Social and Political Philosophy – Page 6

An Oligarchic Pathocracy

That may well be what we have going in the good old USA at present. You decide.

Oligarchy: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes. (Merriam-Webster)

Pathocracy: "A system of government . . . wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people." (Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism, Red Pill Press, 2022, p. 195.)

What are some characteristics of normal people? Normal people understand and can explain the difference between men and women. Normal people grasp instantly the unfairness of allowing biological males to compete in female sporting events. Normal people understand that "Words mean things" (Rush Limbaugh) and must not be hijacked to Left coast destinations. Normal people have moral sense enough to know that it is wrong to lie in the manner of Joe Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas and the rest of the pathocrats in control of the country. Normal people understand that 'equity' is a sham construct designed to elide the self-evident distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

From the Pathocracy Blog:

Pathocracy

from Greek pathos, “feeling, pain, suffering”; and kratos, “rule”

A totalitarian form of government in which absolute political power is held by a psychopathic elite, and their effect on the people is such that the entire society is ruled and motivated by purely pathological values.

A pathocracy can take many forms and can insinuate itself covertly into any seemingly just system or ideology. As such it can masquerade under the guise of a democracy or theocracy as well as more openly oppressive regimes.

Characteristics

1. suppression of individualism and creativity.
2. impoverishment of artistic values.
3. impoverishment of moral values; a social structure based on self-interest and one-upmanship, rather than altruism.
4. fanatical ideology; often a corrupted form of a valid viable ‘trojan’ ideology which is perverted into a pathological form, bearing little resemblance to the substance of the original.
5. intolerance and suspicion of anyone who is different, or who disagrees with the state.
6. centralized control.
7. widespread corruption.
8. secret activities within government, but surveillance of the general population. (In contrast, a healthy society would have transparent government processes, and respect for privacy of the individual citizen).
9. paranoid and reactionary government.
10. excessive, arbitrary, unfair and inflexible legislation; the power of decision making is reduced/removed from the citizens’ everyday lives.
11. an attitude of hypocrisy and contempt demonstrated by the actions of the ruling class, towards the ideals they claim to follow, and towards the citizens they claim to represent.
12. controlled media, dominated by propaganda.
13. extreme inequality between the richest and poorest.
14. endemic use of corrupted psychological reasoning such as paramoralisms, conversive thinking and doubletalk.
15. rule by force and/or fear of force.
16. people are considered as a ‘resource’ to be exploited (hence the term “human resources”), rather than as individuals with intrinsic human worth.
17. spiritual life is restricted to inflexible and indoctrinare schemes. Anyone attempting to go beyond these boundaries is considered a heretic or insane, and therefore dangerous.
18. arbitrary divisions in the population (class, ethnicity, creed) are inflamed into conflict with one another.
19. suppression of free speech – public debate, demonstration, protest.
20. violation of basic human rights, for example: restriction or denial of basic life necessities such as food, water, shelter; detainment without charge; torture and abuse; slave labour.

Which Side Are You On?

I have criticized Rod Dreher and others for "floating above the fray," for trying to be objective and impartial in those practical situations in which immediate action is required and in which the requisite action is impeded by the otherwise laudable attempt to arrive at the objective truth of the situation.

"Can't you see that failing to support Donald J. Trump, the only one on our side willing and able to achieve results, aids and abets the political enemy?" "Can't you grasp that politics is a practical enterprise?" "Are you incapable of distinguishing between political theory and political practice?" "The very survival of the Republic is at stake and you want to wait around for the perfect conservative candidate?" "You are letting the unattainable best become the enemy of the achievable good!" "What is wrong with you, man, which side are you on?"

But now I need to examine whether I myself am being consistent on the Ukraine question. I have criticized those who attack and indeed smear Tucker Carlson and others as 'Putin supporters.' Am I not "floating above the fray" when I try to understand the current Ukraine horror and how it came about and how it could have been avoided? Am I not aiding and abetting a vicious aggressor when I credit Carlson et al. with insights worth pondering? Which side am I on here? Does not my attempt at being fair and balanced have the effect of aiding Vlad the Aggressor? Should I take the Dick Morris line against Tucker Carlson?

