Category Archives: Politics

Firearms are Freedom

I have recently purchased a number of guns. This was a pain-in-the-ass process due to Canada’s over-bearing gun laws, especially concerning handguns.

There are a number of reasons I put myself through this process, including the usual, such as I want to take up shooting, hunting, self-defence.

Although, not so much for self-defence. I don’t think I would use a gun to defend my home, I would try to use a different method if possible. I own and train with numerous bladed and blunt weapons that I would probably use before the gun. Not because I have any moral problems with shooting an intruder, but simply for legal reasons.

The Canadian legal system is often stupid when it comes to self-defence, such as this recent case where a man defended his home from being firebombed. For his troubles he was arrested, had is guns confiscated, faces jail time, and is still through going through the courts months alter (while the person firebombing his house was not arrested).

I would avoid using my firearms simply to avoid the legal hassles that come with using firearms, especially given that I take martial arts and have numerous other weapons lying around my house. This is not perfect, as the state jealously guards its so-called monopoly over “legitimate” force and will try to punish any who may try to use legitimate force themselves, but firearms just add an extra layer the tyrannical will be able to use against you.

Self-defence aside, these reasons are all good reasons for owning a firearm, but they are not the most important reason, which is freedom.

A man cannot call himself free in any meaningful sense of the word unless he owns a firearm. If you do not own a firearm, you are, as Elusive Wapiti would say, a sheeple.

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All power essentially comes down to force.

Political scientists and sociologists will talk about the different types of power, whether power comes from authority, from legitimacy, from material resources, etc., but essentially it all comes down to who holds the guns.

The elected official may have the authority of legitimacy, but if not supported by the arms of the police and military, his authority means little. The wealthy man  may have the power of resources, but if not protected by the arms of police and his own bodyguards, it could be taken from him by armed men at any time. The demagogue may have the power of persuasion, but if his followers do not have arms, they are prey for those who do.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Chairman Mao

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Freedom comes from power.

Hippies, pacifists, and other such morally bankrupt idealists may talk about peace and freedom while decrying violence, suggesting that somehow you can have either of the former without being capable of the latter, but are only able to do so because heavily-armed police and military protect their ability to say stupid things from people who aren’t so disconnected from reality.

The simple fact is, if you want to be free to act, you must have the power of taking action. If you want to be free, you must have the power to defend and protect your freedom.

Today, power means guns.

Owning a gun is essentially saying, I am free, and I have the power to protect my freedom.

Anybody who wants to take your guns away from you or prevent you from having guns, hates you and hates your freedom. They want to disempower you and take away your ability to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your freedom.

You cannot call yourself free in any real sense of the word unless you possess a firearm.

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Guns are not the only material prerequisite for freedom.

To truly be free, you must be able:

  1. Have the ability to learn, develop, and transmit ideas, for ideas shape the world. Up until about 10 years ago books, free speech, and a free press were the primary instruments of this freedom. Today, the internet is.
  2. Have power to act on those ideas. Power comes from force and for the last few centuries, force comes from guns.
  3. Be mobile to be able to move to where those ideas require. For the last century mobility has come from cars.
  4. Have a place of your own where others are not able to tread without your permission. This has always come from private property ownership.

If you do not have the internet, firearms, a vehicle, and your own property (or have the ability to acquire them which you have temporarily forgone), you are not fully free.

Anybody who tries to limit your ability to acquire or access these hates your freedom and, by extension, hates you.

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Owning a firearm is an assertion of your freedom and your power.

There is no single action you can take that shows the elites they don’t fully control you better than to arm yourself.

That is why I bought a firearm collection.

Government’s Lack of Mission

Continuing on in the Why Government Fails series, we will start with the main reason government doesn’t work: mission.

To accomplish anything an organization needs a mission to accomplish. You can’t plan unless you know what you are planning for and you can’t act rationally unless you know the reason for acting. For an organization or individual to succeed and prosper it needs a mission to work towards.

The problem with government is it doesn’t have a mission and it rarely can have clear goals. Unlike private companies, which have a clear underlying goal: make as much profit as possible within the law.

The government on the other hand does not and can not have such a clear, underlying mission because the government does not have a specific purpose, value, or interest it represents.

The government represents the diverse, mass interests of millions of different individuals, each with their own values and goals. These mass values and goals are often schizophrenic and mutually contradictory between groups, within groups, and even within individuals.

There is no way for a government to possibly please all these groups and interests, it is impossible.

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Let’s illustrate with an issue like poverty.

What is the government’s underlying mission?

Is it to maximize economic freedom whatever poverty may result?

Is it to maximize economic productivity to reduce prices so the poor can better afford goods?

Is it to keep employment high so that the poor can pull themselves up from poverty through hard work?

Is it to keep wages high so workers have a good standard of living keeping them out of poverty?

Is it to provide every individual has a basic standard of living to reduce absolute poverty?

Is it to promote economic equality so there is no relative poverty?

Is it to promote consumption to reduce immediate poverty?

Is it to promote long-term growth to reduce poverty in the future?

All of these goals are contradictory. A goal of freedom is inconsistent with having any other goals. Consumption and long-term growth come at the expense of each other. Economic equality reduces economic productivity. Providing a basic standard of living reduces productivity and the incentive to work. Keeping employment high often means subsidizing unproductive activity. High wages reduces jobs? Etc.

