Monarchy vs. Democracy
(Moderated by Anna Khachiyan)
-yan Armenian podcaster Anna Khachiyan (co-host alongside self-proclaimed crisis actress Dasha Nekrasova of the Red Scare; raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month from patreon #goals) moderated a debate last night in Los Angeles (Glendale iykyk) about Monarchy and Democracy between Curtis Yarvin and Dr. Richard Hanania. Delicious Tacos was MC. I was in attendance, and enjoyed the show. Shout out to the organizers NEUTRAL OUTLET.
before (shot by moi)
during (2nd & 3rd photos are shot by Pablo Penietzsche)
Both Curtis and Richard are well-known political bloggers / writers here on substack, and make the rounds in the podcasting space, with Richard actually having his own podcast and think tank. Curtis is a retired computer programmer who founded Urbit, “A clean-slate OS and network for the 21st century.” And has been on my show not once but twice. And Richard is a political scientist who finished grad school (go Bruins!; both my parents are Bruins and my baba twofold).
A leitmotif of the evening was that this was hardly a debate, but rather a warm discussion with occasional friendly fire shots fired, in pursuit of truth and justice. Like Rufo. Curtis and Richard agree a great deal about what’s wrong with America and the world writ large. They agree that squalor has spread far and wide, and that ‘pure’ democracy is almost impossible and certainly undesirable. It is another name for mob justice. Instead, all regimes are run by elites… shall we say a vanguard?
They agree that Bukele (so far) and Lee Kuan Yew and MBS are cool. So, what do they disagree on? A combo of the past and the present.
They agree that 98% of human history selected for monarchy as the form of governance. Richard says most of this history was miserable. Curtis says these comparisons need to have matching variables to be compared properly. For example, having the thought experiment of Queen Elizabeth I, of whom was named Elizabethan England and the production of the works of Shakespeare, running San Francisco or all of CA with today’s technology. How would that go?
(h/t Hotspot AI generator)
Would she tolerate the fecal matter and heroine needles that pave our roads? God forbid. Though they both shit on mob justice, Curtis thinks sometimes the lack of sophistication in a peasant not tolerating crime is preferable to a sophisticated philosophical aristocrat who permits and even encourages crime.
Curtis and Richard also disagree on the buy-in that elites would have were a monarchy to appear in the United States later today. Richard thinks they would be all hands on deck to stop it. Curtis thinks of them more as lemmings and minions that will do the bidding of whatever power is in power.
Richard says, there are a few exceptions that prove the rule, but overall America is the best country in the world (including its founding principles and not just the God-given land and the people), and it is not even close. Curtis says if America is fixed by installing a monarch this will send waves of impact worldwide, because the issue with every existing monarchy is that it is at war with the world hegemon; America now and Britain before WWII when the Anglo-American baton was handed off to continue the leftist relay race of the last quarter-millenium.
Read the writing of both speakers. If nothing else, both will indubitably provoke thought in you more than you may be accustomed to in your average consumption of politics. And both are intentionally and unintentionally funny.