When we examine our consciences — a salutary practice to be enacted on a daily basis — we sometimes in all justice must acquit ourselves of the charges we bring against ourselves. And so it seems to me in this case. There is an important difference.

As an American citizen I have a strong interest in the preservation of the Republic and the defense of all that makes it what it is, including its borders. Threats to it are threats to me and my way of life, the life of the philosopher who is committed to free speech, open inquiry, and the pursuit of truth I do not have the same interest in the defense of Ukraine and its borders. This is not to say that the USA should not help Ukraine defend itself. It is to insist on the principle, Country First. A special case thereof is America First. Let us review what this means.

It does not mean that the USA ought to be first over other countries, dominating them. It means that every country has the right to prefer itself and its own interests over the interests of other countries. We say 'America first' because we are Americans; the Czechs say or ought to say 'Czech Republic first.' The general principle is that every country has a right to grant preference to itself and its interests over the interests of other countries while respecting their interests and right to self-determination. America First is but an instance of the general principle. The principle, then, is Country First. If I revert to America First, that is to be understood as an instance of Country First.

So America First has nothing to do with chauvinism which could be characterized as a blind and intemperate patriotism, a belligerent and unjustified belief in the superiority of one's own country. America First expresses an enlightened nationalism which is obviously compatible with a sober recognition of national failings. Germany has a rather sordid history; but Germany First is compatible with a recognition of the wrong turn that great nation took during a well-known twelve-year period (1933-1945) in her history.

An enlightened nationalism is distinct from nativism inasmuch as the former does not rule out immigration. By definition, an immigrant is not a native; but an enlightened American nationalism accepts immigrants who accept American values, which of course are not the values of the Left or of political Islam.

An enlightened nationalism is not isolationist. What it eschews is a fruitless meddling and over-eager interventionism. It does not rule out certain necessary interventions when they are in our interests and in the interests of our allies.

So America First is not to be confused with chauvinism or nativism or isolationism.

America First is as sound an idea as that each family has the right to prefer its interests over the interests of other families. If my wife becomes ill, then my obligation is to care for her and expend such financial resources as are necessary to see to her welfare. If this means reducing my charitable contributions to the local food bank, then so be it. Whatever obligations I have to help others 'ripple out' from myself as center, losing claim to my attention the farther out they go, much like the amplitude of waves caused by a rock's falling into a pond diminishes the farther from the point of impact. Spouse and/or children first, then other family members, then old friends, then new friends, then neighbors, and so on.

The details are disputable, but not the general principle. The general principle is that we are justified in looking to our own first.

The main obligation of a government is to protect and serve the citizens of the country of which it is the government. It is a further question whether it has obligations to protect and benefit the citizens of other countries. That is debatable. But if it does, those obligations are trumped by the main obligation just mentioned. I should think that a great nation such as the USA does well to engage in purely humanitarian efforts such as famine relief. Such efforts are arguably supererogatory.

One implication of Country First is that an immigration policy must be to the benefit of the host country. The interests of the members of the host country supersede the interests of the immigrants. Obviously, there is no blanket right to immigrate. Obviously, potential immigrants must be vetted and must meet certain standards. Obviously, no country is under any obligation to accept subversive elements or elements who would work to undermine the nation's culture. Obviously, obviously, obviously — but not to the destructive leftists who have hijacked the Democrat Party and have installed a puppet to do their bidding.

Suppose you disagree with the enlightened nationalism I am sketching. What will you put in its place? If you are not a nationalist, what are you? Some sort of internationalist or cosmopolitan. But the notion of being a citizen of the world is empty since there is no world government and never will be. What could hold it together except the hegemony of one of the nations or a coalition of nations ganging up on the others?

The neocons tried to press America and it values and ways upon the world or upon the Middle Eastern portion thereof. The neocon mistake was to imagine that our superior system of government could be imposed on benighted and backward peoples riven by tribal hatreds and depressed by an inferior religion. The folly of that should now be evident. One cannot bomb the benighted into Enlightenment.

