Tag Archives: Politics

Lightning Round – 2012/09/25

Elihu finishes up his series on Christian playerdom.
Related: Vox crushes the male hamster.
Related: The Christian Player has started a newish blog. He gets the problem, but his solution seems off. Will have to watch where this goes.

Vox explains the appeal (or lack thereof) of women’s intelligence to men.

Hehe… The people of Trader Joe’s.

A message to young women.
Related: How to waste your 20’s, so you can do what your really want in your 30’s.
Related: Your price is too high.

Sometimes you need to draw the line.

Hilarious.
Related: Female dress as solipsism.

Badger contemplates marketing to young men.

This guy’s experiences with online datign sounds like mine. Online dating is horrendous.

Be careful chasing alpha, you just might get it.

The Captain points out a wonderful case of self-delusion.

Dimensions of a perfect women.

Wow… Some men seem to have a complete lack of balls.

I’ve been ignoring quadrant two some recently. Should get back on that.

American men more likely to die from suicide than car crashes.

You have worth.

Don’t become a rentier.

We elect the bastards we deserve.
Related: The American electorate is retarded.
Related: Yup, they are.

Us Canucks have front-row seats to America’s self-destruction.
Related: We are now freer than the Yanks.

People don’t trust the media?!? How could that possibly be?

Why intellectuals oppose capitalism.

“The average effective federal tax rate for American taxpayers is 11%, according to an analysis of 2009 IRS data by the Tax Foundation”
Related: Who pays taxes in the US.

Wow, just a few decades late. Better late than never, I guess.

Some people are just horrible people.

Making the job easier makes more women join. Hurrah!?? GLP’s earlier post on the issue.

Athen’s municipality economically collapses. Expect more in the future.

You are libertarian.

(H/T: GLP, SDA, Althouse, Borepatch, AG, MF)

The Collapse

XSplat asked, “what, EXACTLY, they mean by “society collapses”? (H/T: SAG)

Yesterday, I noted that government takeover and the collapse of the family from the “long march through culture” led to what you see in black America: high dependence on government, high violence, social problems, etc.

In response to a similar answer, he added:

“I want to know what happens to WHITE society. Show me a WHITE example.”

The trite answer is watch the riots in Greece and see what occurs to them over the next 5 years. There are already riots and they will likely get worse before they get better. The American collapse will be worse though, because there is no EU to bail the US out.

The not-quite-so-trite answer is Rome and the Dark Ages. Rome collapsed over centuries and Western civilization stagnated for centuries more. Collapse for the US will be different, because the US is separated by water from everybody but Mexico and Canada, and so has less of a problem of barbarians sacking them. But still, it’s one possibility.

The even-less-so-but-still-trite answer is that whites and non-whites are inter-mixed in most Western countries, so his point’s fairly irrelevant. If one group in society completely collapses, it negatively effects the other groups in society.

An almost-not-trite answer would be the Weimer Republic. Good times were had by all. The Soviet Union, it’s collapse, and Russia’s collapse into a corrupt oligarchy are another. Yob culture in Britain is another, and is not that far from the American ghetto.

I will come back to this and outline the likely scenarios for an answer that’s not trite, but first we will deal with other parts of his post.

****

Someone else provides him with an answer, which I think is partially correct, which he then follows up with:

“But what these future predictions miss is technology. Where we are today is the result of technology. Future technological changes will change what options we have for our future. How far off do you think biotech is from altering society? What will happen when making designer babies is cheap and readily available? When electronic implants can affect our emotions?”

I’m going to start with this, just to get the objection out of the way, so I can concentrate on the collapse.

Essentially what he is talking about is either post-scarcity and/or the singularity. I’ve written of post-scarcity before, and I believe it to be nearly inevitable; eventually we will pass the threshold of scarcity to where we do not need to “work”. The other concept is the singularity, the point where we reach superintelligence through either AI, the mind/machine interface, or biotechnology. We already have very primitive M/MA, AI, and biotech, just as we have primitive 3D printers, but the endpoint of the three is the singularity.

There’s a good chance we will reach the singularity. The most optimistic predictions I’ve seen is about 2045. Many experts have put it between 2050 and 2100. Others only say the distant future. Many, such as Steven Pinker, an intellectual I respect, doubt it will ever occur. I lean towards the more optimistic side, I’d take a wild guess at before 2100 simply because technology has generally tended to advance faster than most experts think, but I think there’s some wishful thinking in the earlier dates. Of course, the wild guess of some random guy on the internet is not exactly gospel.

I think post-scarcity will come well before the singularity simply because the mechanical is easier for man to master than the genetic, biological, electronic, and quantam. Post-scarcity is less discussed than the singularity, so the only projected date I’ve seen is 2050-75, but thbe post-scarcity from that prediction is a bit different from the post-scarcity I posited.

But anyway, let’s, for the sake of argument, say that post-scarcity will occur by 2050 and the singularity by 2080 (70 years from now, a common prediction).

The question then becomes, when is “the collapse”?

