Friday, November 09, 2007

Rome Didn’t Fall in a Day: an analysis of Western Europe’s cultural demise

Burqa Bandit

The burqa/headscarf is unfortunately becoming so ubiquitous in the US and Canada that I am starting to get tired of getting outraged every single time I spot it. Being rightfully appalled can be exhausting business. I have noticed that I tend to bypass the appropriate emotional response (read: repulsion) increasingly more often lately, and instead just silently proceed to make more additions to my deportation wish list. I do make a distinction between the headscarf and the full-body burqa: while the former is simply disgraceful, the latter should be illegal to wear in public because it covers the face along with enough loose space in the gut area for its wearer to comfortably squeeze in a concealed weapon, which has practical ramifications for criminals on the run and would-be bank robbers. I also differentiate with respect to the nuances of disgust reserved for the spread of the burqa in Western Europe on the one hand, and across the US, Canada, and Australia on the other hand. How so?

European Union

In short, Europe stands for nothing today. Ethnic nation-states in the Old West are crumbling under a scary moral void. Too many European citizens have no such thing as a comprehensive set of principles behind their various national identities; all they’ve got is their measly “Germanness”, “Frenchness”, “Britishness” or whatnot to hold on to, all of which are rapidly eroding in the acid of Cultural Relativism that the Europeans have been so eager and so stupid to embrace. Europe cannot stomach the backwardness of its Muslim Immigrants, yet it has no new cultural home to offer them. The French want their immigrants to participate in their “Frenchness” somehow, but “Frenchness” is inherited, it can never be acquired. Of course Sarkozy’s father was an outcast because of his Hungarian last name. There’s no way to get around it: Europe never forgets anyone’s ethnic otherness. The Holocaust is very eloquent on this subject. The European identity is ethnic/tribal at its core, not ideological. Europe has no moral shelter to offer even its natives, let alone its immigrants. Now that the church has been dethroned from its historic position of moral hegemony, the Old Continent is mutely agonizing like a giant headless cockroach awaiting slow starvation.

So what do Europeans have to say to burqa wearers, or to female circumcisers for that matter?That’s not how we dress/do things over here”?? Europeans have no firm conceptions of why some of their traditions and practices are objectively superior to the new influx from the savage world.

That’s because the moral foundation of their civilization has been a mix of Christian theology (now increasingly irrelevant) and pure ethnocentricity (Cultural Relativism has rendered ethnocentric supremacism impotent.) So I do not feel as strongly about defiant burqa-girls in Western Europe. I think it would be in their best interest to renounce their backward ways and embrace the less backward European tradition, but there is no guarantee that they will be fully accepted by the nationalistic establishment even if they do so. Furthermore, because Europe advertises its culture as a nationalistic dogma instead of a cogent moral argument, of course there will be poor penetration within the Muslims: they’ve already got their own big fat dogma! It also makes European culture less appealing to defend, thus I am less outraged when I spot burqa-girls flagrantly defacing it.

USA

By contrast, the former British colonies are not ethnic nation-states. They are essentially membership clubs, the belonging to which is based on clear ideological commitments. For example, the national identity of the US is nothing but a moral profile outlining American values. That’s all there is to it. If you don’t like freedom, then why do you come to the US? If you don’t value self-realization, then what are you doing here? The burqa/headscarf and the subjugation they imply, of women to men, flies in the face of the American tradition of freedom and equal moral entitlement of genders. It is an uncompromising culture of freedom that is supposed to make Americans “American”. A lot of Americans themselves skimp on the “all men created equal” statement here and there but at least pay it due lip service. Now if someone so visibly refuses to partake in that culture, then what is supposed to make them “American”? They clearly do not belong in the country.

Until the day comes when national boarders are obsolete and anyone can freely go/live anywhere, the US will have to discriminate between peoples of the world with respect to their admissibility into the country. Because America is not an ethnic nation-state, it would be racist to select on the basis of ethnicity (the Diversity Visa Lottery is preposterous, I know). All that remains then is ideology, and to a lesser degree, skills. Being American should not be a matter of arbitrary background circumstance, though it’s sadly becoming more and more fashionable for disaffected youths born in the country to view it as such, but rather a conscious choice affirming one’s embrace of a free life and the moral entitlements and responsibilities stemming from such a life. A similar argument goes for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand too, although these countries’ values are perhaps less explicitly outlined than in the case of the US constitution.

Back to Europe… Well you know what they say: there’s eurotrash and then there’s Euro Trash. I must confess that for practical reasons I consider most if not all of Europe to sadly be trash. I exhausted a good part of this topic above, but there’s plenty more to be said. Western Europe is plagued by rampant political correctness and a Fallen Empire syndrome: what a deadly mix!

The former is manifested in hasty and pathetic attempts by Western European countries to reinvent their identities within a contrived culture-neutral neo-leftist frame. This confirms my gut suspicion that neo-leftism is the popular fallback of the half-assed apostates of Christianity. The nanny state is increasingly replacing the Church’s traditional social and moral functions in European countries.

The latter haunts the conscience of nearly every European but they are so repressed about it that you wouldn’t have a clue, and probably wouldn’t believe me unless you have some first-hand experience with Eurobullshit. We need to remember that it’s been less than a century since the Old West gave up its imperialist status quo. The European public image has been drastically sanitized since, maybe too drastically in too short a time for the European sub-consciousness to catch up. The Old Continent is torn between its emerging proletarian neo-leftist identity and the burning shame from its fall from relevance.

A lot of it is sublimated into raw leftist strife, but underneath it all Europe deeply resents not being a superpower: it misses its old glory, its colonies. This motivation can be traced back to the foreign-policy inclinations of the former superpowers: they keep supporting their traditional vassals of centuries ago, no matter how much the dynamics have changed since. The European stance on Serbia is a prime example of this. There is no practical reason to maintain these positions because the imperialist intentions of exerting influence by proxy in any given region have almost completely disappeared. Europe sticks to its antiquated positions/favoritisms for nothing but continuity’s sake. It’s a way of reassuring itself that it’s still relevant in the world, that it can still decide the fate of smaller nations, that it has the cojones to stick with its stubborn and arbitrary nation-building (or “nation-destroying”) initiatives without being made to flinch (take that, America!). Defiance and rage against the US are outlets for Europe’s sour grapes mentality.

European Youths

The bottom line: a growing army of passive-aggressive drones in chronic collective-identity crisis. So many European youths feel helpless, have no light in their eyes, lack an ideological back-spine, and are brainwashed into State worshiping. Europeans like thinking of themselves as cultured, tolerant (I’m probably repeating myself, since the conventional wisdom maintains that cultured and tolerant are synonyms) worldly, classy (unlike those brute Americans) and progressive. Yet they obsess over petty nonsense like attacks on the purity of their languages (the perpetrator being of course, English), commonly despise avant-garde entrepreneurship as plebeian vulgarity, but value the study of dead languages, equation-drilling, their regional literature, and pedantic academicism.

The truth is that while Europe has been the driving locomotive of Western Civilization for the major part of the latter’s existence, the amazing philosophical evolutions (revolutions?) it spurred have found room to burst only at the seams of Europe’s backwardness: the greatest most progressive ideas originating from the Old West were only grudgingly and halfassedly accepted by the establishment, often not before vigorous attempts to repress them. Socrates got served, the Athenians almost had Aristotle’s head on a plate, Galileo was persecuted, Roger Bacon was imprisoned, John Locke was intimidated, and the list goes on and on. The revolutionary thinkers who carried the Western tradition forward were very often cutting against the grain of their own culture, and to this day Europe has yet to fully accept and adopt what its best minds have suggested it…

There are meaningful historical reasons for Europe’s decline:

Under many variations, ethnocentrism has been ubiquitous in the world since the dawn of civilization: to view essential aspects of oneself as derivative from the collective, and not only to prefer one’s way but also to believe it best, superior to all others, has been the natural status quo for millennia. Collectivism and the firm binding of the good with one’s own way through refusing to see a distinction between the two, form the very cultural fabric of ethnic nation-states.

