The Anarcho-Queen Platform

What if we got rid of the One Ring To Rule Them All approach to government?

This week I had an interview on a Global News affiliated radio station, video interviews with two local non-profits (I’ll post them on my socials when they’re out), and filled out detailed surveys from groups across the city who are looking for a mayor that will champion their particular cause, be it getting police out of schools or developers out of their neighbourhoods.

Participating in our democracy, as it is today, is what I signed up for this election, yet it’s challenging because so much of our existing democracy, and even our current paradigms of reality, isn’t working, at least not for me. And participating in a system I find inherently problematic inevitably brings me up against the contrast between expressing honestly how I feel about life in our city, which can verge on existential philosophical musings, and my wish to speak clearly to audiences used to hearing language more familiar to our status quo political process. I feel the tension between wanting to express nuance yet needing to fit my answer into 90 seconds or less. And I seize up with the difficulty of expressing uncertainty in the face of a survey question or candidate pledge that expects only yes or no answers.

So to balance all the realpolitik out, today’s essay is about why I’m not really running to be a conventional mayor, I’m running to be elected as something more akin to an “Anarcho-Queen” - which has been described by JR Tolkien and interpreted very roughly by me to mean a leader who has no real power, who sets a tone perhaps and offers their vision, but who everyone can pretty much ignore whenever they want. A leader who isn’t responsible for the well being of her people through bossing them around, but who offers support, guidance, and vision for those who seek it. A leader who looks to proscriptive solutions rather than prescriptive ones, who has the attitude of philosopher Ivan Illich, that relies on “the surprising inventiveness of people” to come up with solutions for problems, rather than putting on a ring of power like Sauron (back to Tolkien) and rules over all with an iron fist, whether wrapped in the velvet of democracy or not.

So what would an anarcho-queen platform look like? Let’s take housing - I have ideas on everything from protecting public parks from private housing (even if they are tents) to obliterating our zoning regime, to encouraging the innovation that would let builders make homes out of mushrooms or plastic bottles. But I’m most interested in is letting people create their own solutions, with no governmental interference except to protect our life support systems like waterways, ravines, forests, and access to sunlight.

How about transportation? We just stop subsidizing a broken and ruinously expensive road system - one that packs our streets with two ton automobiles usually carrying one person alone, putting life and limb at risk for everyone else- and see what happens.

Crime? Not sure that I’m ready for the leap of faith of complete lawlessness, but fortunately serious crimes are in the category of felonies so they wouldn’t be my problem as anarcho mayor anyways. The reality is, most crime we already deal with on our own - we all know the police rarely find those who break into our houses or steal our bikes (or even cars), nor are they able to solve or prevent simple assaults. So we already live in a lawless society to a degree, that is reliant on humans generally being good, kind and trustworthy (contrary to our image in the media), so let’s build on what we have rather than inventing rules or methods of enforcement that usually make things worse.

I do think there is some kind of role for government in a city, since we are so closely packed together and there can be a tendency for competition over resources to lead to depletion or destruction. But I would suggest a governmental role that is limited to protecting our life support systems, with and by all of us, and perhaps maintenance of a few key cross city transportation arteries (hence the public transportation with freedom of movement option). I’m open as always to more ideas - and to my own ideas being ignored of course. But fundamentally I would love a city where we stop looking to our leaders to solve every problem, and where our leaders stop imposing from above. Dissolve most of government, dissolve most of the taxation that, contrary to what most of us would wish, often ends up transferring wealth and power from the people to the upper echelons of society. And dissolve most of the governmental methods of controlling the population - much of which is only an illusion in many cases.

What could happen if we were truly free of constraints? If we worked together on a world where we valued freedom, beauty and joy over rules and regulations? That’s what I would like to find out if I were elected anarcho-queen.

Now back to our regular scheduled mayoral programming.