The New Law • (raw)
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Our government is composed of three branches with varying elements within the total unit allowing for effective subsidiarity - power goes to the people most capable of solving the problem. Each level of government imitates the three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. This is because institution law is comprised of three elements: generation of law, enforcement of law, and interpretation which guides both of the former processes.
These three functions are carried out in every institution. Generation of policy strategy or an idea is followed by someone interpreting the memo and executing on it how they see fit. Some sort of review may take place to determine whether or not the memo was abused or abided by. These three functions may be carried out by one man or many, but the principle of these three friction points remain the same. Execution requires interpretation, judgment requires interpretation, and generation frames it all with the language used.
Unfortunately the clarity and specificity of the policy is not enough. Raw grammar can be endlessly debated, especially nowadays where many of us, have poor instruction in the trivium. If good grammar is not enough, then what is enough? Likely nothing that is not written on the hearts of men. Maybe this is a hint as to why we have the saying ‘spirit of the law’ rather than the ‘intent of the law.’
The spirit of the law is a term which generally refers to the intent or the direction and attentions of the spirit of the writer or writers of a law. This means that if I say I want cake and everyone knows I like chocolate cake but I’m brought a fish cake while what I said was understood it was not respected. This critical friction point becomes catastrophic when people in the institutional chain of generation, execution, and judgment do not agree on what good is or what ends should be pursued. There is no shared in order to, they cannot find the best course of action for their respective roles. Synchronization across the institution fails.
People who share a common mission describable in effects - make America stronger, make America cleaner, or maybe, make America healthier. When this is understood it becomes clear people in governance are lying and so most people understand that their politicians lie to them. Yet people continue to vote for them, why? Clearly the people are lying then as well. People in the United States do not want America to be healthier or stronger. For America to have better healthcare, education, or infrastructure. People want for their own interests to be met. Because of this they may disagree with the mode of how ends are fulfilled and prefer a different means instead. This common political understanding is marred by one thing: the literal spirit that resides within all of us. The collapse of bedrock religious institutions within the country has totally shattered the ability of this country to have general shared understanding of what is something that is good. For instance a Republican may say I want better healthcare and he will classically being referring to a cheaper and higher quality product because of the competition necessary for him to make competitive decisions which maximize the effects of his dollar. When a Democrat says I want better healthcare they may classically being referring to cheaper more easily accessible healthcare subsidized by the government. The issue is not a conflation of ends and means in the traditionally understood sense that people just disagree how things happen. These are two different systems which produce two entirely different effects. These do not just create ‘better healthcare.’ One system increases agency while another decreases agency, one system makes something more accessible at the cost of making it public, while another attempts to have regulated private competition drive costs down. These are not just distinctions of mode in a democracy, but have serious moral consequences.
In a democracy we all make a moral decision when we vote - the people we elect have consequences. When we vote for a policy we enshrine new power into institutions public or private. Discussed previously was the crabs in a bucket understanding of Americans, short term ease because of real pains that forces the vote. Many people who voted for trump and Biden flip flopped because they wanted cancelled student aid or inflation to be driven down. Short term interests drove decision making and that is understandable. Generally there is nothing wrong with it. But when the short term decisions revolve around publicly managing goods in a democracy or privately managing goods then it becomes an issue. Publicly managed goods in a democracy are subject now to two layers of frictional systems for the institution of the state; the first system is the interpretation friction between different aspects of an institution legislative, executive and judicial, the second system is the individuals interests superseding the common good. This second system only occurs because people’s shared mission understanding for what is good is absent, weak, or subjugated to their personal desires, so each of these systems or filters happens within the individual. That means you need the decision making friction points and then multiply it by the number of people in an organization. There then is a need to have a shared understanding of what is good ( a spirit of law to to speak ) which must be framed in desired effects.
Reagan administration was right to understand personnel as policy. If the policeman refuses to make the arrest does the law matter? If the judge rules the way they want despite what the law says or how interpretation was understood in the past do those things matter? No, frankly it means the law is pointless. It makes every man his judge and jury, and him the ultimate executor of what is right.