School of Athens

Greek philosophers were the first men we know to address the problem of ethnocentrism. Distinctions between the good and one’s own, between nature and convention, between the just and the legal, are signs of this movement of thought. They related the good to the fulfillment of the whole potential of the individual and were aware that few, if any, of the nations of men had ways that allowed such fulfillment. They were open to the good: They used reason to seek it out. They wanted to be able to evaluate themselves and others, and thus had to use objective standards to judge even their own practices (The Closing of the American Mind, p.36-38).

Fast forwarding to the end of Medievalism: Eventually, in as far as curious objectivity was applied to the physical world through the quest for finding new and better ways, the advancements in technical knowledge/engineering yielded such staggering tangible results to the benefit of the population at large, that most of Europe eventually embraced this new fashion of thinking (to the Church’s great discontent). It even became fashionable for wannabe enlightened monarchs to cultivate their own “pet scientist-philosophers” in their courts.

Vitruvian Man

The application of rational objectivity began to spread by contagion to the conception of human nature. The fruits of this experiment were thornier than their counterparts from the natural sciences: The emergence of Man in a new ethical frame that conceived of him as a free rational agent with inalienable moral entitlements derived from his very nature as Man, with his life, liberty, and happiness as paramount values, was an ideological stab to the heart of the collectivist ethnic nation-state and its authoritarian power structure. So this re-conception of ethics on a universal individualist plane appeared as a threat to ethnocentric culture and a dangerous uprooting charm. Politically, the development of these heretical ideas inspired administrative transformations: mostly on an incremental basis but also through bloody revolutions.

Yet friction from Europe’s tribalistic heritage was enormous, and certainly sufficient to considerably damp down the impact of these advancements. Compromises with the establishment were sought, which often corrupted the essence of the proposed liberal values for the sake of preserving social order: at the end of the day, it meant conserving the status quo. This resistance to liberalism didn’t originate from just the ruling class with indeed much to lose, but sadly from Europe’s masses, the people with so much to gain from the adoption of liberty. National identity pointed them back to the passionate attachment to their backward provincial ways, and away from Western Thought that was trying to liberate them from it. Science chipped away at subjectivity while universal individualist ethics eroded collectivist chauvinism, but the bulk of Europe’s population could not bring itself to turn the page.

The people of Europe had been split into fanatic religious sects at constant war, isolated in ethnic factions, pitted against one-another for centuries, trapped in puddles of provincialism infested by superstition. Embracing liberalism meant giving up the immense pride derived from the minuscule differences between their customs and myths and those of their neighbors. It meant giving up their collectivist identity with its perks of supremacist righteousness and feelings of superiority, which they had no felt need to objectively scrutinize.

Countries like England and Holland did experiment with economic freedom with great results, but only on a fickle discretionary basis and for purely consequentalist reasons. They never accepted the moral foundations that supported free markets and free societies. Lacking firm ideological and institutional commitments to universal individual rights, these countries’ courtship of these classical Man-centric values did not stand the test of time. In short, Europe had too much cultural baggage for liberalism. The seeds of freedom had to be sewn somewhere else.

Declaration of Independence

After failed efforts to conceive a new society within sterile Europe, the United States of America was Western Thought’s first love child: a country conceived in liberty, self-determination, and natural law. Indeed its initial political formulation wasn’t flawless: slavery and deficient political rights for women were ugly incumbents. Yet it’s noteworthy that the Founding Fathers never specifically banned women from voting (but the states did have that power and used it). Many of them were also vocal abolitionists throughout their lives. Most importantly, they drafted the Constitution as such an airtight argument for freedom, that with time it successfully transcended all the leftover debris of Old-Continent tyranny that were originally incorporated into the country for the sake of expediency.

Whereas Europe’s kinky flirts with freedom revolved around the whim of kings, queens, political coalitions, or angry mobs, America’s political heart was always in the right place. While Europe was still consumed by its ethnic wars well into the 20th century, America was busy getting prosperous through commerce. While Europe was preparing to butcher millions of its own, America was becoming a new home to thousands every year, affording them opportunities never dreamt of in their old caste-based societies.

So I wonder: How and why exactly did Europe pull a 180 and get so hard-core PC in just a matter of decades? What catalyzed such a drastic surgical detachment from the tribalist undertones of its billennial culture? I think it was mostly an implosion:

Communist Poster

Marxism had an ideological binding-effect on European nations. It consolidated international strife into an intra-national dynamic of factions in perpetual state of struggle and discontent: from the old chauvinistic rivalry between the English and the French, to the more intimate strife between the proletariat and the capitalist class within the same country. Note that the Marxist paradigm is an elaboration of, and qualitatively self-similar to, the original looser frame of ethnic hatred: Like the latter, it interprets people in collectivist and dehumanizing terms (ethnicity/class), pits them against one another over grievances that are often imaginary or second-hand (differences in language, religion, regional customs/ transient relative positions in the labor market), and encourages them to consume their hatred (ethnic cleansing/class war).

Marxism was a fractal refinement of ethnic conflict.

It brought it physically closer to the hearts of those who had craved hatred for its own sake throughout generations. It was a deeper more “nuanced” drill into the same direction of projecting hatred inwards.

Self-Similar Fractal

One important trait Marxism doesn’t share with classical ethnic chauvinism is self-victimization. While ethnocentrism is usually supremacist, leftist strife acknowledges a deep inferiority complex through its obsession with the “exploitation” of the proletariat. This partly explains why Marxism spread like fire in Russia and Eastern and Southern Europe: these nations were history’s rejects. Their powerful western neighbors, the Ottoman Empire, and other transient regional superpowers had brutalized and humiliated them for centuries, often using them as pawns in international conflicts. Marxist self-victimization appealed to these countries’ peoples on a very intimate level.

By contrast, Western Europe was too invested in its grandeur to immediately succumb to an oppressed and dispossessed internal vision of self. But around the middle of the 20th century, the Old West woke up with a terrible headache from a hangover of lost greatness. A few remarkable things had happened:

First of all, Europe practically lost all its colonies. So used were the former colonial powers to their international limbs, that they now felt stubbed. This certainly took a toll on their collective self-esteem.

concentration camp

Most importantly, America saved Western countries’ political viability after both world wars, besides saving their people directly from annihilation. The vital and one-sided reliance on their unrefined transatlantic cousin was hard to swallow. Both wars had exploded from the major western powers’ unhinged ambitions of world dominance. By the end of WW2 all the initial contenders were devastated to the bone, while the insolent fresh-faced USA emerged as the world’s supreme powerhouse among international applause for saving Europe from its homicidal lunacy.

USSR looming over Europe

The pendulum of power had permanently shifted away from the Old West, but the humiliation did not end there. Adding insult to injury, as a bonus consequence of their insane war, the USSR was now looming like a giant cancerous nuclear mole right on Europe’s ass. The troubled continent had to look for protection from the US, again.

The prospect of being vassals to the US does things to the sub-consciousness of a people whose primary notion of identity for centuries had revolved around the ability to dictate submission to the rest of the world. If you’re an American who has felt European rancor first-hand, this might explain a few things.