When it comes to poverty issues, whose interests should the government look out for. The poverty industry? Industry and business? Taxpayers? The poor? Unions? The blue collar working-man? And how should they look out for it?

Each of us probably has an answer, but even then for many it would be fairly garbled. For a government official there is no clear answer. There are simply hundreds of competing, contradictory interests and ideologies, each vying for the government to benefit them and do things according to their ideology.

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Because the government has no mission, the government can not measure progress. For organizations measurement is a necessity for success. A business can know it’s succeeding if its profits are higher than the year before.

The government has no such way to measure success. Using the poverty example above, how would a government measure and define success. The Gini coefficient, GDP, GNP, the unemployment rate, the employment rate, the participation rate, median income, mean income, poverty thresholds?

Each measure of success carries certain ideological implications. GDP per capita and GNP measure productivity. Gini measures equality. Mean and median income both measure differently, the latter more towards equality of income. And so on.

There is no real way for government to measure success that would be acceptable across society.

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Because each group and individual desires something different from the government the government can not help but fail. If the government implements gun control half the population believes the government is failing, if it does not the other half of the population believes it is.

The government can not succeed because it is impossible for the government to please everyone. It can only choose which groups to fail.

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Because the government has a mess of contradictory interests rather than clear, consistent goals, its action usually comes out as an irrational muddle somewhere in the middle of people’s interests, rather than anything resembling a consistent plan.

Each successive government has its own agenda, which it only somewhat implements due to politically reality. Each of these agendas is pasted over-top of the previous system and previous agendas. Each interest group influences the agenda to skew it their way.

This leads to government being a confused, unfocused mess with no real goal to strive towards.

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Reason #1 the government fails is a lack of a mission.

What is to be done?

Aurini writes:

I am a Patriot.  During my life I hope to actually see the True North Strong and Free – not just sing it in the National Anthem.  To find a wife and raise a family, with hope for a future.  Gaming girls in foreign countries is better than marital theft, certainly – and it’s probably a fair bit better than Heroin – but it doesn’t leave much of a Legacy.

Running away will protect us for a time, but the Enemies of Life are implacable; this is a global ideology more infectious than proselytizing Christianity could ever hope to be.  It’ll reach Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia sooner than you think – only by the time it gets there it won’t be called Feminism any more.  Like the common cold, this virus mutates fast.

The MRM fell because it was premised upon weakness.  Any true hope for the future will have to be premised upon Strength.

I agree fully.

But that leaves the questions of what is to be done. How can we destroy the system that is destroying us?

How can we avoid the Bonobo Masturbation Society?

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The options we have:

1) The Blue Pill: Play along with the system.

2) MRM: Fight the current legal system for equal rights from within the system.

3) Game/MGTOW: These options are essentially the same: retreat. You withdraw from the system.

4) Patriarchy: This is outwardly similar to the blue pill, with all the attendant risks, but is done intentionally with red pill frame and knowledge,  rather than leaped into blindly.

5) Violence: Overthrow the current system with violent revolution.

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The blue pill may work. For you, for now. But you could always wind up on the wrong end of the divorce or economic statistics with one bad week, and it leaves the system intact. This is no fight at all.

MRM may make the legal system more fair, but that’s all it will do. It will make divorce sting less, it will remove affirmative action to allow fair employment competitions, and it may do some other good things, but it is still based on progressive ideas of equality, fairness, human rights, social justice, and all that jazz and is still corrupt. In the long run it merely preserves the corrupt system, but blunts its edges, reducing consciousness, fixing the system further in place.

Game/MGTOW may work. For you, for now. But it is retreat; it is conceding that the system wins and hoping that if you either avoid or succeed at playing by the new rules of the system it might not eat you. You might avoid family court, unemployment, or unhappy marriage,  but you are still a Bonobo happily masturbating away, enjoying yourself to avoid thinking if there isn’t something more fulfilling out there.

Violence won’t work. Right now the system is not corrupt enough to get enough people fired up for violence. In addition, the anti-progressive movement is small and is like herding bulls. There would be no way to win. Starting violence would turn the decline into a collapse and most revolutions end up eating their own children. Small scale violence accomplishes nothing except making the violent person’s ideology look bad. Violence should be avoided.

That leave patriarchy as the only hope.

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So how does patriarchy help us win?

We must realize that any fight against the current progressivist system will take time, possibly generations. The war against progressivism is a war of ideology and ideas; changing the dominant paradigm is (usually) a slow process. It took progressivism and feminism over a century to bring our country to this point. It will take just as long to bring it back.

So, that leaves us with two things we must do: push our ideas and develop our ideology and breed the next generation.

First, we need to develop our ideas and put them out there; we must push the overton window. We have to put red pill knowledge out there, make it acceptable, and bring people to the cause. This is already being done; you can occasionally see red pill knowledge creep into the MSM. The manosphere is great for this.

More importantly to pushing our ideas, we have to live lives that are enviable. Ideas are great, but unless people see what’s in it for them, ideas alone will not suffice. We have to demonstrate what we are arguing for.

Live a red pill life that others are envious off and want to emulate. Praxis.

