The Decline and Fall of Power

Scott Evans’s update to Lew’s blog re Herr Lieberman, should be read and re-read by every lover of liberty as a reminder of the waning power of political systems.  The state is still in a position to do a great deal of mischief and destruction, but it no longer enjoys the illusion that its vertically-structured facade of authority is capable of controlling complex events.  From the government’s failures in post-Katrina New Orleans, to the current oil spill in the Gulf, the well-funded and legislatively empowered political apparatus has been unable to make any more effective responses than to have presidents show up for photo-ops or to babble meaningless platitudes.

The world is becoming increasingly decentralized; the horizontal is replacing the vertical.  Such changes are not being occasioned  by ideological thinking, but by the pragmatic necessities of sustaining life.  Just as a tree does not grow from the top down, the lives of individuals and of societies cannot be directed by external authorities, no matter how long they have been revered.  It is becoming more evident to more people that there is nothing that anyone in power can do to resolve the problems created by political thinking. More and more of us are discovering just how weak is any system that must rely on threats and violence to achieve its ends. The state is no more capable of shutting down the Internet than it has been able to halt the flow of drugs.  Do not forget that the Internet was created by the federal government, whose designers — consistent with the study of chaos and complexity — were unable to foresee where the system might lead.

The vision of Joe Lieberman, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton holding a midnight session at the White House to “throw the switch” to end the Internet may gratify their delusionary minds, but has as much chance of reversing the forces of centrifugation as would bipartisan support for legislation mandating an end to the decentralizing processes of plate tectonics!

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8:20 pm on June 18, 2010