When the USSR ceased to be a threat, there was a collective sigh of relief, and then just silence. With no imminent threats to distract it, Europe could finally fully digest the realization that it was now irreversibly light years behind America in just about every relevant respect. Europe did slowly succumb to a pitiful internal vision of self, which allowed socialism to creep in like a virus since the end of WW2, infiltrating the severely weakened immune defenses of national pride.

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is an interesting highlight of Europe’s neo-leftist disposition. It’s generally touted as an umbrella to shield the mostly Muslim immigrants from cultural scrutiny but in reality it’s largely a self-serving construct. It serves as an outlet for collective neurosis through escaping reality. In a world dominated by pragmatic dynamics, led by the USA and trailed by Eastern emerging powers, Europe has to face everyday what it missed out on: the opportunity to be relevant, to institutionally embrace freedom and capitalism, and to be part of the new world order. Instead the Old West cannibalized itself in the last century over supremacist collectivist dogmas, and its consolation is now that at least its priorities were correct: that everything is culturally relative, that there is no such thing as natural law dictating what man’s proper mode of existence is, that one politico-economic system is just as good as any other (so long as a collective culture backs it) no matter the objective level of prosperity it can afford its people, that cultural hegemony is the only thing worth fighting for (as Europe bloodily did), and that their delusions are not deluded so long as they really believe in them. The core of Europeans’ passion for political correctness lies in their psychological need of escaping reality, of hiding their heads in the sand, of refusing to acknowledge their ideological failures, and avoiding a much needed objective assessment of their situation.

Many Europeans channel these repressed needs by applying the sophistry of cultural relativism to their backward immigrants, but in reality it’s themselves they are trying to shield and protect. When the clash between their culture and the savage Islamic influx is truly shocking, most Europeans don’t know how to react. They are so invested in cultural relativism that the path of least resistance is often appeasement. There is a minority that fights fire with fire, counteracting the pressure from Islam with ultra-nationalistic fascist sentiment. This goes to illustrate that the European identity is mostly tribal/ethnic, not ideological, and that itself is the main problem.

The most popular defense of Europe’s identity comes as a resurgence of ethnic chauvinism, rather than as an appeal to Western values on their own objective merits.

Rome Didn’t Fall in a Day
Europe needs a reality check urgently. It is sad to see America becoming more and more like Europe, when Europe is the one in dire need of looking up to what America is supposed to be. Rome didn’t fall in a day, but until Europe acknowledges its big problem, gives up the stubborn and irrational attachment to its collectivist ways, and develops enough character to challenge radical Islam on a moral plane, it will remain the sick man of the Free World.


-cross-posted at kejda.net

40 comments:

Pastorius said...

Your first post is a truly great article. Sadly, it is exactly what is made necessary by the current rift in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, it seems, we have two choices here in the U.S., either go back to helping Europe (which very well may mean we actually have to help the fascist side this time), or fight against a new European fascism.

I, for one, would rather Europe be saved, even if it means having to fight alongside European fascists, but I must say, I would be among the first over there after the war was over, to try and hang the same assholes I fought alongside.

Anonymous said...

The much-maligned BNP does seem to be moving away from the ethnic-racist orientation towards a more cultural and ideological agenda in its confrontation with Islam.

This probably reflects the fact that most British people aren't racists or 'little Englanders' , but nevertheless are growing increasingly scared of Islam.

I would remind our American friends that the BNP is the only organised anti-Islamic movement in the English-speaking world.

The United States is every bit as paralysed by political correctness as is Europe, and because of the two party system it will probably find it more difficult to set up a functioning counter-jihadist political movement than in Europe with its multi-party politics.

The BNP is curently attracting about 15% of votes cast. If it doubles this it will become a major political party with the likelihood of participating in government.

Pastorius said...

Najistani,
I truly hope you are correct about the BNP.

authoress said...

As far as Europe goes, I myself am more worried about saving America itself from the Left, from losing pride in its ideological foundations, which are monumental to Civilization. I am still an Albanian citizen, and have to go through innumerable hoops to travel in the US, and not to be self-serving in my attitude, but it makes me sick that someone like me is kept out, while a growing number of disaffected self-loathing traitorous youths with voting power, who cheer for terrorists and America's enemies, are cultivated within the country itself. I am more American than most Americans.

It might be too late for Europe, at least Western Europe, and instead of holding its hand out for help, America better need to watch out for its own security and internal consistency. The Left is dragging this nation toward mass suicide and I am convinced we are living in epic times.

Yes, the Nazis are the most vocal and less impotent advocates of the fight against Islam in Europe. That itself is very sad. If the war was won, and the assholes hanged, then what would the new European leadership consist of? It may have sounded as if I was hyperbolizing a lot for argument's sake in my post, but I have lived in Europe for the first 17 years of my life, and I wish the things I know first-hand were not true, but unfortunately,
Europe is morally degenerating like you have no idea.

It is a racist Continent drowning in a big puddle of provincialism and xenophobia. The English hate the French and the Germans, with more irrational hatred than they like to admit, over rivalries that go back centuries. However, they willingly suspend reason which would dictate rational wariness toward their Muslim immigrants. Why is that? They identify with the "weak", with the "victims", with the "oppressed". That's a very Leftist thing to do, and it's because they themselves feel weak, helpless, and oppressed. The historical dynamics I describe in my post had a lot to do with why they feel so sorry for themselves now. A people with such deep inferiority feelings cannot muster the balls required for standing up for itself, and asserting their Cultural identity.

They were quick to do away with the Church, but have nothing to replace it with. Leftism is their new religion, a historically-proven suicidal religion at that.

In any case, the few of us who can see things for what they are have the moral obligation to sound the bells of alarm, hoping our message will not fall on deaf ears.

Anonymous said...

Two articles that demonstrate that the BNP are not Nazis:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=428932&in_page_id=1770


http://ummahpulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&ac=0

The next thing you know the Muslims will be complaining that the BNP is an evil Joooooooooish plot and Nick Griffin is an Elder of Zion.

Anonymous said...

Oooops Cut and paste went wrong. The first article above should be http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/1009_bnp_jewish_win.htm

WATCHER71 said...

Interesting post. Medaura, would you define the Uk govt leftist? or the French Govt?

Pastorius said...

Madaura,
Watcher71 considers himself to be a leftist.

See, that is the cool thing about IBA. We have all sorts here.

You might be interested to know, Medaura, that several of our most prolific contributors are men of the left, me, Epaminondas, and WC, as well, if I am not mistaken.

The thing is, we put down our leftism and pick up a gun when our ideals are threatened, as Islam has made clear.

So anyway, I can happily say that I, as a leftie of sorts, agree with your analysis in this article. And, more than anything, what I want is to see Free Western civilization continue on. I will ally myself with those who seek to uphold its values.

authoress said...

Watcher71:

The British government, DEFINITELY! England is at the edge more so than other Western European countries, and I cannot find any other rationalization for it, but the fact that the UK's fallen empire syndrome is the most debilitating of all other countries, because the UK was indeed the most powerful European nation until the turn of the 20th century, so their fall from relevance must sting them very badly.

The British are amongst the Europeans most invested in the neurosis of cultural relativism.
The UK had a chance to snap out of it with Thatcher in the 80s, but it didn't take it. The Victim complex prevailed the resurgence of pride and movements toward self-reliance.

The French Government is also Leftist. They are more nationalistic and less politically correct than the British, but still very Leftist. I don't care if the "Right" is officially in power. Europe's right wing is to the left of America's Democrats.

Also, please note what Nazism means: "National Socialism". It is really Leftism, but they don't want to share the socialist treasure with the rest of the world. It's so good in their eyes, that only their superior race/ethnicity is entitled to it.

