Amerika

Remember The Battle of Athens:

In 1936 the system descended upon McMinn County in the person of one Paul Cantrell, the Democratic candidate for sheriff. Cantrell, who came from a family of money and influence in nearby Etowah, tied his campaign closely to the popularity of the Roosevelt administration and rode FDR’s coattails to victory over his Republican opponent.

Fraud was suspected—to this day many Athens citizens firmly believe that ballot boxes were swapped—but there was no proof. Over the following months and years, however, those who questioned the election would see their suspicions vindicated. The laws of Tennessee provided an opportunity for the unscrupulous to prosper. The sheriff and his deputies received a fee for every person they booked, incarcerated, and released; the more human transactions, the more money they got. A voucher signed by the sheriff was all that was needed to collect the money from the courthouse. Deputies routinely boarded buses passing through and dragged sleepy-eyed passengers to the jail to pay their $16.50 fine for drunkenness, whether they were guilty or not. Arrests ran as high as 115 per weekend. The fee system was profitable, but record-keeping was required, and the money could be traced. It was less troublesome to collect kickbacks for allowing roadhouses to operate openly. Cooperative owners would point out influential patrons. They were not bothered, but the rest were subject to shakedowns. Prostitution, liquor, and gambling grew so prevalent that it became common knowledge in Tennessee that Athens was “wide open.”

Encouraged by his initial success, Cantrell began what would become a tenyear reign as the king of McMinn politics. In subsequent elections, ballot boxes were collected from the precincts and the results tabulated in secret at McMinn County Jail in Athens. Opposition poll watchers were labeled as troublemakers and ejected from precinct houses.

Leftists love political machines: organizations that, on the back of a popular vote by outsiders, swoop down on a community and take over, then change the rules so that only they win and they always profit.

These machines then perpetuate themselves by excluding outsiders to the political process, an elite club that requires one be corrupt — and therefore, controllable — in order to join.

Almost all political machines run by diversity, since it requires foreigners to vote against the majority, perpetuating the machine.

Looking through American history, the periodic “populist” revolts seem to arise whenever the system becomes more powerful than the culture it was designed to protect. In culture versus bureaucracy, bureaucracy wins at first.

Over time however, culture triumphs because it controls the one thing worth fighting over, namely the productive value of the civilization. Farms, factories, innovation, even art, all arise from culture and oppose the bureaucracy.

Right now the denialists are out there clinging to the bureaucracy, and insisting that our hybrid of socialism and diversity with free market consumerism can work, when in reality history and logic show that it will not.

This means that it is time once again for the culture to rise up, displace the bureaucracy, and replace it with something that will defend the culture.

If I can offer a simple plan, it is this: for the past three centuries, Leftism has steadily taken over every part of our civilization. We simply need to stop doing Leftist things, undo their programs, and exile their supporters.

This seems like a lot, but the arc of history bends in curious ways. For our lives, it has turned toward the Left, but as first-world societies stop breeding, die out, and function less effectively, the parasite is losing its hold.

Tags: battle of athens, bureaucracy, Culture, political machines