Leftist internationalists want to bring the world to America thereby diluting and ultimately destroying our values. The mistake of the multi-culti cultural Marxists is to imagine that comity is possible without commonality, that wildly diverse sorts of people can live together in peace and harmony. Or at least that is one mistake of the politically correct multi-cultis.

So the way forward is enlightened nationalism. Trump understands this in his intuitive and inarticulate way. The Never-Trumpers do not. Their brand of yap-and-scribble, inside-the-Beltway, bow-tied, pseudo-conservatism puts a premium on courtly behavior and gentlemanly debate that is an end in itself and rarely issues in ameliorative action. The people, however, demand action.

Which side are you on?

Christianity and Individualism

Mark Tooley:

Easter is a timely reminder of Christianity’s development of individualism, which is now widely derided by many on both sides of the political spectrum.

Yes.

Many on the post-liberal left replace individualism, which they equate with greed and capitalism, with raucous identity politics stressing communal identities based on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or some other category of victim group. Many on the post-liberal right disdain individualism as self-centered autonomous materialist hedonism disconnected from family, religion and community, degenerating into endless categories of personal expressivism. They propose hierarchy, tradition and subordination to institutions as alternatives.

That's right.

Easter is the supreme example of extraordinary, supernatural inspired individualism. Jesus the individual, as God Incarnate, redeemed the whole world through His suffering, death and resurrection. He was shunned by all, His people, His followers, His family, yet He sacrificially prevailed against all sin, death and hell. Humanity was not saved by the collective but by one individual.

Jesus is the exemplar of the anti-tribal whether you accept his divinity or not. But isn't the God of the Old Testament a tribal god, the god of the Jews who sticks up for them and smites their enemies? Maybe so, but God himself is not a member of the tribe of gods. In himself, God is anti-tribal. His identity is not a tribal identity. If we are made in his image and likeness, then we are meant to be individuals too. Normative individuality is pre-delineated in our divine origin. In simpler terms, God made us to be individuals, and it is our vocation and task to achieve individuation by lifting ourselves out of the social and the tribal from which we must start, but in which we must not remain. Perhaps we could read Christ as the highest manifestation and achievement of radical self-individuation.

This fearsome call to the individual has animated all of Christendom and bequeathed to us concepts of individual dignity, purpose, duties and rights, which ultimately resulted in societies that aspired to equality and opportunity for all. What is sometimes called classical “liberalism” is the respect for individuals and their consciences that unfolded across several millennia thanks to the Biblical God’s summons to each person.

This is my view as well. It is presently under assault both from the post-liberal Left and the post-liberal Right, e.g. Patrick Deneen and Ryszard Legutko, et al.

Addressing one prominent contemporary critic of individualism and “liberalism,” Hanssen warns: “[Patrick] Deneen needs to be more careful, in taking aim at radical autonomy, that he doesn’t cast aspersions on the entire tradition in which Christianity has played a crucial role in elevating the dignity of the individual. It is the individual substance of a rational nature that is immortal: not the family, not the community, not the state.”

Exactly right! Speaking for myself:

1) The individual is the primary locus of value, not the family, the clan, the tribe, any group, association, race, sex . . . .

2) Self-individuation is a task, a project, and for the believer, one presumably extending beyond this life and into the next. We are to become who we are, and to be who we are becoming.

3) Tribalism is tearing us apart. We are on a path toward increasing social malaise as a result.

4) The cure for tribal self-identification is not an opposite tribal self-identification. White tribalism, for example, is not a truly ameliorative and long-term answer to black tribalism. I do concede, however, that tribalism pro tempore may be tactically necesary, here and there, for purposes of self-defense.