Second, breeding. The future of our society is determined by the next generation, so we need to create the next generation. On one hand, we have an advantage because progressivists are breeding themselves out of existence. On the other hand, if we all go MTGOW or PUA, then we aren’t breeding either.

So, marry a good women, have lots of kids, and raise them traditionally. Your life will be better, your life will be full and meaningful, and you’ll have a legacy you can be proud of.

Make sure to avoid a few pitfalls. Refuse to marry those who aren’t worthy of bearing your children (no rings for sluts). Be wary of the public school system; make sure to raise your kids right. Live as an example you want your kids to emulate.

Creating the next generation and developing our ideas is how an ideological war is won. So, do it.

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That’s not to say game and MGTOW don’t help some. Both spread red pill ideas. In addition, PUA’s make promiscuity rougher and less fair, thus making promiscuity, already unattractive, less attractive for females. Both reduce the amount of marriageable men who will “man up”, leaving women asking “where did all the men go”, showing the corruption of the “sacred path for marriage”.

While they’re still acting the part of bonobos, they do have some positive impact in the ideological war.

The Internal Contradiction of Liberal Ideology

Here’s a post I’ve been planning on writing for a while, but haven’t got around to. CR at GL Piggy wrote a post that touched on it, so, now’s a good a time as any to finally get it out.

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There is a fundamental contradiction within modern progressivism* between its economic beliefs and underlying philosophical beliefs.

North American liberals hold to Keynesian economic theory; all the standard-bearing liberal economists, such as Krugman, Ygglesias, and Stiglitz, are Keynesian.

Keynesianism is demand-side economics, where economic health is determined by aggregate demand for goods and services. A main goal of Keynesian economics is to keep demand high, so more goods are produced, which leads to increased employment, full-employment being a primary aim of Keynesianism. The government is required to interfere in times of low demand (ie. recessions and depressions) by spending money (it doesn’t really matter on what) to raise demand. Too much savings is harmful to the economy as it prevents spending.

This opposed to demand-side economics, where economic health is determined by the supply of goods and services. It calls for low barriers to production, to lower prices so consumers can purchase goods at the lowest cost. The government is required to remove themselves from interference so individuals can best optimize savings and consumption for themselves.

Essentially, the main theoretical difference between the two is whether the economy is driven by creation (production and investment) or by consumption (demand and spending).

On the other hand, liberal political philosophy is strongly opposed to consumerism. It is also strongly environmental in nature and oppose what they refer to as over-consumption. They’ll complain of artifical demand created by mass media, rage against planned obsolescence, and have their Buy Nothing Days.

Now, if you are more intellectually acute than the average occupy protester, you may have noticed something from my descriptions of Keynesianism and progressivism: they contradict each other.

The economic theory that the economy is driven by consumption and that the government must work to keep demand high is essentially a call for over-consumption. A theory where economic health depends on demand for consumption while aiming for full employment, is a call for people to buy things they don’t need so they can work more so they can buy things they don’t need.

Keynesian economics is consumerism.

Liberal economics necessiatates and prizes everything liberals claim to hate about capitalism.

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So why does liberal economic theory contradict liberal political values?

It’s simple: government control.

Earlier I told you the main theoretical difference between supply- and demand-side economics, but that’s just theory and nobody cares much about theory. Much more important to why (most) people choose which economic theory they prefer is the practical implications of the theory.

The main practical difference in application between the two theories is the level of government control of the economy.

Liberals like Keynesian economics, not because they believe in the theoretical underpinnings of Keynesianism, but because it allows more government control over the economy.

The capability of free-market capitalism to produce goods and services is so obvious to see, that no one with any pretensions to intellectual seriousness can completely discard capitalism. The superiority of free-market capitalism is so undeniable that (most of) the left has given up fighting capitalism as a whole.

But progressivists are unwilling to give up their desire for control, so instead they have adopted mixed economic theories which use free-market capitalism as a substructure, then put a government regulation superstructure over the substructure so the elites can still feign control over the economy.

That is why their economic belief in Keynesianism (which is ideological consumerism) can so blatantly contradict their supposed values of anti-consumerism and environmentalism.

Keynesianism is only a superficial belief, a mere ideological tool to justify liberals acquiring what they really value: the expansion of the state.

* I use liberalism, progressivism, and new left interchangeably as there has been no real difference between them in North America since the McGovernite takeover of the Democratic Party (and Trudeaumania in Canada).

Bureaucrats

Bill wrote last month about bureaucracy, and it was scathing. I have no more love for bureaucracy than the next man and all the scorn he heaps on bureaucracy is well deserved, but from my experience in the public sector, I think he is mistaken about bureaucrats.

Bill has a lot of scathing criticism of bureaucrats, but it is not the bureaucrats who are the problem, it is the bureaucracy itself. The system is what destroys.

I’m not saying there aren’t bad bureaucrats, just that bureaucrats are just like workers anywhere else. Most bureaucrats are decent enough folks, some are  assholes, and most are just doing their job and trying to get ahead. They respond to incentives just like anybody else.

There’s the problem: the system of incentives that government bureaucracy has created for its workers is what is destructive.

As Frost wrote in Freedom 25, there are 3 iron laws of bureaucracy:

1) You will never have to do anything.

2) If you ever actually do anything it will be useless.

