Enclavismo is a Spanish word because
most of the friends with whom I share the concept speak Spanish, I've
gotten used to calling it that, and I really can't easily pronounce
the English equivalent, enclavism. An enclave is a niche full
of something isolated within a surrounding milieu full of something
else. Enclavismo here refers to life within a social enclave
of noncitizen realists surrounded by a population of, in my opinion,
unrealistic citizens.
Enclavismo: Speaking for myself, if
the political economic social chaos of the existing general human
encampment occupied only half the world, I'd rather live alone or
as nearly alone as possible on the other half. Denied that option
because the misconceived contraptions called countries literally cover
up all the available world land-mass, I and a few friends nevertheless
reject state and society and the authority of state and society and,
to different extents depending on our individual personalities and
work situations, the company of state and society, and form a loose
enclave of our own, not as hippies in a commune in the woods, but
just as a social, philosophical alliance of uniquely sane friends,
which we metaphorically call an enclave. We casually call ourselves
enclavistas and our casual little social concept enclavismo.
Speaking again for myself, having
turned up on Planet Earth by accident, somewhat like a crash-landed
space traveler, I have no reason to be saluting the flags and
singing the anthems of any of the battling tribes I find here. Though
forced to do some reluctant compromising by my fear of the apes who
control the planet (and by my sympathy with the few bearable Earthlings
I meet), I'm most logically concerned about the fix I'm personally
in, and countries (which can't be escaped because they fill all the
space there is) are part of that fix.
As a realist, I'm necessarily an existentialist,
knowing I have the existential right to do whatever I'm physically
able to do and to live as I want and am able to live. But history
preceded me here and I find my rights tightly hemmed in by the closeness
of way too many other humans and their intrusive and pervasive countries,
which they've made worse by foolishly turning them into religions.
I'm not an anarchist. As just one of the blips flitting
across a tiny segment of the eternal scroll and infinite screen of
time and space, but being here plenty long enough to suffer, I'd be
all for organizing with other transitory blips I encounter on this
particular planet into a brief but sensibly expedient state for our
mutual and equal benefit and self protection. I'm even willing to
surrender some of my existential rights to help such a state work,
certainly willing to respect the brief illusions of other blips that
they own their houses and yards and refrain from stepping on their
grass or barging through their doors without an invitation - and certainly
willing to participate in an intelligently expedient and intelligently
limited social and economic contract between equal blips to organize
and maintain without prejudice or privilege a system of equally shared
responsibility for production and scrupulously fair distribution of
life enhancing goods and services among the participants.
But the actually existing absurdity of arrogant
single blips and small groups of arrogant blips, no less transitory
than I, claiming to own vast tracts of the world we all briefly flit
through and claiming jurisdiction over all other blips flitting through
what they've designated (for purposes I don't share) as private property
and countries which are actually private business domains is unacceptable.
I say it's unacceptable, because it is unacceptable. But that's
what has happened. It's an infuriating nuisance, but dumb blips
with guns have been conned into supporting it, and I find myself and
some of the existential rights I don't want to surrender threatened
by it.
As a realist, I still claim an existential right
to exercise every personal freedom I can exercise that I haven't voluntarily
agreed to forfeit as part of my commitment to participate in a state.
And since I have never voluntarily agreed to participate in any state,
because no sensibly formulated state exists, I claim that all my existential
rights remain intact. However, also as a realist, I see that I am
circumstantially caught by uncontrollable historical forces under
the heel of an existing state I have not volunteered myself into but
whose power I can't easily escape.
Naturally, I simply avoid that power when I can
and exercise my rights in quiet defiance. And when I can't do that,
I naturally look within that state's own laws for clauses that spare
the existential rights I refuse to give up. Of course, I find in the
9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution of the country/contraption
that most directly oppresses me an actually realistic but rusty concession
that the country/contraption's powers are not all inclusive but only
include a limited range of powers "delegated" by "the people." The
people being what they are and not what leftists like to kid themselves
they are, that doesn't help stir up the kind of regular rebellion
Jefferson vainly promoted. But I also find that the 9th Amendment
verifies that "the people" (with no uncharacteristically sensible
effort on their part needed) automatically "retain" (simply by not
overtly delegating them) all the rights they should retain, which
rights (according to its own rules) the country/contraption called
America can't mess with. Some of these rights are specifically
listed in other sections of the Bill of Rights, and the 9th Amendment
implies there are more.
Unfortunately, the 9th Amendment isn't well written.
In fact, the entire Constitution, along with the library sized rat's
nest of largely incoherent verbiage that has resulted from trying
to explain it, needs to be burned and replaced by a more compact and
coherent document. But, since that won't happen, due to a cynical
lawyers' preference for a profitable mess and the irrational belief
of "the people" that their constitution is holy, I take advantage
of the law's occasional coherence and, giving the writers the credit
I hope they deserved, assume that the unlisted 9th Amendment rights
"retained" by the people were understood and must still be understood
to include all rights the exercise of which doesn't impair what little
useful functioning the country does and which I'm damned if I'll give
up.
Then, prepared to go to court on those grounds if
necessary, still not actually considering myself a citizen of the
country (the distorted state which is actually a private business
domain) - sort of like Maugham's "old Cronshaw" (but with more love
for soap and water), I unilaterally opt to live my life in accordance
with all sensible, social-contract based law but otherwise as I want
to, "with due regard for the (cop) around the corner." And that's
what I and my friends who agree with me call enclavismo.
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