upgrades ago. WPDE.

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    2. I don’t have a WP account, and with quirks, it’s operating at the limits of tolerable. On occasion, I get the old-style comment block, supporting HTML, though this morning it’s pretty much the Shiny New one that hates HTML code.

      Running the Pale Moon (firefox derived) under Linux. Don’t have any windows machines. Will test under Firefox in a bit.

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        1. I’m using Firefox on Win 10, and now that I’ve figured out the “NEW, IMPROVED!!!” WP I can work with it; still have to log in *every single time* I comment, though.😒

          I believe you’re correct; WP is as normal as ever. If that is, you consider that Hannibal Lechter was as normal as any insane cannibal…

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  10. So, the Monday post and the post for today both echo my thinking for over the last few decades – thanks. My Italian neighbors who are highly educated, very worldly and not the least bit naïve are still blown away by discoveries they make about this new and wonderful place called America which confirms my perceptions. 

    They are still in awe (after three plus years now) of grocery stores and the number of them to pick from. A whole isle of nothing but cereal?? Half an isle of different coffees?? All the choices in the dairy department?? Then go to CostCo??  Yeah, ain’t like that anyplace else – and that is just a tiny example of how/why America is different. Then… the trip to a typical mid western ‘gun show’ and all that. While he (neighbor) has gone hunting and father-in-law has several rifles the amount and variety of firearms and just ‘stuff’ at the show was again an example of it ain’t like this anyplace else. 

    The “elites” and/or TPTB have forgotten this and outsiders (Y’all ain’t from around here are ya) don’t get it and simply can’t process it as real when they run into it. Sure, the USA will continue to change and develop but the spirit of American will endure. 

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    1. So we hope – so we all hope. And remember our past times, and what a breathtakingly daring step it was, to establish a republic where the citizens elected their leaders.

      Never forget that. Never.

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    2. And for those who look at California and despair that the left edge is destined to blot over teh rest of the country: Gun Shows are like that here in the golden state too.

      That’s one reason why they keep trying (and failing) to ban or regulate them away. All that well oiled freedom arrayed out on tables for sale scares the heck out of them.

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    3. <note potential duplicate comment as it ate my first try, but it may still show up: WPDE>

      And for those who look at the Golden State and despair that the left edge will spread culturally and blot out the rest, I will note that California gun shows are like this too.

      That’s why they keep trying to outright ban or regulate them out of existence. But they keep failing. They are scared to death of all that well oiled freedom, even if it all is predestined for tragic boating accidents.

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      1. It will really shock the ATF to wake up to the fact we can boat safely and quickly, and you wouldn’t believe how fast a bass boat really is or what a stable platform it makes. And they are all shinny too.

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  13. I’ll admit, one of the only things that really itched at me in the Lord of the Isles series was wondering how they could actually get a solid succession.

    The heroes will win, and save their nation, and rule wise and long, but what comes after them? How will they ensure future rulers will be even marginally competent?

    It bothered me.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Drake touched on this in the Northworld trilogy. The protagonist helps establish the kingdom in the first novel, stabilizes it in the second, and then generations later helps to overthrow the corrupt and insane current ruler of it in the third novel.

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      1. It’s been a while since I read Northworld, but that doesn’t surprise me. I don’t doubt he was well aware of the problem. It’s just something that monarchy doesn’t have a great solution for.

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  14. One of my frustrations has been with the concept of “exporting democracy”, as if the method of choosing a leader / ruler by popular vote was the most important thing about civil society.

    To me, the most important factors in defining America are the stability of individual rights, partially protected by the Constitution (it should be “protected”, but our rights have been eroded over time), the stability of our rights in property, and, until recently, the stability of law, in both civil and criminal law, and in generally fair / neutral courts, not subject to political pressure (I wish) acting to protect the stability of society and the rights of our citizens.

    I know that these are just my dreams, but they are also my goals and my intentions.

    Our .gov exporting of popular elections to countries who have no tradition of individual rights above government desires, or of courts with the power to restrict a rulers’ desires have generally resulted in “one man, one vote, one time” totalitarianism.

    John in Indy

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  15. One of my frustrations has been with the concept of “exporting democracy”, as if the method of choosing a leader / ruler by popular vote was the most important thing about civil society.

    To me, the most important factors in defining America are the stability of individual rights, partially protected by the Constitution (it should be “protected”, but our rights have been eroded over time), the stability of our rights in property, and, until recently, the stability of law, in both civil and criminal law, and in generally fair / neutral courts, not subject to political pressure (I wish) acting to protect the stability of society and the rights of our citizens.