Politics and Meaning: More on the Conservative Disadvantage

Here again is my Substack entry "The Conservative Disadvantage." In it I wrote, "We don't look to politics for meaning. Or rather, we do not seek any transcendent meaning in the political sphere." Thomas Beale charitably comments (edited):

Just a short note on that post: your observation about meaning is one of the most penetrating I have read for a long while — it's one of those truths hiding in such plain sight that no one sees it. This phenomenon of the true conservative "not looking to politics for meaning" is deeper than the usual formulations according to which Marxist and other utopian ideologies are replacements for the old religions. This is because the whole question of where 'meaning' (and therefore worth) in life is found is the most fundamental question of the human condition. It's a Scruton-esque observation as well — perhaps he even said something like this, although I don't remember it as pithily expressed as your version – – but he certainly thought that meaning for real people was in their daily lives well lived within clubs, theatres, the garden, nature.

In fact, re-reading your text, it's almost a shortest-possible definition of what it means to be (small-c) conservative by describing its negation. I particularly like the line 'A conservative could never write a book with the title, The Politics of Meaning.'

Your characterisation of the conservative atheist I think is very nice as well.

My thanks to Thomas Beale for these kind comments. Here are some additional remarks about meaning and the political to clarify and fill out what I wrote and perhaps ignite some discussion.

1) There is a distinction between 'existential' and semantic meaning. Our concern here is solely with the first. There is also a distinction within existential or life meaning between ultimate and proximate meaning. When we ask philosophically about the meaning of life we are asking about the ultimate and objective point, purpose, end, or goal of human willing and striving, if there is one. We are asking whether there is an ultimate and objective purpose, and what it is. Both of these questions admit of reasonable controversy. Some say that human life has no objective purpose. Any purpose it has must be subjective. Others say that it does have an objective purpose, but then disagree bitterly as to what it is. But that there are proximate and relative meanings in human lives is uncontroversial. For one person, writing poetry is highly meaningful, for another a silly and meaningless waste of time.

2) When I say that the conservative does not look to politics for meaning, I am referring to ultimate meaning: he does not look to politics for ultimate meaning. One could be a conservative in my sense and find political activity proximately meaningful. One could not be a conservative in my sense and find political activity ultimately meaningful. For the conservative understands something that the leftist does not. He understands that political activity cannot be our ultimate purpose because the political is not of ultimate value. This raises the question of the relation of the teleological to the axiological. The meaning-of-life question has both a teleological and an axiological side.

3) Teleological and Axiological Aspects of Existential Meaning

Teleology. Meaning bears a teleological aspect in that a meaningful life is a purpose-driven life. It is difficult to see how a human life devoid of purposes could be meaningful, either proximately or ultimately, and indeed purposes organized by a central purpose such as advancing knowledge or alleviating suffering. The central purpose must be one the agent freely and self-transparently chooses for himself. It cannot be one that is assigned ab extra. The central purpose must be both nontrivial and achievable. A life devoted to the collecting of beer cans is purpose-driven but meaningless on the score of triviality while a life in quest of a perpetuum mobile is purpose-driven but meaningless on the score of futility. But even if a life has a focal purpose that is freely and consciously chosen by the agent of the life, nontrivial, and achievable, this still does not suffice for ultimate meaningfulness.

Axiology. A meaningful life also bears an axiological aspect in that a meaningful life is one that embodies some if not a preponderance of positive non-instrumental value at least for the agent of the life. A life wholly devoid of personal satisfaction cannot be called meaningful. But even this is not enough. The lives of some terrorists and mass murderers are driven by non-trivial and non-futile purposes and are satisfying to their agents. We ought, however, to resist the notion that such lives are ultimately meaningful. A necessary condition of a life’s being ultimately meaningful is that it realize some if not a preponderance of positive non-instrumental objective value. If so, a radically immoral life cannot be a meaningful life. Or so say I.

