Pages

Friday, November 24, 2023

Legality and Legitimacy | Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt ranks among the most original and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. His incisive criticisms of Enlightenment political thought and liberal political practice remain as shocking and significant today as when they first appeared in Weimar Germany.
 
Carl Schmitt (1888 — 1985), » among the most original « , e.g.:
 » The emptiness of mere majority calculus deprives legality of all persuasive power. «
 
Legality and Legitimacy was composed in 1932, in the midst of the crisis that would lead to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and only a matter of months before Schmitt’s collaboration with the Nazis. Schmitt questions the political viability of liberal constitutionalism, parliamentary government, and the rule of law. Liberal governments, he argues, cannot respond effectively to challenges by radical groups like the Nazis or Communists. Only a presidential regime subject to few, if any, can ensure domestic security in a highly pluralistic society.

Quoted from the introduction to the 2004 first English translation of
 
November 24, 2023 - In the People's Republic of China, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is linked to citizens' mandatory digital ID. If somebody drives over the speed limit, the speed camera system automatically deducts a fine from their digital wallet.
 
November 24, 2023 - President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, announces the launch of the European CBDC — the digital euro — which will enable unelected technocrats at the ECB to program how, when, where, on what and by whom it can be spent, including the imposition of social credit, carbon allowance and vaccine passport systems. And despite the lie that 'cash is here to stay', you can be absolutely certain that megalomaniac technocrats such as Lagarde have every intention of gradually phasing out cash altogether, so eventually people will be forced to use CBDCs. European Union citizens already face imprisonment or fines for engaging in cash transactions above €1000, but the introduction of the digital euro will facilitate financial totalitarianism on a scale that would make even George Orwell wince.
 
November 24, 2023 - Christine Anderson, German Member of the European Parliament, explains how CBDCs, in conjunction with digital ID, will be used to exert absolute control over the population: » If you don't comply, they will just shut down your bank account. And it's not like it hasn't happened before. Look to Canada ... There were people standing up for their freedom, for their right not to get some unknown substance injected into their arms. They shut down their bank accounts. So if there was no cash, what are you going to do? They can just eliminate you with a flip of a switch. It's as simple as that. «
 
» This would imply to castrate humankind and to degrade it down to the pitiful level of the Chinese. «
Friedrich Nietzsche (1888) answering to Immanuel Kant's 'eternal peace' ideas in his Ecce Homo. Why I am a destiny.