An amusing post on being grit in the machine ...

Rules for reactionaries


Sooner or later, well or badly, that majority's demand for representation will be filled.

Angelo Codevilla

The federal government either won't or can't govern legitimately. DC would be an improvement if it were run by double agents. Allegiance used to be something they earned, now they rent it. They all but auction their floor votes on eBay. We're ruled by activists and lobbyists on behalf of the unspeakable. What they don't corrupt on purpose they corrupt by incompetence. If something constructive accidentally gets by them, well, that's what the Court is for. Consent of the governed? They don't even pretend any more. They don't have to, we count for nothing in DC. Consider these examples:

Amnesty for illegals - According to an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo going the rounds of Capitol Hill and obtained by National Review, the agency is considering ways in which it could enact “meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action” — that is, without the consent of the American people through a vote in Congress. Full article.

Hear ye, hear ye - The Obama administration recently used an Executive Order to sidestep Congressional approval to sign up the US for the Law of the Seas world government agenda without the People's representatives getting so much as a vote on it ... Isn't ruling by Royal decrees what America balked and revolted against in the 1770's?

George Ure, Urban Survival

This stuff goes on every day now. So consider: if we're nothing then they're the rulers of nothing, if we count for nothing then they count for nothing. It's time to rid ourselves of them. But wait. What does "rid ourselves of them" mean? That sounds scary. The ruling class has all the agencies and firepower and surveillance and prosecutors and resources. Yes they do. And they're welcome to them. The regime that ran the USSR had all that and gulags too. Yet the citizenry brought them down with placid but persistent methods. And notice the USSR died without even a whimper, never mind a bang. The People ended it by contradicting the regime's legitimacy in their real lives all day every day, and by being Good Citizens while doing it. The Politburo was nudged out of power in uncountable little ways, pestered and embarrassed out of existence by a parallel society with no identifiable structure. The People were the grit in the gears and one day the gears stopped turning. There's always more grit than gears.

We speak in terms of things as they are. It's way past the time when homicidal outrages would go unanswered, for instance. That said, here's how to start. Be imaginative. The possibilities are endless. Bid on a contract to, say, paint an aircraft carrier. Do it in pencil on lined tablet paper, then demand the proper forms and protest their office hours. Apply for things—food stamps, an art grant or a bank charter. Then call the agency you're dealing with and overcomply, question everyone about everything, every detail, every footnote, every dangling participle. Demand followups and be beyond satisfying. Mark every document and correspondence "Copy to Freedom of Information Act File." Every time they delay or brush you aside or require a fee, protest how they treat the economically disadvantaged, and get very concerned that they may be out of compliance with some affirmative action provision or disabled Americans regulation or the like, cite a couple pages and paragraphs and request clarification. That's just being a Good Citizen. Oh, and never ask, never request, never insist. Demand. Next item.

A person can dismember a classroom full of nuns and orphans and be sentenced to three day's community service but mess with "their" money and they'll destroy you and everybody else in the same zip code with the same last name. Yet income taxes don't actually pay for much, well, maybe things like their Yachts for Youngsters Outreach or the SEC's porn site bill. Borrowing funds the fed. Taxes repay the loans. Returns are actually Soviet-style "voluntary" confessions where we admit to not knowing what we did wrong so we confess to everything they put in front of us, sign it and let them decide. No no. Treat them as pre-approved arrest warrants. Delay submitting—and submitting is the right word—until the last allowable minute. Maybe go for the extension too and pay the fee. But be a Responsible Taxpayer, don't accidentally overpay by a buck fifty, millions of tiny refunds tie up valuable manpower that could be better used for persecuting neighborhood food pantries. Next item.

The Internet is a large-scale version of the "Committees of Correspondence" that led to the first American Revolution—and with Washington's failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

Christian and Robbins, Investor's Business Daily

Contribute to or run an opposition press, the internet kind with fangs and bloody claws. Every time a Congressman or federal judge missteps keep hammering the story until we have to import electrons from another galaxy. If you find yourself being reasonable, step back and reconsider. Your journalism standards should match theirs—think chimpanzees throwing feces. Run ersatz pictures like those tabloids do about people having babies by aliens. Make every story hot breaking news with breathless prose and provacative headlines. Get creative with statistics (but keep the underlying data). Cover yourself by ending every sensational accusation with a question mark. Bury retractions on page six and wrap them in further accusations, but include a stand alone almost-an-apology as a sort of claim on statesmanship for those who need to see that stuff. Your audience is not some ethics forum, it's Everyman's Inner Thomas Paine so don't get all term-papery, lay it down at the same level the mainstream media does, after all, they say life itself start in primal muck. Next item.