Honestly, right wing, left wing, are such empty constructs and overlap so often, that if we want to understand the world for what it is, we need to give up on over-Platonifying everything: making things fall into clearly-cut categories. Life is messier than that, and we must not mistake the map for the terrain.

For practical purposes, anything but American values, life, liberty, property, cherished through the political frame of free enterprise,are either Leftist, Fascist, or Islamo-Fascist. To me Leftists are just Fascists with a deep inferiority complex.

authoress said...

In any case, like I said, just because you identified yourselves as leaning to the Left, doesn't mean I'll knee-jerkeingly throw tomatoes at you. We need to give up the sharp clean edges of ideas and ideologies: right wing, left wing, middle wing, and analyze exactly what anyone stands for on concrete terms.

Just like not every believer is the same with respect to how much from the Bible/Talmud/Kuran he/she upholds, and whether at face/value or under a more nuanced framework, we shouldn't just label people based on whatever they lean toward in such abstract terms.

Qualitative analysis is much more important. Anyway, I have a new article I am working on, which should hopefully be ready soon, where I explain my views in greater detail.

Pastorius said...

I think what is considered left in the U.S. is quite far to the right of the Left in Europe.

:)

If that makes any sense.

WATCHER71 said...

Ok, well, I agree that sharp clean political definitions of left and right don't necessarily apply any more as there is indeed an awful lot of overlap, and indeed in the greater cause we need to be allies. I am not fully comfortable defining myself as a leftist although do as an attempt to present a more honest position of myself to a mainly American political perspective. I swing both left and right dependant on the issue although believing in things like the NHS perhaps puts me in the centre left camp (generally). So a mixed bag. Most definatley NOT a Communist, Marxist etc.... I value and cherish what little freedom I have and sure don't want to give ANY of it up! Interestingly as someone who is living under New Labour we would NEVER consider New Labour as anywhere remotely to the left, Thatcher destroyed British Industry deciding it was cheaper to get coal from Argentina than it was to pull it out of the ground in the UK, She shut down core national security industries such as ship building etc and starved the military of much needed resources (as we could see on deployment to IRAQ and Afghanistan) aswell as selling off municipal housing whilst failing to build housing at a rate that would even maintain stock levels, today we need to build 360,000 homes per year to keep up with the demand from population increase due to rate of births alone, currently we build about 100,000 so today the situation continues to grow worse but of course your entitled to your opinion! After all isn't that part of why we resist Islam!? I do wish you had posted this in like 5 posts though Dude! So many good discussion points! So many things that I both agree and others not so much! LOL!I shall attempt to get my thoughts together and go at them one at a time! If that's OK!?

Two world wars on mainland Europe, the decimation and destruction caused by this, would you not agree that this gave America a major Economic and Industrial advantage?

America did save Europe and the UK in WW2, but playing devils advocate, wasn't that more for sound Geo strategic reasons more than moral...i.e.. better to fight the Nazi's over there (Europe) than on the American mainland? Planners Knew that the Moat the Atlantic formed would not last for ever, look at the English channel, it stopped Napoleon dead in his tracks, but Hitler if he hadn't gone for Russia could have easily jumped the puddle....

I can definatley relate to your feeling American, I do in a lot of ways myself in so far as the shared values, I always call for a written constitution here in the UK and am treated like a nut! 'We have Magna Carte' etc....I want my rights enshrined in stone! So the conditions to begin to fight a tyrannical regime are very clearly defined!

Albania was Warsaw pact right? So I can understand your abhorrence of the left....but remember that the left is a sliding scale and relative to the individual country. Often the left has no role, sometimes it is necessary.....(and this is the key) as a transitional political philosophy. The free market left to it's own devices will not feed starving people or educate the illiterate.....what the free market is good at doing is providing jobs and a vibrant economy. That is where Communism fails so spectacularly!

More to come ....need Caffeine!

WATCHER71 said...

MMMM....Tea is good!

On loss of Empire....Britain didn't lose Empire, it was ordered to give it up as part of the preconditions for American assistance in WW2, this was the nail in the coffin for Britain as traditionally (and in fact to this day) Britain invests far far more in it's overseas interests than it does domestically. (until recently you would rarely see a BP gas station in the UK, I remember seeing them all over America years ago)

On Europe...well I think we all agree that the EU is a complete failure and waste of time. I favour a United States of Europe, loosely following an American model, the psychological shift being as you so rightly point out to an idealogical Union rather than the Ethnonationalistic approach that Europe is increasingly retreating into when looking for a way of counteracting the cultural Islamisation that is well under way..

WATCHER71 said...

I think what is considered left in the U.S. is quite far to the right of the Left in Europe.

Absolutley!

Moderate Democrats are either on Par are further right than Thatcher

WATCHER71 said...

This doesn't make us Communists though!LOL!

Pastorius said...

Watcher71,

Sure, go ahead and deny, deny, deny.

authoress said...

Ha, first of all, I am a Dudette, not a Dude. A lot of people assume that I am a man from my writing, and in a way that's a compliment, and I take it to mean that I don't have any weird neurosis oozing out of my ideas, like so many women are so twisted by feminism, that they cannot just talk, they have to talk like "women".

Anyway, as far as economics/politics goes, I am not familiar with what Thatcher did on an intimate level, although a lot of the things you mentioned that she did wrong, actually make sense to me, economically. Like I said, I'm not very knowledgeable of the details, so I could be wrong, but in any case, as far as that side of the discussion is concerned, I would STRONGLY recommend you read Economics in One Lesson, a great common-sense freely-available book.
http://www.mises.org/books/onelesson.pdf

But that's economics. That aside, I think Socialism is incompatible with freedom, but a lot of people don't seem to value the kind of freedom I am talking about nearly as much as I do, so I'll try to bring my point closer to everyone's heart, by restating it in the stronger form: Socialism is incompatible with Democracy (people seem to hold Democracy more at heart than Freedom)

How so? Well, if the issue was educating the poor, providing health care or welfare to those in dire need, then why wouldn't an altruistic society freely do that on its own? If the majority of people cared about the very small minority in dire need, why wouldn't it freely donate to take care of it?

Why would it need to elect representatives, to involve the State in executing its democratic will?

I think it is very hypocritical of a democratic society to not have the moral spine necessary to freely implement its collective priorities. If you need to elect officials to FORCE you, and everyone else, into obeying what your own morality dictates (e.i. helping the poor), then you must be a morally bankrupt society.

I am not at all against helping those in need, and that's why when I make my own money (right now I'm still a university student) I will donate to charity. Charity by decree is immoral and corrupt.

It also creates a permanent underclass, of people who grow so dependent on the system that they stop trying to be self-reliant, and thus cease to have any respect for themselves. I would gladly give to various causes, so long as the benefactors don't think I OWE it to them. When the latter relationship is institutionalized through leftist policies, then a great deal of rancor begins to develop.

For those from the US, they might know what I'm talking about if I give them a more concrete example: Affirmative Action. It robs away blacks' pride and self-reliance, and it builds unspeakable rancor.

The Left creates leaches out of people who would otherwise be productive and proud. I was raised in Albania since the age of 17, and know of people so poor by your standards (and US standards) who live with such pride! Who do not take handouts, and don't feel like leeches.

And don't forget the impact on the Islamic community. Read this story:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23420128-details/Hairdresser+sued+for+refusing+to+hire+Muslim+woman+in+a+headscarf/article.do

The Muslim slut is suing this woman for not hiring her as a hairdresser. This is absurd! It should be well within the rights of the OWNER of her business to refuse to hire whomever for WHATEVER reason. She wears a headscarf, why should she even care to cut hair if she thinks the most proper thing to do with one's hair is to cover it??

