Lawyers, Guns, and Money

A Placeholder Political Formula

Introduction

In the absence of a single unifying political chain of command which the readership and writership of this publication are plugged into, we’re reduced to emergent intuitive efforts slightly coordinated through content creators. This system has the benefit of having no center and, therefore, no convenient place for a decapitation strike. The system has the downside of trying to hold everything while understanding the impossibility of doing so. Given this reality, political formulas are a helpful heuristic for coordinating such emergent activity, especially when sloganized.

The ideal political formula for the readership and writership of this publication (including their extended social networks) at this time was expressed in Warren Zevon’s hit 1978 number, “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” the closing track of his album Excitable Boy released that same year. It is almost guaranteed the near entirety of our readership has heard this song or heard the line. It’s very likely they’ve read an article that mentions it, or even has the song name in its title. Why write about something as ubiquitous as Steely Dan or Fallout: New Vegas in our online subculture? Well, slogans are kitsch, and kitsch is culture.

Given that we have no organizing chain of command plugged into legitimate institutions (at least as of time of writing), bootstrapping one is our only choice. When bootstrapping, the best choice is often the path of least resistance. Appeals to Spengler, Fallout: New Vegas, and Warren Zevon are already hardwired, and therefore everyone is on the same page at time of initial assertion. This is absolutely necessary when you don’t have the time to spin up a new, compelling (near-canonical) media product; doubly so in our era where all media is calcified and unoriginal and we are alongside it. Therefore, I present to the readership the Political Formula titled “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”

The Goal of the Formula

This formula, like all great formulas, is tripartite. They mutually reinforce and all point to the same goal, that being the capacity to amass resources which can be leveraged in the pursuit of political success. This must be understood before I outline the three parts of the formula. All wars are won in the peacetime preceding them, and the victor has been decided before the first shot is even fired. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Everyone and their mother can tell you the United States was victorious in the Second World War due not only to its military prowess — including no shortage of military prodigies given high command in land, sea, and air — but also (and primarily) to its inconceivably powerful economic strength which was able to prop up three theaters (Europe, Pacific, India–China–Burma) and two other superpowers (the United Kingdom and Soviet Union) while its own domestic economy only grew from the weight. To put it succinctly, the amassment of resources is as if not more important than the employment of them. Given that we currently have no instrument of employment, we can do the next best thing: amassing with hope of future employment.

Therefore, the goal of this formula is to direct the amassment of resources in order to leverage them in pursuit of political success.

Lawyers

Of the three parts of the formula, this is the most direct and specific. In case you are wondering, there is no deeper meaning here. Lawyers means Lawyers. As in, “holds a J.D. from an accredited institution of higher learning,” and, more importantly, “a Bar License alongside it.” We will need hundreds of them at least.

A J.D. and its accompanying Bar License is like the white-collar equivalent of a Commercial Driver’s License: just having it can get you a well-paying, if strenuous, job just about anywhere. Many well-off people with income streams independent of it have gotten one just in case they may need it. In many industries, particularly those with heavy regulation, having one is a necessary part of conducting day-to-day business.

Why Lawyers? Why not people in local/federal/state office? Why not staffers or consultants or other organs of the body politic? Why suggest people enter an already oversaturated career field, invest $100,000 give or take, just for A.I. to automate them out of a job?

Unless and until the Government starts giving LLMs Bar Licenses, the practice of Law will need people practicing it. Political staffing selects for political loyalty, while Law School selects for a good LSAT score. Political office requires large concentrations of two things we don’t have: capital and high-powered networks. And as this Government continues to grow in size, scope, complexity of bureaucracy and overlapping authority, any actor political or otherwise will find a J.D. and a Bar License increasingly necessary just to be able to navigate and interact with the Leviathan.

The Left has won a great deal of their political battles because they not only had ideologically committed lawyers, but they had whole systems, scholarships, and entire schools dedicated to mass-producing them like a factory. They learned to leverage Government grants, to infiltrate NGOs and charitable foundations, to wedge their people into quota-guaranteed slots. All of this required several overlapping networks of Lawyers to facilitate, and a system constantly feeding new foot soldiers into 1L and out to loyal firms and foundations where their paychecks were guaranteed in exchange for loyalty.

If we want to achieve anything even close to what they did, we’ll need to construct similar systems.

Guns

This is the trickiest and most limited of the three, but its necessity remains. Dear reader, this is not about personally owning firearms, or even re-creating Palmetto State Armory’s business model (though that certainly wouldn’t hurt). This is about having ins to the means of hard power, which means the military and law enforcement, and the Economy which supports them. The smallest number of the readership will participate in this, but they will be a vital part.

Ultimately, the buck has to stop somewhere in politics. When the need arises, those who quote laws must step aside to give those who carry swords the final say. Therefore, just as we just discussed the necessity of having law-quoters, we must now discuss the necessity of having sword-carriers.

In the post-Janet Reno DOJ paradigm, the proud and Constitutionally-Guaranteed American tradition of well-regulated militias is not advisable. Should the paradigm change, perhaps this will change. But given the world we live in, it is far more advisable to recommend joining local and state law enforcement agencies, and for those so called, the National Guard and Active-Duty Military.

The military is mostly advisable to gain skills and connections. Given Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent work in reforming the Department of Defense, it’s an exceptionally salubrious time for those among us who wish to serve without feeling that they’re serving on behalf of a foreign power. It will not last forever, however.

Law enforcement is far more advisable and far less binding for a greater number of our readership. Every police department is hurting for people, and competence will lead to swift promotions. Local Sheriff elections and participation in the State Police will give us a much-needed hand in enforcing the laws already on the books, and will reverse the Anarcho-Tyranny that’s the norm across most municipalities.

Finally, finding work in the Economy built around these two arms of the Military and Law Enforcement is also advisable. Defense Contractors, Private Security, Private Intelligence Agencies, etc. all support Government functions at all levels. Should you be a young man with a relatively clean criminal record, no history of drug use, and a (relatively) tame social media presence under your real name, you will find obtaining and keeping a Clearance (the lifeblood of these industries) of little consequence.

Money

Which brings us to the third, final, and most wide-open component of our political formula. This also makes it the simplest to explain, and I will do so in three words: secure the bag. Apologies for breaking the Greerhead Pledge.

Literally anything (moral and legal) that can make you money you should do. Start a business. Climb the corporate ladder. Hustle. Work a high-salary job. Invest and trade. Do something that makes you money and, more importantly, that makes you a LOT of money. We don’t need many to make a lot, but we need more than zero. Quit complaining about how we don’t have any patrons, and start spending your life to become the patron you want to see in the world.

Synthesis and Conclusion

These three are not mutually exclusive. I can imagine an individual who does all three simultaneously (Successful Lawyer who’s head of his own lucrative firm while serving as an Officer in his state’s National Guard). You can almost certainly do two. But if the choice is between doing two and doing one better than everyone else, it is better to do one. We need all three and as many of all three as we can get. Once we amass them, the chain of command to apply them will find us, or we will make it with our own hands.

Dear reader, we are desperate men. Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money, before things hit the fan.