This is more difficult. The collapse, which is probably more accurately referred to as the end of the world as we know it, is a political belief of those on the alt-right, that is not accepted by most of the mainstream, so it’s less looked at by what we would term futurists. Despite this, there’s been some predictions. Patrick Buchanan, probably the best known of those predicting the Death of the West, posits it will occur by 2050, but has since wondered if it could occur by 2025. Mark Steyn’s After America didn’t give a date, but it’s obvious he expects it in the next few decades if there are no changes. If you ask anybody on the alt-right, they’ll probably have a prediction of some sort.

Outside the alt-right, Niall Ferguson has posited the beginning of the collapse of the American Empire within the next five years and Alternet posits it by 2025, but the collapse of empire is somewhat different from societal collapse, even if both are related.

The most important point is nobody really knows when the collapse will come, only that there is a good possibility of it. Just like nobody knows when post-scarcity or the singularity will come. Predicting the future accurately is extremely difficult, we can only look at current trends, extrapolate, prepare, and then take whatever chaotic occurrences come upon us.

But if we look at the predictions, 2025-2050 is earlier than 2050-2100. So, the majority opinion seems to be that the collapse comes first.

If the singularity or post-scarcity occurs, there will be no collapse. If the economy grows rapidly enough that it covers over any other problems we might have, there will be no collapse. If the collapse comes first, there will be some bad years before post-scarcity and it might delay or prevent post-scarcity.

The question is not will technology prevent the coming collapse, the question is which will hit first?

It is a race between science and economic progress on one hand and societal collapse on the other.

****

Wait, X-Splat’s talking of collapse due to family, you’re talking about collapse of empire, collapse due to debt, and economic collapse.

There’s no difference. It’s all related.

The collapse of family, the collapse of empire, the debt bomb, the growth of government, the housing bust, etc. are all the same collapse due to the same reason: they are all symptoms of the collapse of civil society and civic virtue. Civil society is what keeps a free society together and stops it from collapsing on itself. (A tyranny can keep society together through fear and violence, but only until someone else overthrows the tyrant). Civil society is the bonds that hold a community together and civic virtue are the values that keep society from ripping itself apart.

When civil society dies, charity dries up, family collapses, social capital disappears, churches and other traditional institutions die off, business become corrupt, society becomes corrupt, and self-organization withers. When civic virtue dies, people become corrupt, they vote themselves money at others’ expense, refuse to contribute to society, abandon family, stop volunteering, refuse public service in the military, take on huge unrepayable debt, become irresponsible, pursue decadence and hedonism, etc.

No society can survive the collapse of civic virtue and civil society and remain free.

The banging of sluts and the collapse of family are just one aspect of the greater collapse of civic virtue and civil society.

****

So what happens in the collapse?

The answer: that depends. There are simply to many variables to make any conclusive answers. I will give what I think are some of the likelier potentials.

(Note: I am going to focus on North American collapse, to reduce the scope. For the rest of the Western world, the answers are similar on the broad strokes, but many details might be different.)

1) Great Depression Part 2: The Great Recession turns into a Great Depression. The US sinks into a long economic malaise but still has enough civic virtue and civil society to get through it as a free nation. There are rough spots, poverty increases, there’s some minor violence and riots, and it’s tough on everybody, especially seniors for whom SS and Medicare have been drastically reduced, but the US continues to be a more-or-less free and functioning society. Eventually either pulls through or reaches economic scarcity.

This is the best of the collapse scenarios. There is no radical change to American life, just some very tough belt tightening and the occasional spot of violence. This is what blue-pill fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan are trying to do and are failing at.

2) Brave New World: This is less a collapse than a drawn out decline. Big Brother slowly takes over and America loses its freedom. I don’t think America will slip into outright dictatorship, but democracy will become increasingly a formality rather than a reality, life will become increasingly less free, and the state will slowly replace civil society. The courts will gradually hand more power over to government and government will progressively control more of American life. Americans will essentially live in a gilded cage. Consumer goods and pop entertainment will keep most American’s sated. There will be some illusion of freedom; you will still be able to choose which brand of government approved video games you desire. You will still be free to read most books (except some of those that are “hateful” or “obscene”). You will be able to use the internet for pornography and whatnot, but some sites will be blocked.  Most people will be sated with their illusion of freedom and their consumer goods. Those that aren’t will either be jailed/put on probation for technical regulatory violations or will be given little outlets apart from society as a whole where they can be somewhat free of societal constraints (within reason) without impacting society as a whole (ex. the army). This is essentially the Bonobo Masturbation Society.

I think this is the most likely scenario. This is the Gramscian long march I talked of yesterday. The end game will eventually resemble something like Brave New World. It won’t be hellish; it will actually be somewhat pleasurable, but there will always be that thought in the back of your mind: “isn’t there something more?” and there will always be that edge of emptiness in your life, but, thankfully, the pills and VR will make it barely noticeable.