As if the patrons of the Salon would not be turned off by that obvious implication!! But that's not even the point: she is suing for unspecified monetary damages. This only makes sense in a Leftist culture, where jobs are considered something the business-owners OWES to his/her employees. That is morally disgusting and it is left unchallenged.

No one OWES you a job, or welfare, or health care. But especially jobs... I mean come on! An employment contract is something both parties enter through according to their own free will, and that's how anything is done under free enterprise: mutual voluntary exchanges, no coercion, no intimidation, no rancor.

Muslims subvert the Leftist disposition of the UK for their own gains. A lot of them are welfare recipients, and use that money from taxpayers, as a cushion from reality checks, as a way of not integrating with the English community, of not having to mingle with the natives. Welfare for them just creates ghettos, and isolation, and rancor.

The list goes on and on.

As far as America goes, and its involvement in the world wars, I think your position is very ungrateful.

You are not justified in playing devil's advocates. I am not saying the US had no self-interest in stepping in, but self-interest is not a sin: it should actually be a rational guide to our actions.

The US had followed an isolationist foreign policy since its founding. The Founding Fathers hated old-continent strife, and they instructed the US to stay out of it. So with its intervention, the US broke its historical commitment to neutrality, because it saw what was at stake.

The US didn't gain from the world wars in absolute terms, only seemed so to Europe by comparison, because Europe itself emerged so destroyed, that the US seemed incredibly prosperous by comparison. Not cronyism, but trade, and free enterprise, are what made America prosperous.

And its role as an arbiter was AMAZING, not selfish and tainted by anything less than moral principles, as you seem to imply.

The "Great Powers". including the UK, wanted to split Albania up to please their regional vassals (Serbia and Greece) after the War, but president Wilson defended its right to exist at the peace conference, along with other small nations' rights. There was no self-interest involved whatsoever. America was just advertising its political ideology of freedom and self-determination, upon which it was founded. The US also supported the creation of the Jewish state.

Europe has a lot of humbling up to do, and it needs to stop demonizing America, and actually be grateful for all it has done for it.

WATCHER71 said...

HAHAHAHa!


I deny it all!

Comrade!

authoress said...

Uhm, the UK lost Canada (well, practically did, "formally" Canada is still a British dominion) without any American help: it was simply to expensive to run it.

It lost India without any help.

Rhodesia, and all that?

Whatever else America ordered it to give up, I am damn glad it did.

A United States of Europe would need a Constitution. Anything other than Life, Liberty, and Property, enshrined in stable institutions, will not do: it will be a gray area, susceptible to mob rule and tinkering by corrupt politicians.

I think TODAY's European right is at the left of the US democrats, but that's largely because the US cannot afford to go much more to the left, because it's constitution doesn't allow for it. Even as far as things have been allowed to escalate today, is largely due to mis-interpretations of the constitution by liberal judges.

In countries with nothing written on stone, or with very inconsistent documents, that pretend to care for citizens' both positive and negative rights (a logical impossibility), everything will be a gray scale, subject to manipulation.

WATCHER71 said...

No , demonizing America !ME!?

No way! Not at all!

Self interest isn't a sin.
On charity and helping those less fortunate, well personally i think that things like for instance medical care are a human right and thus the organisation of the state to gather and organise the resources and man power in order to effect (for example ) health care is necessary. If it were for example left to charity or individual whims to (for example) help the sick then chaos would ensue, just human nature. Humans are by instinct selfish, impulsive etc. Even a privatised healthcare system needs organisation.

Ps of course Dudette it is! My bad for making an assumption!

Pastorius said...

Watcher71,
What level of health care is a right?

WATCHER71 said...

yea Canada was a great loss!

India was all ready inevitable pre war, but wider Empire...the loss of resources alone....But I don't get bogged down in this! I'm not here to defend Empire for christs sake!

And Britain, Europe also have the right to self interest. Insofar as ungrateful, my family fought in both American and British forces in WW2 and I could never dismiss or devalue what they did.

Europe and America should have a strong and equal relationship, as partners for stability in the world and that means the ability to exchange views and ideas equally as partners. I don't know so much about Albanian history so
I can't comment, I do recall some Greek friends of mine certainly being engaged with Albania, unfortunately other than the cold war period Albania is a blank to me so I'm listening.

WATCHER71 said...

Well in the ideal world I would want comprehensive health care for all.

In the real world I guess the level is defined by the amount that is affordable, but my aspiration would be to see comprehensive care.

I'm not comfortable with seeing somebody dieing a slow malingering death when treatment, perhaps even preventative treatment could have avoided this. This is why the NHS, much as we struggle, has my support.

WATCHER71 said...

Re that hairdresser story, yes I caught that too, Insane! Working as a hairdresser when you cover you hair!
....Did you hear the one about the Muslim bar man who couldn't serve alcohol...?


On affirmative action....we never had it here. Seeing a black Police officer is very very rare. Don't jump to only the negative and dismiss any of the positive. in days past as a female you wouldn't have been allowed to go to university etc....there is always to sides to a coin, not simplistic good and evil.

WATCHER71 said...

sorry ! Dumbass spelling!

That should read

'two sides to a coin'

need more tea!

WATCHER71 said...

Just finally on this health care funding, personally I really don't resent paying in a small portion of my income to ensure that I, my entire family and some stranger who is also putting in has access to health care. funding health care can also be creative. A large portion of funding for the NHS actually comes from a sales tax on cigarettes and alcohol. I think most of you probably disagree, but I draw some comfort from knowing that if I need an operation it's taken care of, I just need to worry about getting better, not about paying my hospital bill. Works for me....but different strokes for different folks!

authoress said...

This is very interesting to me, as I completely understand where you are coming from: it is reprehensible to let someone die of starvation, or get sick from malnutrition, or be denied treatment for disease because he/she can't afford it.

I completely feel for such people, and if compassion was exclusively a Leftist trait, I guess that would make me a Leftist, but it isn't, and it doesn't.

I guess I didn't make my point clear on the previous comment: If YOU believe that health-care is a human right, but everyone else is selfish and doesn't care, yet you somehow manage to impose taxation for universal health-care on your fellow citizens, then you are being tyrannical, since you are imposing on everyone else what ONLY YOU think is right.

Now on the other hand, your country is a "democracy". Democracy literally means "majority rule", so if universal health-care is institutionalized, that means that the majority of the country, voted to elect leaders that would impose it on everyone.

That means that the majority of the country is not selfish! It means that the majority of the country does not succumb to the chaotic "all-against-all" state of human-nature, because they freely elected their officials, and told them they wanted to extend coverage to anyone.

So my question is, since the MAJORITY of the country believes it right, then why don't they just do it themselves?? If the majority (51% of UK citizens) just donated to charity, private hospitals funds for the poor, etc, then the poor would be taken care of! There would be no need to make it a matter of decree!!

Don't you see how paradoxic that is??

The truth is that there is an immense difference in the following scenarios:

95% of the population decides to tax itself to help the bottom 5%. This is an oxymoron, because taxation is not needed. The 95% could do it freely just as well.

A and B form a coalition deciding to tax C with the alleged purpose of helping D, with a lot of it ending up in the pockets of A and B in the process.

For a democratic country to tax itself for "human rights" type services, is very hypocritical. Democratic means majority rules, so if the majority deems something proper, why don't they just do it themselves?

I also think it is a very cynical view of human nature to think that people would not freely engage in acts of kindness. That a benevolent dictator (government) is needed to keep the citizenry moral.

The truth is that because of the convoluted tax code and the obfuscated special interests, no one knows who is paying what for what... Everyone feels someone else is picking up the tab, because of "progressive" taxation (aka the rich paying a higher percentage in income tax) and everyone likes to think they are poor, hence on the benefiting side of the redistribution scheme. The reality is that everyone loses.

