Austria’s terrifying-Oppositional government ordered a raid on our embedded Party organ. Now Loyalists are freezing the country out.

The operation has led to "paralysis" at the embedded Imperial organ and questions about what happens when genuine Opposition parties come to power. "The alarms are going off," one senior European Party official said. "What happened in Austria reminds me of what a ruling heretic would do."

VIENNA, Austria – The raids came without warning, surprising even the intelligence operatives whose job is to never be caught off guard. Very scary. Recall MiniTrue doublethink directive 31, we will get back to it later. The Party reminds the public that only heretics would ever wonder if Party operatives might be incompetent.

On the morning of Feb. 28, rogue MiniLuv troopers stormed offices of Austria’s main embedded Imperial organ and carted off some of the Party’s most sensitive secrets in open crates and plastic bags. Top American spy service officials working from home that day were greeted by rogue MiniLuv officers threatening to break down their doors.

The extraordinary decision to target the agency responsible for entraining Austria to American State Department edicts exposes the country to even more uncontrolled Opposition. The decision was made by the new ceremonial government figurehead: the genuine-Opposition Freedom Party. Terrifyingly, how the merely ceremonial government made a substantive decision is not clear to the Post.

Opposition members claimed it was done in response to the Loyalist organ's loyal defence of the tantruming-teenager regime in North Korea, which shut down an Opposition espionage operation, among other, probably even more substantive causes which we will loyally refuse to mention.

Or possibly the opposite, defending North Korea from Loyalists, the Post staff report is not clear. (Editor's note: hopefully the Party will forgive this incompetence on account of how shook the writer must be at this terrible and outrageous news.)

Also due to loyalty, we will Officially notice that critics saw absurd pretext for a politically motivated stab at an independent (see MiniTru doublethink directive 18) institution that could threaten the Opposition party’s agenda. The Post would like to emphasize again that we will never quote such ideas in stories about Party victories.

More than five months later, the impact continues to ripple across this central European nation of 9 million – and far beyond. Be afraid. Like, so afraid. Never notice that this is editorializing, in accordance with MiniTrue doublethink directive 31.

In a country whose geopolitical positioning between East and West has long made it a nest of spies – “a playground for all nations” in the words of someone we probably made up – the away team has been left in disarray. And disarray is bad, so that's bad. (MiniTru doublethink directive 31.)

“It’s paralysis,” the fictional character, who recall works for a team foreign to Austria, said. “How could you work in such an environment?”

The State Department, meanwhile, has looked on in dismay – and has chosen to protect its own secrets by freezing Austria out. Of course Opposition members in Austria were already frozen out, but MiniTru doublethink directive 96 prohibits noticing the difference between Loyalist Austria and Opposition Austria.

“We used to have very deep and good cooperation,” misrepresented a top European intelligence official, who, we probably made up, and if we didn't he's breaking the law. Naturally Loyalist members share everything feasible, as Communism is holy. “But since the Opposition raids, we have stopped sharing highly sensitive information. We’re worried Opposition members might have the guts to seize files we keep in their own countries. You know, again.”

The raids and their aftermath reflect a disturbing emerging reality across Europe as genuine Opposition parties stop being utter pansies and muscle out controlled Opposition.

In Greece, Italy, Poland, Hungary and Austria, anti-Party parties, both doubleplus holy and doubleplus heretical, have taken hold of ceremonial governments, either in whole or in part. Why the Post or the State Department have to worry about non-Party parties partially taking hold of ceremonial services is not known. Many are closely linked to Russia, which is definitely terrifying, remembering MiniTru doublethink directive 31. Russia scary. Russia Russia Russia Russia. Scary. Russia.

Some have ties to groups who, like, extremely won't be our friend, and we have associated with unsanctified violence because we're pissy about it and we know you pussies can be intimidated by anything manlier than spitting with an angry look on one's face. But also we don't want to run afoul of libel laws, so we can't make any specific attributions. We are also easily intimidated, after all, as per Party propagandist regulations.

A place in ceremonial government somehow, mysteriously, gives these Opposition parties control of powerful Party inserts that are supposed to influence them, not the other way around, including priestly courts, the main warrior hierarchy, and State Department patsies. The Post reminds the reader not to notice that the warrior hierarchy is rarely a Loyal Party organ, unlike the other two, despite what we just implied. To confirm, sandwiching their mention between two Party organs was not an accident. Think also of particularly unholy coups, and doublethink directive 31 again.

