Legitimacy, Its Departure, And What Follows

     You’ve heard the term failed state, haven’t you? It’s been used a few times in recent years, notably with reference to Libya after the death of longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. We don’t often hear the term elucidated, but a working definition would be a state that cannot maintain order within its zone of asserted jurisdiction.

     The point of a nation-state, of course, is to guarantee by enforcement certain norms of order. If events demonstrate that this is not the case within the borders of nation-state X, then the government of X – its State – has failed of its duties. While no nation-state is perfectly peaceful within its borders, there appears to be a threshold value for acceptable disorder. Violence and disorder above that threshold would delegitimize the government – the State.

     What is that threshold value? Does it differ from nation to nation? If it does, would we accept more disorder from a democracy than from a tyranny? Or would it be the other way around?

     Of course, the question of greatest current relevance is how much disorder the United States can suffer without having its 88,000-plus governments lose their presumption of legitimacy. Suppose the disorder is concentrated in a handful of cities, rather than being spread evenly across the nation? Would that make it more tolerable, or less? How about if it pertains to only one demographic: perhaps illegal aliens?

     Surely I don’t need to rant about the influx of those yet again. We all know they’re a pox upon the Republic. We all know illegals commit a disproportionate share of violent crimes, especially in our cities. And we all know that the federal government under the Usurper Regime has tacitly made it a policy to let them in and thereafter, to do as they like.

     So how does the illegal-plague and the passivity of our various levels of government toward it bear upon federal, state, and local legitimacy? Is the unresisted penetration of our orders sufficient to deem Washington D.C, illegitimate? If not, how much social, political, and economic chaos would justify such a judgment? On the state and local levels, is the unwillingness of the forces of order to act against illegal alien crimes a deciding effect? Many state and local police forces have been told to ignore those crimes so as not to be slandered as “racist.”

     A delegitimized government is the sort that can be toppled to the applause of outsiders. After all, it’s failed. The swelling of chaos within its jurisdiction threatens surrounding districts, which gives those districts cause for fear. Is it not appropriate to support the forces that expel a failed government from its seat of power, such that order might be restored?

     It’s not a simple question. Sometimes the replacement for the failed government is much worse than what it displaces. Consider the ejection of the government of South Vietnam in 1975. Fear of the devil you don’t know is natural, and sometimes protective.

     This is a question that should be directed particularly at those districts in Colorado where the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua is flexing its muscles, essentially without any official countermeasure. In my opinion, the failure of the “forces of order” to act against this plague implicitly delegitimizes them and their political masters. Private-citizen Coloradans with armament could act to put down the Venezuelan criminals by force quite legitimately.

     No, nothing of the sort has happened yet. But it might – and if it should, it will tell the nation that the Battle of Athens, Tennessee in 1946 was not a “one-off.” The message to those in our political Establishment who believe themselves irreplaceable and untouchable would be plain.