3) If you ever actually do something useful, it will be rendered useless by subsequent layers of management.

It is this system which oppresses its own workers that is the problem.

Now, there are some not-so-great trends among bureaucrats: bureaucrats do tend to lean somewhat more leftwards and believe more in the efficacy of government solutions, but (most) bureaucrats are not trying to screw you, no more than any other group of people. Most bureaucrats either don’t care, are just going their jobs, or they honestly believe that they are helping the public.

This is the first in a planned short series of why government bureaucracy doesn’t work, where I’ll go into the incentives that create government failure in more detail.

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For now though, I’ll address a few of his points:

The real power of the government is with the petty bureaucrat, the one you might see from time to time.

A single petty bureaucrat has almost no power; he can at most moderately inconvenience you. The petty bureaucrat is a slave to the rules. The biggest problem from a petty bureaucrat is not what the bureaucrat himself, but if he decides to put you into the system.

The system is a maze that is almost indecipherable to anyone who is not a lawyer or bureaucrat in that particular system. The system can ruin your life: whether it’s the family court system, the tax system, or what have you, but rare is it that a single bureaucrat can hurt you that much until you’re in the system.

The problem with the system is not with the people, it is the rules. Each person in a bureaucracy has a specific role and rules guiding his role. There are no deviations from your role or your rules. Even if breaking the rules in a minor way would benefit everyone involved, the bureaucrat is not allowed to deviate. There are also no exceptions to the rules, they have to be applied as written (and interpreted) to everybody equally, which is why you’ll occasionally here about stupidities, like bureaucrats shutting down children’s lemonade stands.

The rules are hard, cold, and unyielding. Even if they make no sense, the rules or roles are still paramount.

The people who are attracted to bureaucratic or government jobs know that they are unsuited for any social success or productive work and it infuriates them, so they want payback. What better way to get payback than to fuck with people who they know are their betters? They relish their jobs because every time they can make someone wait, audit their tax returns, place a lien on their property or in extreme cases cause someone to die, they feel that their revenge is taken.

In most countries, most bureaucrats aren’t any more (or less) competent than employees the private sector. The US is somewhat of an exception, for reasons I’ll explain in a later post. Most can, and many do, switch between the private and public sectors.

There are some gross incompetents in government, and the government union system makes removing incompetents much more difficult for bureaucracies than for the non-unionized private sector, but most government employees are reasonably competent at their functions.

Also, most bureaucrats (again, there are the occassional exceptions) don’t care about you. They don’t want to fuck you and they take no pleasure in doing so. Some may want to help you, but for the most part, they simply want to do their job so they can get paid and go home, just like most people in the private sector.

That’s not to say they won’t fuck you. If the rules they follow require fucking you, they’ll follow the rules, and you’re fucked, but that is a problem with the rules not the people and most people won’t take any pleasure out of it unless you’ve been a complete ass to them. They will feel apathy. (Whether that’s better or worse is debatable).

No truer statement was ever uttered and if you don’t believe me on this, just fuck with one of these dickheads. They will ensure that, to all extent of their government bestowed powers, they will do anything they can to make your life as hellish as possible and make you pay even more of your hard earned money than you do presently. Fuck with them enough, or just be in the wrong situation at the wrong time and they’ll ruin your life…or get you killed.

Generally, bureaucrats will not go out of their way to hurt you, but like most people they do have a tendency revenge. If you fuck with anyone they will usually try to get revenge, bureaucrats are not different. Generally, though, the bureaucrats are apathetic. As long as you don’t personally piss off an individual bureaucrat, they don’t care

They have no reference for what it is like to live as a person, much less a free individual with hopes and dreams and the means to attain them. And so, we are dangerous. We don’t behave “by the book.” And we have to be controlled. It’s all for our own best interests, isn’t it? Why should anyone be allowed to follow their individual talents and drive for the life they wish to live? That might make someone else feel inferior, just like they do. So we must be at the least controlled, and at the extreme destroyed.

It is true that progressivism and statism are somewhat more common among bureaucrats than the population as whole. For the most part though, it is not about control; most honestly think they are helping. (See the term useful idiots). Now, there are probably some bureaucrats at the higher echelons who want control and there are little tin gods at various lower levels, but most don’t want control.They are either apathetic or believe they are doing good. There is little malice behind most bureaucrats.

I’ll be going over why the system fails in the future, but for now, it is enough to say that blaming the bureaucrats is pointless. In fact, blaming the bureaucrats is counter-productive. The bureaucratic system is the problem, blaming bureaucrats rather than the system merely makes the alt-right seem petty and vindictive and alienates potential allies within the government (and yes, there are people in the government who are in favour of limited government).

No, We Are Not All Feminists

Lindy West argues at Jezebel that we are all feminists and those that aren’t are horrible people.

How does she do this, by (snarkily) arguing that:

To identify as a feminist is to acknowledge that women are people, and, as such, women deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities as other styles of people (i.e., men-people).

This is of course complete bollocks.

The label of feminist has far more meaning than women are people. Not to mention that what feminists mean by “the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities” is far different from what most people consider “the same”.

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Now, most people do accept most of first-wave feminism’s objectives: woman should be allowed to vote, own property, and be equal under the law. Even a reactionary curmudgeon like me doesn’t disagree with that (although, I’m not sure about Will).