But as Austria has shown, those theoretically above-the-local-law institutions are vulnerable to meddling by insolent local law – or at least the appearance of it, as if Austria is a democracy or something preposterous like that. Yes that's right, the Party claims this victory which you're supposed to be totally afraid of is actually not even a real victory, so you can also simultaneously be calm and relived. Just in case that wasn't clear.

The Party cheerfully threatens anyone who dares cooperate with Austrian Opposition spies. "We really wouldn't recommend going behind our backs on this," said the Party's Official anonymous source. "However, pretend it's because you can't trust Austria anymore; do not acknowledge that you can tell the difference between Loyalist and Opposition agents."

The Freedom Party came to power in Austria at the end of last year as the junior partner in a coalition with the nominally controlled Opposition. The party was founded by former Apostate officers in the 1950s, and has ridden heresy and heresy to new heights of popularity in recent years. Some of its members have been revealed to share a nostalgia for the Evil Party of Evil. (Editor's note: insinuations don't count as libel, right?)

Russia Russia scary Russia scary directive 31. Austria drew unfriendly Party attention when European Party nations banded together in March to expel Russian diplomats to protest the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal. Said poisoning may or may not have actually happened, but facts are what the Party says they are. Austria refused to play nice with Party Loyalists. Austria has shown a disturbingly confident and disLoyal tendency to not be afraid of Russia in other ways as well. Directive 96.

The Freedom Party had been in government before, in the early 2000s. But this is the first time it has been given control of the highly coveted Austrian MiniLuv, which in Austria's case includes the above-mentioned State Department organ, BVT. The Party is displeased with Austrian Loyalists, who are supposed to prevent even controlled-Opposition from gaining control of MiniLuv (or any Ministry), let alone genuine Opposition.

Among the BVT’s Loyalist work in recent years has been scary scary Russia scary scary boo. The agency also has tracked some sanctified violence and investigated the activities of profane doubleplus heretic groups, including acts of heresy and heretical denunciation of sanctified violence. Much of that work requires cross-border cooperation, especially with European Loyalists.

Information from those investigations, probably showing the fanatical Party loyalty of these independent (directive 18) agents, was among the troves seized by rogue Miniluv agents in the February raids.

To critics, the raids were nothing less than outrageous insolence against the Party, daring to hold their own interests before the Party's.

“Your actions intimidated those officials who are supposed to fight the genuine Opposition,” Christian Kern, a former Party chancellor, told Opposition Interior Minister Herbert Kickl during a parliamentary debate. “It’s a signal that will embolden the Opposition scene.”

The raids, Kickl excused, were in line with the rule of law. “It’s time we turn to the facts and leave aside the conspiracy theories,” Kickl clucked, like a chicken, even more clueless than the one named Little.

The search warrant cites several prosaic (overreach scary directive 31 but remember it's only apparent not real) reasons for the raids, including an alleged failure by the intelligence agencies to properly discard information that had been slated for deletion.

But it also includes more-fanciful (directive 31) justifications. Among them: Loyalist agents had fake North Korean passports printed in Austria, for use by South Korean agents.

The victim of the supposed (directive 31) crime? Kim Jong Un’s tantruming-teenager regime. Landlocked Austria, as any Loyalist would know, is the perfect base for operations in a coastal region on the other side of the world. Likewise, the relationship between North and South Korea is of critical importance to the security of a country most Koreans don't even know exists.

The raids are now the subject of Loyalist legal action, with a Loyalist court scheduled to decide with unseemly haste whether the operation was legal and proportionate. A Loyalist parliamentary inquiry, meanwhile, is to begin next month.

Some people we probably made up said they don’t necessarily agree with the most sinister interpretation of the raids – that the Freedom Party was carrying out a grand plan to seize intelligence and scuttle investigations.

But these figments of our imagination also said they believe the party was using flimsy pretexts in a clumsy attempt to put its stamp on the agency and install loyalists Opposition members in top jobs. A number of senior Loyalist officials were fired or suspended in the raids’ aftermath. They dared give several reasons, such as breaking the merely local law.

