RAGE is all the Rage

or (How DOGE is Unintentionally Emancipating Souls)

Author’s note: Underground Designs will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Grandma’s Boy next year, but today is a DOGE day.

According to bizarro Tucker Carlson, our Uncle Curtis, the Now Svelte Prince of Dorkness, of Neo Reactionary, and now Ozempic fame, proposed the concept of RAGE long ago. R2-Chat-GPT2, help me out here with the finer details:

WHY YES PLEBE, HERE ARE THE RESULTS SINCE YOU CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO OPEN ANOTHER WINDOW AND GO TO WIKIPEDIA:

Curtis Yarvin, a software developer and political theorist, introduced the concept of "Retire All Government Employees" (RAGE) in 2012. This proposal advocates for the complete dismissal of existing government employees to facilitate a comprehensive "reboot" of the American governmental system. Yarvin argues that entrenched bureaucracies hinder effective governance and that replacing the current civil service with loyalists would enable a more centralized and efficient administration.

Yep, I could have done that, but I didn’t. Einstein said "Never memorize something you can look up.” And as the Demon Cat from Adventure Time boasted, “I have approximate knowledge of many things.”

Shortcuts aside, let's talk about this for a minute. As a former libertarian, I agreed with others on Team Red who understood that there had to be a necessary gutting because balance budgets, fiscal responsibility, blah, blah, blah. This is very Reagan-Gingrich stuff.

Team Blue saw this (but actually their) noble group of civil servants as the straw that stirs the drink. In their more honest moments, they aggressively proclaimed their importance ala Joel Gertner. They aggressively pushed back on Team Red to what they were “feeding [us] ignorant people” by punctuating it with unctuous proclamations of how “their crotch was truly the most magical place on earth,” how “they were bacon between our eggs and the man for whom we beg,” and finally, “how they would shoot out a full condom filla and it tastes like vanilla.” Read between the lines at anything Brookings, the Atlantic, or the Old Gray Lady puts out and the subtext is there.

Team Red kept losing, because they failed to articulate the metaphysical and aesthetic consequences of most government jobs. They fixated on a narrow cost-benefit and thought that arguments would win the day. James Lindsey, when he’s not screeching “fascist,” holds true to this.

Lenin said his major breakthrough came when he focussed on breaking the machine instead of working within it. Revolutions require this. 2025 is as close as we might ever get to 1917. RAGE is the first step, and Elon manifested it in the form of the Deferred Resignation Offer (DRO). People from the outside see this as a Civil War hospital with the naked limbs and buckets of blood, but Elon’s bludgeoning amputations are freedom for many. Think James Franco in 127 Hours.

There are already high-profile instances of senior bureaucrats lamenting the indignity of this situation. However, one can only hope that the wailing of our unelected "fourth branch"—the deep state, which stands as the true kakistocracy—is finally reaching its crescendo. The display of incontinence is as odiferous as a sewage plant. Let’s turn the Swamp Sanitation Commissar:

Into a laid back dude enjoying his retirement meteor:

You’ll see some prominent cases of this:

And this:

But in most cases, the guillotine is not cruelty, it is mercy.

DRO provides government employees the chance for something better. For those committed to a full RAGE and fantasizing about someone coming in and cleaning the “dead wood” and corrupt senior employees, let's focus on the people trapped in these jobs where their daily outlook has become a bizarre nihilistic cybernetic feedback loop and resulting in a state pure alienation.

Modern government work is inefficient. Libertarians are mostly right on this and this is DOGE’s underlying supposition. But more critically mechanistic work (of which government is) can be alienating, and the Communists are right on this (mostly).

For those non-governmental employees, let's get oriented. You arrive at a building with no heart or soul. It hits all the chords of a brutalist/modernist construction. Everything is designed for pure efficiency. You are no longer a human, you are cog whatever.

Government work can be futile. When something is accomplished it feels like nothing short of miraculous. Think TPS cover sheets manufactured by a Rube Goldberg machine.

Marx asserted that capitalism alienates workers from their labor and their potential for fulfilling leisure. Leisure here is not just sitting on your ass crushing video games and Bang Energy drinks, but free time that can potentially fulfill your soul. And if you’re an ideologue and need an avatar from the right to ensure you don’t become mean Mr. Marx, consult Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present, which influenced Marx on this sentiment. You can still believe in hierarchy!

The 9-month severance package provides workers the potential to find fulfilling work.

I work with one GS employee (soon to be “worked” with) whose previous job was almost always outside. He arrived at our shop as a new training developer with all the right experiences (e.g., Senior NCO, Drill Sergeant) that would make him an ideal training developer.

But it never felt right for him. A guy like this does not lose the drive for initiative unless totally alienated. And boy, can a military bureaucracy alienate.

I’m not sure what he will do when he leaves or if he will be successful. But I pray that this 9-month severance provides him the time and space to re-connect or discover a passion that truly fulfills him. He has that chance for a better life.

As for me I’m still a TriCare mercenary for a few years. I can gut this out because I love instructional design and training development and the end is nigh and then there is no turning back.

So DRO (i.e., RAGE), is a sight to behold. At the moment, the outgoing regime is trapped like Theoden.

But in the case of those who leave, most of their lives will become better. Government workers that stay can receive a returned focus and perhaps fulfill the charter of the organizations that remain.

Final notes:

Is Elon Musk an awkward scumbag?

“What, me worry?” Elon E. Muskman

Probably.

Could this work?

Time will tell. Consider the origin of the word “decimate.” The modern understanding of decimation is to “destroy utterly.” This is wrong. Decimation was a Roman martial practice in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort. The US government can reasonably afford to shrink by at least 10%. We have further precedent from history of successful government re-orgs: the Meiji Restoration, The Ataturk Regime, and post-Soviet success like Poland and the Czech Republic. There are also great examples from antiquity: Solon of Athens, Diocletian, and the Tang Dynasty reforms.

Is it better than the status quo?

Yes.