The leftist mayor of one of our most crime-ridden cities demanded police protection en route to a demonstration at which she joined in the vilification of the police.
Category: Current Affairs
The Fix We Are In: How Should We Respond to the ‘Woke’ Revolutionaries?
The difference between paleo-liberal and post-liberal responses to the 'woke' Left is well described in a recent Substack entry White tribalism is a third response. I have been entertaining (with some hospitality) the notion that whites may need to go tribal pro tempore, for the time being, in order to defend themselves and their interests (which are not just their interests but the interests of civilization and high culture) against the various tribalisms promoted by the Left. Call it Tribalism Pro Tem.
But so far my 'official' position on this weblog and elsewhere would fall under the paleo-liberal or classically liberal rubric. As I see it, a sound conservatism, American conservatism I call it, takes on board what is good in classical liberalism. Against Deneen, whose position is limned in the above-linked Substack piece by N. S. Lyons, I would object that there is no inevitability to the slide from the classical liberalism of the Founders, which was respectful of traditions, to a society of atomized, deracinated individuals. I suspect that Deneen succumbs to the classic slippery slope fallacy.
This just over the transom from a reader:
A question for you: It seems like I'm one of the alt-right "tribalists" you take yourself to disagree with. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) But do we really disagree? Let me try to clarify my position a little.I'd be very happy to live in a society where race and other tribal markers don't matter much. They could be a purely personal or social kind of thing with no political meaning.On the other hand, when I look around and see how non-white (etc.) tribalism is being weaponized against white people, and specifically white-Euro-Christian men, it seems to me that we have no practical option other than consciously identifying as the tribe under attack. It's largely a defensive thing. We are being attacked as white people, or white men, so it's not enough to just call ourselves "Americans" or "Canadians" or whatever. Those civic identities have already been deconstructed or rejected by the people who hate us and seek power over us. They just don't care. And others like us are not going to be motivated by appeals to these more abstract categories when their enemies are attacking them for being white, and male.So it's in this (weird) context that I think white men should be conscious and proud of their "tribal" identity, as a healthy and empowering response to the hateful tribalism of others. In a different context I wouldn't advocate this kind of tribalism. Against a society that says it's shameful and immoral to be a white man–which, let's be frank, is what they're really saying–we should affirm that there's nothing wrong with us, that we like ourselves and won't apologize for being who we are.Do you disagree?
I agree with qualifications, caveats, and codicils.
I can't see that a white-tribal or white-male-tribal response to the pernicious tribalisms promoted by the Left is a good solution in the long run. But in the short run I see no acceptable alternative to a pro tempore white tribalism. So I don't disagree with my reader on the practical plane. But as a theist and a personalist, I consider a self-identification as a member of a tribe to be a false self-identification. I am not just an animal of a particular sex and race, and because I am not just that, any self-identification as just that is a false self-identification. I am more than that. And I would add that my life-project is to realize that 'more' and to achieve individuation as a person. This individuation is not a given but a task. It is a spiritual task. This is an existentialist motif expressed in a neo-Kantian way. But this is not the place to expatiate further on this theme.
Who am I ultimately? Just a token of a type? Just an interchangeable member of a particular tribe of animals? You wouldn't have to be a theist to reject this sort of crude self-identification. One could take oneself to be zoon logikon in Aristotle's sense, a rational animal. One could reject God and the soul and still achieve a loftier self-apperception than that of a bit of the Earth's fauna determined by the biological categories of race and sex. Now I accept the biological reality of race and sex: they are not social constructs. 'Society' — whatever that is — did not 'assign' me my male sex upon birth. The very notion is absurd. Nor did any group. Nor can I interpret myself as black or female and thereby bring about a change of race or sex. Race and sex are neither social constructs nor personal constructs. My reality is logically and ontologically antecedent to my self-understanding. Indeed, I am essentially (as opposed to accidentally) Caucasian and male. An essential (accidental) property of a thing is a property that thing cannot (can) exist without.
My interlocutor will probably feel that I am sidestepping the pressing, practical issue by raising the questions that most deeply interest me, namely, those about the metaphysics of the self. He will remind me that I am no Boethius and would have a very hard time investigating the metaphysics of the self in the gulag or under torture. And he would be right to so remind me.