More deregulation is needed, not more regulation. Leftism makes people selfish, because everyone assumes everyone else is being taken care of by the nanny state, so it hinders private individual initiatives.

Look at the stats on Canada and the US. Americans are likely to donate to private charity an astonishing 9 times more!!! So much for Selfishness.

In fact, the 19th century, before the regulatory initiatives that started with the New Deal, when everything was laissez-faire, saw an UNPRECEDENTED rise in private charity in the US. Almost all hospitals were run through private charities.

When people started to get taxed through their asses, they got stingy.

Another point: where does the base of people end, with respect to welfare rights??

Why provide only for your fellow Britons? What about all the starving kids in Africa, India, Asia?? They are so much poorer. Why shouldn't you tax yourself to take care of them? If it's a human right, it knowns no boundaries of nationality. It would be racist to confine it within your own country, no?

It quickly gets out of hand, as you can see.


I hope that brought up some questions.

authoress said...

Re: affirmative action.

there is a difference between being allowed to, by law, to vote, go to university, etc, and affirmative action.

Of course racial segregation was disgusting, and done away with, when the laws that enabled it were brought down.

Even in women's case, yes, 100 years ago I was not allowed to go to University. But now I am! That's enough! I don't need the universities to change their quotas to make it more likely for me to get into any specific program or faculty!!

What I get should be because I deserve it, as a person, as an intellectual, not as a woman! I initially went to university under the engineering department. I wasn't worried: I know I deserved it because my grades and SAT scores were top notch. But discrimination was rampant. All this crap about "empowering" women. It was just very humiliating, as if being a woman was a handicap, that we needed special help to make it.

I found it very demeaning. I can only imagine how pissed I would be if I was black and brilliant, and employers saw my academic record with suspicion, not being sure whether I got to Yale/Harvard/wherever because I deserved it, or because I was black.

WATCHER71 said...

Medaura, I'm off out on the lash but you've given me and the guys a lot to talk about in the club tonight. I don't agree with a lot of your assertions, as there is a lot of grey in between the black and white(why provide for my fellow Britons? Frankly if I could I would provide for all, I would!.., but since my government doesn't have jurisdiction over Africa the question is Mute,the African question is in the hands of the global community not a single small nation state like Britain!LOL!), but I think that it's great that you're engaged and thinking about this stuff. Understand that I am not a dogmatic leftist. I have no little red book that I am reciting chapter and verse, just life experience and I too am at University, working towards my Masters so I know life is a journey! I'll never stop learning or listening, the guys say Hi and greetings to Albania, we'll have a couple of drinks to you tonight!It's certainly been entertaining and interesting!

authoress said...

Ha, thanks! I am aggressive in my thinking, but that is just the way I am, even (especially) when discussing among friends. It is absolutely fine to disagree. I don't agree with anyone 100%, I am the only one I fully agree with all the time, and that's a statistically certain indicator that I must be wrong at least on a few counts: what are the odds of me being 100% right about everything, while everyone else is wrong at least on their point of disagreement with me?

That's why I am humble about everything I think I know, and I respect my freedom to investigate my ideas, challenge others' and grow as a person.

I did not for a minute think you were a radical leftist. You certainly wouldn't be part of this forum if you were: you would be seething with the Daily Kos kids.

So all the best, and we'll keep talking and have plenty of interesting ideas to debate in the future. That's the beauty of freedom of thought, and that's what we are all in it to preserve

truepeers said...

Interesting post, Medaura.

On behalf of my home and native land, I have to quibble a little with this, however:
Uhm, the UK lost Canada (well, practically did, "formally" Canada is still a British dominion) without any American help: it was simply to expensive to run it

-Canada is no longer a British dominion. We still have Queen Elizabeth as our head of state, but she is such as the Queen of Canada. The parliament of the UK has no longer any kind of jurisdiction over Canada (something it gave up in stages during the 20thC.)

But if the UK "lost" Canada, it got much in return, as evidenced in the Canadian contribution to fighting both world wars. The UK stood basically alone with Canada in 1940-41 and may well have succumbed to the Germans without the North Atlantic lifeline.

But this takes us to the more interesting point about colonialism: was Canada "too expensive to run"? Among the many British colonies in the nineteenth and twentieth century it was surely one of the cheapest to run, because the colonists themselves were self-ruling to a great degree and they were economically productive. And when the various colonies that formed the Dominion of Canada in 1867 confederated, it was in part to take greater responsibility for their own defense.

Anyway, the important historical point is that so much of European colonization in the 19th and 20th centuries was not primarily an economic project, in the sense that the colonies often cost a lot more than they returned in revenues. In some cases, there was a necessary cost to gain access to strategic resources and geography. But in other cases, the expense of the colonies is perhaps only well explained in terms of the Europeans' need to export some of the tensions associated with industrialization at home. The colonies offered careers to some of the disaffected losers of the middle and upper classes. They also gave a certain pride to workers who remained at home but could imagine themselves as not the lowest rung on the imperial totem pole. Indeed, Europeans used much of the racial language associated with imperialism not as a way of lording it over non-white people (whom most rarely met) but as a way of demanding their rights vis a vis those who ruled over them in the difficult times of industrialization: to be white was to have a certain status and so, for example, one's boss had better not act like some Oriental despot if he wanted the workers' loyalty.
If this kind of interpretation is correct, then we can see that a place like Canada would have had minimal symbolic and political value for the British, even if it was one (or several, before 1867) of the more economically prosperous colonies. Canada being a white settler society, in large part, could not play the same role in deferring the resentments caused by industrialization: it was too much like Britian, as it industrialiized itself: no, or few, plantations for the third sons of the aristocracy to run; no significant population of natives for the workers to feel superior in relation to. In fact, Canadian workers and business class might look down on the English, seeing them as economically less productive people.

Furthermore, Canadians being largely white people, the ambitious among them might have expected to have a claim on careers in London, like in government. But the English never wanted London to become a site for a truly imperial governing class or federation. The English always wanted to control their own parliament and government, and keep it English (and a little Scottish and Irish) which was perhaps the prime reason for the American revolution, and a contributing factor to the mutually satisfactory (for both English and Canucks) evolution of Canadian independence.

If this analysis has something to it, we could see empire as an early and incomplete stage in the development of the modern, more or less free, marketplace. The free market succeeds at the cost of creating historically unprecedented levels of resentment that it has to find a way to recycle back into the system, without destroying itself, by becoming more productive. The empire, the welfare state, the consumer culture are all parts of this recycling, historically. The problem with Europe today is that is is not finding ways to successfully recycle its resentments of the global free market system. Instead, it is eating away at itself, refusing even to reproduce itself by having children. It seems to me that a revival of Christianity - the religion from which the free market springs - is its best hope. There are various reasons for this opinion, but I've got to stop somewhere...

authoress said...

Hey, nice comment.

Forgive my ignorance of the subtleties of British administrative constructs, as I assumed formally being under the Queen of England, and having a British governor or whatnot, made Canada a British dominion. I know the parliaments are completely separated, and whatever connection there is, is purely symbolic (I wonder if the Queen can pardon Canadian convicts??). So it's irrelevant, just syntax.

What I meant in the comment you quoted, is that England lost Empire all by itself, whereas watcher17 claimed "America made it do it."