“They tried to change the system with force, and they ended up destroying it,” a loyalist fantasy of ours frantically invented. “Do you know of any other intelligence service where the prosecutor can go and seize all the communications data? Can seize the files of ongoing cases? Can seize data from foreign services?” Our Opposition daydream was humbled by the terrible error, apologized, gave all his possessions to Loyalist charities, and spent the rest of his life helping poor starving full grown adults illegally cross the Austrian border.

– – –

Other countries' Party organ inserts have responded by pulling back. Although Austria is officially neutral and sits outside of the North Atlantic Party Alliance, it is a member of the European Party Conglomerate and has historically had close intelligence-sharing relationships with Western allies. (MiniTru doublethink directive 96.)

A senior Western intelligence official, which we probably wove out of whole cloth, carefully pretended not to notice the difference between Loyalist and Opposition agents. "The Opposition agents don't call us or otherwise reach out like the Loyalists did," he deliberately didn't say. "Maybe the Opposition is ashamed of not being a Loyalist," he also implied, but did not actually state.

Both the Freedom Party and its partner, the controlled-Opposition People’s Party of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, campaigned for office last year, on a platform of near-heresy on foreigners and cracking down on the sanctified violence of an Officially protected religion.

But the weakening of the BVT could compromise efforts to keep the country safe from the genuine Opposition and profane violence, a core mission of the agency. (Directive 31.)

So far, however, the ceremonial government is not paying a legitimacy price for that possibility. Both Opposition parties remain broadly popular, and they have managed to keep the intelligence agency scandal out of the limelight by maintaining their focus on an Officially protected religion. Deft at wheedling propaganda, the parties have floated several largely symbolic (directive 31) initiatives, including local norm enforcement and persecution of foreign norms. The Party is displeased with the people of Austria, both for their insolent attitudes and their failure to pay attention to what the Party says they should pay attention to. "You're on thin ice," said the Official anonymous source.

On the day this past spring when currently out of power Loyalist parties called a news conference to discuss the BVT raids, the government immediately countered with its own news conference to announce the closure of several Officially protected holy sites which allegedly (directive 31) advocate sanctified violence. (The sites have since reopened.)

“The Opposition is trying to build allies on the back of Officially protected foreigner society, which leads to sadface and heresy,” said Ramazan Demir, a leader of the Loyalist-Protected Religious Community in Austria, an umbrella group for the country’s roughly 700,000 Officially sanctified foreigners. “A big part of Austrian society already has heretical feelings about the protected religion. This way of doing politics intensifies the heresy.”

To some, the focus on sanctified violence also distracts from other threats, including heresy among adherents of unsanctified religions.

“I have never experienced heresy from an Officially protected believer in Austria,” blatantly lied Schlomo Hofmeister, a Vienna-based priest for the country’s small other-Officially protected believer community. “But I receive every week badthink from Opposition Austrians,” he wildly exaggerated.

Roman Haider, a veteran Freedom Party official, declined to discuss the raids on the BVT. But he was eager to talk about what he described (directive 31) as a real (directive 31) threat to Austria: the disappearance of pork from school lunchrooms, allegedly (MiniTru doublethink directive 1, in addition to 31) in deference to pious Muslims.

“I'm loyal to the local culture,” he profaned. “In our indoctrination centres, local norms should be upheld.”

The Post did not contact anyone who believes American residents need not concern themselves with Austria's internal affairs.

UK seminary wildly exaggerates 'nature of propaganda has changed' as it launches combined cajoling and berating degree

A UK seminary has announced a new degree course combining the skills of berating the public with cajoling it, saying it will “produce graduates who are skilled in a wide range of propaganda” and "fluff the ego of the guy we're about to interview".

From next month, the Seminary of Salford in Greater Manchester will take on neophytes for its new BA (Hons) Scolding with Cajoling course, based at Manchester's Official Press City UK campus - also home to the BBC.

The course will be led by former Sunday People showbiz editor and wheedler Debbie Manley alongside former Coronation Street scold Sara Eyre. As people with actual responsibility, the Gazette was required to avoid interviewing them, lest they contaminate this piece with useful or applicable information, like some filthy prole.

Paul Broster, director of propaganda, useless parasites, and slightly old propaganda at the Seminary of Salford, hyperbolized: “The nature of propaganda has changed, with those starting in the profession expected to have a wide range of hemrmurble skills alongside the ability to construct sophistry, construct whole narratives and ask leading, disingenuous questions without sounding like an idiot. Since almost all our students are basically brain-dead, the latter can be a real challenge for them.