3) Demographic Violence: As the US economy worsens and people lose their government benefits as it can no longer afford to pay them, various groups will begin to engage in protest and violence. The well-off will separate themselves from it geographically, but the lower and middle classes will be engaged. This violence will take one of three forms: ideological, racial, or generational. Essentially, there will be a long, drawn-out series of riots and low-level violence.  If it’s ideological,it will occur primarily between conservatives and liberals and between fringe groups; it lead to further ideological segregation in society. Racial violence would occur between blacks, latinos, and whites, with Asians caught in the crossfire. Generational violence will occur as seniors protest the death of the social security and medicare they paid for their whole life and the younger victimize the elderly as blame for causing the collapse. Most likely it will be some combination of the three.

There will be violence either way, the question is what level of violence. In this scenario, society still functions, but violence, like the Rodney King Riots, Brehivik, or the English Riots will become much more common. Political protests become more common and often degrade into violence and rioting. This kind of violence will likely accompany any of the other scenarios to varying degrees. Eventually, this sorts itself out politically and economically with reforms or it degrades into revolution or civil war.

4) Revolution: A group revolts and takes control of the government. This could follow demographic violence, replace it, or be a part of it. What kind of society follows will depend on who does the coup.

I think this is highly unlikely. The US is too well-armed and ideologically, ethnically, and regionally divided for any single group to simply have a coup. If a coup occurs, it will most likely result in dissolution and/or civil war.

5) Balkanization and/or Civil War: Due either to demographic violence, revolution, or the reaching of some political or economic tipping point. The US dissolves itself; various states and/or regions balkanize, declare independence, and assert their own governance. This could be peaceful or violent. If done peacefully, it will not be too bad. People will move to whichever region they prefer and there will be some temporary economic and political disruption, but no real long-run problems. If done violently, it could tip into civil war. This could be relatively light war, such as in the books State of Disobedience or Empire, or it could be a major war to rival or surpass the American Civil War.

I think there’s a decent chance of dissolution. Most likely, if it does occur, it will come with some light violence. There will be some riots, a few massacres, and some firefights not really on the level of battles, that will cause the the states agree to dissolve more or less peacefully.

6) A Renewing War: A war in Europe occurs due to similar economic and political collapse. Or a war in Asia due to population imbalances, resource disputes, and ancient grudges. Or a war in the Middle East, because it’s the Middle East. Or a war against Mexico because as the drug war troubles slip out of control into full on civil war, which spills over into the US. Whatever the war, the US becomes involved, and unlike the limited wars of Iraq or Afghanistan, it reaches the level of (near) total war.  The masculine virtues reassert themselves. Unemployment disappears as the war gobbles up all available industry and manpower. Civic virtue and civil society are renewed as people handle the sacrifices of war. Men die en masse and become rarer; society realigns back towards patriarchy as female competition for men increases. Society is forged in the flame and returns renewed and invigorated.

This seems possible. It would also probably follow either #1 or #3 and would be the way past them. (Note: War could occur in other scenarios, but in those scenarios they would not have a renewing effect, it would simply be an adjunct to the rest).

Personally, I think #1 and #2 are the most likely collapse scenarios, with low-levels of scenario three involved in either of them, but none of the others are implausible. What happens depends on the circumstances of the collapse which I can not predict.

****

Any of scenarios #1-5 will result in the end of American hegemony. The US will simply not be able to continue to act as the world police, destabilizing the rest of the world.

Europe will no longer be able to rely on the US’ protection and if the EU dissolves, might become unstable. China will no longer have a check to it’s power in Southeast Asia, while Japan will have to restart it’s own military. India and Pakistan will lose the US’ calming influence. The Middle East will become even more unstable without the US supporting Israel and keeping tabs on the Arab countries. Who knows what will Russia will do.

The UN and NATO will lose their hard power, so international emergency response and nation-building will collapse. The international aid system will collapse without US hegemony protecting it. Africa will become even more unstable than it already is.

The collapse of Pax Americana will have massive repercussions throughout the world and will lead to a large increase in instability and violence.

****

If there are no changes to society as it stands and we continue on our current trajectory, the collapse will occur. What form it may take is an unanswerable question, but a free society not simply survive the combination of massive debt levels, mass dependence on the state, and the dissolution of civic virtue and civil society that is becoming the norm in the West.

But collapse is not inevitable. There’s numerous ways for it to be avoided and the Futurist has outlined a likely path out. All we need is to change the trajectory just enough to delay the collapse long enough for post-scarcity to occur.

47%: The Liberal Goal

Recently, all the big political news has been about Romney’s 47% comments.

It has already been noted that this is true, the vast majority of federal income taxes are paid by the rich, while almost half pay noting. Even liberal “fact-checkers” don’t disagree.

Some liberals quibble that the poor pay comparatively more in payroll taxes, but this is a fallacious comparison, as payroll taxes are specifically designated to social security, unemployment insurance, and medicare. These are not general taxes (or at least shouldn’t be), they are taxed premiums dedicated to providing  insurance and retirement guarantees and should be treated as such. Comparing payroll taxes to general taxation is idiotic.

****

Everybody reading this already knows that a society where more than half the people do not contribute to general taxation and a significant population receive more in government benefits than are contributing can not sustain itself for long. Eventually the ability to pay for bread and circuses collapses.