I strongly disagree however, with respect to the note on how free enterprise generates resentment. There is nothing about it that intrinsically generates resentment. The US was very happy and proud of its laissez-faire ways until the Great Depression, which was touted as the grand failure of capitalism (this is another story, but it was government intervention through the Central Bank that actually caused the depression, not the 'system' itself. I know, I know, everyone thinks they know the cause of the great depression, it's kind of an arrogant thing to deliberate upon. But the school of thought I am citing actually PREDICTED it before it happened, so THEY should get credit, instead of all the pseudo-intellectuals/economists who "explained" it in hindsight)

What rancor/resentment are you talking about? The only one I can make out is the kind that's in people's heads, because of their pitiful sense of self, channeled through Marxist strife. It's a chicken and egg issue, and I am as sure as I can be that it was Marxist strife that generated resentment, not free enterprise.

I agree with your analysis of the second-hand pride or humiliation stemming from the knowledge that there were others lower/higher in the food chain throughout the colonies, but such psychological dynamics can only occur because of the administrative outline of the dominions:

Being white was not just a matter of prestige because of racist dogma. Most importantly, whites were institutionally primed for success: the oriental/Indian/black (in Rhodesia's case)natives had little to no legal rights in the Colonies!!

So colonialism meant exploitation: occupying these people's lands, and putting them in labor camps, or lower-manager type positions at most.

Blacks/Indians/Orientals couldn't get permits to start their own businesses so easily. That's not free enterprise, that's colonial cronyism.

Free enterprise started to generate in the would-be US colonies at first, with the populace being largely self-governed. Yeah, they had slaves still, but the whites there had to work at their own businesses, earn their own bread, instead of aristocrats in Rhodesia who would just use blacks like animals to dig them diamonds and sit on the dole all day.

When the populace is self-governed, and is earning a living through the fruits of its own labor, it resents paying taxes and bowing to London.

The Colonialist exploitators don't mind so much, because they are not even earning it anyway: they just get a permit or whatnot from England, make the native populace do the work, collect, and kick some payment up the chain to the king of England.

But when there's economic freedom and self-reliance, there is soon need for political freedom, because the British were not providing anything anymore: not permits (no need for permits in free enterprise), no land, no favors... They were just collecting, so the relationship ceased to be symbiotic.

Not having representatives in the British government HARDLY caused the American Revolution. Even if they did have representatives, wtf are they good for?

Under free enterprise, your representatives are largely superfluous, because the market does its own thing. The only public officials needed have to do with applying the law, policing the streets, night-watchman type of services. Those were all things that can not be provided by proxy from England.

So that had nothing to do with it. If anything, it did turn off borderline loyalists, so it played a negative role in the American Revolution as in.. it was one factor that failed to prevent it, but it hardly caused it.

I think people who enjoy history often mistake the trees for the forest, and really can't make any good sense of much, except through the narrative fallacy of hindsight bias. That's why a knowledge of economics, how markets work, and how various hindering measures can distort them, is very useful in really understanding what's going on.

I don't think recycling strife is a solution for Europe today, that's just a vicious cycle. Europe needs to get rid of its neurosis, of its inner strife, it needs to make peace with the fact that it fucked up, and look toward the future. The only bright future for it lies in mimicking what America is supposed to be. Anything less will fail, because it would be a fall-back to its existing idiocies, in one recycled form or another.

I don't think Christianity per se has anything to do with it either. It's about natural law, and man centric ethics, classical liberalism, freedom as the core of moral values.

Christianity didn't sprawl free enterprise: John Locke was an atheist. He is the one who laid the foundations. The most prominent Founding Fathers (at least B.Franklin and T.Jefferson that I know of)were atheistic/agnostic.

Revived belief in the judeo-christian God would be so regressive at this point. That doesn't mean secular ethics are subjective, nihilistic, and void.

God fearing people need to consider: if God was not interested in mankind's course, then what would our nature as humans nevertheless dictate to us?

That's what natural law is about, and that's where the foundations of freedom lay.

Epaminondas said...

You will NEVER find me next to the BNP, they are PRECISELY what their heritage indicates, and if they WEREN'T .. they'd LEAVE THE WEIGHT OF IT BEHIND for just that reason and organize under some other banner.

You don't swallow cancer to kill a virus.

Alliance with forces such as the BNP, is to give to enemy the EXACT, and morally and factually CORRECT TOOL to claim their opponents are RACISTS

BNP=KKK with another, practical face. BNP's current 'more tolerant stance' is no different than David Duke 'tolerating' being next to mud people in order to fight against the jews. He just came down on the other side, otherwise it is every bit as nauseating.

Nothing could drive me, and ALL THOSE LIKE ME, utterly, from this movement faster than this BNP, Vlams Belang thing.

They are racists with a spin for practical outcomes.

I will NEVER ally with them.


N
E
V
E
R

It would make me a tool for enemy claims of racism, in which they would be totally correct.

You feel me?

authoress said...

EPA, I totally feel you, no doubt about it... I thought it was obvious from my post that I am strongly against this resurgence of fascism, as to me it indicates Europe's moral bankruptcy.

It makes me sick when people I assume are on my side (anti-jihadi, pro freedom) are actually so blinded by what they are against, that they forget what they are for.

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs sound so stupid to me! Along with these other simpletons who are airbrushing the elephant in the room about the BNP, Vlams Belang, etc.

Also as a Jew, I am more scared of the SS than the Muslims. The latter are such an inferior enemy, they can only win by default (aka when we appease them). The former are quite resourceful when they get in power, as the Holocaust proved.

I am completely with you. I am actually embarrassed that there's any debate over this, as if the anti-jihadi movement is contemplating, even if reluctantly declining an alliance with Neo-Nazis.

What a shame!

WATCHER71 said...

Medaura,
Well, the hangover is still there (guess we had a couple or ten for ya!), we disagree on a lot but we strongly agree on the importance of keeping Nazi's, WP groups from capitalising on the counter Jihad movement....So for that ...KUDOS!

Pastorius said...

I think I will attempt, for once, to be wise, and I will not throw myself into the middle of the discussion about Canada. That's not a subject I know much about.

With regards to the issue of the BNP and race, yes Medaura, your post made it clear that you are against Nationalist racism.

It seems to be that Nationalism does not have to be racist. Certainly, many Americans are very patriotic and in that sense we are Nationalistic. Europe has defined Nationalism as inherently racist. However, we do not have to allow Europe's definitions to define us, nor do we have to allow Europe's definitions define the future of Europe.

Honestly, we would be foolish to allow Europe to go down that path.

Having corresponded (behind the scenes) with various bloggers whom I respect, I'll tell you that there is already an intellectual battle building against Europe's Racial Nationalism. Just as America had to intervene in WWII to save Europe from itself, we may have to do so again. It won't matter if, this time, the nationalists are not represented by governments. Even if the nationalists are fighting a series of isolated Civil Wars against various governments across Europe, America will very likely intervene and put down said racist Nationalism.

So, all the BNP supporters can have their wet dream fantasies, but I don't believe you will succeed.

I believe Western Civilization has set itself on an inevitable course of self-improvement. We have done so by using reason guided by the Judeo-Christian morality. There is no turning back from this course of self-improvement. No matter how much various racialist factions may want to return us to our animalistic instinctual reactions of tribe vs. not-tribe, we will not and, indeed, can not succumb, because we are human beings with reason and morality. We are not animals, guided merely by instinct.

WATCHER71 said...

So, all the BNP supporters can have their wet dream fantasies, but I don't believe you will succeed.


I love it ! That is the line of the week for me!

authoress said...

Well said Pastorius.

Also, I am a newbie, so it's probably not appropriate for me to say because I just got here, but you were telling that BNP supporter that maybe he should join and start posting, so the blog wouldn't be very one-sided.

It's mainly your blog, so your decision, but if you enable supporters of these groups on your blog, you might taint its reputation.