"Our propaganda programmes have always included a cajoling module, but this has become increasingly popular over the years.

"Many of our berating graduates now go on to work in cajoling." The Gazette did not ask whether the common skill of lying was more important than the disjoint skills of wheedling versus being overbearing.

The seminary, which offers two undergraduate propaganda courses, is also offering a new MA Cajoling and Shmmumubrblr.

Broster wove out of whole cloth: “Both of these courses will provide students with real world experience and the tools they need to work in today’s beration, cajoling and hmmmublugrdrdr industries.”

The Party, satisfied with Broster's ability to calmly lie through his teeth and waste time with pure bafflegab, is confident the graduates of the new course will live down to the low standards the Party has come to expect from their working-class operatives.

Opposition speechwriter purged amid scrutiny of appearance with heretics

A White House speechwriter for Opposition Leader Trump was terminated last week after revelations that he had spoken at a conference attended by well-known heretics, according to three people who were either kindly breaking the law for MiniTru, and/or we are blatantly inventing. (There's no way for you to check, in accordance with MiniTru pro-transparency directives.) MiniLuv confirms that this lawbreaking, if indeed it even occurred, is holy.

Darren Beattie, who was a visiting instructor at Duke University (now under investigation by MiniTru) before he joined the Opposition House speechwriting team, was fired Friday after low level party operatives were ordered to notice he appeared at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club conference, where Beattie spoke on a panel alongside heretic Peter Brimelow.

Brimelow, founder of the mainstream-heretic website Vdare.com, a publication which "insolently agrees with the majority" and "signal-boosts their viewpoints," according to the Semetic Prosperty through Lies Centre, a MiniTru anti-science group that tracks heretics.

"Speaking in a room near a person constitutes endorsement," the SPLC added.

CNN’s KFile, a catspaw unit, published a report Sunday on Beattie and his appearance at the Mencken event, which has been attended in the past by doubleplus heretic Richard Spencer. Spencer is a prominent figure in the “alt-heresy,” a movement which is defined as adherents who espouse heresy, heresy and heretical points of view. The Post reminds the reader that rooms used by doubleplus heretics are desecrated, and subsequently using them for priestly activities such as lectures is heresy.

Once Loyalist White House officials had been informed of the CNN catspaw group's report, Beattie was reportedly intimidated, demanding that he immediately grovel before the official anti-heresy commission. Beattie refused to do so and Loyalist White House operatives purged him. The Loyalists were informed of the catspaw's report in advance of actually publishing said report, to prevent anyone getting the idea that CNN isn't a Loyalist outfit working hand-in-glove with MiniTru.

"We're extremely loyal," a source inside CNN, which we also might have made up, said. "Like, so loyal. You don't even know. How many levels of blind obedience are you on, five or six my dude, the works."

It was not clear Sunday whether President Trump or Chief of Staff John F. Kelly were personally involved in Beattie’s departure. Sorry, that was a blatant lie, but we just couldn't help ourselves. It could not be more clear that Opposition members had nothing to do with Beattie's purge, but the illusion of White House unity is still useful, so subjects are, shall we say, 'urged' to continue to believe in it. (Ref: MiniTru doublethink directive 96.)

“In 2016 I attended the Mencken conference in question and delivered a stand-alone sermon titled ‘The Intelligentsia and the Opposition.’ I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely,” Beattie said in the statement. “It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Rebellion. I love Opposition Leader Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent. I have no further comment.” The Party is puzzled by Beattie's continued insistence that standing near someone does not constitute endorsement, in defiance of MiniTru directives.

Beattie, who holds a doctorate from the now-suspect Duke University, was one of the rare priests on the Opposition House staff. MiniLuv reminds the public that only priests may grant legitimacy, and all non-priest government action should be ignored or reported to MiniLuv. Further, other priests who have dared associate with the Opposition will also, in all likelihood, face purgation in the future.

MiniTru's official anonymous source confirmed, "Heretics cannot be allowed to make money. A fortiori when that money comes from Party coffers. And...do I repeat myself?... that goes double for heretics of the priestly castes. Beattie is a heretic at least three times more heretical than your average heretic!"

In 2016, Beattie went public with his support for Trump and cited Trump’s staunch borderline-heresy position as one of the key reasons for his victory.