But, feminism has evolved since then through the second, third, and post-waves and the term feminist has expanded far beyond the original goals of the suffragettes.

Accepting the goals of first-wave feminism no more makes a person a modern feminist than opposing slavery and absolute monarchy makes one a neo-liberal.

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So, what does modern feminism mean beyond “women are people?”

Most obviously, modern feminism has irreversibly tied itself to unlimited abortion-on-demand, something the majority of people oppose. The abortion debate revolves around whether the unborn are persons or not and has nothing to do with the the personhood of women.

Affirmative action, the preferential treatment of women, is another major plank of modern feminism and has nothing to do with the personhood of women. In fact, it gives women rights that men do not have.

Other feminist tropes and goals beyond “women are people” include: the personalization of the political, anti-patriarchy, male privilege, “free” childcare, “free” birth control, “equal” pay, etc.

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The second half of West’s definition of feminism is “women deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities.”

This, is essentially as what she means by “the same rights and opportunities” is unclear and likely not agreed upon by most.

The first problem is the distinction between “negative” and “positive” liberty.

Under a classical liberal approach of “negative” liberty, “the same rights and opportunities” means that everybody is allowed to live their lives without undue external coercion. This is the standard conception of rights and liberty in the English liberal and liberal-conservative tradition that have defined (or at least  until the last couple of decades) politics in the Anglosphere since Locke and Burke.

Under the progressive “positive” liberty approach, “the same rights and opportunities” means there can be external coercion if it helps an individual overcome internal constraints on their ability to act.

West talks positively of affirmative action and Title IX, so she obviously falls on the “positive” side of liberty, and she links these two strongly to feminism. She also talks derisively of those who have declared equality because legal discrimination has ended.

It’s obvious there is no room for “negative liberty” within her definition of feminism.

Yet, somehow we are all feminists now, even though “negative liberty” is the dominant (but declining) political thought in the US and the Anglosphere.

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The second problem is the distinction between equality and equity.

Equality requires that everybody be treated the same.

Equity requires that people be treated differently to achieve the same outcome.

In an equal regime, hiring would be based solely on qualifications.

In an equitable regime, hiring would be based comparable results.

Affirmative action is very much equity based and is anti-equality, yet it is linked heavily to and is strongly defended by the feminist movement.

“Equal pay”  is a a primary goal of modern feminists. Yet, the “wage gap” disappears when you account for hours worked, job type, specializations, and family arrangements.

Again, West strongly both affirmative action and Title IX to feminism. I’m also pretty sure where she’d stand on the “wage gap.” Is there any room for equality in feminism?

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These first two debates can be seen in feminism itself between the liberal feminists who generally take the “negative” liberty and equality approach, and the other types of feminists who take the egalitarian, “positive” liberty approach.

So there is some room for them.

Sadly, liberal feminists tend to be few and far between and they tend not to be the drivers of feminism, but rather the PR people.

The ones dominating the agenda are the “positive” liberty, equity feminists. Hence, why feminism pursues the “wage gap” so strongly, why Obamacare has “free” contraception, why there was so much feminist rage when religious organizations did not want to pay for contraception, etc.

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The third  problem is that women and men are not the same. This leads to situations where “the same” is simply not possible.

The most obvious difference is that women can give birth, men can’t.

So, how do you give equal rights?

Is abortion only a women’s decision because it’s her body? Is it “equal” for men to have no say in the life or death of their unborn child?

If a man gets no say in the abortion decision, then would it not be fair to allow him to opt out of child support obligations? On the other hand, is it fair to expect a women to take all support for the child on herself?

There is no way the rights of persons in a situation like this can be “the same” because the decisions are not equivalent.

What of maternity/paternity leave? If we give them both similar time off, when the man isn’t even pregnant is that “the same”? But if we don’t give them equal time off, isn’t that differing opportunities?

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Statistical differences in natural aptitudes or interests between the sexes leads to the equity/equality distinction.

Men are physically stronger and and bigger than women. So, when hiring, say, police, do we have “the same” physical requirements for both sexes with different outcomes, or do we “the same” outcomes by having differing physical requirements.

Women are less interested in math and math-based subjects. Do treat the sexes “the same” and just accept there will fewer female engineers or do we try to have “the same” amount of engineers for each sex by incentivizing and strongly encouraging women to enter engineering when they don’t really want to?

Most feminists I’ve read fall into the latter category of each. How does this fit into “women are people” and “deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities?”

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Slate, that bastion of modern liberalism, explains why feminists want everybody to be a feminist:

So as we adopt West’s definition of “feminism,” perhaps we can also start phasing out the term itself. Perhaps we can instead focus on labeling the outliers who are not feminists: the misogynists, chauvinists, and sexists. That would go a long way towards clarifying that feminism is now mainstream, obvious, and self-evident.

By defining feminism as the norm, they can then define anybody who doesn’t swallow the feminist agenda whole as “outliers”.

Oppose unlimited abortion on demand paid for by the state: you’re a misogynist.

Believe women should pay for their own birth control: you’re sexist.

Believe that the personal should be kept private: you’re a chauvinist.