    I know that these are just my dreams, but they are also my goals and my intentions.

    Our .gov exporting of popular elections to countries who have no tradition of individual rights above government desires, or of courts with the power to restrict a rulers’ desires have generally resulted in “one man, one vote, one time” totalitarianism.

    John in Indy

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  16. I have to dispute that it generally works like that in fantasy.
    Even when king-dom is ordained by gods/prophecy/fate, it still happens in the third act, often after the climax. Before that, there’s an awful lot of proving worthy and often fighting tyranny.

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  17. I’m used to the mostly-decent-to-at-least-tolerable feudal system of the Holy Roman Empire 2.0 (after 890 or so), and have been appalled while reading about the “German” landlords in the Baltic. Basically, take away social controls and limits on the nobility, remove any protections for the peasants, and have the two be from different cultures. The results were pretty rough on the peasants, and rough on the landlords on those occasions when the peasants decided to get even.

    That’s not a great testament to the feudal system, at least as applied up there.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. “The number of unreported peasant revolts under feudalism is immense, and very few of them were successful.”

    The number one reason why people should execute those who try to take their weapons away from them. And I mean execute. Not ‘try to reason with them’, not argue, not wait for legislation or the courts, because while you’re waiting, they demand you turn over your weapons. And once you do that, it’s game over.

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  19. Off topic for the day, but not the blog (see recent post on Americans taking us to the stars): late this afternoon SpaceX updated their Web page to remove the ‘pending regulatory approval’ tag from their Starship test notice, and still later this afternoon (depending on time zone) the FAA quietly reissued their launch license with flight 2 changed to flight 3.

    So… sometime between 8 and 10 AM (EDT) tomorrow, the Next Big Rocket (a.k.a. Super Heavy + Starship) ‘should’ launch from south Texas, ‘almost to orbit.’ Goals include getting the rocket off the ground, again ‘hot staging’ Starship off the Super Heavy booster by firing its engines while still sitting on top, flying Super Heavy back to a soft-ish water ‘landing’ offshore, going almost but not quite to a true orbit with the second stage.

    Then do a propellant-transfer test in zero-gee from one tank to another (a milestone for a NASA contract, and working towards actual orbital refueling), opening and closing the payload bay mini-door to be used for Starlink satellites, firing one of the engines as practice for later maneuvering and de-orbit.

    Then a re-entry testing the heat shield, flying down through the air, and a hard water landing in the Indian Ocean (no rocket ‘landing burn’ attempted with Starship).

    Internet watchers can head to Space X’s website (spacex dot com) for a pointer to their own TwiXter feed (which does not need a Twitter account), or watch with other commentary on places like Everyday Astronaut, NASA Spaceflight (which is not a government show) or Ellie in Space, all on the Yew Tubes.

    It should be an interesting hour or so, regardless. And if SpaceX can pull all this off, the idea of fully re-usable space transport… gets a whole lot less idealistic.

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  20. “it kind of worked” – this is what has me questioning my libertarianism at this point. I admit, I was marginally hopeful that the defund movement would not cause an explosion of crime and carnage. Alas, it was not so. The average muggle does not seem to be fit for Libertarianism. In fact, most evidence supports the biblical assertion that Humankind is a kind of wicked beast that will do evil when good will do. And, unless people are working at not being wicked and evil, liberty for them can be harmful to society as a whole. It’s rather depressing. No matter what, as I try to build models of a society incorporating liberty, I end up with a tiered society (classes) where some classes have remarkably less agency than others. Some of Yarvin’s more draconian suggestions sound better and better as the gyre widens.

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    1. What sort of subcultures are you looking at in your models? If you have elites that encourage a dysfunctional-in-modern-society subcultures (a version of the single-parent “gangsta” culture, for example, or the extreme honor-and-machismo subcultures) then you will have a society that has some high-trust areas with self-control and acceptance of personal responsibility, and some low-no trust areas that will require outside controls.

      When the US had a stronger common culture, or the dysfunctional pockets more isolated, then the more libertarian approach worked pretty darn well. Even the corrupt areas, like Chicago’s machine, and NYC’s mess, acknowledged that they were corrupt but they kept things moving (see the essay “Honest Graft”). Alas, that common basic foundation has been weakened by several related forces, and it’s going to take a lot of work to rebuild.

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      1. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
        —James Madison, Federalist Paper 51

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        1. Aaaand then you wade into the rest of the essay. (To be fair, it is a very clear essay, just in prose that most of us don’t read daily.)