Suppose a black guy gets in my face and attacks my whiteness and all of its values and virtues (objectivity, punctuality, self-control, ability to defer gratification, love of learning, etc.) I will point out that his smart phone would not exist if it were not for the cultural goods produced in the West and the values and virtues just listed. I will point out that no high culture at the level of the West came out of sub-Saharan Africa. I will point out his ingratitude at the thousands that died in the U.S. Civil War to free the slaves. I will remind him that slavery existed on the continent of North America long before the Unites States of America came into existence, and that the moral and philosophical foundations of this polity made possible the elimination of slavery.
And so I would do something I would prefer not to do, namely stick up for the white tribe. And I would do it as long as I had to do it. I would play the role part-time of the pro tem white tribalist. But at the same time that I was playing this role out of a necessity imposed on me ab extra, I would not forget who I am really am. And who is that? Well, there are several options the exploration of which does not belong here. But let me just note that if you are a classical theist you will not take yourself to be identical to an animal slated for utter destruction in a few years determined by your biology.
One more point which I think is very important. I wrote above of whiteness and its values and virtues. But we whites do not own these virtues and values any more than we own the truths of mathematics and natural science. They are universal and belong to all. It is just that whites have proven to be so much better at their discovery, articulation, dissemination, and so much better at living in accordance with them and reaping the benefits from such living. If blacks want to improve their lives, they will have to engage in some serious cultural appropriation, which is not really cultural appropriation given the universality of the virtues and values. They will have to order their lives along the lines of the 'white' virtues and values that they foolishly denigrate.
For the Left, the Subject is not the Subject: Why Math is ‘Racist’
It has often been noted that for the Left, the issue is not the issue. David Horowitz:
As President Obama’s political mentor, Saul Alinsky, put it in Rules for Radicals: “One acts decisively only in the conviction that all of the angels are on one side and the devils are on the other.” Here is another statement from Rules for Radicals: “We are always moral and our enemies always immoral.” The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the immorality of the opposition, of conservatives and Republicans. If they are perceived as immoral and indecent, their policies and arguments can be dismissed, and even those constituencies that are non-political or “low-information” can be mobilized to do battle against an evil party. (emphasis added)
"The issue is never the issue." The issue is the gaining and maintaining of power so as to "fundamentally transform America." For example, if leftists (Democrats in U. S. politics) were really concerned about the spread of COVID-19, they would not open the borders to illegal aliens as the Biden administration has now done. Whatever concern they have about the spread of disease is trumped by considerations of how the problem can be exploited to enhance their power. Power first, public health second, if that. Never let a crisis go to waste; that is, never let it go unexploited for ideological leverage. And now a further step left: never let a crisis end.
It occurred to me the other day that something structurally similar explains the absurd claim that mathematics is racist. No one believes this, not even the most febrile of leftists, just as no one believes that a serious health crisis will be unaffected by allowing disease-carrying illegal aliens to flow into the country in great numbers unchecked and unvetted.
So why do so many on the Left say that math is racist? Because the subject is not the subject. The subject is not mathematics, a discipline about as far removed from ideological taint as can be imagined, but the supposed 'systemic racism' of American society. There is no such thing, of course, but no matter: invocation of this nonexistent state of affairs is useful for the promotion of the leftist agenda just as he inefficacy of masks and the uselessness and outright deleteriousness of lock-downs is no reason not to make use of masks and lock-downs and draconian rules to further the destruction of the American republic as she was founded to be.
David Gordon Reviews Michael Anton’s America at the Point of No Return
Anton notes that the founders believed that the American Revolution was grounded in universal truths, “but they did not expect their declaration to revolutionize the world—nor were they under any illusion that it, or they, had the power to do so….America is—in the words of John Quincy Adams—‘the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all’ but also ‘the champion and vindicator only of her own.’”
Those who wish to restore these principles face a challenge of unprecedented severity. Anton argues that an elite based in certain blue states disdains ordinary Americans. “The core message of the meta-Narrative is that America is fundamentally and inherently racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, and so on. The flaws and sins of America derive directly from those of its founding stock, who are natural predators, inherently racist, and malevolent.”
Elite policy is at its worst in California, now under the near-total domination of the left wing of the Democratic Party. “In modern California, hypocrisy and double-standardism aren’t merely part of the business climate; they’re endemic to the whole society….Sam Francis dubbed this system ‘anarcho-tyranny’: complete freedom—even exemption from the gravest laws—for the favored, maximum vindictive enforcement against the pettiest infractions on the disfavored.” Anton fears that if President Trump isn’t reelected, the Democrats will seek actively to suppress whomever in the red states challenges them, and they will prove very difficult to dislodge from power.