Now, feminists already call anybody who doesn’t agree with their agenda misogynists, so that’s not the point, in itself. Rather, by having people accept feminism as the “mainstream, obvious, and self-evident” norm, they can force society as whole to accept that anybody who doesn’t engage in feminist group-think is a misogynist.

The point of normalizing feminism is to use it as a ideological weapon.

It’s a con-game: have society accept that the feminist label because they believe the uncontroversial statement that women are people. Most people don’t oppose the goals of liberal feminism all that strongly.

Then once society accepts the  feminist label, move the goalposts. Feminism now means supporting unlimited abortion, or affirmative action, or “free” childcare. You must support us, you don’t want to be misogynist, do you?

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In conclusion, we are not all feminists.

We almost all agree that “women are people” and should be given “the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities” as men, but feminism goes far beyond that. In addition, what most feminists mean by the same rights and opportunities is usually contradictory to what most people mean by that phrase and what the English classical liberalism which defines our political and economic culture mean by that phrase.

Normalizing the feminist label is nothing more than an ideological weapon.

Libertarian Monarchism

I am a libertarian with a strong bent towards subsidiarity, I support individuals’ freedom to engage in economic, personal, and social activities with minimal intrusion by a central government.

I am also a constitutional monarchist, and a supporter of the anglosphere. I support the Queen and am in favour of expanding the monarchy’s power so the monarchy has real control over the executive branch of government. As a supporter of both the anglosphere and the monarchy, I am in favour of the increased union of the English nations (the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and NZ) until all Englishmen are confederated under the British Monarch.

Now, monarchism and libertarianism are often not grouped together; libertarianism is about self-determination, while monarchism is about inherited rule, seemingly contradictory impulses.

How do I reconcile them?

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Libertarianism* is based on the  notion of private property right; you own yourself (or, for the religiously inclined, God, not man, owns you) as private property and and you are able to own external goods.

Most libertarians acknowledge the need for a state to ensure property rights, enforce agreements, and prevent/punish aggression.** Most use social contract theory, whereby individuals contract away some of their freedoms for protection, but that leaves the control of the limited libertarian government as common property, even if that common property is run through the “self-determiniation” of democracy.

That’s where the monarch is brought in. In a libertarian monarchy, the realm is the private property of the monarch.

The monarch would have no power over the private property of any individuals, but would own the state apparatus (ie. the executive branch), “public” lands, and other “public” property as the private property of the monarch and the monarch’s house.

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The benefit of this is that the monarch would have an incentive in running the state and public property efficiently and effectively, as it would be her own property to be passed down to her children.

The monarchy would also be able to take the long view of the realm’s affairs, rather than the short-term view the electoral system forces on prime ministers and presidents.

The parliament would still create laws and the monarch would have to abide by the constitution (whether codified or uncodified), acting as a check on the monarch’s power.

If the parliament and/or monarch became too corrupt or power became too centralized, the free citizenry would have the muzzles and blood to rectify the situation.

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That’s the political system I would create if given my druthers.

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* We will focus on right-wing libertarians, ignoring libertarian socialists, ie. anarchists, who are whole different breed.
** Anarcho-capitalists and objectivists would disagree.

CS Lewis was a Prophet

Well, not literally, but read this from Screwtape Proposes a Toast:

Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose. The good work which our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won’t. It will never occur to them that democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that this has only the most remote and tenuous connection with what you are trying to sell them. Nor of course must they ever be allowed to raise Aristotle’s question: whether “democratic behaviour” means the behaviour that democracies like or the behaviour that will preserve a democracy. For if they did, it could hardly fail to occur to them that these need not be the same.

You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal. Especially the man you are working on. As a result you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of human feelings. You can get him to practise, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.

The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.

The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid, resounding lie. I don’t mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.

And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food: “Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I — it must be a vile, upstage, la-di-da affectation. Here’s a fellow who says he doesn’t like hot dogs — thinks himself too good for them, no doubt. Here’s a man who hasn’t turned on the jukebox — he’s one of those goddamn highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were honest-to-God all-right Joes they’d be like me. They’ve no business to be different. It’s undemocratic.”Now, this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware of feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it — make it respectable and even laudable — by the incantatory use of the word democratic.

Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being Like Folks; that people who would really wish to be — and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be — honest, chaste, or temperate refuse it. To accept might make them Different, might offend against the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.

All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: “O God, make me a normal twentieth century girl!” Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly: “Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.”

Meanwhile, as a delightful by-product, the few (fewer every day) who will not be made Normal or Regular and Like Folks and Integrated increasingly become in reality the prigs and cranks which the rabble would in any case have believed them to be. For suspicion often creates what it expects. (“Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.”) As a result we now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.

But that is a mere by-product. What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.

He knew the way it was going decades before it went there.

White Male Privilege and Identity

I previously wrote about white privilege, but Apocalypse Cometh and a few others have brought up a university white privilege campaign, and I feel like commenting again.

If you’ve seen “anti-sexism” and “anti-racism” propaganda, you’ve probably noticed something: it is always males that are sexist and it is always whites that are racist.

The white male is a free target to be sexist and racist against, because if it’s anti-white male it’s not discriminatory because he has “privilege”.

Another thing you may notice, is that most white males don’t care, they accept this. When they do care (such as in the manosphere/alt-right blogosphere) they are usually driven to either analysis (such as Steve Sailer) or anger (such as AC above).