This might be reasonably questioned. According to David Benatar, "A meaningful life is one that transcends one's own limits and significantly impacts others or serves purposes beyond oneself." (The Human Predicament, Oxford UP, 2017, p. 18) By this definition, the lives of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were meaningful, as Benatar grants. (19) Well, can a radically immoral life be a meaningful life? I say No; Benatar leaves the question open:

One response is to acknowledge that wicked lives can be meaningful, but then say that we should seek only positive meaning. Another option is to say that a life is not meaningful unless its purposes or ways of transcending limits are positive, worthy, or valuable. (19)

I pack quite a lot into the concept of an ultimately meaningful human life. Such a life is one that is purpose-driven by a central purpose that organizes and unifies various peripheral purposes; a purpose that is freely chosen by the liver of the life as opposed to imposed from without by the State, for example; a purpose that is neither trivial nor futile, and thus achievable; a purpose that is objectively morally permissible, and beyond that, objectively the best and highest life that a human is capable of; finally, a purpose that is redemptive. But there is no space now to expand upon this last clause.

4) But must a conservative seek an ultimate objective meaning or purpose? No, because he might not believe that one exists. He would not be irrational in so thinking. David Benatar serves as a a good, perhaps the best, example.

5) I have just set the bar very high, impossibly high some will say. As I see it, one can count oneself a conservative while rejecting the conception of an ultimately meaningful life as I have defined it.

What one cannot do as a conservative is seek ultimate meaning in the quotidian round, in "daily lives well lived within clubs, theatres, the garden, nature" to quote Beale glossing Scruton. There is no ultimate meaning to be found there, but then again there might not be an ultimate meaning. One would then have to take whatever meaning one could get from mundane pursuits and makes friends with finitude.

Another thing a conservative qua conservative cannot do is look for meaning where the leftist looks for it.

6) A fundamental error of the leftist is to seek ultimate meaning where it cannot be found, namely, in the political sphere, in sociopolitical activism, in the wrong-headed and dangerously quixotic attempt to straighten "the crooked timber of humanity" (Kant) by collective human action, to bring forth the "worker's paradise," to eliminate class distinctions, to end 'racism,' and 'sexism' and 'homophobia,' 'transphobia,' and other invented bogeypersons, to end alienation and the natural hierarchy of life and spirit in all its forms, and to transform the world in such a way that all meta-physical and religious yearnings for Transcendence are finally squelched and eradicated, and to do so no matter how many 'eggs' have to be broken to achieve the unachievable 'omelet.'

The leftist rightly sneers at mere bourgeois self-indulgence, material acquisition for its own sake, status-seeking, pleasure-seeking however refined, the 'lifestyles of the rich and famous,' etc. We conservatives who seek the true Transcendence can agree with leftists about that. But we reject their destructively cockamamie schemes and say to them: better the bourgeois life, or even the life of Nietzsche's Last Man, than your mad pursuit of the unattainable.

7) As for The Politics of Meaning, that is an actual title of a book by a pal of Hillary Clinton, Michael Lerner. It came out in 1996. I wasn't referring to it specifically but mocking the notion that existential meaning worth attaining could be attained by political means.

We Must Work with Atheists to Defeat the Left

America is is where the West will make its last stand, or else begin to turn the tide. The rest of the Anglosphere appears lost. It is falling asleep under the soporific of 'wokeism,' the latest and most virulent form of the leftist virus. To assure victory we theists need to work with atheist conservatives. I agree with the following characterization of conservatism, apparently written by Jillian Becker, at The Atheist Conservative:

B. On Conservatism

1. Individual freedom is the necessary condition for prosperity, innovation, and adaptation, which together ensure survival.

2. A culture constituted for individual freedom is superior to all others.

3. Only the Conservative policies of the post-Enlightenment Western world are formulated to protect individual freedom.

4. Individual freedom under the rule of non-discriminatory law, a free market economy, the limiting of government power by democratic controls and constitutional checks and balances, and strong national defense are core Conservative policies.

A conservatism along these lines navigates a sane middle path between leftism and reactionary, throne-and-altar conservatism.

I am a theist. But as I have repeatedly maintained over the years, atheism is a reasonable position. The reasonable is not the same as the true. The reasonable is sometimes false, and the true is sometimes unreasonable. To ascertain the truth is not easy. Reason is a weak reed indeed. And despite my use of 'ascertain,' if we attain the truth we are rarely if ever certain that we have when the truths pertain to substantive matters. Humility is not just a moral virtue; it is an epistemic one as well.