Defy the feds by ignoring their doings where you can. That means act outside the national political and economic structure by preference. For instance, legally dominate local governments instead of beating your head bloody in national—federal—elections, there's only so much of you, make it count. Sanctuary city means sanctuary from some federal law or another so the mechanism is in place and it works, take advantage of that. Work to reestablish state sovereignty and nullify unconstitutional legislation and regulations. If you can't stand to leave palace intrigues alone, help a second party oppose the Democratic-Republican Party. They could use opposition. Talk about easy meat. If anybody spilled a teaspoon of truth on the streets of DC, even by accident, the place would dissolve. Start spilling. Next item.

Get involved in creating self-sufficient regions with local agriculture and manufacturing and transportation. Accumulate real personal wealth such as property and bullion and seeds and machine tools. Know all that's worth knowing about something by doing it, making solar ovens or antibiotics or matches, say. Yes, you can do that. Making necessary or useful things is not that difficult. If—when?—the feds confiscate or outlaw home food gardens, have a "guerilla garden" ready to go. Underground crops like potatoes hidden on federal land would be fitting. If the feds outlaw rainwater collecting, as some states already do, install an underground cistern for your rainwater. Rain barrels are too conspicuous anyway.

Have a politically correct reason handy for every devious little thing you do. Should you be harassed, use activist terms like collective and shared values and making a difference. Get a liberal friend to help you with this, they like to talk like that. And maybe go the nanny route too, the "if it saves only one life" type of thing. Get the local news to report on your plight and effect a Woody Guthrie persona for them. They love that kind of stuff. (If the interviewer is overtly hostile, see the article below).

Yes, it's time to shrug off the ruling class and build something better. Even bad would be better. So, they've got to go. When the citizenry stops copying the ways of the elite and starts copying the ways of the peasantry it's over anyway. And they are, and it is. But be careful, there are those who think of revolution as if it really were 1776. It won't happen like that. No sensible person would want it to either, the first act of that kind of regime is to liquidate the revolutionaries.

Perhaps some are making lists and imagining round ups of the ruling miscreants after they've been deposed. No no. But we could hold a series of fair and open trials, it would humiliate them and entertain ourselves. Take away their belts "for their own protection" and have 'em hold up their pants in court* while a determinedly moronic judge—imagine a Maxine Waters doppelganger—harangues them. Prosecute any betrayal of oath of office as a capital offense, but sentence them to copying the Constitution in longhand for the rest of their days. And if they drop so much as a comma they gotta lick envelopes for Bawney Fwank. In his prison cell. If it takes all night.

* Yes yes, I know, so don't bother.
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An addendum to Rules for reactionaries

How to handle hostile reporters

Should you consent to an interview with an overtly hostile reporter, Rule One is to answer direct questions and only direct questions. Answer provocative statements with silence—it's always more uncomfortable for the reporter than for you. Request a direct question if none is offered.

Answer only the question asked, not the commentary that precedes it or follows it. The longer the question, the shorter your answer. Always answer with an answer, not an explanation.

Questions predicated on an assumed evil motive are out of bounds and the reporter knows it, what seems like an opportunity to expound on your pure heart and good intentions is actually a trap, any answer will be construed as a self-serving lie. Reject the assigned motive and let it go at that.

Address only attributed accusations. "There are those who say ...," is a statement, not an accusation. Make it clear you don't comment on accusations unless you've heard the accusation first hand or if the accuser—not the reporter—has confirmed it to your satisfaction. Finish by stating your confidence that a fair examination of fact will show the accusation unfounded blah blah, then shut up.

Apply Rule One for this sort of thing: "You're being evasive sir, what have you to hide?" This is not a direct question, it's a direct accusation, handle it as such. And be aware that questions hinging on the word why are often an indirect accusation.

Show proper respect by being nice, they're very good at what they do.

Finally, the decision to end the questioning is yours to make, thank them for their time and interest and answer no more questions.