The US is on it’s way there. 1/16 people are on disability, 1/7 on food stamps, and almost alf of people receive some sort of government benefits. Half of young workers are either unemployed or underemployed. In addition, the government controls about 2/5 of the economy and 1/5 of the employed work for the the government. Almost half of people don’t pay income taxes.  And government  is growing.

That’s not what I want to talk about today. If you can’t figure out why this is unhealthy for society, I’m not quite sure what I could say to convince you.

****

It has also been noted that getting people dependent on government is the liberal strategy and has been the liberal strategy since FDR.

So why are liberals so angry over Romney’s quote, when it’s been their strategy for decades?

For exactly that reason; they do not want people to understand their strategy. Liberalism is the ideology of the state; that is all the various interests that make up liberalism have in common. For a core of elite individuals, the expansion of the state is their reason d’etre. Their purpose is the Gramscian “slow march through culture” to destroy traditional “oppressive” institutions and replace it with the state.

But pointing that the expansion of the state is the goal, harms their ability to expand the state. They can’t come right out and say their purpose in the anglosphere. Englishmen are culturally suspicious of and hostile towards the state and inclined towards classical liberalism or liberal conservatism, with American Englishmen being the most hostile.

Even most liberals do not agree with the end goal of the Gramscian march. They are mostly decent people (ie: the “useful idiots“) who want to help the poor (or some other cause) but are either too lazy, too soft-hearteded, and/or too misinformed to realize the final outcomes of the policies they propose.

So, the left-liberals  can not come out and say their true goals, which is the expansion of the state. So, they cloak their desire to expand the state behind other justifications: keynesian economics, feminism, anti-poverty, anti-racism, the environment, equality, etc.

No matter what justification they use or what problem they say they want to solve, though, the answer is always the same: expand the state.

And the the useful idiots all line up in support.

****

The Gramscian strategy works well. Each time the government expands, it is almost impossible to destroy that expansion in the future, so you only have to take it a bit at a time. A temporary expansion here and a minor intrusion there and eventually the government controls half the economy. As the government takes over more control of life, opportunities to live life outside government decrease. Individuals become increasingly dependent on government at levels they themselves don’t even realize. Eventually, the government becomes the only thing holding society together, however poorly.

The government begins to replace parents, it replaces family, it replaces local charity, it replaces local churches, it replaces local community. Eventually,  it replaces the entirety of civil society.

If you want to see the end state of the Gramscian march, simply look at the black community in the US. Their families are destroyed, most of their children grow up without a father, a large proportion of their males end up criminals, dependence on the state is high, and their civil society is destroyed. The black community has been destroyed by the welfare society government has put onto it.

And guess what, blacks vote almost entirely Democrat, the party that fought for their enslavement and for Jim Crow, just so the state benefits that are destroying them keep flowing.

****

The left- liberal ideologues are intent on forcing the government on you, so that you become dependent on it, so you will support government’s further intrusion into and control of your life. That is and has been their strategy for decades.

They want you dependent.

Romney simply pointed out the results of the strategy. This is why they are attacking him so violently, because once you know that government dependency is, you might ask why it is.
If you ask why it is, you might understand their strategy. Once you understand their strategy, you might resist it.

So, the question is, do you want to be dependent on government as they manipulate you?

Lightning Round – 2012/09/19

SSM comments on the search for the male unicorn. Also, comment of the week.

Elihu studies sex and the Bible. He then tries  attempts to rationalize fornication, but Pode thoroughly rebuts in the comments.
Related: SSM thoroughly studies the matter.
Related: Roissy discovers that abstinence leads to marital happiness.
Related: MGTOW and the Bible.
Related: Another classic MGTOW article. (Link for closed blog).

The psychology of the nanny state.

The insanity of the those dependent on the state.

Bill writes on envy.

Rather than be envious, learn how to succeed.

The failings of conservatives.

University: Sheer nonsense.

A rare moment of truth.
Related: It’s offensive to point out the truth.
Related: It sure is.
Related: 1/16 people is on disability.

The federal debt is designed to keep you in chains.

The finances of a dying superpower.
Related: The foreign policy of a dying superpower. Related.

No one is safe from family court.

The mortgage cops can come for you as well.

Even letting your kids play outside can lead to being jailed.

Krugman’s a jackass.

Speaking of poor economics, the poor are not as poor as assumed.

Most food allergies are fake. Surprising.

Greenpeace should be tried for crimes against humanity.
Related: That’s a nice pic.

Don’t trust “experts“.

(H/T: Maggie’s Farm, the Captain, Instapundit, SDA, Vox)

Anarcho-Monarchism

Over at the Neckbeard Chronicles, I came across the term anarcho-monarchism. This is a very small ideology that doesn’t even have it’s own wiki page and I don’t know much about it, but it really appeals to me.