Nowadays there is talk of a 'postliberal' conservatism. We shall have to take a look at that. I suspect that it is a form of reaction insusceptible of resurrection, as a matter of fact, and even if patient of resuscitation, not worthy of it. It is a Lazarus that won't be raised and ought not be.

I have heard it said that a conservatism infused with classical liberalism is 'unstable' and will inevitably transmogrify into the madness of 'wokeism.' But that is a slippery slope argument, and they are all of them invalid.

Malcolm Pollack on ‘Mass Formation’

Our old friend Malcolm Pollack has an article in American Greatness entitled "'Mass Formation' is a Two-Headed Coin." Pollack offers the following characterization of mass formation:

“Mass formation” . . . is a newish term for an age-old and long-studied phenomenon: the occasional, and usually quite sudden, arising of passionate and sometimes completely irrational fixations of attention, desire, hatred, or other affinities and aversions in crowds of various sizes, from local mobs to entire societies.

What I will call the COVID Craze is an example of a mass formation. Not everyone who takes precautions is a victim of mass delusion, but surely many are. We see them everyday: people alone on windy beaches wearing face masks, for example. Such behavior is completely irrational and oftentimes issues in hateful displays against people who do not subscribe to the ovine lunacy of the hysterical whose fear has so addled them that they cannot distinguish between efficacious prophylaxis, misplaced moral enthusiasm, and virtue-signaling.

Under what conditions is a social phenomenon such as the COVID Craze usefully referred to as a mass formation? Pollack, citing Dr. Matthias Desmet of the University of Guelph, cites four: free-floating anxiety, social isolation, lack of meaning and purpose in one's life, and anger and frustration.

When all these conditions are met, the collective psyche becomes like a supercooled liquid: given the right nucleus around which to coalesce, a “phase transition” can propagate throughout the system in a very short time. That nucleus is some object that can be plausibly identified as a cause of everyone’s anxiety and frustration, and the allure of attacking and eliminating it through collective action becomes, for many people, irresistible. The reason for [cause of] this is sensible [understandable] enough, because it [the attack and attempted elimination] addresses [alleviates] , in a single stroke, all of the stress-conditions listed above: it offers, at last, a concrete object to which free-floating anxiety can attach, about which something can be done; it provides a much-needed basis for the reconstruction of social bonds; it puts before the group a great purpose toward which everyone can direct their energy; and, perhaps most attractive of all, it creates a common enemy toward which the people can channel their anger. (I added the words in brackets to aid my understanding.)

Those who stand in the way of this collective purpose, as well as those who merely lack enthusiasm for the cause, have consciously excluded themselves from this new social bond, and so they are easily, and usually eagerly, seen as enemies who must be isolated or eliminated. This polarization in turn encourages increasingly conspicuous signaling of one’s fidelity to the group and its cause. The more costly those signals are at a personal level, the more they signify commitment to the new social bond, and the more respect they purchase from the in-group—even if (or, perhaps, especially if) they do nothing that is actually effective in solving the underlying problem.

Malcolm mentions COVID, but I would have liked to have seen other examples. I will suggest one of my own. The President of the United States has recently made a delusional statement to the effect that white supremacy is the greatest threat the nation faces. Because Joseph Biden is non compos mentis, there is a certain risk in attributing this thought to him as something he himself believes. It is however safe to say that he is serving as the mouthpiece of a large group of people who either believe it, in which case they are delusional, or merely pretend to believe it for their own personal gain, in which case they are not delusional but immoral both in their mendacity and in their willingness to put personal profit over the good of the country that has made their success possible. The latter bunch include the 'woke' capitalists and all manner of 'woke' careerists in government, academia, the churches, and elsewhere who seek to promote themselves by spreading lies and slanders.

Malcolm tries to be even-handed in his piece, as witness:

It is also a dangerous conceit to imagine, as many on the Right seem to be doing with this viral idea, that it currently manifests itself only with regard to the COVID panic, and only on the Left.

