Unde venit? Quo dirigit? Cui bono? Cui nocet?
– Roman wisdom
From where does it come? At what it is aimed? Whom does it serve ? Who will be damaged? That are the four essential questions a citizen should ask himself if a politician proposes something, like “Internet access being a human right”. Why not horse riding? It is also fine and I have enjoyed the Rand Fox hunt through the years!
Unfortunately, today most deliberations circle around the questions: Who might feel insulted? Which screaming mouth should be filled first? How can we draw out and delay matters? How can bluff and dazzle be made looking respectable?
At the end of October, we received the ultimate message of etatist and socialist incompetence. Venezuela, the country with the richest petrol oil reserves is bankrupt. The good news: China and Russia will lose a lot of money. Well deserved. The bad news: This will have no, not even the slightest influence on the thinking habit of SJW. So be it…
Dizzy and sluggish citizens and irresponsible politicians are interlocked and interwoven. Active, liberty-upholding citizens will ask for responsible, liberty respecting politicians and politicians of that kind will see such citizens as partners in their political work.
Neo-feudalistic socialists and nihilists ask for lumpen-proletariat, create it, nourish it with the taxpayers’ money, and like to rule over a primitive mass of serves. No wonder cultural nihilism and vulgarity is promoted. The less brain, the less education, the less style, the less knowledge, the less culture, the less decency, the better. The hordes so created are then (see Antifa and BLM and other revolting organisations) let loose on society and the good, regular citizen.
Dante [1] tells us the anecdote about the princeps Trajanuns who marched with the legions to a military campaign, but was asked by an old woman to do justice in a criminal case involving her family. First, he wanted to put her off and told her to wait for his return. But she insisted and asked him who would do justice in his place, and said that if he neglecting his duties he, should also not be princeps. He stopped his journey and acted as judge fulfilling, thereby his duty. That anecdote might be propaganda, but it also tells us what responsible citizens and responsible rulers are about to do and how they should act.
Now let us adapt the four Roman practical questions to modern day politics – in South Africa, for example. But I assure you that the lessons can be used worldwide.
From where it comes ? Which party proposes something? Which special interest group may be behind? Which ideology has moulded the proposal? Who might have influenced the proposer? Are more material or more idealistic or ideological motives the motor of the proposal? In short, we have to analyse in a cool and rational way the essence of the proposer and his motives. That does not mean to denounce everything we dislike as “Bolshie” or undesirable, or to denounce the proposers as nitwits, but to get a fairly realistic picture of the motivation, the non-material and material reasons for a proposal, the open aims, and the maybe hidden aims.
At what it is aimed ? Maintaining power for some time, surviving from week to week, escaping diligently-formulated hard opposition, feeding your underlings, once more surviving – as any kind of long-term approach is beyond their intellectual capacity – kicking someone down, awful intrigue of the lowest sort – in one sentence, petty party politics. Sometimes also a catchphrase like ‘internet access as a human right” is build up or the “r…”, “f…”, “c…” and “a …” words thrown around to distract from the fact that one is devoid of practical solutions to real challenges.
Whom does it serve? Bureaucracy and a small coterie of power-greedy manipulators and their entourage of brown-nosers. Also emotionally obliged venerators of Mother Gaia and a lot of people who cannot cope with a rational, industrial society based on science and technique. Now, I understand we must not have that and maybe living in the bronze age was also quite fine (I could cope with having a farm then – with a lot of servants – and breeding my horses, but is that the point?) but all these political romantics demand the state of wealth and comfort but without the consequences it must have. Therefore, electricity comes out of the plug and so called ‘renewable’ energy sources may easily cover the need of an advanced industrial society [2] .Nonsense is done and the alternative ‘long-term thinkers’ are actually extremely short sighted. Special interest of dubious international merchants, romantics, fanatics, blind folded and other assorted inepti left, right, centre – subsidy-suckers in one word – being the definite opposite to real entrepreneurs and industrious citizens.
Who will be damaged? Well, we know it already. In most cases, it is the taxpayer. But also the rule of Law, the independence of institutions, the normal economic way of life, the ‘normal’ – if that term is still admissible – until the fanatic eye of the proposers and progressive busy-bodies fell on their life, unmolested people who (surprise, surprise) can in many cases carry on in their own life as long as basic services like public security, including economic security by a balanced monetary, finance and budget policy, are effectively maintained, infrastructure and decent institutions of law enforcement are kept up. This piece of information must be given to all SJWs: Most adult people are capable of managing their own life; the fact that most SJWs are unable to manage their own life does not constitute a general rule. And – always to be considered – damaged are the people who should be helped by certain measures, as we can see clearly with all kind of basic income constructions and minimum wages. Damaged also – and we can see that for example for years in Germany – is the sense of quality and subsidized the emotional and ideological longing for rolling in the gutter so that finally a modern industrial state arrives in the 4th world.
Manus manu lavat! One dirty and corrupt hand washes the other and intermingled interests destroy law, liberty and rational rule. No, with a ‘rational standard’ as emphasized by the four classic questions, we can do a lot to improve public governance. We cannot drain all swamps, but we can make it very difficult for the corrupted one to bluff and dazzle us.
[1] Dante Alighieri , Purgatory, 10,77-94
[2] All that nonsense refuted in a lecture by Knox Msebenzi at the Free Market Foundation on the 25 of October 2017 in Johannesburg
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