Who are the ordinary Americans the elite disdains, and who are the elite? The ordinary Americans are those whom Hillary Clinton called “deplorables,” i.e., white males who value their family, their religion, and their property, including their guns. “Funny thing, too: a core tenet of modern liberalism is supposed to be the sanctity of ‘one man, one vote.’ Except, you know, not really. The barely concealed presupposition of denouncing Republicans as ‘racists’ simply because whites vote for them is that all votes are not created equal. Votes of color are morally superior to white votes, which are inherently tainted. Which is why the left holds any election won by a Republican to be morally if not (yet) politically illegitimate.”
The elite consists at its core of wealthy financiers and business interests allied with government. It is buttressed by professionals who have attended top universities, especially those of the Ivy League. In a way that readers of Hunter Lewis on “crony capitalism” will recognize, Anton writes: “So-called ‘public-private cooperation’ will increase. This benign-sounding phrase—who could object to ‘cooperation,’ to government and business ‘solving problems together’? —masks a darker reality. What it really describes is the use of state power to serve private ends, at private direction. Hence foreign policy…will be further reoriented around securing trade, tax, and labor ‘migration’ patterns and paradigms that benefit finance and big business.”
If elite dominance continues, Anton predicts that those of us who dissent will be rigidly restricted. “Free speech as we have known it—as our founders insisted was the bedrock of political rights, without which self-government is impossible—will not survive coming leftist rule. The playbook is already being expanded to include banking and credit. Getting on the wrong side of elite-woke opinion is increasingly to find oneself locked out of the financial system: no bank account, no credit card, no ability to get a loan or pay a mortgage. Pay cash? The move to a ‘cashless society’…will obviate that option right quick.”
Anton cites an especially chilling instance of the policy of suppression. “A new regulation in the United Kingdom—which we must assume will be proposed here sooner or later—would allow Britain’s National Health Service to deny non-emergency care to those deemed ‘racist, sexist, or homophobic.’ Government bureaucrats, naturally, will be the ones doing the deeming.” Small wonder that Anton has had enough.
The author seems to me misguided in what he says about “industrial policy,” but I’ll pass over that in silence. He criticizes Murray Rothbard who suggested that the principle of secession has no logical stopping point, down to the level of each person. Anton says, “Every-man-a-government-unto himself is literally Hobbes’s ‘state of nature,’ yet Rothbard appears to approve.” This rests on a misunderstanding: it hardly follows that if you have a right to secede that you will in fact do so, and Rothbard did not favor a world of one-person “nations.” Also, Anton doesn’t understand John Rawls very well.
But enough of criticism. Anton’s rhetorical talents are remarkable, and I urge everyone to read his book.
George Will and Other ‘Conservative’ Castrati Back Biden
Trump Delivers Once Again and Ends AFFH
This is a major victory against the Left. Stanley Kurtz:
I am pleased to report that President Trump and Secretary Carson have together put an end to the Obama-Biden administration’s wildly radical Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule. President Trump has delivered on this issue in a way that will preserve American liberty in general, and the freedom and self-government of America’s suburbs in particular.
Perhaps you saw Kurtz on Life, Liberty, and Levin last night. An impressive guest on the best political show on TV.
Red Bull ‘Wokesters’ Purged
Here:
Red Bull just reminded their ‘wokest’ employees who calls the shots in a total massacre of “social justice warrior” employees.
Not only were the top two North American executives fired, but so were entire marketing teams and “culture” teams that were dedicated to pushing the lie of systemic racism.
Red Bull has just shown the way forward for all who want to prevent a total Marxist-style takeover of business and government in America. There is no appeasing these people, the only way forward is to fire them as quickly as possible, and with no mercy. Err on the side of firing everyone, if need be.
What this country needs, at every level of society, academia, and government, is a total and complete purge of ‘woke’ revolutionaries, before the blood starts running in the streets.
A step in the right direction. To fire is better than to fire upon.
Democrat-Run Cities: The Case for Letting them Burn to the Ground
Marc Thiessen presents, without endorsing, the case for allowing the social experiment in lawlessness to proceed:
Trump declared that enough is enough and that he and Attorney General William P. Barr will soon unveil a plan to “to straighten things out.” But maybe he shouldn’t. The genius of our federal system is that states and localities serve as what the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called laboratories of democracy that can “try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” Right now, many of America’s cities are conducting social experiments in lawlessness, showing the rest of the country what happens when local leaders join calls to “defund the police” and cower in the face of violence.