It’s important to keep in mind that the four conditions enumerated by Desmet are amply met throughout modern society, across political and ideological lines, and that as long as our various factions struggle to live together, any mass-formation on one side is likely to increase anger and stress on the other, in a destructive feedback loop.

Pollack is right on the first count: the COVID Craze (as I call it) is not the only manifestation of mass formation 'psychosis.' On the second, however, he may be giving aid and comfort to a false moral equivalentism. Left and Right are not moral equivalents. The Left is far worse. I grant that there are some extremists among those on the Alternative Right. But they are few and far between, and of little consequence, in comparison to the extremists who dominate the Left. The Left is morally and indeed intellectually inferior to the Right by orders of magnitude. The contemporary 'woke' Left in the USA, which controls the Democrat Party, is mindlessly extremist and destructive in respect of almost all issues of importance. To name just a few mindlessly extreme and destructive ideas and policy proposals: the ethno-masochistic notion that mathematics is racist, which of course implies that hard science (physics, e.g.) is racist as well; the Pelosian idea that "borders are immoral" and the corresponding Democrat policy of allowing anyone from anywhere into the country without any control or vetting; the absurd notion that defunding the police and eliminating cash bail are 'reforms' that will reduce crime; the incessant Orwellian subversion of language as for example the misuse of 'insurrection' to refer to trespassing; the erection of monuments and memorials to the worthless while tearing down those that commemorate great and worthy Americans. I could cite another dozen examples with ease.

I'll leave it here. The combox is open for Malcolm's response and for any comments of anyone.

Was Kyle Rittenhouse a Vigilante?

I have been known to refer to David French as a useful idiot in the sense usually attributed to V. I. Lenin, but I won't repeat that legitimate charge here. I'll just say that French is exasperating in the Trump-hating pseudo-conservative style of David Brooks, George F. Will, Bill Kristol, Mona Charen and the rest of the all-talk-and-no-action bow tie brigade. Here is French in The Atlantic, publication in which is a good tip-off as to one's political stance:

When Kyle Rittenhouse walked the streets of Kenosha in the midst of urban unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake holding a rifle in the “patrol carry” or “low ready” position, similar to the positions used by soldiers walking in towns and villages in war zones, without any meaningful training, he was engaged in remarkably dangerous and provocative conduct. But that dangerous and provocative conduct did not eliminate his right of self-defense, and that self-defense claim is the key issue of his trial, not the wisdom of his vigilante presence.

French fails to note that the police shooting of Blake was justified inasmuch as the black criminal with an impressive rap sheet refused to obey police commands and pulled a knife on the officer. French is undoubtedly aware of the lethality of knives and indeed that their lethality is in some circumstances in excess of that of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. But let that pass.

Note the phrase "vigilante presence." A vigilante is someone who takes the law into his own hands. But the authorities had abdicated and Kenosha was at the time lawless. Someone who defends life, liberty, and property in a Hobbesian state of nature against armed barbarian arsonists, looters, and potential murderers is arguably not a vigilante. But of course it depends on how one defines 'vigilante.'

If a citizen shoots a home invader who threatens death or grave bodily harm to the home's occupants, no one calls that a vigilante action even though the citizen has taken crime prevention and law enforcement into his own hands. The law makes an entirely reasonable exception in a case like this thereby suspending in such circumstances its monopoly on the use of force in law enforcement and crime prevention. This exception allows for others. When the authorities abdicate, they no longer can claim to have a monopoly on the use of force since they have refused to employ force in the upholding of the law. So it falls to the citizen. When the authorities are in dereliction of duty, their authority evaporates.

It is thus a cheap slander on the part of French to tar Rittenhouse with the pejorative 'vigilante.' Later in the article,

But there is also an immense difference between quiet concealed carry and vigilante open carry . . . .

Two points. French is suggesting that open carry, as such, is a vigilante action. It is not, although it is inadvisable in most circumstances. If that is not what French wanted to imply, then he is a sloppy writer. Second, Rittenhouse was out to deter the thugs and concealing his weapon would not have had that effect!