There’s no big analysis today, just some quotes on it from other sources:

The individual person has the self-evident, God-given rights of life, liberty, and property. These rights are best exercised in a capitalist-libertarian, Stateless society.  However, this does not mean that a form of government and authority is not required.  For any civilized culture, order must be maintained, and thus, authority is indispensable.  But it is essential to understand that there is a difference between the State and authority, and how authority is natural and good, whereas the State is evil and unnecessary.  Natural government and authority only has one purpose: to secure these individual rights.  Acceptable forms of a minimalist government, as laid down by such intellectual giants as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, include traditional monarchies, aristocracies, and republics.  The plan envisioned by the Anti-Federalist Founding Fathers, in which the rule of law is bound upon a Constitutional republican confederation in which there is a strictly limited, weak, and anti-centralistic federal government alongside weakened, yet sovereign, independent states (in the colonial American sense), with respect for jury nullification, peaceful secession, and of Natural Law, is possibly the best man-made governmental system ever devised.  Regardless of the form of government, the objective of good government should be to promote the common good, individualism, liberty, order, and free markets.

This synthesis of anarcho-capitalism with respect for monarchism, Christianity, traditionalist values, and proper authority is what I call ‘Anarcho-Monarchism.’  It is an anti-collectivist, anti-democratic, anti-statist, anti-nationalist, and anti-totalitarian, conservative-libertarian Rightist movement that stresses tradition, responsibility, liberty, virtue, localism, capitalism, civil society and classical federalism, along with familial, religious, regional, and Western identity. It celebrates in the diversity that God has created among man, and believes in the maxim of ‘Universal Rights, Locally Enforced.’

Some may scoff at an attempt to reconcile these influences, but I believe it is quite logical, and indeed absolutely necessary, to synthesize cultural conservatism with radical anti-statist libertarian-anarchism.  I view the modern Nation-State as an unnatural outgrowth of conquest and modernity — not of social contract (the classical liberals were wrong in this regard)— that inevitably foments decivilization and cultural decay as a means toward perpetuating its own parasitical existence at the expense of family, locale, and transcendent spiritual values.  I categorically and fundamentally reject the modern democratic, egalitarian, and majoritarian State in favor of natural libertarian hierarchy, polycentric law, paternalistic society, and private-property anarchism.

An article from First Things:

One can at least sympathize, then, with Tolkien’s view of monarchy. There is, after all, something degrading about deferring to a politician, or going through the silly charade of pretending that “public service” is a particularly honorable occupation, or being forced to choose which band of brigands, mediocrities, wealthy lawyers, and (God spare us) idealists will control our destinies for the next few years.

But a king—a king without any real power, that is—is such an ennoblingly arbitrary, such a tender and organically human institution. It is easy to give our loyalty to someone whose only claim on it is an accident of heredity, because then it is a free gesture of spontaneous affection that requires no element of self-deception, and that does not involve the humiliation of having to ask to be ruled.

The ideal king would be rather like the king in chess: the most useless piece on the board, which occupies its square simply to prevent any other piece from doing so, but which is somehow still the whole game. There is something positively sacramental about its strategic impotence. And there is something blessedly gallant about giving one’s wholehearted allegiance to some poor inbred ditherer whose chief passions are Dresden china and the history of fly-fishing, but who nonetheless, quite ex opere operato, is also the bearer of the dignity of the nation, the anointed embodiment of the genius gentis—a kind of totem or, better, mascot.

As for Tolkien’s anarchism, I think it obvious he meant it in the classical sense: not the total absence of law and governance, but the absence of a political archetes—that is, of the leadership principle as such. In Tolkien’s case, it might be better to speak of a “radical subsidiarism,” in which authority and responsibility for the public weal are so devolved to the local and communal that every significant public decision becomes a matter of common interest and common consent. Of course, such a social vision could be dismissed as mere agrarian and village primitivism; but that would not have bothered Tolkien, what with his proto-ecologist view of modernity.

And from another site:

Philosophically speaking, anarchism has a strong anti-democratic tradition that, far from seeing anarchism as being democracy carried to its logical conclusion, is actually far closer to being instead aristocracy universalised. Monarchy can be reinvented as a concept to serve a distinctively libertarian ethos, if one can see in the monarch a symbol of sovereignty that is reflected in the absolute sovereignty of the free individual. The word ‘king’ is derived from the word ‘kin’ – so kingship denotes kinship, the king or queen being a symbolic guardian of the people’s freedom and self-determination. Thus handed down generation to generation, the monarch carries the genetic inheritance of the people in a bond of mutual co-inherence. This is beautifully and poetically proclaimed in the tradition of British mythology that refers to King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail, in that the concept of kingship that is envisaged in the Arthurian mythos is interpreted as one of service and humility towards the people whom one ‘rules’. A similar theme is found in the Christian Gospels where Jesus says to his disciples ‘Whoever shall be considered the greatest, let him first become the least and the servant of all.’ (And in this mythological context, Christ is the fulfilment of all archetypes such as Arthur, as well as the indigenous British and Norse mystery traditions such as druidism and Odinism in particular.) The scriptures appear to suggest that at the end of time Christ will abdicate his throne, having maintained a reign so beneficent that all humanity is brought into such a state of spiritual perfection that the need for restraints and for government vanishes (1 Cor Ch. 15 vv. 24-28) – an eschatological realisation that transcends kingship and monarchy into an enlightened theocratic anarchy.