There is an argument for just letting those experiments play out. After all, we are told elections have consequences. Well, the people in those cities voted for weak Democratic mayors and city council members. Maybe if they experience the consequences of incompetent Democratic leadership, they’ll do what New Yorkers did in the 1990s and vote in tough-on-crime Republicans to restore law and order.
Or they can move. As Milton Friedman explained in “Capitalism and Freedom,” the beauty of our system of dispersed power is that, “if I do not like what my local community does … I can move to another local community. … If I do not like what my state does, I can move to another. [But] if I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.” In recent years, growing numbers of Americans quit high-tax blue states such as California for low-tax red states like Texas. If disastrous fiscal policies can spark this kind of migration, maybe disastrous policing policies will do the same.
Of course, the counterargument is: What about the people in Portland, Seattle and other cities where violence is out of hand who did not vote for feckless Democrats? Why should they be subjected to violence? Moreover, although wealthier residents may be able to pick up and leave, the poorer citizens of these cities who depend on social assistance and public housing don’t have the resources to do so. And what about small business owners who have poured their life savings into enterprises that have been looted and vandalized? If they pick up and leave, they lose everything.
It’s unfair to leave these Americans defenseless. And it’s arguably the president’s responsibility to do something about it.
When I consult my inner Black Shirt, I am inclined to favor a massive and merciless Federal crackdown on the enemies of civilization. Criminals are emboldened when they get away with their crimes. Priceless artifacts of our cultural heritage are being destroyed before our eyes, and it will only get worse if the miscreants aren't stopped with whatever brutality is necessary. But then I remind myself of the articles I have written favoring federalism. Let the fools in blue states and leftist-dominated cities run their social experiments! Amendment X of the U. S. Constitution:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.
It's a nice little political aporia we've got going here. States rights? Or Big Daddy applying the rod of discipline to the likes of morons such as Lori 'I need a haircut' Lightfoot (Chicago), Jenny 'Summer of Love' Durkan (Seattle), and Comrade Bozo de Blasio (New Dork City), to mention just three.
But in the end we must look to our own health, well-being, and virtue. The Founders understood that it is the virtue of the people that is the ultimate support of the Republic. What can an individual do? Speak out, if you can muster the civil courage to do so in the teeth of the vicious anti-free-speech cancel-cultural Left. Vote, but never for any Democrat. And don't throw away your vote on unelectable third-party losertarian jokers. Defund or rather don't fund the Left, including the Roman Catholic Church and almost all universities. Vote with your feet and with your wallet. Lay in a righteous supply of tools of survival. Home-school your children. Build vast hard-copy libraries to keep high culture safe from the barbarians. Buy gold and that other precious metal, Pb.
Look to the future, both here below, and beyond time's horizon. Hope for the best; prepare for the worst. Be of good cheer and keep yourself in shape in mind and body. Long live the Republic!
Chess is Racist!
Not only is chess racist, it is also sexist and patriarchal. The fact that the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board proves nothing to the contrary. The powers allowed to the Queen are in truth nothing more than so many sops thrown to the feminists to keep them quiet.
The sexism and patriarchalism of chess is proven by the dignity afforded to the King.
Wherein resides the dignity of the King? At every time in every possible game, the King is on the board. He cannot be captured: he never leaves the board while the game is on. He may be checked and checkmated; he is never captured. His royal consort, however, must submit to sacrifice, and is sacrificed gladly in the most beautiful of games. She has no dignity unto herself; she is but a means, nothing more than an overgrown pawn, and in some cases an ambitious upstart who has clawed her way to the eighth rank with the determination of a Hillary. She must die, when called upon, for the glory of His Majesty.
Another proof that chess is racist and oppressive and ought to be banned is that blacks are woefully under-represented among its players. This evil can have only one explanation: racist suppression of black players. For everyone knows that blacks as a group are the equals of whites as a group in respect of intelligence, interest in chess, and the sorts of virtues needed to play the undemocratic and reactionary 'Royal Game.' Among these are the ability to study hard, defer gratification, and keep calm in trying situations.
For these and many other reasons, we must DEMAND that chess be banned.
We must manifest solidarity with our oppressed Taliban brothers who have maintained, truly, that chess is an evil game of chance.
It is therefore most heartening to read that chess has been banned in some places in America. May this trend continue as we march forward, ever stronger, together to the land of social justice where there are no winners and no losers.
RELATED: 'Cancel culture' out to cancel chess!
