Is Political Action a Path to Progress?

There is a popular belief that the means to advance civilization lie in the realm of politics. Every few years, we are whipped into a political fervor that would make the Great Awakenings envious.

Indeed, politics is more a religious faith than a science, despite the title claimed by political science. After the Age of Enlightenment, it became difficult for the aristocratic political class to maintain their claims of monarchical authority built on claims of religious sanction. Naked aggression could no longer be hidden behind that veneer of legitimacy.

We now live in a time when democracy is seen as inherently virtuous, and the political class claims to derive authority not from god, but from the people. Somehow, we have conferred authority upon them ourselves. Instead of god in heaven, some gestalt consciousness has bestowed authority upon them.

But how?

If I do not have authority over your life, liberty, and property, how can I bestow such authority upon some third party? Should I seek to enforce those usurped claims, it would be injustice. The same would apply to my agent. If democracy means governments act as our agents, then every time they do anything we cannot morally do ourselves, either they have violated their duties as our representatives, or we are liable for their actions.

But are they our representatives? They lie when they campaign for office, and break promises once elected. We vote in a secret ballot where no one can demonstrate any personal grant of authority, and no politician can name a single principal for whom they act as agent. Those who cannot vote are compelled to submit to the resulting politicians and policies. Those who refuse to vote are condemned as somehow shirking a noble duty. Those who vote for a losing candidate are arguably at least consenting to the results of a system where they participated voluntarily, but how are they represented by someone they opposed?

And yet the entire election charade is treated as a sacrament. If we participate, we are miraculously absolved of sin despite participating in a system filled with corruption and lies with policies that impose injustice. If we refuse to participate, we are to blame when the election results in tyranny. The ideas of society and politics are so intertwined that the clear distinction is lost on most people. The government is us, they say, and if you challenge the foundational ideas of government, you are a threat to peace and prosperity, because we live in a society.

The religion of politics and its creed of nationalism clouds the minds of the majority. We learn it in school. We see it on TV. We read about it in the newspaper. We are told constantly that no matter how despicable a politician may be, the office is sacred, and must be respected. Despite centuries of democracy, we still see, "vote the bums out," as the rallying cry to vote new bums in over and aver around the world.

Politicians claim to do great deeds and good works on our behalf, but the deception they use to gain power is only the first step in a web of lies and violence used to exercise every aspect of power they claim. Governments monopolize various services, and then proclaim that those services can only exist because of their efforts, and any dissatisfaction is a condemnation of society itself, since they are its voice and its motive force.

What they cannot manage to condemn, they co-opt. Remember the anti-war movement? Occupy Wall Street? The Tea Party? All undermined, co-opted, and rendered meaningless. The same is happening now to Black Lives Matter. I suspect the fault lies in the nature of all political movements. The perverse incentives, the moral hazard, and the psychology of authority all serve to turn any such organization into cogs in the very machine they were intended to oppose.

I feel a deep revulsion toward all things political. Governments are creations of men built upon a foundation of lies and corruption. The result of all political action, no matter the sales pitch, is abuse. Governments glorify the people who best epitomize lies, corruption, and abuse.

If you are a Christian, it should be apparent that the State is always anti-Christ, and can only be a hollow imitation of the Kingdom of Heaven at best. I'm not especially knowledgeable of other faiths, but those who follow Judaism would be wise to heed Samuel's warning to those who demanded a king of Israel. If you dislike any sort of religion, why would you so revere these creations of men with their priesthoods, temples, and idols? Democracy is a false god by any measure, and its cult is the most dangerous threat to society we will face in this lifetime.