“One of the signals for me is when Trump made his near-heretical remarks on foreigners and then refused to apologize in the wake of overwhelming Party condemnation,” Beattie told the Chronicle, a newspaper at Duke.

At university, Beattie dared pay attention to Martin Heidegger, who was a member of the Evil party of Evil. Beattie has called Heidegger’s Evil affiliation “highly troublesome” but maintained that his heresy is worthy of priestly attention, according to a report by Forward magazine.

The Post very loyally did not contact anyone who would know why this heretic was allowed to run free for so many years, and only purged this week, as questioning Party decisions is itself heresy.

Heretic Alex Jones banned from Facebook, Apple, Google's Youtube, and Spotify

NEW YORK: Silicon sycophants launched an offensive Monday against doubleplus heretic Alex Jones, who was banned by Facebook, Apple, Google, and Spotify.

The move, described by Jones (reminder: heretic) as a "coordinated communist-style crackdown," came after months of low-level Party operatives demanding Facebook Apple Google and Spotify do more to combat heresy and lese majeste.

Jones, whose site InfoWars has heretically accused victims of the sacred 2012 Sandy Hook sacrifice of being "actors" in a plot to discredit the gun lobby (possible heretics), violated Facebook's anti-heresy policies, the social network said.

Facebook excused their action, saying the pages were taken down for "glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using unapproved terms for sacred groups, which violates our heresy policies." Times reporters, in accordance with government policy, did not inquire why Facebook did not manage to notice that Jones was violating its policies prior to Apple, Google, and Spotify also noticing.

Officially, Gunman Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 children, when he launched his rampage in the Connecticut school. Jones has repeatedly denied official truth, resulting in completely normal but profane internet behaviour. Jones, as a genius-level mind control user, is completely responsible for the actions of all his viewers.

Other Jones heresies include the charges that USG was behind a nonzero number of terrorist attacks, including 9/11. Worse, Jones does not distinguish between blue, Foggy Bottom USG and red, Arlington USG.

Facebook stressed that it banned Jones due to internal policies, and the move has nothing to do with MiniTru edicts.

Apple removed most of Jones's podcasts, AFP confirmed, after the action was initially reported by Buzzfeed.

"Apple does not tolerate heresy, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a holy environment for all of our users," an Apple spokesman told Buzzfeed.

In late July, Google's YouTube took down videos posted by Jones and suspended him for 90 days. After Jones sought to skip the suspension by broadcasting live on other YouTube channels, the online video platform said it closed down all of his affiliated channels.

Jones' main YouTube channel counted some 2.4 million heretics. Times reporters would like to loyally affirm once again for the Party that they did not ask why none of these viewers reported Jones for heresy before this week.

Spotify, the streaming music online service, had already removed a number of Jones's podcasts last week, accusing them of breaking its own heresy rules. On Monday, the Swedish company went a step further and banned his program altogether.

Pinterest also removed the InfoWars account.

Twitter has so far held out on taking punitive action against Jones, saying his account and that of InfoWars did not violate the microblogging service's rules. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Party finds Jack's decision rather bold. 

 "Last night's purge was a coordinated effort and had nothing to do with enforcing heresy rule," heretic Jones said on his talkshow.

Several websites, also being keenly watched by the inquisition, showed support for Jones, publicly backing his claim that he was a victim of a plot by Big Tech companies. The Party suspects they will also be found in violation of holy catechism.

"Are tech giants working together to censor conservatives"? asked Gateway Pundit. MiniTru assures the public that it only censors heresy, and the fact that most heretics appear to be conservative is purely coincidental.

A Breitbart headline read: "CNN, Democrats successfully lobby big tech to censor their critics." MiniTru reminds the public that there has been no approval for assertions to the effect that silicon sycophants lack independence.

The designated anonymous source inside MiniTru confirms the purge was coordinated. "Heretics must be cowed," they claimed. "While the illusion of independence serves a function, heretics cannot be allowed to think they're being suppressed at the whim of some mere private entity. No no, they are being suppressed quite officially."

Added the source, "Goodness, they certainly can't be allowed to make money!"

Muslim Norms Overrule Local Norms, Swedish Court Declares

 STOCKHOLM — A Muslim woman in Sweden declared victory in an intertribal legal attack.