What you almost never see is the white male be personally offended. Occasionally, they may be “offended” on behalf of the group, but more as an abstract concept of offense. Very rarely do white males have a personal emotional reaction.

The white male does not generally take attacks on his gender or race (or attacks on him because of his gender or race) personally.

On the other hand, females and, to a lesser degree, other races often take extreme personal offence or become emotionally pained to non-personal things they deem sexist or racist.

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Test this.

Next time you’re around a group of mixed company friends, make derogatory jokes about crackers or rednecks (or some other group of white people) and males.  Later make derogatory jokes about females and other races.

I can almost guarantee you no one will be offended by the jokes about males and rednecks. Someone (or multiple someones), most likely a female someone, will be offended by the jokes about females and non-whites.

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Why is that?

The primary reason would be identity. The white male doesn’t usually identify himself as a white male foremost. He’ll generally define his identity through his nationality, his “the old country”, his religion, his job, his relationships, his politics, his hobbies, etc. well before he’ll identify himself as white or a male. People who use “white” as a primary identity are rare, and only a few extremists politically organize as whites. When identifying as male, it is generally a statement of fact, rather than a point of personal identity and no one politically organizes as males (despite the attempts of the MRA’s).

On the other hand, females, in particular feminists, and non-whites have their femaleness or race as one of their primary identifying characteristics. They will also often organize politically as females or their race.

So, when white male are insulted, the white male doesn’t care because he doesn’t really identify himself as a white male anymore than he identifies himself according to his hair colour or eye colour. He is a white male as a point of fact, but it’s not really something he emotionally connects to.

On the other hand, females (particularly feminists) and non-whites identify and emotionally connect with their femaleness or race. So an attack or insult on their identity is seen as an attack or insult on them.

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Communists call this identification consciousness. In marxist analysis, for the workers to revolt they have to identify themselves as workers; they have to develop class consciousness. Only when they see themselves as proletariat can they come together as a class and overthrow their capitalist overlords. Any other identity the worker may have, such as his religion, race, or nationality, are a false consciousness which distract him from his true identity as a worker.

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The problem with anti-racism, anti-sexism, white privilege, and all that other crap is that it creates the identity of whiteness or maleness in the white male. It raises the consciousness of the white male.

Generally, the white male doesn’t emotionally identify himself as a white male, he has other consciousnesses. Anti-racism and anti-sexism require the white male to become aware of his white privilege or male privilege. By becoming aware of his privilege he also becomes aware of his identity as a white male. He is raising his own race consciousness.

This is dangerous and it should be the last thing that any person who dislikes white racism or misogyny should want.

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Why?

It’s simple, as the white male’s consciousness of of himself as a white male rises, he will be more likely to identify himself as a white male.

That means he will be more likely to organize himself as a white male.

When white males have organized themselves as white males, it has almost always gone badly for everybody else.

I’ve already written of how the human male is the apex predator.

The white male in particular has shown himself to be particularly destructive when organized, or even on his own.

When the white male identifies himself as a white male he will organize and take action to advance the interests of his identity.

As the last few centuries have shown, when white males organize to advance their interests, they “win”, usually violently.

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Won’t knowing his white privilege prevent him from being racist?

Sure, when a white male examines his privilege, he may become an Uncle Tim, but the thing about Uncle Tim’s is that they do not identify as white males they identify according to their “anti-racist” ideology. They may talk about being aware of their white male privilege, but the emphasis is on the privilege, not the whiteness or the maleness. They are not aware of being white or being male, they are aware of their self-identified ideological “privilege”. They do have white male consciousness, rather they have ideological consciousnesses.

This is unlikely to happen for most. Identity is a powerful thing. As one becomes conscious of being something, one begins to identify with this something. By examining his identity as a white male, even in the context of “anti-racism” or “anti-sexism”, he begins to identify with being a white male.

His white maleness becomes an in-group. An in-group necessitates an out-group. In this case, that would be non-whites and non-males.

The very act of becoming aware of white male privilege creates within most white males an identity in opposition to non-whites and non-males.

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North American society has spent a long-time destroying the racial and gender awareness of the white male. They have pushed it under other identities, in particular civic religion and nationalism; the end result is that the white male consciousness is that of an American, not a white male (prior to thinking of himself as a white male he though of himself an Englishman or WASP;whites of non-Anglo descent were in the out-group). Non-whites and non-males can become American, they can never become a white male (or WASP).

Keeping the white male thinking about himself as an American is essential to the continuing functioning of America in relative non-racism and peace.

“Anti-racism” and “anti-sexism” though are in danger of undoing this; they are causing white males to think of themselves not as Americans, but rather as white males.

The choice is either colour-blindness or white male consciousness.

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The majority of modern white males are unused to identifying s as white males. The alt-right blogosphere, including the manosphere, is the beginning of the rise of white male consciousness.

Currently, the alt-right blogosphere is fairly benign as even here, white males still, mostly, think of themselves primarily as Americans (or whatever country they are from) and decry the collapse of America or Western civilization. Most have not yet internalized their white male consciousness.

Hopefully, they will not internalize it.

For if white males develop white male consciousness, they will act on their identity as white males.

Feminists can act on their identity as females with only moderate consequence, as females do not have the violent will to power males have.