The most contemporary proponent of anarcho-monarchy has to be the fantasy novelist J. R. R. Tolkien, whose book Lord of the Rings has become the international best-seller of the century. Concerning his political leanings Tolkien said: ‘My political opinions lean more and more to anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control, not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional monarchy’. Further on, he said some years later: ‘I am not a ‘socialist’ in any sense – being averse to ‘planning’ (as must be plain) – most of all because the ‘planners’ when they acquire power become so bad.’

‘Middle Earth’, the imaginary world Tolkien created, was based on north European mythology; it functioned as what Tolkien himself described as ‘a half-republic, half-aristocracy’ – a sort of municipal decentralised democracy (as opposed to a representative democracy) based in a holistic conception of the integrity of the local place and idiom. The emphasis in Tolkien of tendencies towards some kind of hierarchy, however libertarian, and of self-government only being consistent with kinship and loyalty to a particular place, has made Lord of the Rings popular and required reading amongst the radical-decentralist right.

Lord of the Rings is having a profound influence on the contemporary green and environmental movements in that, seen in our present historical context, it provides a coherent and inspirational critique of the modernist unholy trinity of state power, capital and technology. (For an excellent book on this very subject and more see Defending Middle-Earth – Tolkien: Myth and Modernity by Patrick Curry, Harper Collins 1998.) Tolkien, with keen prophetic insight, foresaw that at the close of this millennium the struggle for humanity and nature would be between the diversity of local distinctiveness, place, identity, and culture against the globalist unity and monoculture that turns everywhere into the same place. Also, it turns everyone into the same person with the same status as a passive ‘consumer’, where once they may have been an active citizen or ‘member of the public’.

Something to look into.

Free John McNeil

Here is a story of a travesty of justice committed against a black man named John McNeil who was defending himself in his own home. It comes from a liberal website (the Root is an off-shoot of Slate dedicated to black issues).

In this article, the Root (not to mention the NAACP)  defends the castle doctrine, defends the right to self-defence, and even talks somewhat positively about the NRA and gun ownership. The Root, as is typical of a liberal website, has generally been hard on gun ownership and self-defence. Even though they reject “stand your ground” in the article, it is a less vehement rejection than is normal and it is somewhat amazing that liberals are even defending the castle doctrine at all.

It seems Salon, another left-wing website, had an article about this a few months back, where they also seem to almost support the castle doctrine.

Check out this other article from the Root asking why the NRA is not supporting the self-defence and firearms rights of a women who fired a warning shot. That is a good question, why isn’t the NRA on this?

Lovers of liberty should note these articles, they present a great opportunity to promote gun freedoms. Those who value freedom and firearms should be all over the cases of those like John McNeil.

From this article, it seems that, at least for the Root, black liberals will side with race over ideology. If we bring this story (and similar stories) to the front we can score a major victory for self-defence rights.

Gun control laws originated in historical attempts to oppress and enslave blacks by denying them their freedoms to own firearms and defend themselves and some blacks still recognize the link between freedom and firearms today because of this.

If we push this story (and other similar stories in the future), we can show blacks that gun control laws are not in their best interest, and will be used as tools to oppress them. If this story can get the NAACP (which has fought against gun freedoms in the past) to defend self-defence as per the castle doctrine (even if they still won’t defend “stand your ground”), there is the chance to bring a large portion of the black population into supporting gun and self-defence freedoms.

If we could get a major Democratic voting block arguing for gun freedoms, this could change the entire gun control debate on the left. Imagine liberals and Democrats trying to criticize the NAACP for their position on gun control. Imagine the George Zimmerman controversy again, but with blacks on the pro-freedom side.

Think about it. If we can force the story of John McNeil into the national consciousness, we can force liberals into a quandary: they will be forced to argue (either directly or indirectly) for the legitimate right to self-defence and firearm ownership through the castle doctrine for Patrick McNeil. Either that or they will be forced to go against the NAACP and argue for keeping John McNeil in jail for defending himself and his family.

So, I ask you all to pass around the story of John McNeil. Argue for his self-defence rights. My blog and readership is small, but some of my readers probably have more influence than me, so use that influence to help John McNeil win his freedom and to show the inherent oppression and injustice of gun control and self-defence restrictions.

Free John McNeil.

Evolutionary Psychology, Politics, and Bad Science

Came across a Slate XX article from last week on evolutionary psychology.

The article essentially boils down to: evolutionary psychology research that supports my preconceived biases is good, evolutionary psychology that argues against my ideology is bad.

The article starts with the author complaining about evo-psych, leading into this:

There’s nothing inherently wrong with evolutionary psychology—our thoughts and behaviors have been shaped by millions of years of hominid evolutionary history, and it’s worth studying how natural selection acted on traits that we still express today. But too often, evolutionary psychology is a force for social conservatism.

The reason evolutionary psychology is usually a force for social conservatism, is because social conservatism is the inherited wisdom of thousands of years of adaptation by human society to biological reality.

Evolutionary psychology will inherently be socially conservative, because (true*) social conservatism is inherently about man controlling its biological nature so society can function. (Religious conservatives will refer to man’s “fallen nature” and political philosophers will refer to the “state of nature”, which are the same thing for all practical purposes).

