An old quote from Friedrich Hayek has been rolling around in my head for a little over a year: “Personally, I prefer a liberal dictator to a democratic government lacking liberalism”. This was Hayek as quoted in 1981 after his trip to Pinochet’s Chile. He apparently liked much of what he saw, despite Pinochet’s autocratic rule. Pinochet enacted what I would term “liberty-oriented authoritarianism”, in the sense that a dictator holding consolidated power used this power to ‘impose’ freedom. I love it, actually. I love everything about this mode of government, and yes, I want it here. I have no faith in whatever this is that we currently endure.
Another quote has also echoed in mind, from the lips of Anton Chigurh: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” We’ve lived under Constitutionally-sound tyranny for decades. Every consolidation of power has been court-approved, every war, every new social program, every new spy agency. New taxes, new spending, lower standards of living, the future raped for present ephemeral benefit. We vote, we elect representatives, we listen to their godawful speeches and endure the sight of their ugly faces. Every single day. We tell ourselves that whatever happens must be alright, since it happened under the auspices of legal Constitutional action.
We have to admit that something has gone horribly wrong, and that maybe, just maybe, the solution doesn’t lie in the futile attempts to enforce the Constitution through our current form of government. Maybe, just maybe, an American Pinochet, a Yankee Duterte, would be more effective at enforcing the vision of our Founders. Imagine it, a 50-year term, an American hereditary royal dynasty, liberty as state religion. A handful of executive decisionmakers, rather than 535, who commit the worst sins while shifting blame to their colleagues. Lady Columbia, sword in hand. Cobalt, ivory, and crimson.
America seems more than ever a world in waiting of genesis, if only someone would impose it. Not a past, but a future birth. An idea incubated but never fully realized.