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          1. The Reader thinks the Federalist Papers and the Anti Federalist Papers should be read by all.

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            1. Not just read, but discussed, at length, with inclusion of projected consequences and side effects to the at least the 3rd degree; as well as showing specific examples in U.S. history, and possible parallels in other nations histories. In fact, that could take up an entire year of high school; and probably should.

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              1. It’s something folks should learn- do you trust schools to teach it?

                Our coverage of WWII, in the year of focus on history in high school, mostly consisted of building models of Japanese internment camps out of sugar cubes. And one LARP where the script assumed nobody would ask “by what authority do you call us here for the constitutional convention” and the teacher didn’t pay attention to us going off-script.

                Something like iCivics would be a better option– Hillsdale, PragerU, make the information available.

                Liked by 2 people

        2. ‘Progressives’ dream of an almighty Government with enough power and authority to create an earthly Paradise when run by the best of men.

          Our Founders were more practical, and tried to set up a limited government that wouldn’t create Hell On Earth when infested by the worst.

          The ‘progressives’ have been busy breaking down those limits ever since.

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    2. It’s not ‘the average muggle’ you need to worry about; it’s the small number of criminals that don’t respect anybody’s rights, and indulge in larceny and violence. In order to have a functional society those criminals must be removed from it, either by isolating them in prisons or by execution.

      Left-wing ‘progressives’ feel sorry for those ‘poor unfortunates’ so they support ‘reforms’ such as ‘defunding the (Eeevul! RRRAAACISSST!) police’ to make themselves feel better. Freed from constraints on their antisocial behavior, the criminals run hog wild.

      Even in places where that’s been done, ‘the average muggle’ is not going around looting, raping and murdering. We’re not seeing a whole lot more criminals, but mostly a lot more of the same criminals. Where before a criminal would commit a few crimes, get caught, and be locked up, now they are turned loose or not even arrested. Instead of a few crimes, they are allowed to commit hundreds of crimes without consequence. Except for turning our cities into hell-holes, that is.

      Thing is, the ‘progressives’ have been in complete control of those cities for decades. A century or more, in some cases. If the police, the courts and the prisons really were Eeevul and RRRAAACISSST! it’s because the ‘progressives’ made them so. I remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when a black cop shot an armed black criminal, and the black police chief, black D.A. and black mayor declined to punish him. Because RRRAAACISSSM!!! of course.

      ———————————

      When police arrest violent criminals to protect innocent people, they are condemned as Jackbooted Fascist Stormtroopers.

      When police arrest innocent people at the behest of corrupt politicians, they are hailed as National Heroes.

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      1. “Left-wing ‘progressives’ feel sorry for those ‘poor unfortunates’ “

        Only the dupes. The leadership sees them as tools to breakdown society so they can remake it in the socialist image. Once the tools have done the task, “Up against the wall!”

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        1. Because their idea is “Everything gets destroyed” — ????? — paradise.
          It’s never worked. And now even the beginning isn’t working. We’re building as they break. It’s just DIFFERENT.
          Not saying there won’t be a shitton of casualties, but the full break isn’t happening.

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          1. “ “To prevent the possibility of being attacked at home, leave your (car key) fobs at your front door… they’re breaking into your home to steal your car, they don’t want anything else. A lot of them that they’re arresting have guns on them… and they’re not toy guns, they’re real guns; they’re loaded.

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            1. Yep. ‘Gun control’ just means no guns for you; the criminals are armed to the teeth.

              ———————————

              The Leftroids trust violent criminals and terrorists with guns more than they trust you.

              Liked by 2 people

            3. If I leave car keys someplace with a sign, clearly marked… and make sure I have the clear capability for self defense

              (asking for a friend)

              Does that constitute hunting over bait?

              Liked by 1 person

      3. it’s the small number of criminals that don’t respect anybody’s rights, and indulge in larceny and violence

        And the folks who find it useful to demand they be protected in doing so.

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    3. The WHAT? Of course the defund movement would result in carnage and issues.
      Are you…. I’m sorry. WHAT?
      What part of libertarianism is “no enforcement of common rules against crime.”
      If your idea of libertarianism is “if only everyone” go back to the drawing board.
      The best model for libertarianism is the republic as set by the founders. Go study that.
      It is not a reason or an excuse, or even cover to going back to the feudalist horrors of the past. They had more in common with communism than with any other regime.
      Stop it. JUST STOP IT.
      And grow up. “The common Muggle” indeed. The average person on the street understands more about limited government and the need for it than you apparently do, since you thought it was just “free for all.”
      GO STUDY.