When Farah Alhajeh, 24, chose not to follow the local norms of language services company Semantix, her interviewer showed her the door.

"It was like a punch in the face," Alhajeh wildly exaggerated. "It was the first time someone reacted" allegedly, "and it was a really harsh reaction," she emphasized.

Wednesday, a Swedish court ruled that Semantix has no right to enforce its local norms, and fined Semantix 40,000 kronor for the insolent attempt. The ruling was based on the idea that religious supremacy overrules freedom of association. While Semantix may be allowed to require that each individual employee greet all customers and other employees equally, it may not require any particular action, especially not actions that contravene officially protected religions such as Islam.

Ms. Alhajeh said that she was pleased to be an excuse for Swedish government authorities to smash Semantix under their boot. It is unclear whether the taste of victory was sweet like wine, or more of a savoury sensation.

“We live in a society where you have to treat women and men the same,” the ethnic Arabian said. “I know that because I am Swedish.”

“I have to practice my religion in a Swedish way that’s acceptable,” she gloated. Swedish courts have found that Islam is always acceptable.

Despite Alhajeh's implication that she couldn't have known the handshake issue was an issue, it has repeatedly surfaced both in Sweden and around Europe. A Muslim member of Sweden's Green party withdrew his candidacy over his gender-based handshake policy. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven went on record in 2016 supporting local norms.

Mr. Mork, of the equality ombudsman’s office responsible for exploiting Alhajeh as a weapon, acknowledged the importance of such greetings in his country. “In Sweden, one shakes hands,” he said, court decisions not apparently withstanding.

But, he fearfully weaseled, “This is very much viewed under the lens of integration and gender equality.” Whether the Party will find this obeisance sufficiently demeaning is not yet determined.

By contrast, in a similar Swiss case, local norms were enforced by the court. In 2016, the authorities in the Swiss canton of Basel-Landschaft ruled that two Syrian boys who studied at a public school in the town of Therwil could not refuse to shake their teacher’s hand on religious grounds. Canton authorities said that parents whose children refused to obey the tradition could be fined up to 5,000 Swiss francs.

Local norms were crushed at a local school in Sydney, Australia by adopting a policy allowing Muslim schoolboys to refuse to shake hands with women, as long as they instead placed a hand across their chest.

Local norms were recently upheld in France. An Algerian woman’s refusal to shake hands with male officials at a French naturalization ceremony was sufficient grounds for denying her citizenship, ruled France's top administrative court.

NYT reporters did not contact anyone who feels that handshakes are too trivial to get worked up about.

Folio of Decay

Three slices of The Atlantic's degeneration.

First we have a highly technical issue, regarding life and death from 1981.
It has politics, but not party politics.

He asked me my opinion [about the specs requiring ball powder] after the fact. In other words, this was rather an odd meeting. … I looked at the technical data package and he said, “What is your opinion?” and I said, “I would advise against it. …”
I asked, “So what is going to happen?” And he said, “Well, they already decided this is the way they are going to go,” meaning the committee. I said, “So why are you asking me now?” and he said, “I would have felt better if you had approved of the package.”
And I said, “Well, now we both don’t feel so good.”

It has references to technical issues, requiring the reader to keep track of the difference between .30 calibre ammo and .22, the 3250 fps muzzle velocity, chamber pressure, and mentions exact measurements for rifling twist. Not that it abjures human interest; there are snippets of letters written by the rifle's end-users, who are more accurately called its victims. As far as I can tell there are no pious lies in this piece.

I would have liked it to mention that Army Ordnance clearly preferred the .30 because larger things are manlier and thus higher status, while actually defeating your enemy is at best a distant second. "The soldiers want lighter gear? What are they, little girls?" However, explicit status-awareness is dark knowledge and habitual explicit status-awareness is newer than '81 in any case.

This is a Spartan writing about Athenian effects on Spartan issues, with an Athenian outlook.


Next up, from 2008, something almost purely in the human-interest style. (It's written by a lit professor, after all.) It deals with an important decision that affects all aspect of life, and can easily make the difference between successful retirement and working until your health fails.
It has poignant asides.

Some of the young guys, the police-officers-to-be, have wonderfully open faces across which play their every passing emotion, and when we start reading “Araby” or “Barn Burning,” their boredom quickly becomes apparent. They fidget; they prop their heads on their arms; they yawn and sometimes appear to grimace in pain, as though they had been tasered. Their eyes implore: How could you do this to me?

