Friday, February 23, 2007

Prince Harry, Neocons, and Feudalism

Simply Left Behind: Paging Jenna, NotJenna, And Neo-Con Spawn! Attention Death Cult Descendants!: The Non-Rapturist's Guide To The Galaxy

Carl is arguing, quite convincingly, that our current societal arrangement for war-mongering is worse than feudal because all the elites in our system escape sullying their beautiful minds and hands.

"...This arrangement is fractal, you'll notice: barons, dukes and counts were vassals to the king, the free peasants were vassals to the dukes and barons and counts, and the serfs, quasi-vassals to the peasants. If a king went to war, say in a Crusade, he dragged his knights with him as well as the various nobles as he could reasonably spare from overseeing his lands. Similarly, if a noble had to go join a war that he was contractually committed to (say an invasion of a neighboring shire), he dragged his knights and vassals with him.

What structure does that remind you of? Anyone? A multinational corporation, perhaps? I don't think that's a coincidence, and certainly explains recent corporate developments that ensure protection of the centralized authority of the "kings" of a company (and by extension, the "kings" of the United States, our elected Presidents, who are really more duke than king, but that's a different post. We'll talk about plutarchies some other time)..."

I'll say it again: Universal Military Suffrage. Draft them all-- the long, the short, the tall.

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