Can you appreciate why someone would consider French to be a useful idiot? Instead of standing up for the rule of law and condemning both the politicians who want to defund the police, and the leftist prosecutors who refuse to prosecute criminals, he wastes his energy attacking an idealistic. good-hearted 17- year-old boy who bravely if unwisely stood up against the barbarians. The net effect is to give aid and comfort to those French ought to be opposing. Like Rod Dreher and others, he doesn't understand that he has to take a side here and that it is impossible to float above the fray as if he were a transcendental spectator with no stake in the outcome.

The question to put to French is: Which side are you on?

Robert Lewis Dabney on Conservatism

It may be inferred again that the present movement for women’s rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. . . . Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women’s suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position.

1897

Source: https://mildcolonialboy.wordpress.com/category/robert-lewis-dabney/

Vito Caiati on David Brooks

I solicited Dr Caiati's comments on David Brooks' Atlantic piece, What Happened to American Conservatism? The lede reads: "The rich philosophical tradition I fell in love with has been reduced to Fox News and voter suppression." That is a good tip-off to the quality of the article. Here is what Vito said, and I agree:

I am not the right person to write a response, since I have nothing but contempt for Brooks, whom I regard as a miserable opportunist at the service of the Left. (He is precisely the sort of creature that makes an ad hominem attack, usually best avoided, entirely appropriate.) Any man who writes,

I’m content, as my hero Isaiah Berlin put it, to plant myself instead on the rightward edge of the leftward tendency—in the more promising soil of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. If its progressive wing sometimes seems to have learned nothing from the failures of government and to promote cultural stances that divide Americans, at least the party as a whole knows what year it is

is either delusional for thinking that such a “moderate wing” actually exists and that “the party as a whole” is an entity that fosters national comity and is actually concerned for the welfare of the citizenry or, in my view, is simply acting in bad faith. No true conservative of whatever stripe can have anything to do with this intellectually and morally bankrupt party, which is entirely dominated by the Left and which wages an unceasing war against the very traditions, customs, and legal system that Brooks supposedly values so highly.

…………………..

Now for my two cents. Useful idiots such as Brooks are worse than hard leftists. They live in the past, blind to the present, and unwittingly advance the very causes that they, as conservatives, are supposed to be opposing. Here is what I had to say four years ago. The passage of time has only reinforced my points:

The Op-Ed pages of The New York Times are plenty poor to be sure, but Ross Douthat and David Brooks are sometimes worth reading. But the following from Brooks (28 October 2016) is singularly boneheaded although the opening sentence is exactly right:

The very essence of conservatism is the belief that politics is a limited activity, and that the most important realms are pre-political: conscience, faith, culture, family and community. But recently conservatism has become more the talking arm of the Republican Party. Among social conservatives, for example, faith sometimes seems to come in second behind politics, Scripture behind voting guides. Today, most white evangelicals are willing to put aside the Christian virtues of humility, charity and grace for the sake of a Trump political victory.

Come on, man. Don't be stupid. The Left is out to suppress religious liberty. This didn't start yesterday. You yourself mention conscience, but you must be aware that bakers and florists have been forced by the state to violate their consciences by catering homosexual 'marriage' ceremonies. Is that a legitimate use of state power? And if the wielders of state power can get away with that outrage, where will they stop? Plenty of other examples can be adduced, e.g., the Obama administration's assault on the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The reason evangelicals and other Christians support Trump is that they know what that destructive and deeply mendacious stealth ideologue Hillary will do if she gets power. It is not because they think the Gotham sybarite lives the Christian life, but despite his not living it. They understand that ideas and policies trump character issues especially when Trump's opponent is even worse on the character plane. What's worse: compromising national security, using high public office to enrich oneself, and then endlessly lying about it all, or forcing oneself on a handful of women?

The practice of the Christian virtues and the living of the Christian life require freedom of religion. Our freedoms are under vicious assault by leftists like Hillary. This is why Trump garners the support of Christians.

The threat from the Left is very real indeed. See here and read the chilling remarks of Martin Castro of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights. Given Castro's comments the name of the commission counts as Orwellian.