ABSOLUTE, adj.
Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.
Collectivism is a vortex that sucks everything into it. We are meandering around the rim of the drain. Soon there will be a more direct movement. Since Nixon wage/price controls it has been pretty clear that NO ONE will stand up to any usurpation of any power, if the usurper has the mindset to do it and the color of legitimate government action.
Resting the republic on the character of the people who happen to be elected is a fool’s game; or worse. The nature of the institutions we are forging will inevitably lead to the worse among us rising to power.
I ain’t in this to convince you of what I say. I expect that we will all live through it. If I am wrong, no one will be more pleased than I.
There are always the gloom and doom websites (peak oil and credit bubble sites come to mind) but what is going on is a fundamental change from an individualist culture to collectivism. In the collective, truth ends, free will ends, discussion and rationality end. I’m reading “The Road to Serfdom” and have come to understand that in a collective culture the people are bent to the institutions. A man who would not hurt a fly will destroy a human being - because the institutions demand it. It is precisely because decisions in a collective must be arbitrary (there being no calculus of values) that the decisions of the ruler must become unassailable.