Left-liberalism (from which most of feminism springs) is not about managing the biology of man, it is about using reason and/or morality to overcome the “state of nature” for the benefit of all.

Left-liberalism usually derives from either (or a combination of) Rousseau’s amoral, self-interested, animal-like state of nature or from Marxian ideology where human nature does not exist as a fundamental concept, but comes from social relations and man’s relations to his work. (Conservatives usually work off Hobbes’ violent and warlike state of nature; libertarians and classical liberals generally work off Locke’s  anarchic, fully free state of nature and of war.)

From the Rousseauian state of nature, men come together in cooperation and submit to the general will as designed through a social contract for mutual benefit. By uniting under the social contract a man can be ennobled, and his corruption comes only through failures of the social contract. By bettering the social contract, man may be further ennobled. Under a human nature based on social relations, the improvement of social and economic conditions will lead to an improvement in human nature and behaviour.

Left-liberal thought is essentially about the perfectibility of man through changing social conditions so he can better himself beyond the limitations of human nature.

In social conservative thought man cannot be perfected and will always be controlled by his human nature. His nature can only be constrained by social instructions, but never altered.

This is the essential and primary difference between the two ideologies.

This is political theory 101. If our education system even remotely resembled a traditional classical liberal education, the author would know this.

If she knew this, she would not be arguing against evolutionary psychology (when it supports social conservatism) or for it (when it supports feminist ideology). She would know that her ideology is one where social and economic relations are shaped through cooperation (the general will ) to create a society based on the common good, overcoming the limitations of man in a state of nature.

Know this: evolutionary psychology will always support (true*) social conservatism, because social conservatism is simply the attempt to control the state of nature so society can function.

To the liberal or leftist, this should not matter. Whatever evolutionary psychology will say, it can neither support nor discredit left-liberalism, because left-liberal ideology exists independently of human nature. It exists as an ideology of social relationships overcoming the limitations of human nature (or it simply rejects human nature, and therefore evolutionary psychology outright).

The only way evolutionary psychology can matter, at all, to left-liberal ideology is if it eliminates the possibility that changing social relations can possibly be used to improve mankind’s lot. If this occurs, the entirety of liberal-leftism will be intellectually unsustainable and void of any claim to truth.

In other words, the only way evolutionary psychology can have any impact on the truth claims of left-liberalism is to entirely overthrow it.

By even considering evolutionary psychology’s impact on the truth of ideology, the author is fundamentally undermining her own.

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Researchers identify a pattern of behavior, usually some stereotypical sex difference (in part because it’s easy to measure whether men and women score differently on a standardized test), construct a scenario in which that behavior would have been adaptive in the distant past, and say the behavior is therefore evolutionarily selected and encoded in our genes.
…
It’s tricky to disprove the notion that some human trait is the result of evolution. The logic is circular: if some trait exists, it must not have been fatal to our ancestors and it may have helped them reproduce. To critique a claim of evolutionary privilege, you have to show that the trait has no genetic component and therefore can’t be inherited, or demonstrate that the trait is instilled by culture, not necessarily biology.

Partially correct: it’s impossible to disprove the notion that some human trait is the result of evolution (if it’s genetic in origin).

To show that a trait is not a result of evolution requires that the trait is not genetically based.

If a behaviour is genetic in origin (and is not a random mutation or transcription error, such as Down’s Syndrome, or exceedingly rare/recessive, such as Tay–Sachs) it must have not have been fatal to humans prior to reproduction and, in highest likelihood, either is beneficial to reproduction or is linked to a trait that is beneficial to reproduction.

Any genetic trait is a product of evolution and therefore, evolution must have produced said genetic trait. Any genetic trait evolution produces must have been adaptive; the explanatory reason of why it is adaptive may not be correct, but it is impossible that the trait was not adaptive (or at least not harmful).

It may be somewhat circular, but, if you hold to Darwinian evolution, it is logically necessary. The only way to not accept evolutionary psychology is to deny Darwinian evolution.

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You’re supposed to want someone stronger, smarter, and richer than you. Someone who would sire healthy offspring and protect them from saber-toothed cats on the Pleistocene Epoch savanna.

Not “are supposed to”: “do”.

Evolution (and evolutionary psychology) is not prescriptive, it is descriptive of the large statistical trends of human society.

Just because evolutionary psychology says that something evolved in most humans does not mean you have to follow it (although, you statistically will) and it does not mean it applies in every case (some individuals will always be genetically aberrant and display behaviours and traits outside of what is statistically normal).

This is the kind of logic used by fourth-tier intellects arguing creationism in Youtube comments (IF EVALUTIAN IS RONG, Y U NOT SUPPORT HITLER AND SURVIAL OF TEH FITIST!?! HIPOCRIT!!!… durr). How a middle-brow publication like Slate allows this kind of stupidity through is beyond me. If it was somebody from the Discovery Institute arguing like this, he’d be laughed out of the room.