You know, free speech does not mean providing a pedestal for everyone.

I guess you got your taste when that anti-jihadi gone bad emailed you about "what was so wrong with the KKK and the Nazis?"

So, that's my humble opinion

truepeers said...

Medaura,

Like you, I'm a supporter of the free market (within some limits), but I think it does the side of freedom no good to hide from the fact that the free market creates enormous resentment. Now, resentment is something universal to the human condition, and it exists only in tandem with love - if we didn't have one we wouldn't have the other. So there is no shame in saying we're all human, both loving and resentful in degrees. What is resentment? It is basically what we feel towards whoever or whatever it is that we think is alienating us from what is sacred. Resentment is universal because the sacred, in some shape or form, is universal or foundational to human anthropology. We are the only species that is organized in center-periphery relationships, a function of how our symbolic and transcendent language works to represent common centers of attention.

To suggest there was little resentment in America until the 1930s is odd. Was the energy driving the settlement of the continent simply love? Can you point to great America thinkers or artists - consider Thoreau, e.g. - and not see resentment towards the effects of industrialization and urbanization, even among those who were overall in favor of free enterprise? And as for the populist political movements, they were clearly informed by resentment of, e.g., "the robber barons". From whence comes the KKK? But as I say, a lot of people go into the marketplace driven by resentful energies and find in the market the means to recycle and eventually transcend their resentment. That's what keeps the system going, even in this day when the leading capitalists of New York, Boston, San Francisco, LA, vote disproportionately for the resentment peddlers in the Democratic party.

You're right that colonization was often a scene of racial violence and discrimination. My point was simply that if you consider racial ideologies from within the context of the overwhelmingly white European countries, you might conclude that the purpose of all that race talk was to serve political purposes internal to white on white politics. Most Europeans were not living anywhere near non-white people. So, those historians who are interpreting "the age of racism" as fundamentally about the White oppression of the Other, are grossly simplifying history. In fact many "racist" Whites of the past used racial thinking pretty much in the way that today's "progressives" do: to recycle their own resentments of life in modern, Western, market-driven societies.

The colonies were not such a great economic benefit. People would have done much better, from a strictly economic point of view, if a global free market, with participation from non-whites, could have evolved sooner. Just as today the "progressives" of the world tax themselves and the larger public to support "development" in the underdeveloped world, so did the colonialists tax their home countries to bear the (in the short to medium term, at least) the uneconomic costs of developing much of the world. We tax ourselves on behalf of the Other because our own system fills us with guilt/resentment.

The point I was trying to make about England and the American revolution is that the insular, nationalistic, "little England" mentality that I think you are trying to understand in this post is something deeply rooted. As America developed in the 17th and 18th C., the English had to decide whether their parliament in London would become home to American politicians. They never wanted that. There would be no specifically American representation in the highest reaches of imperial government because the English didn't want anyone telling them what to do at home. In this sense, the English precipitated the American revolution because they were, in fact, a lot like the Americans: interested in preserving a more or less decentralized form of local self rule. The British were never so committed to the empire that they would transform England to become a truly imperial culture instead of an insular nation. WHile it's true that FDR pressured Churchill to give up the empire - signing on to the UN utopia being essentially the price of lend-lease - even before WWII, there was a lot of talk of the inevitability of allowing for independence in places like India. The idea that the English would open their doors to Indian immigration as an alternative to independence would have been unthinkable before WWII. In a sense it is just as the empire crumbles that England becomes a "multicultural" imperial culture. That's what needs to be explaiend.

think people who enjoy history often mistake the trees for the forest, and really can't make any good sense of much, except through the narrative fallacy of hindsight bias. That's why a knowledge of economics, how markets work, and how various hindering measures can distort them, is very useful in really understanding what's going on.
-I enjoy history but I also work in the free marketplace. I have some sense of what drives it and I would never suggest that economics can have primacy over political markets. A free market can only exist as a condition of a primary political compact to defend free markets and to mediate the limits and resentments of the marketplace. As for the discipline of economics, it can explain why things have happened in terms of laws of supply and demand; but it cannot explain why a given desire for a certain kind of product exists - e.g. why something, like a Nike swoosh, becomes more or less sacred and desirable at a given place or time - nor can economics explain what the market will do in advance, precisely because the market is free and discounts any and all good attempts at explaining what it will do.
I don't think Christianity per se has anything to do with it either. It's about natural law, and man centric ethics, classical liberalism, freedom as the core of moral values.

Christianity didn't sprawl free enterprise: John Locke was an atheist. He is the one who laid the foundations. The most prominent Founding Fathers (at least B.Franklin and T.Jefferson that I know of)were atheistic/agnostic.

-Well, a lot of the Enlightenment is a secular codification of ideas that have their origins in Judeo-Christianity. If you asked me what is the basic definition of a free market, I'd say it is the market in which everyone gets the same price: personal and political relationships have no bearing, except as a matter of the seller's free choice. I don't owe my landlord or my uncle's friend a better price than I owe a stranger. They cannot demand it of me at the price of my own security.
In other words, the emergence of the free market, historically, involved the substitution of the older ritualized systems of gift exchange - where I did owe my uncle's friend something as part of an intricate network of returning gifts that have been given to my family in the past, or in advancing gifts in anticipation of some future return - with a system based on potentially faceless transactions. How does the faith in a system of decentralized transactions first develop? How does one develop the faith that one can get a return from trade with a stranger half way around the world whom one's never seen? Well, long story short, I'd suggest it starts with a faith that, in following Christ, we can imagine others doing the same: i.e. attempting to maximize the networks of human reciprocity that allow us to put faith in strangers half way around the world. We also need the rule of law, but the law of the free market first emerges from the pre-existing good faith. One needs a faith that can make of a trader a responsible center in his own right, freed from ritualized loyalties to specific patrons, clients, guilds, etc. That was what Christianity eventually provided (it took 1500 years, the idea is so radical) and that's why the free market emerged first from the more or less Christian nations, and why it is even today very hard for a largely non-Christian people like the CHinese to develop a free market culture, even when they are fully committed to following the proven success of the global capitalist system.
The point about Europeans and Christianity is that in becoming very secular they have lost touch with one important thing. THe free market cannot entirely subsitute for the ethos of the previous system of gift exchange. As I say, the market only works by recycling the resentmetns it generates. IN Europe, the gift exchange continues in the form of the overbearing welfare state, the latter being a key means of recycling market-based resentments. But the welfare state is not a very satisfactory form of gift exchange. Where it fails is in the sense lacking from the present generation that they owe a gift to those who have come before them, an obligation to make a commitment to continue the nations, traditions, or gifts that they have received from the past. They don't see a need to reproduce themselves, physically and/or culturlaly, in order to live up to the gift they have received. The free market has no way of creating the sense of obligation to reproduce. There are some things the market cannot rationalize, just as there are some things in which a strictly secular intellectual life cannot show us how to put faith. This is why I think a religious sense of responsibility and faith is necessary as a supplement to the free market. And if the Europeans truly reject the Christian way of supplementing the market, they will sooner or later adopt, I imagine, an Islamic conception of faith, and in doing so quite likely destroy the free market and all the life it supports.
As for natural law, do you know that the Catholic church today basically says that everything it believes can be defended in terms of natural law? That Christianity can be shown to be true in strictly human, anthropological, terms? Read the Pope's Regensburg address, for example, where he is championing a secular anthropological reason to justify the Church's beliefs. The Pope is a radical, secularizing force, to a degree I find amazing, if laudable. But he is still a Christian because he recognizes that faith retains a place alongside reason. Faith provides us the motivation to act, to do what reason cannot justify in advance.

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