"King or chaos!"???

Let's talk some more about the latest loony left mantra "No kings!" 

In "We are nearing the end of a natural political cycle" (WWW 16/6/25), I quoted from C. Northcote Parkinson's highly recommendable Left Luggage (Houghton Mifflin, 1967). 

The author of The Law argues very persuasively that there is a natural political order of things. A nation goes from chaos -- warring tribes from which a unified nation emerges -- to monarchy, for it is the monarch, the king, who creates the nation.

Then, as the size of the aristocracy grows, the numbers of the ruled increase as well. That's simple biology. Kings and commoners all have children! As the numbers swell, the distinction between the rulers and ruled tends to get blurred, and the lower classes eventually get to share in the power. This phase we call democracy.

Focus shifts from the individual -- whether he be king or capitalist -- to the community, who expect to share not only power but wealth. The nation moves toward the theoretical equality (or mediocrity) we call socialism. Community, the common weal, the commune. Out of that philosophy comes dictatorship, Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat".

Then what happens? Dictatorship leads to chaos, as it did in the Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa. For order to be restored, out of the chaos must arise... wait for it... a new king! And so the cycle repeats itself. 

We close (for today) with another quote from Left Luggage, at pp. 190-191: 

Political progress must remain a myth. It is true that a democratic society can be made more egalitarian, but this hastening of the process merely shortens the life of the democracy, making dictatorship the more imminent. 

The theory that freedom broadens down from precedent to precedent has no basis in historical example. The pursuit of democracy does not end in perfection, but in that choas from which dictatorship offers the only means of escape. No form of government can last forever, and democracy does not even, in practice, last for long.

Footnote: About that headline... "King or chaos!" was the 1935 campaign slogan of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the longest-serving prime minister of Canada. The electorate chose Mr King, and he remained PM until finally retiring in 1948. 

The democratically elected governments that followed his have become progressively more "progressive" (read: socialist) to the point where, under Emperors Trudeau, père et fils, Canada has descended into such chaos that it is now known as Canuckistan. A king is wanted!