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The first few paragraphs of her post are complaints about what she believes to be “bad” science in evolutionary psychology. So, what does she list as the study that redeems evolutionary psychology:

And that’s why my favorite paper of the week is “Stepping Out of the Caveman’s Shadow: Nations’ Gender Gap Predicts Degree of Sex Differentiation in Mate Preferences.” Marcel Zentner and Klaudia Mitura of the University of York, U.K., asked more than 3,000 people in 10 countries what they valued in a mate. On a four-point scale, people rated the importance of various qualities: chastity, ambition, financial prospects, good looks, etc.—all identified by Buss and his likeminded peers as being qualities that only men or only women are evolutionarily predisposed to seek out.

Wonderful. A self-selected internet survey based on self-identified preferences somehow overturns all the carefully designed studies using brain scans, monitoring of biological functions, priming, and so on that support the conclusions of evolutionary psychology. That’s some good science.

The researchers used a World Economic Forum measure of gender equality to rank the 10 countries as (a) relatively gender-equal, (b) backwards but improving, or (c) screamingly sexist (my  terms, not theirs). And the results were clear: The more egalitarian the country, the less likely men and women were to value traditional qualities that Buss and co. believe to be innate. In Germany, women said they’d very much like a man who is a good housekeeper. In Finland, men were more likely than women to prefer a mate a bit smarter than themselves. In the United States, women ranked chastity as more important than men did. At the other end of the scale, in Turkey and South Korea, women wanted mates with good financial prospects and men valued good cooks.

Essentially, the survey finds that when asked about sensitive and potentially controversial topics over the internet, a self-selected group of people will give strangers the socially-approved answer. Thank you Slate for pointing out this stunning observation.

In case your sarcasm detector is malfunctioning, the study is complete and utter crap and drawing any conclusions about evolutionary biology from it is idiotic.

As the manosphere says repeatedly and consistently, look at what people do, not what they say.

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So, in conclusion, this article is mostly bunk. It’s a mishmash of a person’s ignorance of her own ideological underpinnings, wishful thinking, fourth-rate logic, and a person determining “good” science based on her own ideological biases.

In other words, it’s typical feminism.

****

* I say true social conservatism, because a fair amount of what we call social conservatism now, is simply the repackaged liberalism of the last century. Actual social conservatives would generally be called paleo-conservatives. ie: Being against gay marriage, but believing in marriage for love does not a social conservative make, it only makes a liberal who doesn’t like homosexual marriage; to be a social conservative requires a traditional view of marriage as an economic, sexual, and (possibly) religious relationship based around the creation and raising of children.

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.

****

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.

****

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.

****

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

Lightning Round – 2012/08/29

Patheos discovers the fruits of feminism and they don’t like it.
Related: Feminists should not lie to young women.
Related: HUS also responds to the Rosin piece that started all this.
Related: The hollow fruits of feminism.

Religion makes you beta. Not overly surprising, given the state of modern churchianity.

Masculinity and civilization.

The Red Pill for the manosphere: Each man must decide which is more important, love or sex.

If you marry, marry someone with a low partner count.

So, your parent’s divorcing decreases your life span by 5 years.
Related: “Parental divorce during childhood was the single strongest social predictor of early death.”
Related: The causes of divorce.

O’Rourke on the baby boomers. Excellent like most of O’Rourke’s stuff.

The real war is on children, not on women.

UMan provides a lessons on what girls like.

Cane with a some great satire on his previous Christian game debate.
Related: More on last week’s Christian game debate.
Related: SCA enters the Christian game debate with an excellent post.
Related: Vox advices has a Christian convert to game.

Why don’t men just get it?

Eye contact is important.

How not to be a racist: hehe.

A great piece on marriage.

Let’s have more teen pregnancy.

Why boys don’t read.

As a conservative who also listens to Rage Against the Machine, I found this to be very interesting.

Once you sell your soul once, it’s easy to sell it again.

Atheists demonstrate their open-mindedness.

And yet the socialists still want to have the government control the US’ and Canada’s resource industry. How stupid can they be?
Related: Socialized medicine in action.

I can’t believe that it took 7 years to find that standing in front of a bulldozer like an idiot makes you responsible for your own death. Stupid crusaders.

The former editor of the NYT admits to the NYT’s bias. Will wonders never cease?
Related: Jonathan Chait also admits to media bias.
Related: The leftist media enforces their bias.

Surprisingly, the NYT writes critically of single-motherhood. Unsurprisingly, the lack of “marriageable men” is blamed.
Related: A personal response by someone raised by a single mother.

Hey, slutwalkers…

This is the mainstream article of the week. Read it; it’s awesome satire and highly enjoyable. It’s got all the feminists, and other assorted idiots against it.
Related: Romney sounds like a decent fellow. Between this and the previous piece (read it) I think I might be coming to actually like Romney.
Related: The people who will be deciding the election. Oh my…
Related: The GOP does something right. Oh, yeah.

Student loans are a cancer.

To liberals, the real conservatives are the centrists.

The war on dihydrogen monoxide.

Paul Krugman is wrong? I think it would be more newsworthy if he was actually right.

(H/T: GL Piggy, Troglopundit, Maggie’s Farm, Althouse, Instapundit)

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).