Debate XIII: That America Needs a Caesar

​CAESAR IS THE CURE. A power that cannot be named or removed cannot be held to account, and this, not any shortage of votes, is the real problem of the age. America is no longer governed by the men who stand for election; it is run by a permanent apparatus of agencies, universities, and presses that answers to no ballot, bears no name, and rules from behind the appearance of consent. The worst master is the one who governs without risk, who takes the obedience of subjects while carrying none of the responsibility of a ruler. To restore that responsibility is not to end freedom but to recover it: better one sovereign who can be credited in success and removed in failure than a faceless body that can be neither. Where the many endlessly debate, one man decides; and a people rich in opinion needs not another vote but a will. Caesar is not the assassin of the Republic but its physician.

​YET; CAESAR IS THE DISEASE. Centralized power has never healed a free people; it only manages their decline and bills them for the service. We are urged to cure America with a Caesar, as though it suffered from too little rule, when in fact it suffers from far too much, governed already by a hundred Caesars in its agencies, its regulators, its unelected administrators, each created to end some crisis and each having only deepened the last. The hand that promises to save the order is, in every age, the hand that takes it; to set one master over the hundred we already endure is not to end our servitude but to complete it. What ails the Republic is the distance between the governed and those who govern them, and that distance closes only as power is pushed down and out, back to the states, the towns, the family, the man himself. America will be healed by many hands set free at the edges, not one fist clenched at the center. Liberty is not the disease; it is the cure.

​The Hamilton Society is joined by esteemed guests, Curtis Yarvin, Alex Petkas, Matthew Peterson, and James Poulos

​For first-timers, note that this is not a 1v1 debate. The Hamilton Society model is parliamentary: caucus members will be able to speak, time permitting.

​Logistics

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​Dress code is strictly formal: suit and tie for men, equivalent for ladies. Ties are not optional.

​Hors d’oeuvres will be served at 7:00pm. Debate will begin at 7:30pm sharp with doors closing at 7:45pm. Drinks will be served throughout the night.

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