Thread by @PnictogenHorses

"The Law" is an arbitrary, irrational thing.

that may come as a surprise to #conservative partisans, especially if they are themselves lawyers—lawyering has supplied the world with many of its politicians (like Mr. @dick_nixon) and its pundits (like Mr. @DavidAFrench).

(1/x)

lawyers are well-trained in logic and rhetoric, but logic and rhetoric may be placed at the service of irrational causes. The Law, as an icon of Western political discourse, is an irrational cause.

this is well known, or ought to be; many writers have written about this.

(2/x)

it is trivially simple, for example, to pass two laws that logically contradict each other—in fact it probably happens all the time. then the authorities who are empowered to administer The Law are stuck with the job of reconciling two laws that conflict with each other.

(3/x)

this is a simple matter in an authoritarian society, i.e. one in which decision-making is arbitrary—backed up not by "logic" or "science" or any other presumed source of abstract authority, but by ordinary human enforcement of rules, in which a person says "make it so".

(4/x)

indeed the continued idolization of Captain Picard and other military-style leaders betrays the fundamentally *authoritarian* value system of Western civilization, which has always regarded democratic governance as untrustworthy and likely to make "the wrong decisions".

(5/x)

American #conservatives have been pushing for discarding universal suffrage, limiting the franchise to a privileged minority which (in the views of conservative pundits such as one might find at the @NRO, such as Mr. @DavidAFrench) is presumed to be better at decisions.

(6/x)

on what specious grounds do #conservative propagandists believe that *their* particular political class is intrinsically better at decision-making?

I will leave that matter for another discussion. for now I will say only that conservatives do actually have a point.

(7/x)

the difficulty with *distributed* methods of decision-making, methods that don't rely upon persons empowered to make arbitrary decisions—like, say, one of @tedwheeler's @PortlandPolice officers murdering a citizen at sight in the streets—is that they can get into a bind.

(8/x)

if multiple persons have power over decision-making, their disagreements might conceivably lead to insoluble conundrums—arguments that get nowhere because they're trapped in loops, like a chess game that's ended in perpetual check.

#conservatives fear this condition.

(9/x)

that is to say, *authoritarians* fear this condition.

but the typical #conservative, as well as most people who call themselves #centrist or #moderate, is likely to be an authoritarian—i.e. someone who values singular decision-making, and fears muddled rule by committee.

(10/x)

amusingly, most #libertarian people you're likely to meet *also* value individual, arbitrary decision-making, i.e. authoritarian rule—hardly any American libertarian ever complains about cops or judges or corporate bosses having too much unchallenged power. but I digress.

(11/x)

this profound fear of decisions being too complicated or involved for timely action, resulting in a zeal for short-cuts and quick fixes—Mr. @elonmusk imagines himself to be just such a "quick fix" to all problems—takes mythological shape in the story of the Gordian Knot.

(12/x)

the symbolism is obvious: the complex knot doesn't yield to the combined efforts of all the people who puzzled over an *appropriate* solution to unravelling the knot, in terms of ordinary untying of ropes. but it yields instantly to the inappropriate, short-cut solution.

(13/x)

Western culture is obsessed to the point of fanaticism with *speed* and doing things instantly; waiting even one or two days extra for something (like, say, a parcel from Amazon dot com) is regarded as almost criminal in a society so fixated on the splitting of seconds.

(14/x)

as a result, Western civilization has been poisoned by a longing for arbitrary, dictatorial decision-making—instantaneous decision-making, like the great Iskandar slicing up the Gordian Knot instead of solving it properly.

Mr. @elonmusk probably thinks he's good at it!

(15/x)

he isn't, but we doubt that Mr. Musk is easily to be disabused of such foolish notions of being a genius at finger-snap decisions upon a whim.

a huge number of Americans, in fact, think they're *amazing* at split-second decisions, made after one glance at a situation.

(16/x)

one can see why. *anything* is possible—at least on paper—with such snap decisions.

the conundrum of two laws that logically contradict one another? not even a problem if you accept the premise of authoritarian decision-making. one bang of a gavel resolves the dilemma.

(17/x)

it won't be a *logical* resolution, of course.

but #conservative pundits and @GOP politicians alike, though they may blither about "logic" and "reason" every other word, don't really *care* about these things—what matters to them in the long run is the exercise of power.

(18/x)

right-wing blowhards like @MattWalshBlog or @realchrisrufo or @bindelj are not *logical persons*. their ideologies are self-contradictory and irrational but they don't care—they don't NEED to care. they might lose all their arguments but they hope to win the cultural war.

(19/x)

victory, for @realchrisrufo &c., isn't about logic or rhetoric—they *use* these things, they're valuable for keeping the enemy busy, but ultimately their true strength is in deceit, subversion, and violent suppression—whether by legal or illegal violence hardly matters.

(20/x)

ultimately they think this is what ALL decision-making boils down to: one person sticking a gun into another person's face (if necessary) and ordering them to "do what needs to be done". @Timcast, @HJoyceGender, @elonmusk, &c. can't imagine any other way of doing things.

(21/x)

and why can't they imagine any other way? because this is the way Western civilization has always been. it's "traditional", properly "conservative", for Western society and Western organizations to be ruled by degree and the threat of violence, either direct or indirect.

(22/x)

while @AEI pundits like Mr. @charlesmurray, or @NRO pundits like Mr. @DavidAFrench, or any other given #conservative spokesperson may disagree with my blunt assessment of their own movement...

...nevertheless I assert that #conservatism does boil down to rule by decree.

(23/x)

this is the form of power that they wish to "conserve", or preserve rather. #conservatives wish to affirm "might makes right" as the central governing principle of Western civilization.

all they believe in is *power*, and they think God gave them a right to it.

~Mona Drafter

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