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      1. Sadly, there is a big streak of Anarchist idiocy that infected the Libertarian Party and -ism. I used to be a Party member. After six months of attending local meetings, I thoroughly understood that there were lunatics at the helm of the locals I attended, and they were essentially indistinguishable from saboteurs.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. And then they turn around and nominate “Bake the Cake” Johnson and “Ban the Guns” Weld, followed by “You’ve got to be actively anti-racist (i.e. racist against white people” Jorgensen.

          I’ve long considered the LP to not be an actual political party. They’re just performance art.

          Liked by 1 person

          2. >performance art

            The Libertarian Party is a demonstration of humans unfit to rule.

            Whether or not this is intentional is open to debate.

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    4. “Libertarianism” got hijacked by Anarchists. Who promptly wrecked it, like they do with everything else they infect, which is why some Anarchists end up being shock troops for Communists who “promise” to “fade away” the government. (And why some others wind up helping them anyway, despite insisting they are not.)

      “No rules” is stupid. You cannot run a small hunter-gatherer band that way. How could you possibly run a large industrial civilization with no rules but “do as thou wilt”? And if there is no enforcement, there are no rules. Because anyone can just doosy-choosy otherwise. And yes, the average person does not necessarily have your well being in mind when they doosy-choosy.

      -mini- archism. Minimal necessary and weed that patch frequently. Much more likely to work. One cannot really -have- rights, enforce them, make them practical in a working way, without duties. What you will support and defend you might actually have.

      Fool: “You cant do that! I have rights!”

      Thug: “Watch me.”

      Then what?

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    2. That unstabilized pitch and roll at the end is a concern to me. It looked like it only got a somewhat stable reentry attitude once it started to get a bite from the atmosphere and the flappythings could work, but that last vid sure looked to me like the Starship had pitched up a bunch and we were looking into massively turbulent flow from a bit of a tail-first velocity vector.

      Elon’s “best part is no part” main-tank-vent-driven RCS seems to maybe have not enough authority when things are nearly empty to deal with random attitude perturbations.

      All that said, it was a massively successful test flight. Hopefully the FAA will not stand too much in the way of a short interval before test flight 4.

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      1. One more: It looked to me like their hypersonic control laws might need work. The camera on the front flap showed what looked like full-deflection control movements while they were in the reentry plasma flow, and I would have expected more constrained movements at the point.

        As far as I know Starship is supposed to be basically metastable in that phase. Maybe it was a flight test item, to gauge how much authority the flappythings actually have in that thin plasma flow, but the thing is, when you go to full-deflection on an aerodynamic control surface, you ain’t got no more to deal with any more needed correction, so normally that’s indicating a problem.

        But flight test is where this stuff is figured out.

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        1. Yep. All the wonderful theories and “it should do this, then this, and that will cancel out this bad thing here” have to meet the Real World™ at some point.

          And then there’s the never popular, “Huh. No one’s ever seen that before. Wonder what caused it?”

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          2. Observation by those who watched the whole thing live (I did not, though I caught the last stretch and reentry) are noting the prop transfer test point coincided with the start of those uncorrected roll+pitch rates.

            The assumption is that those rates caused the onboard FCS to not be able to do the Raptor relight test.

            The video downlink showed those roll+pitch rates were only reduced to nearly nulled out out once the flappythings started to have something to bite. But the initial entry interface attitude did not end up looking correct on those awesome vids, with the anttitude appearing to stabilize in eff3ctively a hypersonic sideslip, with the vehicle right side facing towards the airflow (plasma-flow?), and yaw and pitch angles vs. the plasma stream not clear, but appearing to continue to change throughout.

            They would want attitude stable with the tiles-side toward the plasma stream, I assume with the tail pointing towards the Earth.

            I’d bet that unstabilized and incorrect initial entry attitude issue will end up being the cause of the loss of vehicle.

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  23. “Both technically better than communists, . . .” Gonorrhea and Syphilis are technically better than AIDS.
    “. . . Cuba, an island nation, has its starved people forbidden from taking seafood from the sea. For…. reasons.” Reason being, if they let them have any sort of boat, they have a tendency to, fish all the way to Florida, and not come back.

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  24. I tend to point out that it was the monarchies that got us into World War I, which wrecked the West.

    The usual counter I hear to the objections to monarchy was that the concept of an ABSOLUTE monarch is an Enlightenment one, and going pre-Enlightenment will fix it.

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