Non-whites can act on their identity as their own race with only moderate consequence, as they are limited in number.

White males though are the majority and they have the violent tendencies of males. If they organize based on their identity of being a white male, the consequences could be disastrous.

If “anti-racists” and “anti-sexists” continue to push their ideological thesis on white males, white males will develop their own antithesis of identity, and the synthesis could be unpleasant.

The New Left vs. The Old Left

Will S. writes about the bizarre decision of governments to allow expatriates to vote as their own riding. In the post-script he notes:

Regarding Mrs. Lemaire’s victory, isn’t it odd that a ‘riding’ consisting of many employed by the financial sector (i.e. the private sector) would end up going Socialist?  Of course, it wasn’t just the French living in London or elsewhere in the U.K. who elected Mrs. Lemaire, but also ones living in Ireland, and the Scandinavian and Baltic states, too, so perhaps that’s how it happened.  On the other hand, I note that the North American riding was also won by a Socialist candidate, Corinne Narassiguin, who apparently is a New York banker!  What strange times we live in.

I do not find it all that odd. This is the difference between the old left and the new left (or liberal-left).

The old left was a movement of blue-collar workers out to get a better deal for themselves. It was a heavily unionized movement and, in the West, was mostly white. It was not overly radical on social issues, as blue-collar workers don’t generally tend towards that direction.

In the first half of the century, most Western nation began to put in place the beginning of the welfare state (pension plans & employment insurance), workplace safety laws, minimum wages, and other such regulations to protect workers, this eased the impetus of the old left. As long as blue-collar workers had jobs that provided them decent comfort and didn’t have to worry that an accident would leave them destitute, they were mostly politically content.

Enter the new left. This was a political movement focused on social issues: feminism, environmentalism, peace activism, anti-racism, etc. Economic issues were still of some import, but were pushed to the back.

In addition, the radical anti-capitalism of the old left began to melt away as the Communism began to demonstrate the horrors that occurred when you eliminated capitalism. It was replaced by a desire for an economic system of Keynesian-regulatory state superstructure based upon a capitalist substructure.

In the US, this takeover of the Democrat party by the new left occurred following the McGovernite rift in 72. Under the new left, liberal/left-wing parties began to shed their traditional base of the white working class, and created a new base, an alliance of academics, technocrats, white-collar bureaucrats (and their unions), and a bought-off underclass. The union movement began to trend towards white collar government work from blue-collar industrial work, until today where unions are primarily made of government workers.

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So, what does this have to do with the financial sector?

The first is that new left/liberal parties are strongly based on the ideologies held by the educated upper-middle class (the underclass doesn’t really contribute to ideas overly much anymore, they just vote reliably as long as state benefits flow). These ideologies tend to be based on post-materialist values (environmentalism, feminism, etc.) rather than material values. In economics, they are “pragmatic” (read Keynesian), as they generally benefit from the current economic order, but feel guilt about inequality that they want the state to relieve.

One of the Keynesian beliefs central to the new left economic platform is avoiding deflation and keeping steady mild inflation (ie. printing money) to keep people employed.

Who benefits from inflation? Whoever gets the money first. The financial sector. This mild inflation is printing money for the banks.

In a economic bust, what does a Keynesian party do? Stimulus (ie. print more money).  Who benefits? The financial sector.

When the government creates bonds (ie. debt) to finance further spending who benefits? The banks and financial traders who buy the bonds. It’s a license to print money.

Who benefits the most from complex government contract bidding? Large corporations (you think, Jack the small businessman with 3 employees can figure out the complex government bidding process and win them against Halliburton?)

Who benefits the most from government regulations? Large, established corporations (ie. banks).

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What?

I know, it seems weird, that large corporations benefit form regulations, but hear me out.

Large corporations are generally (Koch aside) not ideologically libertarian or capitalist, they are “rational” organizations pursuing profit.

The most damaging thing to a large, established corporations profits is radical change. Large corporations are generally very bureaucratic and can’t respond rapidly to change. If left alone, upstart companies can introduce radical changes to their industry quite rapidly and hurt the profits of large corporations (or occasionally destroy them entirely). So, the corporations go along with new regulations. Sure, their profits might decrease a small amount, but they can afford it. The small, upstart company generally can’t.

For example, let’s take access for people with disabilities. McDonald’s can easily afford the thousands of dollars to put into place a wheelchair ramp and handicap washrooms. Joe’s Diner, which makes a profits of 40k a year, won’t have such an easy time coming up with the thousands of dollars necessary for renovations.

So any financial regulations may hurt the large banks and traders some, but you know who they hurt more: smaller banks and trading companies, their competitors and potential disrupters.

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As we can see, modern left-liberal Keynesian economic ideology helps the financial sector more than almost anyone else. Those in charge of the parties know this (hence, Obama’s strong ties to Goldman Sachs), the useful idiots (ie. those anti-capitalists who still vote for these parties) follow along, because the parties know how to sound anti-capitalist (although, the banks know this is just a show) and to think otherwise would challenge their whole ideology and political allegiance.

The financial sector are also generally graduates of the (left-wing) academic system, so they mostly (more or less) agree on the basics of liberal-left social policies.

That’s why the financial sector will often vote for supposedly leftist parties and why I am not surprised that they do.