FYG Premise 1: Science Over Ideology

"Anarchy is only possible until the first thug with a club. In modern society, the government IS that thug."

To begin to understand my perspective on political science, one must first learn to look at political discourse on an as-is basis, without trying to categorize and qualify it as subscribing to or promoting any movement, party, ideology, faith, or other organized way of thinking. Simple as that sounds, the majority of people I come in contact with are significantly incapable of it - usually not entirely incapable, but incapable enough not to be able to see or hear JUST what is being said, without dismissing it as adhering to some form of label, or in some cases even accusing me of unknowingly spreading some hidden conspiracy agenda. This closed-mindedness, for lack of a better term, is in my opinion the #1 unintentional support column of any form of tyranny. People get trapped in a web of conflicting and competing ideologies and often mistake their choice of political and social behavior as choosing an ideology, sometimes with some personal modifications to suit their needs. An entire unrelated philosophy blog can be created on the rejection of ideologies as a whole; but suffice it to say, for political purposes, that my perspective on politics does not derive from anything faith-based - be it religion, moral code, or any other ideological model of social behavior.

You will notice, reading further through the blog, that my ideas are heavily sympathetic to political movements promoting limited government (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-humanists, etc.). However, the crucial difference between myself and the majority of people who subscribe to these movements (and I know quite a few personally) is that to a large extent, their ideas and motivations for promotion of them are still based in some form of faith and ideology. For example, libertarians and constitutionalists often quote and refer to various documents written by the Founding Fathers to support their theories of limited government, such as the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist Papers. I am not disclosing my views on these documents at this point, but we must remember that even these seemingly freedom-loving, liberty-inspiring writings are very ideological in their nature. The concepts of "all men being created equal," "inalienable rights," or "truths" that are held to be "self-evident" are nothing more than philosophical opinions of social morality with absolutely no factual evidence to back them up. To use an extreme example: logically speaking and without going back to any faith-based code of ethics, where is the proof that it is "wrong" to kill or enslave another human being if no harm can come from it to the oppressor in any form? (I'm not promoting murder or slavery, just pointing out that all morality is ideological in the end). When confronted with this, historical records often show the likes of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton referring to The Bible, and their Enlightenment Era interpretations of it to mean the opinions of social morality mentioned. However, The Bible represents a religious ideology that, regardless of anyone's personal opinion on it, the same Founding Fathers claimed every human being had the freedom NOT to abide by. The proneness of ideology-based political movements to such contradictions, however, is often the least of their problems. Truely tyrannical regimes of every type, from the theocracy-laden feaudal kingships of Medieval Europe, to class-struggle-ideology based dictatorships such as the USSR, the PDR of China, North Korea, and Hitler's Germany and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe that add to these an ethnic-struggle element, to more modern theocracies like Iran, have a tendency to simply interpret their base ideology as NOT tolerant of those who choose not to abide by it, often to the point that it can be used as a rhetorical excuse for repression and extermination of opponents. There are a number of other issues with ideological approaches that I will delve into later, but this has hopefully been illustration enough of why I promote their rejection.

So, with the abandonment of faith-based moral and ethical principles in every shape or form, what is left to guide human behavior? Wouldn't we just degenerate to our animal instincts of territorial violence and boundless competition? Although I doubt anyone posed the question in these terms, this precise dilemma was what faced humanity at the dawn of civilization, and led to the various forms of government and other collective action models that currently keep us from the "animal" behavior described above. Before thinking that I've gone full circle, however, it is important to realize that the first such institutions were nothing more than the thugs and bullies in that "animal" world that were strong enough to accumulate enough power in that competition model to submit others to their will without exterminating them, and THEN had to give back to their subjects JUST ENOUGH to keep at bay their motivations for chaotic mutiny OR backing a competing power accumulator. Government, then, is nothing more than a glorified protection racket - a thug or group of thugs who collect tribute from their protectorates by force, in exchange for monopolizing force and keeping other thugs at bay to ensure that the protectorate can hold onto to some portion of what they claim rather than having to pay EVERYONE that comes by with a club.

This model may be slightly oversimplified in application to modern forms of government, but the purpose of it is simply to shine light on the historical origins of government and collective action in general, and pose the hypothesis that, based on this observation, chaotic power vacuums in human society will in the grand majority of cases eventually evolve into this submission to monopoly on force scenario as a simple market response to the need for some stability and security. Once in place, the monopoly may then in turn employ ideologies and force to both justify itself or promote other behavioral guidelines and additional roles it plays in human lives. This leads right into the second, very short but very important premise of FYG.