Yet another proof that there is nothing so stupid and destructive that a 'liberal' won't support it.
When the Crunch Comes, Who is Important?
My man Hanson:
In a sophisticated society under lockdown, is it more existentially valuable to know how to fix a toilet, replace a circuit breaker, or change a tire, or to be a New York fashion designer, a Hollywood actor, or a corporate merger lawyer? At 9 p.m., when you go downtown in need of a critical prescription, are you really all that furious that a law-abiding citizen who has a gun and concealed [carry] permit is also in line—or would you be more relieved that gun control laws might ensure that his ilk never enters an all-night pharmacy?
Peter Hitchens on the Shutdown in Britain
R. R. Reno, Questioning the Shutdown
The Chinese Virus Wake-Up Call
Good will come of the current pandemic. People will learn how to be more self-reliant and less reliant on government. They will learn how to prepare for emergencies. They will learn how to slow down, prepare their own meals, stay home, travel less, read books, be more thoughtful and introspective, repair things, and anally cleanse without toilet paper. (No, I am not advocating a return to the Roman tersorium!) They will finally learn some life skills. Or so I hope.
But most important: we are now in a position as a nation to learn not to rely on enemies for our well-being. I now hand off to John Moody:
For instance, with China’s economy still reeling from the economic impact of the disease, maybe it’s time for America to rethink our insane over-dependence on China for everything from clothes, to computers, to smart-phones, to even the medicines we need to combat corona—which, despite politically correct howls to remain mute about it, started in China!
Yes, China makes things cheaper than Americans choose to make these days. Yes, China, when it is not busy imprisoning political dissidents and stealing our technology, has made huge advances in its manufacturing capabilities. And yes, it has proven to be a trading partner that takes advantage of us, but keeps pumping out the cheap consumer goods Americans love nearly as much as their freedom.
Attention, America: that freedom is at risk. The massive shutdown of China’s industrial output in response to the corona scourge has demonstrated just how thoroughly we have outsourced our manufacturing might in the name of saving a few bucks.
The leftist scum who are attempting to use the current crisis to attack President Trump are attacking the very man who alone has the courage to oppose the globalist, borderless madness.
SOTU #3: President Trump in Fine Form
Donald J. Trump did a great job with his third State of the Union address last night. He took the high ground and demonstrated that he can rise to the occasion when necessary. He made no mention of his impeachment by the House or his expected acquittal by the Senate which will be fait accompli by the end of today. There was also no mention of the Democrats, their witch hunts, or their obstructionism. He cleaved to the positive the whole time, listing his many accomplishments, both domestic and foreign. Promises made; promises kept; Nancy wept. Or rather grimaced.
45 sounded all the right notes on the rule of law, sanctuary jurisdictions, illegal immigration, socialism, abortion, religious liberty, and Second Amendment rights. He said the things that need saying, the very things that Milque-Toast Mitt and the rest of the go-along-to-get-along Republican pseudo-cons are afraid to say. He offended all the right people, including Speaker Pelosi behind him and, to his right, the pouting and sullen girly-girl House Democrats all in white as they were last year, putting their female tribalism on display.
The Orange Man continued in the tradition inaugurated by the great Ronald Reagan in 1982 by honoring ordinary citizens. (Do you remember Lenny Skutnick, who plunged into the icy Potomac to rescue an Air Florida flight victim, and was honored in 1982 by Reagan?)
But the high point of the accolades was President Trump's bestowal of the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Rush Limbaugh who was recently diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Limbaugh is the prime mover behind conservative talk radio which intellectually obtuse and morally defective 'liberals' insist on calling 'hate radio' thereby demonstrating their failure to grasp the distinction between hate and dissent and the important role dissent plays in a healthy republic.
This blogger enjoyed the 70 or so minute speech immensely. His enjoyment was marred only by his having to look at Nancy Pelosi making faces, chewing her dentures, and looking like the dingbat she is.
And did you notice how, at the end of the speech, Pelosi tore her copy of the speech transcript in half in front of the whole country? What a nasty, passive-aggressive joke she is! She will end her career on a very sad note. And it will be quite a moral struggle for this blogger to contain his Schadenfreude.
Poem of the Day
THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
by Rudyard Kipling
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.
Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.
Elizabeth Warren: “That’s not Who We Are!”
This stock leftist exclamation, silly as it is, is sillier still coming from the mouth of the Cherokee Maiden, Fauxcahontas herself, who doesn't know who she is!