The Politically Incorrect Show - 30/01/2001

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Tuesday January 30, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd., the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.

[Music up, music down!]

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven."

Thus did William Wordsworth recall the French Revolution of 1789. The lines are quoted in historian Jacque Barzun's epic work, From Dawn to Decadence - 1500 to the Present, which I began reading over the weekend. Barzun identifies four great revolutions during this period, but for present purposes that's neither here nor there. What enthralled me was his characterisation of what happens during any period of revolutionary ferment:

"A curious levelling takes place: the common people learn words & ideas not familiar & not interesting & discuss them like intellectuals, while others neglect their normal concerns - art, philosophy, scholarship - because there is only one compelling topic, the revolutionary Idea ... Voices grow shrill, parties form & adopt names or are tagged with them in derision & contempt. Again & again comes the shock of broken friendships, broken families. As time goes on, 'betraying the cause' is an incessant charge, & there are indeed turncoats. Authorities are bewildered, heads of institutions try threats & concessions by turns, hoping the surge of subversion will collapse like previous ones. But none of this holds back that transfer of power & property which is the mark of revolution & which in the end establishes the Idea."

It occurred to me that this could be what we are witnessing here. Through this programme & other forums, the common people are learning words & an idea "not familiar" - non-initiation of force, or the consent principle: the idea that none may coerce another, that all human interaction should be voluntary & by mutual consent. It is an idea at once grand & simple, & certainly revolutionary - even though it is already unconsciously accepted & practised in some aspects of our social intercourse - for to practise it fully, consciously & consistently would be to move heaven & earth. It is a threat to authorities & institutions, many of whom would be abolished outright if the idea took hold. It is an idea that has already seen the formation of a "party" - a political one - which IS subject to "derision & contempt." It is an idea in whose name voices have indeed grown "shrill," though not yet shrill enough; it has indeed broken friendships & families; there have indeed been turncoats & allegations of turncoatism. It has indeed caused authorities bewilderment - just ask NaZis On Air & the IRD - & goaded them into making threats & concessions.

The "surge of subversion" this idea brings in its wake is not yet, however, strong enough to wreak a revolution. Will it "collapse like previous ones"? I suspect not. Elsewhere in From Dawn to Decadence, Barzun quotes from Burckhardt's Judgements on History:

"It is not hard for firmly united, clever & courageous men to do great things in the world. Ten such men affect one hundred thousand."

If that be so, we need just 350 "firmly united, clever & courageous men" to hoist the flag of liberty over the Sheeple's Republic of Aotearoa & transform it into New Freeland.

Bliss it is in this dawn to be alive!

Viva la Revolution!

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