Starvin Larry

Via Francis Porretto

One of the problems inherent in the decision to reject the status quo is the inability to answer the “Then what?” question: “What would come next?” The corollary question is the sting in the tail: “Whatever it proves to be, are you sure you’d find it preferable?”

The number of revolutions that were followed by a state of affairs freedom lovers found preferable is very small. The American Revolution is the one we know most about, and the honeymoon that followed that one wasn’t as long or as blissful as we’ve been led to believe:

     Politics, as hopeful men practice it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance. The American colonists, when they got rid of the Potsdam tyrant, believed fondly that they were getting rid of oppressive taxes forever and setting up complete liberty. They found almost instantly that taxes were higher than ever, and before many years they were writhing under the Alien and Sedition Acts. – H. L. Mencken

A change in form is not only not the same as a change in substance; it is most often used to conceal continuity of substance. In any sort of political system, regardless of its labeling, the substance is power.

The history of revolutions suggests that should the current American system – i.e.. the governmental arrangements of the United States not in Constitutional theory but in actual practice – be swept away, what will arise to replace it stands a very good chance of being at least as intrusive, at least as lawless, and at least as oppressive. These things, after all, are the hallmarks of power.

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