Unfortunately, this is not as simple as rational personal interests being manipulated, not only by voters, but by individuals with institutional power from presidents to office workers people actively do not pursue their interests. They pursue the interests of others because we are a social creature. The institutions may be failing but that is because they’ve become a battle ground. For instance the advent of the infamous groyper infiltration of the the Republican Party and the socialist infiltration of the Democratic Party. These groups are actively trying to impose their beliefs through the petty powers they claim in these institutions. They are attempting to make new law. Personnel is absolutely policy, but who is better personnel? For whoever has claims within an institution, it is whoever shares the most interests. George Washington was right to name loyalty as the chief political virtue. Because that is what the new law boils down to, who is loyal to who and what.
When scrutinizing why a judge may have acquit someone their personal interests: the judge’s race, their history, and their family should be taken into consideration. Those personal interests which predispose one to corruption are the tip of the iceberg. That judges political party, religion, whatever creed outside of the law they abide by, if those indicators of corrupt decision may be at play, will absolutely express itself in the decision making.
Unique to democracy is not just the voting, it is who is allowed to hold institional positions of power. In democracy the bar for holding an institutional position of power is lowered, with, in modern American democracy, few filter for a persons personal morality. Lack of moral guide plus super open democracy means problems. Competing interests by whatever captures a persons’s heart, and as discussed what captured a heart is not just rational needs - bribery to pay off loans -, but very human organization with other humans. Group interests which assert themselves across all three domains. If the judge and police officer both do not care about the law that is not a feature. That is not evidence of a system of checks and balances, that is the symptom of something seriously wrong. It makes about as much sense as saying well the Roman Empire is still around because the senate is here even though the empire is now a bunch of barbarian kingdoms. That is literally the amount of sense it makes because that fracture is exactly what is happening.
So far none of this has been exactly novel political rhetoric, in fact it is probably kicking the dirt of the grave of that dead horse everyone talks about. And yet, we still have an absent public moral guide, loyalty has gone from chief political virtue to a test of whose micro team your on, and our democracy is actually accelerant for all of this. All overlayed with people’s personal interests and the amount of power each individual has. While this is not an exhaustive diagnosis of modern decay it more or less recognizes three serious weaknesses within our governance. So where do we go? We must directly combat The New Law.
The New Law is what will be the name for the decision making apparatus of organized interests violating an aspect of institutional function which is not for the benefit of the institution.
The new law must be combatted with institutional capture. It cannot be defeated without using extreme means. The systems of governance are dysfunctional - the very mechanism Thomas Aquinas used to declare the immorality of duels in question 40! While it is always important to have the capacity to inflict extreme violence, that does not mean it is an effective means conducive to whatever the desired ends are. The issue with violence is that you break things and kill people, and whatever happens afterwards will benefit from the things that will be broken and the people killed. So pragmatically violence should be understood as a Worst Alternative To Negotiate Agreement, or WATNA.
What is needed is a BATNA - a best alternate to negotiations. Political capture of institutions has occurred the system needs to be corrected so how is that negotiated with? Well as said - friendly political capture is necessary point blank period. However Ignoring that unfortunate pragmatic fact, the most important thing to be done is to remove the accelerant. Much like putting a fire out, or stopping a run-a-way gun the fuel or source of feed needs to be removed. Democracy needs to be rolled back. How this happens is through private isolated communities. It happens from creating organizations of social credit which exclude others and take care of members. Making things private is the only way to roll back democracy without institutional power.
Private organization acts as nodes of power like political castles allowing interests to assault and battle for the key terrain features which compose the public institutions and therefore dictate not only the public interest but the public. The next step is to circle back as a group and in coordination, not target a single institution, but to target key positions within multiple. Politics is an influence game, it slowly builds to support a decisive main effort, and when done well the main effort is not a decisive engagement but a smothering that is unnoticed until too late - there are very few gaps worth exploiting with speed and mass in politics. Political institutions require the slow build up of influence across a spectrum. That allows a group to coordinate actions across multiple domains and prevents any one institution from being identified as captured.
Domains are not merely generation, judgement and enforcement because while certain institutions may specialize in an aspect of our primary system, ‘the first lens of the new law,’ domains can be charity, education, food catering, media, trades, and religious organization. Domains of society much like in real military planning flow between one another. These littoral spaces are the junctions which the master of institutional warfare must aim to effect Through the proliferation of influence. The space between institutions is where the decisive points in the fight against the new law can occur.