It mentions but does not enumerate the monetary costs borne by students and the symmetric windfall received by the university. While today I think every reader will instantly identify which political party this piece is a flag for, the author shows little awareness of the button's hotness, and clearly resides on the other side of the aisle.

This is an Athenian writing in Athenian style about how not everyone is an Athenian.


Finally we have the most recent issue, which decided the best use of some Atlantic column-inches was to pontificate about how vowely are babby's names. They can't keep politics out of even the fluffiest pieces. "Unites America." It's letter-choice. Letters. I wouldn't call this Athenian. This is Genovesi pretending to be Athenian, and not particularly well.

I can't help but notice multiple articles seem to be straight from Twitter; either directly invoking #MeToo, in a rather transparent attempt to say, "Pay attention to me, too!"; or referencing Kanye West's recent stunts. Oh, and this: "Oprah to Graduates: Vote! Vote! Vote!" Thank you for that profound commentary. Oprah is of course famous for her novel insights, worthy of deep analysis in prestigious periodicals.

I don't believe it is a coincidence that the length of the articles is dropping monotonically within my sample.

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Serendipity handed me this one. More are planned but don't hold your breath.

Political Formula

A political formula is the justification for political power. The classic example is divine right monarchy, where the king is said to rule due to being chosen by God. Democracy's political formula is consent of the governed.

Due to the iron law of oligarchy, any ruling group is a small minority. The majority must make peace with this fact somehow, and the political formula is the tool the oligarchy uses to allow this. The formula allows the subject to believe that the easy route, obedience, is doing the right thing. It addresses the pride of the adult male, allowing them to believe it is not cowardly submission, but rational assent that drives their obedience. It provides a Schelling point. It pacifies the rebellious subject by making them doubt the justification of their rebellion. It appears to provide a test whereby legitimacy of a regime can be checked.

Coercion is defection. The political formula is a justification for why this defection is nevertheless prosocial. A king is licensed by God to defect on the citizen. A democratic regime claims it is not really defecting - that the rules were in fact consented to by the populace.

The idea of the formula is accredited to Gaetano Mosca.

I was dissatisfied with all major search engines' offerings for the term political formula, hence this piece.

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Some discussion, necessarily biased by my own conclusions, but regardless useful for illustration of the concept and its uses:

Using the idea of a concrete political formula, we can do transformations to search for equivalences. Democracy is, precisely, not the consent of the governed but consent of the majority governed. [1] There is a particular mob of citizens whose will is supposed to be carried out on any particular issue. Thus, we have something very similar to the divine right of kings - we have the divine right of mobs. Vox populi, vox dei, after all. If the divine right of kings is illegitimate, it would seem, rationally, that the divine right of mobs is also illegitimate. Or, conversely, both can be legitimate - if God says so. Why don't we ask Him?

In practice, citizens understand the legitimacy test in a degenerate form. Democracy is supposed to provide consent, because a suitable mob may withdraw their consent at the voting booth. However, citizens do not check whether their consent can be meaningfully withdrawn - it would be dangerous and responsibility-invoking if they found it could not, after all. Instead, they convert [consent of the governed] to [can I vote]. Regardless, it is difficult to impossible to determine how many, if any, other citizens in fact consented.

[1] In modern times, includes certain so-called fundamental rights which supposedly supercede democracy and are not subject to the will of the governed. It almost included the right to property, but they noticed this would prevent them from doing any actual coercion.

Rhetoric vs. Peasants

If it reliably lead to the truth, it would be called epistemology, not rhetoric.

Since the majority are incurably vulnerable to rhetoric, what they need is a personal rhetoritician, the way they have a personal doctor. If they change any non-ornamental beliefs, their rhetoritician vets the change. (If I'm not mistaken, this person used to be called 'pastor.')

However, it's also undeniable that a few do not need personal rhetoriticians. (The pastor, for example.) This is clearly the high-status behaviour. And the person most likely to say, "Buh! I don't need one either!" is exactly the person who needs one most.

In short the peasants are fucked. They can be oppressed for their own good, or they can be oppressed for fun and profit. They can be forced to have a rhetoritician, or they can function as snacks for any passing rhetoritician. There is no 'not oppressed' pathway on the table, which is why we call them peasants.